This is interesting. I came across this post by Cabel (Cabel.name), according to which advertising search seems to be the new direction in advertising, at least in Japan. But wait, not the search advertising you’re probably thinking of…

How about that? Cabel says it makes sense since all the good domain names are gone, and almost no one will go past the first slash after .com or .net anyway. So, why not advertise the search query that will lead the user towards the brand, product or service?

Most people turn to the search engines in order to find something anyway, even if they know the direct URL to a site (it’s still entered in the search engine query field). But there are a few problems with advertising your brand using a search query. Google owns almost two thirds of searches on a daily basis, so your advertising initiative will most likely have the user go to Google. In that case you better own the first result page, which is plausible for brand searches, or searches that are very specific to a product or service directly related to your business, but pretty unstable if you’re advertising generic or unbranded terms. If you rank 1st for a generic term and you are stable on that position, than the risk is worth it. If Google really does record click-through rate for organic search results, than an offline campaign like this could increase the number of searches for a particular term you rank well for and attract even more clicks, maybe thus cementing your number 1 spot even more. Hm, I only wish it was that simple…

Then again, the interface shown on the advertisements may be well known to belong to a local search property used by the local community, in which case it’s easier to make sure you really appear as the main result for the advertised search query. Definitely worth experimenting with. If integrated well with an online campaign, this could actually work well, for example in the UK market. Get a priority listing on a local search engine, make sure you appear on top for that particular query, and then advertise your search query locally. It shouldn’t cost too much, and the experiment result, whatever it may be, will be worth it.

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I was surfing the Web trying to explore new possibilities for advertising, something not so mainstream, something a bit underground. I came across an interesting UK based street advertising services provider called SAS (yes, like the special forces) which stands for Street Advertising Services. They use pressure cleaners to produce images and text on surfaces like concrete and asphalt by cleaning a pattern on the surface. The result is like a negative on a wall or street floor. It looks pretty good actually, and it’s definitely a different approach. I’ve done some more searching to see if there are others doing this sort of thing, and came up with a couple of references towards artists and the technique, for example this one.

The best thing is that, although a guerilla tactic, it’s not illegal since there is nothing applied to the host surface that damages it in any way. Only pressurized water and steam are used. In fact, left long enough, the “negative graffiti” will blend back into the “dirty” tone of the surrounding surface. The actual work is mostly done during the night, as there are far fewer pedestrians that may get in the way of work. A great way to pass on a simple branded message. Even though this is quite a new thing, there are already brands who have begun to use this newly opened advertising channel.

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Facebook launched a paid advertising platform called Flyers. There are two options, Basic and Pro. Basics gets you 5000 views for $10 ($0.002 CPM, if we regard views as impressions), and Pro lets you determine CPC in a similar way you would determine price-per-click on other paid advertising networks (max CPC for ranking and max daily budget for spending control).

A flyer is basically an image enabled listing which will be shown in the left column of a user’s profile below quick search and links. There is a 25 character limit for the title, and a 200 character limit for the flyer text. That’s it about flyer creation. The second step is to specify the demographics for the intended audience (people that the flyer will be shown to). You can specify age, sex, location, keywords of interest, political views (!), relationship status, education status, and workplace (which is a text field which kind of confuses me as there’s no instructions for filling in). That’s it for flyer targeting, now onto expenses. You can set maximum CPC (min $0.01), maximum daily budget (min $1), duration (continuous or date scheduled).

In the Basic version, the main difference from the Pro version is in the targeting (only basic parameters) and pricing (days running).

This system definitely gives the advertiser a direct channel towards Facebook users. This may be an alternative approach to Facebook app creation. My feeling is that flyers would be most successful if coupled with Facebook apps (FB app promotion and/or complementary promotion - combined FB app and PPC product or service promotion). While Facebook definitely has a large user base (now more than 40 million users), it may be uncertain how the FB user community will react towards flyers. One can expect good results since flyers will be highly targeted and shown within user groups that are topic specific, but social networks have a tendency to surprise advertisers unless advertising is approached in a specific manner.

Will you be using Facebook Flyers as part of your advertising efforts?

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Neil Patel, over at Search Engine Land, wrote a very useful article called Which Social Media Sites Should You Target? To sum it up Neil gives 5 steps to take when selecting the right social media sites for promotion and advertising. He says only the first 3 are actually necessary, but the last 2 are in my opinion quite necessary as well. Here are the steps in a simple list:

• list keywords associated with own website
• visit social media sites (find list) and do searches using afore mentioned keywords
• narrow selection of sites choosing those with plenty of search results
• check what the competition is doing on a particular social media site
• look for comments and check what’s being said about your site/company

And there you go. Sounds simple to the point of saying “I knew that”, but when it’s put in an organized form like this, it gives us a new perspective towards the bigger picture.

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Starting as an innovative solution for easy video content creation, distribution and sharing, VideoEgg has evolved into a leading provider of rich media ad content delivery. Right now they provide content on more than two dozen leading social network sites, with over 20 million ads served daily. Its network of distribution sites is now one social site richer. VideoEgg has added Facebook to its list of content delivery sites.

With the rapid Facebook expansion taking place, a move such as this was only to be expected. After all, Facebook is a social network inhabited by mostly young, college educated people, who share content while participating in various groups according to interest. As VideoEgg points out “you have huge reach into a young, social online market”.

With more Facebook applications emerging every day, VideoEgg is hoping to arise interest in third party developers to use the VideoEgg content delivery platform and enrich their Facebook applications with an innovative, unobtrusive ad content delivery system (the visitor is not interrupted unless she expresses interest in the ad content by clicking or putting mouse over). There are examples of VideoEgg’s Facebook projects, such as the promotion for the movie Bourne Ultimatum:

Before putting mouse over…

After putting mouse over…

Will the Facebook community be receptive to such ad content? Well, that remains to be seen. Facebook has been and is being used by companies for social network promotion (for example the Wal-Mart campaign), so the VideoEgg move is something that will add to the already existing social network advertising momentum for sure. It will attract even more companies wishing to show their advertising messages on social networks such as Facebook. Although there are something like 30 million Facebook users, VideoEgg delivers ads on a CPM basis. According to Techcrunch, VideoEgg CEO Matt Sanchez said ad packages are selling at above $10 CPM, with a 60/40 split of revenue in favor of application providers. Ads will at some point be demographically targeted, when Facebook makes available the necessary user data.

Some early advertisers are already taking advantage of this, such as Rock You, Inc., whose CTO, Jia Shen said:

“The Eggnetwork ad units work very well with the Facebook platform…  RockYou is excited to partner with VideoEgg and share monetization strategies that tap millions of users who access our applications across Facebook.”

Jia Shen is co-founder of Rock You, Inc., and a leading developer and publisher of Facebook applications and widgets on the web.

In further support of the growing community of Facebook application developers, VideoEgg will be hosting the first ever App-Camp in San Francisco on October 20th and 21st, 2007. The event will offer developers an entertaining relaxed environment for exploring different ways how they can monetize their applications. Marketers and venture capitalists will also attend to delve into the financial stuff for supporting further developement.

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I posted already about the Wal-Mart campaign on Facebook and gave my opinion that it was a good idea. I still stand by the fact that Facebook is a good platform for connecting with individuals and groups, but having followed the progress of Wal-Mart’s campaign on Facebook, I have to say there are certain details that have come to my attention, that may not work for the benefit of Wal-Mart at all.

I found the Wal-Mart group on Facebook after a short search. The quiz that tries to identify you and your style is actually interesting. I took the quiz and came out as the free spirit type, with the appropriate illustration of what my dorm room might look like. Naturally, other illustrations were offered, I guess each corresponding to a profile someone may get after taking the quiz. Something was missing though…

There were links available all over the place taking me to the Wal-Mart online store, but once there I could only access particular product groups (bedding, beds, desks, chairs, etc). What I was expecting was complete collections of products tied directly to the profiles from the Facebook app quiz. For example, I would love to have seen a customizable product collection already designed for the free spirit profile, or any other profile mentioned on Facebook for that matter. The way things are now, apart from being labeled as College ‘07 stuff, you get access to product categories the way you would if you simply came to the site and started going down your own prepared shopping list. I think this may turn out to be a significant conversion no-no. What’s the point of the quiz, if you don’t find matching setups on the vendor site? To be fair, many of the products offered on the pages are pretty cool though. Wouldn’t mind having many of them in my flat.

The other thing is that there is actually an Anti-Walmart group on Facebook (actually one big, and two small groups). Combined they number about 1600 members. That’s a lot more than about a 100 Wal-Mart Roommate Style Match group members. Actually, at the time of writing this post, that’s 16:1 in favor of the anti-Walmart group.

Is Wal-Mart’s Facebook campaign backfiring? Judging by the numbers so far it seems it is.

Draw your own conclusions:

Wal-Mart Roomate Style Match (about 100 at the time of writing this post)

Anti Wal Mart (the big one with about 1300 members, at the time of writing this)

Have an opinion about this? Please leave a comment.

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Wow, the Facebook train is really building speed! This time Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has introduced its Facebook application allowing college students an easy way to design their dorm rooms with their roommates. Facebook users would join the group and take a quiz to determine their decorating style, followed by a list of recommended products they can order from Wal-Mart, and mix with those selected by their roommate.

We realize that this is an audience that we need to be talking to, and that this is a channel we need to be on…

That’s not all though… Group members can download a complete dorm room shopping list, link to the Wal-Mart earth-friendly promotion web site, or visit Soundcheck, Wal-Marts web site featuring performances by artists such as Bon Jovi or Madonna.

Wal-Mart has done this as part of an effort to gain more sales from the US back-to-school season. This is a nice example of social network platform usage for a marketing campaign. There have been opinions that Facebook may soon run out of steam. Wal-Mart obviously didn’t think so.

Read the whole story on Reuters.

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How many times have you blown it with a potential visitor because your article or blog post title sucks? Well, now that’s over, because the secret to writing great headlines has been revealed.

It is really quite simple - all you really need to do is read through some very interesting posts and articles and spend a couple of hours reflecting on this. The result will be a surprising improvement in your headline writing skills. I am not going to write too much about this, although I have had experience over the years from writing headlines in PPC ads. Instead, visit ImproveTheWeb.com where Yuri has compiled an excellent list of resources for learning how to write great headlines.

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This is a new addition to the evergrowing portfolio of Facebook applications. Buy.com brings an application that enables Facebook users to extend their profile pages beyond information sharing, allowing everyone who opts-in to use the service to actually sell stuff on their page(s). This is a significant move on the part of Buy.com, one that is probably result of an effort to counter its main rival eBay.

We see tremendous growth opportunities in providing the millions of users on business and social networks with an alternative to eBay, and the ability to transform their personal profile pages beyond information-sharing.

Buy.com said it aims to extend availability of their service to other online network sites in the future.

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Neil Patel wrote an interesting short piece on Search Engine Land in which he gives a few pointers for creating a successful FaceBook application. Even though FaceBook offers an API for easy integration on other sites, ironically the thing that will make or break your new idea is not so tied to the technical side of things. I’ll show the short list of pointers Neil gave in his post:

• target your audience
• think viral
• provide value
• simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
• keep an objective in mind

The list can probably be longer, for example I’d add check for already existing projects. I wouldn’t be surprised that someone already beat you to it. It happened to me many times. It’s just something we have to live with in the world of instant living. Luckily, sometimes it’s enough to simply add a cool little new feature, overlooked by others, that uses a previously untapped functionality of an API.

Check out Neil’s post for a more detailed explanation.

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