Category Archives: Web 2.0/Social Media

The State of the Internet: Past & Present

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Hola Todos!

Last week, The Wall Street Journal held its annual All Things D conference, of which the heavyweights of the heavyweights (Tim Cook, Sheryl Sandberg, Dick Costolo, Elon Musk and many others) came to Rancho Palos Verdes, CA to sit down with Walt Mossberg, Kara Swisher and colleagues to discuss the state of the tech industry.

Although all the presentations are nuggetworthy some way, shape or form, Mary Meeker’s (VC at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and formerly of Morgan Stanley) annual State of the Internet is especially noteworthy.  It’s amazing to see 117 slides go in 23 minutes flat – I mean this presentation moves! Moreover, I feel this presentation has been shared around the blogosphere more than any other at D11.  For instance, here’s one post from Philip Elmer-Dewitt of the Apple 2.0 Blog highlighting 10 of the 117 slides that pertain specifically to Apple.

I say watch the presentation and check all 117!

Best regards

Dr. Dan-o

 

Daniel M. Ladik, Ph.D.,

Associate Professor of Marketing

Stillman School of Business

Seton Hall University

 

 

 

 

Social Media Manager Needs To Think Strategically

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Hola Todos!

One of my pet peeves when it comes to social is the overall lack of strategy.  Too many managers talk platforms first (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and not strategy.  Even worse, imitation is often the main reason a manager decides to do something in social (note: insert nasally sounding high pitched voice of the manager of your choice when reading…I was reading Business Week the other day and I heard of this thing called a Twitter…we need to get one of those…).

In my eyes, there needs to be a strategic reason to do anything in marketing – regardless if it involves social or not.  I was happy to see this slide deck on LinkedIn the other day as it does provides a few strategic thoughts to why and/or how to use social.  I particularly like Slide 6 (improve customer service relations) and Slide 12 (gain more feedback before product launch).

Something to check out today…

Best regards,

Dr. Dan-o

 

Daniel M. Ladik, Ph.D.,

Associate Professor of Marketing

Stillman School of Business

Seton Hall University

 

 

 

 

 

A Significant Downside to Social Media…

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Hola Todos!

All week, my thoughts have been heavy on Boston.  My wife and I loved our time living in the Hub, both of our children were born there, we have many friends we’re still close with, and we even maintain our 617 area code cell numbers.

That said, tragedies like Monday’s marathon highlight the best and worst in social media.  On the upside, we often get the stories faster from bottom-up social media like Twitter or Facebook.  On the downside, speed is one thing but accuracy is another; often much of the information is accidently or deliberately false.

In an excellent post from Doug Gross highlighting five un-true viral stories from the Boston tragedy, Doug used one of my favorite expressions when describing social media calling it a “digital echo chamber.” With our social tools, it is too easy to share and many times, information gets shared that is not true.  I mean, how many times does someone die on Twitter these days?

In a bottom-up media world, the onus is on the individual users of social media to decide if a story is in fact true or not and that is not easy to do in chaotic scenarios like what happened on Monday.

Something to think about out today…

Best regards,

Dr. Dan-o

 

Daniel M. Ladik, Ph.D.,

Associate Professor of Marketing

Stillman School of Business

Seton Hall University

 

 

Google Analytics: A Primer

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Hola Todos!

Of all the free social media tools out there, by far the most useful is Google Analytics.  I use Google Analytics at least two or three times a week to check on the DigNuggetville Blog.  While listening to the Social Media Examiner podcast hosted by Michael Stelzner the other day, a caller question suggested an excellent YouTube “how to” video on setting up Google Analytics on a WordPress blog.  Even if you do not use WordPress, the content is still extremely easy to translate over to your platform of choice.

Something to check out today…

Best regards,

Dr. Dan-o

 

Daniel M. Ladik, Ph.D.,

Associate Professor of Marketing

Stillman School of Business

Seton Hall University

 

 

 

 

 

Social Media: Wheel of Fortune

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Hola Todos!

Please come up to Seton Hall University on Tuesday March 19th for an excellent event titled “Social Media: Wheel of Fortune”.  I will be on a panel along with William Giovanniello, Managing Director, Transaction Advisory Services, BDO, Suzanne Brock, Esquire, Gibbons, PC, and Sarah Cirelli, Senior Marketing Coordinator, WithumSmith+Brown.

We will be discussing the wild, wild west of social media including what employers are looking for, the difference between social media tactics and strategy, and how to find mentors and industry experts using the various social media platforms.  The event s sponsored by Seton Hall’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, as well as, the New Jersey Turnaround Management Association

I hope to see you there.

Best regards,

Dr. Dan-o

 

Daniel M. Ladik, Ph.D.,

 

Associate Professor of Marketing

Stillman School of Business

Seton Hall University

 

 

 

SXSWi Round Up

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Hola Todos!

The South-by-Southwest Interactive Conference (AKA SXSWi) wrapped up yesterday.  More than 30,000 people, up 25% from last year, attended the dizzying array of sessions and celebrity appearances (e.g., Al Gore, Elon Musk, Steve Carell, etc).  The world’s first crowdsourced car was unveiled.  One of the big themes at this year’s SXSWi was hardware over software including 3-D printing and the marker-bot movement.

Perhaps most interesting to attendees was the in-depth demo of Google Glass.  Mashable had Google as the clear winner of this year’s SXSWi as Google Glass accounted for 21% of all brand conversation at the conference.  I highly suggest checking out the article as it features an excellent infographic on all the top conversations at SXSWi.

Best regards,

Dr. Dan-o

 

Daniel M. Ladik, Ph.D.,

Associate Professor of Marketing

Stillman School of Business

Seton Hall University

 

 

 

Content Marketing: A Primer

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Hola Todos!

One of my colleagues in the Stillman School of Business sent me this article from the New York Times discussing a SEO/SEM content marketing strategy (e.g., search engine optimization/search engine marketing).  The faculty member had a few questions but I noticed this article was really a good primer on what content marketing is and what content marketing can do for your business.

That said, the phrase “content marketing” is not present in the article and the article’s pitch is on answering customer questions with brutal honest.  However, the article is really a nice primer on what content marketing can do for your firm.  The only thing I would like to add is (1) it is not as easy as it was described in the article (2) while this strategy is not expensive in terms of dollar cost, it can be in terms of time, and (3) the pool category (the exemplar in the article) is rather thin; it would take us much longer to achieve similar results in a more competitive category.

Something to check out today…

Best regards,

Dr. Dan-o

 

Daniel M. Ladik, Ph.D.,

Associate Professor of Marketing

Stillman School of Business

Seton Hall University

 

 

 

 

 

The Collision of the Search and Social Worlds

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Hola Todos!

While the world of search is well established, the world of social search is not. One of the podcasts I follow consistently is the Social Media Examiner by Michael Stelzner and I just listened to “Search and Social: What Marketers Need to Know about the Changing Landscape.”   Many excellent topics were touched on including Facebook’s enhanced search with Bing, Google+ impacting search results, and even an excellent SlideShare nugget.

In class, I often talk about social media as being the wild, wild west.  Social search is even more uncertain and unknown topic area and much is needed to understood in this area.  Check it out when you get a chance.

Best regards,

Dr. Dan-o

 

Daniel M. Ladik, Ph.D.,

Associate Professor of Marketing

Stillman School of Business

Seton Hall University

 

 

 

 

The 1% Rule: Not All Members Are Equal

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Hola Todos!

I was having a conversation with a professor the other day and we were discussing web communities and user participation.  Our chat brought me back to something I had heard in the past and wanted to share as a DigNuggetville Keyword Term: The 1% Rule.

Roughly speaking, it is very common within an Internet community or social network that 1% or less of the total members actually create content while most members are more passive participators in the community. Roughly speaking, the community will consist of creators (1%), some contributors (9%), but mostly passive observers (90%).  Sometimes the 1% Rule is also called the 90-9-1 Principle but also represented as an 89-10-1 ratio as well.

So next time you see that Twitter feature article in the press, take notice how Twitter tries to defines “a user” and then reflect back to the 1% Rule.

Something to share today…

Best regards,

Dr. Dan-o

 

Daniel M. Ladik, Ph.D.,

Associate Professor of Marketing

Stillman School of Business

Seton Hall University

 

 

Twitter Mentioned in Half of the Super Bowl Ads

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Hola Todos!

Being one of the biggest marketing/advertising events of the year, it is not surprising that the stories are still pouring out from Sunday’s big game.  One of the more interesting one’s details how Twitter was mentioned in nearly half of the Super Bowl ads while Facebook was mentioned in just four (down from eight last year).  For those keeping score at home, Instagram and YouTube were each mentioned once while Google+ when unmentioned.

Towards the end of his post, Matt McGee concluded:

“When it comes to second-screen advertising, it’s Twitter’s world now and there’s no close second place.”

I’m not sure I would agree here.  Twitter is all about immediacy and if the goal of the advertiser was to engage their audience now vs. later, then Twitter is the better platform.  I think much more data crunching is needed before we can claim that Twitter owns the second-screen.

What Matt and I will agree on is that Twitter is the better platform to capitalize on something quick – like the Blackout Bowl:

“They even took to Twitter for some quick and clever “blackout bowl” newjacking when the power went out in the Superdome during the third quarter. And, as Twitter’s advertising staff revealed, it only took four minutes for Twitter advertisers to start bidding on “power outage” as a search term.”

Something to think about today…

Best regards,

Dr. Dan-o

 

Daniel M. Ladik, Ph.D.,

 

Associate Professor of Marketing

Stillman School of Business

Seton Hall University