Digital Connections


Pausing To Rate YouTube’s Sponsored Video
November 18, 2008, 10:46 pm
Filed under: David Berkowitz, Google, Search Insider, Video | Tags: , , , ,
Image representing YouTube as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

Let’s agree right away that YouTube’s Sponsored Video isn’t the next Google Killer.

It’s not even the next Yahoo killer, even though comScore recently reported that YouTube is now the second largest search engine. Fittingly, around the time that the comScore news broke, Google publicly launched search-triggered Sponsored Video ads on YouTube. Does this mean marketers need to consider YouTube over Yahoo and Microsoft?

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360i Elected to Social Media Advertising Consortium
November 17, 2008, 11:42 pm
Filed under: 360i News, Social Media | Tags:

David Berkowitz, 360i’s Director of Emerging Media and Client Strategy, has been elected to the Standards Board for the newly formed Social Media Advertising Consortium (SMAC). The not-for-profit Consortium is comprised of advertising, communications, brand management and social media executives with the goal of creating a common vocabulary, standard buying units, and uniform measurement methods for social media.

Through publisher partnerships and involvement with SMAC, WOMMA and other industry organizations, 360i plays an active role in establishing best practices to foster the advancement and adoption of social media as a critical marketing channel.

We’ll continue to post updates here on the blog as the Consortium develops and progresses towards its goals of creating standards for social marketing.





360i Speaking at IAB Event, CTAM and WOMMA Summit
November 7, 2008, 9:52 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

360i will be presenting social media case studies at a number of events this week. On Monday, Bryan Wiener, CEO of 360i, and Sarah Hofstetter, VP of Emerging Media & Client Strategy, will be speaking on social media optimization and co-presenting a case study with MSNBC on how they have increased awareness, consideration and reach across the social landscape. Also on Monday, David Berkowitz, 360i’s Director of Emerging Media, will be speaking on social media at the CTAM Summit in Boston. And on Friday, Sarah will head to WOMMA’s Word of Mouth Marketing Summit in Las Vegas, where she’ll be co-presenting a Digital Word of Mouth case study with HGTV.

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MONDAY: 11.10.2008
IAB: The New Wizards of Digital Marketing
New York, NY
Bryan Wiener, CEO of 360i, and Sarah Hofstetter, VP of Emerging Media & Client Strategy, will be presenting on social media optimization at this IAB event.

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MONDAY: 11.10.2008
CTAM Summit
Boston, MA
David Berkowitz is speaking on the afternoon panel “Unleashing the Power of Social Media Technology”.

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FRIDAY: 11.14.2008 
Word of Mouth Marketing Summit
Las Vegas, NV
Sarah Hofstetter is co-presenting a case study with HGTV on leveraging Digital Word of Mouth as part of an integrated digital marketing plan.

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Schmoozing With The Swami Of Photo Optimization
November 7, 2008, 9:27 pm
Filed under: Search Insider, Social Media | Tags: , ,

Meeting a self-described social media swami isn’t necessarily a religious experience, but it’s almost always a learning experience. At least that was the case when I met Shashi Bellamkonda, whose more formal title is the Chief Social Media Evangelist for Network Solutions.

I first met Shashi through Twitter, where he has about a thousand more followers than me and he’s posted nearly eight times as many updates (if you can’t think of one thing to say on Twitter, imagine writing over 10,000). I then met him at Blog World Expo, which might not be the geekiest event ever, but at least no one was dressed up as their favorite social media site. A personal highlight was joining the Solutions Stars Video Conference that Shashi put together, where I snuck in with some real A-listers.

When I saw Shashi’s Flickr-based photos from Blog World, like this one, I was surprised to see links in the captions to Shashi’s site and his corporate blog. I had to learn more about how and why Shashi was doing this.

Flickr is renowned as a great site for content distribution. You can optimize image titles, tags, and descriptions, along with set names, and images will often rank highly in search engines for those terms. For example, say you’re looking for information on the Henry Moore sculpture exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. If you search for ‘henry moore bronx,’ Yahoo brings up two local listings followed by my Flickr set in the sixth natural position, and Google brings up five listings (including two local) with my Flickr set coming in sixth overall.

Through this, I’ve expanded the search footprint for my personal brand, just as Shashi did for his, and corporate brands can of course do the same. Through Flickr, you can build credibility, connect with people who share similar interests, and over time attract links and build traffic. Additionally, bloggers and others may pick up the images and give you credit, extending the fame and links further.

I spoke with Shashi to find out more about how he approaches Flickr optimization.

Search Insider: What value do you get out of image optimization?

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Just The ‘Factz’ On Smarter ‘Surch Enginez’
October 30, 2008, 3:57 am
Filed under: Search Engines, Search Insider

What don’t the major search engines do well?

That’s a burning question these days from way too many parties. It comes up in John Battelle’s most recent post (one that reminds me how effective a writer he is), which culminates in a plea for teaching search literacy in schools, and then journalist Cyrus Farivar’s thoughtful commentary on it. It’s a hot topic on Alt Search Engines, where Charles Knight finds and promotes startups that beat the engines at their own game. And of course it’s the raison d’être for all those engines.

There are two ways to address the problem of engines’ shortcomings. One way is to make the engines smarter. The other is to make the users smarter. With any luck we’ll meet somewhere in the middle.

It’s interesting to see startups’ different approaches to making themselves smarter.

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New 360i POV: iPhone Application Marketing
October 29, 2008, 4:45 pm
Filed under: 360i News | Tags: ,

The iPhone App Store has been open for less than four months and has already recorded more than 200 million application downloads. With such rapid consumer adoption, where do marketers fit in? The latest POV sent to 360i clients today tackles this in detail. First, it examines how marketers are using branded applications and reviews best practices. Then it explores advertising opportunities, along with a case study about an ad-supported app.

POVs are delivered regularly to 360i’s clients. If you’re interested in more information, please contact editor@360i.com.

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Character-Based Social Marketing
October 27, 2008, 4:10 am
Filed under: Social Media | Tags:

by Orli Sharaby

From the hokey Juan Valdez to Burger King’s masked mascot The King, from the Budweiser iguanas to the Geico gecko, marketers have long used fictional characters to humanize their brands. Now some companies are taking advantage of social media tools to bring those characters to life in ways never before possible – connecting with consumers in fun, sometimes kitschy, and ultimately more meaningful ways.

Here are some success stories of brand mascots in social media:

  • Wakamaru Nyt, Uniqlo’s blogging robot staffer
    In early September 2008, a new face appeared at Uniqlo’s Soho flagship – the face of Wakamaru Nyt, reportedly the world’s first retail robot. While much of Wakamaru’s charm lies in his real-life presence at the store, the robot also has a blog and a Facebook page, often links to photos that people have tagged of him on Flickr, and also has plans for a Twitter feed and MySpace profile in the near future. In effect, Wakamaru Nyt has become like any other internet-savvy person living in New York in 2008, utilizing multiple online social platforms to make plans (such as the game of tag he organized in NYC’s Battery Park) and connect with his friends and fans.

Wakamaru, Uniqlo's newest intern

  • Truman Greene, H&R Block’s biggest fan
    In late 2007 and early 2008 leading up to Tax Day, 360i helped H&R Block roll out a multi-platform social media campaign that relied heavily on a character named Truman Greene. Billed as H&R Block’s biggest fan, Truman served as comic relief about a subject that, let’s face it, is hard to find humor in. His YouTube videos, which have racked up nearly 600,000 views, comprise mainly of improvised songs, skits, and guitar performances about doing your taxes, and his MySpace page serves as a place to get useful info on tax policy and test your tax knowledge – with a little humor thrown in as well.
  • Gil the Crab, Honda’s mascot on MySpace and beyond
    A character that Honda developed in 2006 for web videos to promote the Element, Gil the Crab proved so popular that it made its way into TV ads and was given its very own MySpace profile and YouTube channel. An unlikely mascot for Honda, Gil is an absurd character – but sometimes, when it comes to online social media, absurd works best. Besides being the repository for his videos, commercials, and online games, Gil’s MySpace page chronicles the crab’s persistent troubles with the law. The page has nearly 70,000 friends, a petition to “Save the Crab” was signed by over 26,000 people, and Gil’s videos on YouTube have collectively received hundreds of thousands of views.
  • S.A.R.A.H., the Tweeting house from Sci Fi’s Eureka
    In the Sci Fi Channel’s critically acclaimed show Eureka, there is an artificially intelligent house named S.A.R.A.H. (Self Actuated Residential Automated Habitat). With an audience of gadget buffs and technology early adopters, the Sci Fi Channel astutely recognized that Twitter was the perfect platform on which to engage the show’s core fans. S.A.R.A.H.’s Twitter feed now has nearly 3,500 followers, and has received exponentially more exposure through good press. The tweeting house has even been the subject of the world’s first “Twitterview” – a live interview via Twitter – with the popular design site NOTCOT. While the initiative did not involve creating a new and unique “mascot” per se, the existing character of S.A.R.A.H. was given new life and greater depth in social media, allowing a broader connection with true fans of the show.

In the right context, fictional characters can have a powerful impact on the way consumers perceive your brand; this has been the case throughout the history of marketing. But now, with myriad social media platforms available, brands are able to use these characters to open a meaningful dialogue with consumers at the individual level. With the right mascot, the right platform, and the right timing, character-based social marketing can be hugely successful.