The 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing Blog

Guess who’s back!? September 26, 2012 – 1:10 pm				Damjan Dano

Do you remember MySpace? Yes, the social network which we all used before Facebook was cool?
Yep, the one with the animated, noisy and colorful backgrounds and with that  creepy Tom guy being added to your friends automatically….

Well guess what? MySpace is coming back!

This time, (btw this would be  their second relaunch), Specific Media and Justin Timberlake are in charge. News Corp is out of the picture. Justin Timberlake and Specific Media bought the social networking site MySpace for $35 million from News Corp. and are planning to make a social network that will practically be the summary of all your social networks.

To a general surprise, the video showing the new design and functionalities, which was published on the internet this Tuesday, got impressive reactions and positive critics. It seems that they did a good job at restructuring the old platform and turning it into something that can be a combination of Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

Check out the video below:

The official launch date is still unknown, but rumors are saying that it will start at beginning of 2013.

What do you think, can MySpace endanger Facebook’s dominance in social media? Can they make a good comeback?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below…

Posted by Damjan Dano
Posted in Content Marketing (Pillar 1), Interactive Marketing, Social Media Marketing (Pillar 6), web 2.0 | 1 Comment »
Tags: facebook, justin timberlake, myspace, pinterest, relaunch, social media agency, social media networking, social networks, social platforms, twitter

14 years later, Google still owns online search September 11, 2012 – 3:38 pm				Damjan Dano

On the 4th of September, 1998, Google was officially registered as a company in the U.S., making their mission to instantly change the way people search for information online and to set up new standards for the global network called internet.

Nowadays, there is no internet user that does not use Google and it’s search engine. The company is worth over $200 billion US, has various projects and services and has more then 50.000 employees around the globe. Now Google owns Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Android, Google+ and a lot of other services that we use on a daily basis. They are even trying to make autonomous cars!

The search engine as a project was started in 1996 by the two Stanford students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and was named after the word “Googol” (mathematical term for a number equivalent to ten raised to the power of a hundred), but later changed to “Google” as an alternative. They registered Google.com on 15th of September, 1997 and started their journey, it took them about a year until they found a good investor and launch their business.

Below is an interesting part of the Discovery Channel’s Download episode devoted to the search giant’s history:

Posted by Damjan Dano
Posted in Content Marketing (Pillar 1), SEM (Search Engine Marketing), SEO / Search Engine Optimization (Pillar 3), web 2.0 | No Comments »
Tags: google, google's history, internet search, online search, search experts, SEM (Search Engine Marketing), SEO, SEO / Search Engine Optimization (Pillar 3)

Flash step aside, HTML 5 is taking over August 15, 2012 – 5:17 pm				Damjan Dano

Flash vs. HTML 5

Many of you have heard about HTML 5 as “the future of the internet”, “the most hyped technology update in the past couple years that is yet to come”… but how many of you are aware that HTML 5 is already taking over the game?

As of today, the 15th of August, Adobe is officially abandoning the support of Flash on all Android phones (version 4.0 and up) because of HTML 5… About a month ago in their official announcement, Adobe stated that HTML 5 is the “best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms” and that they will be shifting their Flash support exclusively for the PC platform.

For those of you who are not familiar with the subject, HTML 5 can be used as an alternative to Adobe Flash. Both of them have functionalities that support playing multimedia files within webages, they both use integrated SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and vector graphics. And even though the two technologies are not in direct competition and both have their own purpose, there are some specific cases that their features overlap, such as the mobile video area.

What Steve Jobs envisioned couple years ago it seems that it came through. He was known as a strong promoter of the HTML 5, same as Google, they made a decision to encode all of the videos on their YouTube platform in HTML 5, which was the right thing to do in order to offer content faster and better. With this, and today’s big news from Adobe, we can freely expect “invasion” of HTML 5 on multiple platforms.

And even though HTML 5 is not 100% ready, but the most popular browsers already support many of the HTML 5 tags and bits, and for those browsers that don’t really support it (yes Internet Explorer, we are looking at you!) HTML 5 functionalities can be easily supported with JavaScript replications…

With today’s announcement, we mark one small step for Adobe, but a giant leap for HTML 5.

Posted by Damjan Dano
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, Content Marketing (Pillar 1), Digital Media (Pillar 4), Flash, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Mobile (Pillar 7), Mobile Applications, UX & Website Design (Pillar 2), Video Production, web 2.0, web development | No Comments »
Tags: adobe flash, flash vs html5, google, html 5, html5, steve jobs, YouTube

Daily Deals will Die by 2016, says Forrester’s report November 21, 2011 – 7:47 pm				Damjan Dano

By 2016, advertisers will be spending $77 billion on interactive marketing, as much as they do on TV nowadays, the interactive marketing components (SEM, display ads, mobile, e-mail marketing and social media) will grow to 35% of all advertising spend as they get highly involved in the marketing mix, and the daily deals will switch from winners to losers… these are some of the interesting predictions in the latest US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2011 to 2016 published by the Forrester Research Group.

The forecast, free to download, explains that in the upcoming years, advertisers will spend more money on interactive marketing because of the excitement about emerging media, the effectiveness of the interactive marketing and the overall customer obsession with online media and mobile devices.

The report contains many interesting predictions, some of them a bit controversial and very doubtful, but still worth taking them in consideration when working on your next strategies and business spending.

Beside concentrating on the mobile and social media expansions, one part of the report that I really was surprised to see was the prediction that the daily deals would die.

The reason for this statement, Forrester is putting in these words:

“Standing out above the clutter becomes harder for marketers as ad exposures grow. So some marketers unable to differentiate will rely on spontaneous coupons through more and more urgent Groupon-like “daily deals” as one way to drive notice. Consumers will grow so conditioned to micro-impulse offers that they’ll lose practice at considered decisions — in all walks of life, not just when buying spa treatments. Facing a cultural descent into maladroit judgment, employers (and spouses) will blacklist impulse deals to keep people intentional.”

Controversal, but yet very interesting forecast. What do you think?

Posted by Damjan Dano
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, Business News, Digital Media (Pillar 4), Interactive Marketing, Marketing, web 2.0 | 2 Comments »
Tags: daily deals, forrester, forrester research, Interactive Marketing, marketers, marketing agency, marketing company, moble marketing

Welcome back Delicious! September 27, 2011 – 4:53 pm				Damjan Dano

The two YouTube co-founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen through their mutual company Avos, are now restarting the famous Delicious, web service for bookmarking and sharing that they recently bought from Yahoo.

The refreshed version of this service keeps a lot of the same characteristics that in the past attracted millions of users, but it also features a lot of new additional settings and options, making this good-old website even more attractive to active web users.

The YouTube co-founders consider this website a new one, completely redesigned with new homepage and interface. They add that the idea behind Delicious is to keep it’s original purpose, but they seriously plan to fix the way users find out new links and web destinations.

Through settings and features such as “Stack”, users will be able to group their favorite links, which later they can share with other friends and Delicious users. The collection can be public and other users can subscribe to it and get notifications every time new website is added to the stack. Each of the stacks can feature their own profile images and description.

The new Delicious also introduced improved tags and keeps all the past API calls the same.

As an active Delicious user, I’m very happy to see this refreshed version and even happier to know that this website is no longer in the hands of Yahoo, which is really surviving some tough times… but that’s really a discussion for some other times.

Check out this video with on the new Delicious.com:

Posted by Damjan Dano
Posted in Business News, Interactive Marketing, Social Media Marketing (Pillar 6), UX & Website Design (Pillar 2), web 2.0 | No Comments »
Tags: avos, bookmarking, chad hurley, delicious, delicious welcome back, delicious.com, new design, web, web 2.0, web designw, web service, YouTube, youtube co-founders, youtube cofounders

Facebook continues to copy Twitter with “Subscribe” September 15, 2011 – 3:11 pm				Damjan Dano

Facebook introduced a new feature that will enable users to follow public content from other profiles, even if they are not friends with them. The new service is called “Subscribe”, and is almost an exact replica of Twitter’s “Follow” function.

You will be able to find the “Subscribe” button right on user’s profiles, on the right side next to the profile name.

When you press the button Subscribe, you can choose which updates you want to receive, and Facebook gives you 1) All Updates, 2) Most Updates, 3) Only Important as main options, with filters available per update category (life events, status updates, photos, videos, games…).

And of course the subscription option doesn’t work for every status update you publish, but only for the updates that you make public.

To active this new feature, head out here.

Posted by Damjan Dano
Posted in Interactive Marketing, Social Media Marketing (Pillar 6), web 2.0 | No Comments »
Tags: facebook, facebook profile, facebook users, follow, Interactive Marketing, new features, smm, social media, Social Media Marketing (Pillar 6), subscribe, twitter, twitter users

Websites Made of Pure Chocolate September 7, 2011 – 2:13 pm				Damjan Dano

If you were told that in order to promote your product better you should make a website made only of real images of your products, you might throw out that idea as insane… but shortly after we show you these two awesome case studies, I’m sure you will reconsider your initial decision and will be more open to such creative suggestions.

Whittaker’s Chocolate, a New Zealand chocolatier and the Portuguese Sagres Preta, maker of chocolate stout beer, bravely decided to create their website only using chocolate, their main ingredient.

Everything from the interface design to the navigation and the social icons on their website is made of chocolate!

The idea is brilliant, and with this approach these two companies are showing that advertising should be fun and honest, not boring, false or evil.

To better promote this initiative, the companies also accompanied the campaign with videos of how the websites were done – from idea to execution. Check out one of the videos that went viral on the web:

Delicious, isn’t it!?
If you would like to reinvent your own website and find a creative way to promote your products like these two brave companies, feel free to get in touch with us.

As a final thought, I’ll just share this excellent quote from the great Jerry Della Femina, who said:

“I honestly believe that advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.”

Posted by Damjan Dano
Posted in Blogs with Videos, Digital Media (Pillar 4), Graphic Design, Interactive Marketing, Marketing Agencies, Online PR, Photography, Social Media Marketing (Pillar 6), UX & Website Design (Pillar 2), web 2.0, web development | 1 Comment »
Tags: choco, chocolate, chocolates, creative ideas, creative web design, Interactive Marketing, sagres preta, social media, UX & Website Design (Pillar 2), video, video production, whittaker

LinkedIn Stats & Demographics, July 2011 August 8, 2011 – 9:57 am				Damjan Dano

After the recent IPO, LinkedIn decided to post their financial results and stats for the second quarter of 2011. During Q2, LinkedIn managed to get record amount of users, unique visits and pageviews.

With more than 115,8 million users and counting, about 61% increase compared to same period last year, and revenue of $121 million in Q2/11, compared to $54,9 million in 2010,  this professional social network is really onto something….

Check out the following First Earnings Announcement PPT by Jeff Weiner and Steve Sordello for more details on how this social network is becoming a key player in the online business world:

Furthermore, take a look at the following PPT by Amodiovalerio Verde, in which he outlines some very interesting stats about LinkedIn, such as:

• 58,5% of the 116 million users are male
• The users from the following 10 countries represent 80% of all LinkedIn members: US, India, United Kingdom, Brazil, Canada, Netherlands, France, Australia, Italy and Spain
• About 68% of users come from Europe and North America
• Almost 50% of the users have titles such as managers, principals, owners, CEOs or vice presidents
• About 40% of the users work in companies with more than 10,000 employees

For more LinkedIn facts, check out:

Posted by Damjan Dano
Posted in blog, Business News, Digital Media (Pillar 4), Interactive Marketing, Social Media Marketing (Pillar 6), web 2.0 | No Comments »
Tags: LinkedIn, linkedin business network, linkedin demographics, linkedin first earnings, linkedin ipo, linkedin marketing, linkedin statistics, linkedin stats, linkedin users, linkedin.com, social networks, statistics

Google & Local Marketing August 3, 2011 – 11:41 am				Aurélien Uster

Local marketing is most often the life-line of many businesses, and the concept for many business owners exists whether or not they are aware of or acknowledge local marketing in its professional concept. For instance in a village or neighborhood, businesses promote themselves by taping posters to telephone poles, on their windows, or just by chatting with the locals. Millions of small businesses still operate in this fashion, and produce results that carry their businesses throughout the year.

However, technology evolves (especially in the Internet field) and we can easily see that more and more customers are looking for information on the web, even when pertaining to interactions with local businesses. “Where is the nearest hardware store?” “Where can I find someone that will fix my bike?” are questions that you may ask yourself sometimes. Is your first reflex to check the internet? The change in reactionary behavior is an interesting development in the past 20 years and one of the main reasons one must reconsider the manner in which their marketing efforts are directed. Many don’t have enough capital to launch huge marketing campaigns, so how should they begin to approach local marketing?

Google can play a huge role with just 2 of their many tools: Google Adwords and Google Places. Adwords allows businesses to create a PPC (Pay per Click) advertising campaigns. These ads can be found almost anywhere on the web, more than just on Google searches. Depending on your communication needs, you can launch a campaign that would target only the people you want to visit your business, and convert the visit for profit. This works very well when for local campaigns, as you will appear only on the results pages and on websites in your area. Obviously, it makes no sense to display an ad for a hardware store in San Francisco on a New Yorker’s screen, unless the business is virtual.

Less popular but effective is Google Places, a great tool that allows you to add your business address on Google/Google Maps so that you can share your information more easily – location, hours of operation, pictures of your store and deals or discounts you may be offering to entice customers. When someone does a local search, Google provides the information you’ve submitted to let users to find the business most able to suit their needs.

Now with these two tools, let’s imagine a combination of them to create a super efficient PPC campaign. You would be able to appear in the results pages thanks to the Google Adwords campaign, but also in Google Maps when someone is looking for “places near them”. As a result, you gain a better visual impact on Google as the user can see your business twice, and is given relevant information pertaining to their search. You can obtain greater efficiency in your marketing campaign without having to spend a lot of money.

Posted by Aurélien Uster
Posted in blog, Interactive Marketing, Mobile (Pillar 7), Small Business, web 2.0 | 1 Comment »

Twitter is planning branded profiles similar to Facebook pages April 6, 2011 – 12:16 pm				Damjan Dano

Marketing Magazine has reported that the micro-blogging service is (finally!) working on branded pages through which marketing agencies and companies can share content and connect better to their users.

The new branded pages will probably look a lot like the Facebook fan pages and will offer some extra services like analytics (currently available only  for few selected profiles) and improved privacy rules. At this moment, companies are usually using #hashtags, promoted accounts and tweets to connect to their audiences but this hasn’t worked very well in practice.

There aren’t a lot of details about how these brand pages will function and look like, but it is confirmed from Twitter that the brands want, and need, this kind of tools from the social network so that they can better manage their online presence and campaigns.

I have always wondered why Facebook, and soon Twitter, both looking for fresh revenue streams, are not considering adding few extra options to the branded profiles that will be available to companies as paid features. Using this kind of a freemium model strategy, they might even make some good $$…. Wouldn’t you be willing to pay few bucks if you could add some cool feature to your Twitter company page that gives you better interaction with your followers or have a built-in scheduled status updates in Facebook?

Btw, on a related topic: in an effort to attract more users to join the global 140 character conversation, Twitter will be changing the look of their homepage. They actually “copy-pasted” the Facebook homepage, probably thinking that new visitors would be more willing to sign up if the page reminds them of the platform on which they spend most of their online time.

Posted by Damjan Dano
Posted in blog, Digital Media (Pillar 4), Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Social Media Marketing (Pillar 6), web 2.0 | 1 Comment »
Tags: branded profiles, facebook, facebook fan pages, Facebook marketing, Social Media Marketing (Pillar 6), twitter, twitter analytics, twitter company profiles, twitter for business, twitter marketing, twitter vs facebook