Code, Camera, Action

Stories, software and strategies to help nonprofits do the social web
Eric Johnson
Eric Johnson

Startup thinking for the social sector.
Code for action.
Plus photography.
(And reading aloud.)

I'm the founder of el-studio.com, a web development firm that helps nonprofits and associations connect to the social web.

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The platform vs. the eyeballs

Seth Godin on the investment that new media requires -- it's a platform business now. The technology to build a platform is cheap, what's expensive is getting people to play.

Suddenly the new media comes along and the rules are different. You're not renting an audience, you're building one. You're not exhibiting at a trade show, you're starting your own trade show.

If you still ask, "how much traffic is there," or "what's the CPM?" you're not getting it. Are you buying momentary attention or are you investing in a long term asset?

via sethgodin.typepad.com

Another answer to the question: "Why should my nonprofit keep a presence on social media?"

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Are we headed for an advertising bubble?

The push for share of [advertising] voice has created an arms race, where brands spend more and more to hold on their share of a slowly growing market. Like housing prices, this will sustain itself until someone — that is, the buyer — walks away from the table.

via harvardbusiness.org

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Transparency is Killing Ad Profits

Joe Hall says that while advertisers may want to know how efficient their ad spend is, these internet ad tools are cutting waste -- and publications' profits.

With Internet marketing we can use analysts tools, sophisticated tracking techniques and even user behavior analysis to nail down conversion rates to exact numbers. Couple this data with PPC and CPM ad models and we can calculate ROI to the penny–in real time–and make adjustments to ad spending instantly.  All of these exact measurements can enable the advertisers to only spend the bare minimum needed on ads.

And this is why online publishers are failing at making a profit. Traditional media companies make huge profits on wasted ad spending. In an attempt to lure big money to the Internet, companies like Google pushed tools and ad platforms that enabled advertisers to spend less. In the end the only way a company can make substantial profits in this radically transparent environment, is to monopolize the flow of information.

via marketingpilgrim.com

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Flipping abundance and scarcity - Seth's Blog

We spent a generation believing certain parts of our business needed to be scarce and that advertising and other interruption should be abundant. Part of the pitch of free is that when advertising goes away, you need to make something else abundant in order to gain attention. Then, and only then, will you be able to sell something that's naturally scarce.
via sethgodin.typepad.com

 

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YouTube Media and Audience study

A YouTube study of UK audience demographics and clickstreams says YouTube complements existing TV audiences.

  • YouTube's weekly reach (34%) is comparable to major TV channels in the UK such as SkyOne
  • Weekly reach is higher amongst certain target audiences, such as affluent young males (54%)
  • YouTube users (particularly heavy YouTube users) are more likely to be light TV viewers than average

via google.com

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The ad biz: Social media for insurgency, TV for incumbents?

At the annual gathering of the advertising industry in Cannes at the end of June, all the talk was of the accelerating shift away from established forms of advertising, especially the 30-second commercial, towards newfangled social media. The winner of the coveted Titanium prize was Barack Obama’s election campaign, which was a combination of “lousy advertising, but great marketing,” says Marian Salzman of Porter Novelli, a unit of Omnicom, another huge advertising group. This inspired much debate about how to turn every customer into an evangelist, and how to drive grassroots campaigns using Facebook and Twitter. A forthcoming book by Mr Obama’s chief campaign strategist, David Plouffe, seems destined to become the ad industry’s new bible.

Not everyone is convinced that a revolution is under way. John Deighton of Harvard Business School claims that social media were crucial to the Obama campaign only in the first half of the primaries, because using them is well suited to “insurgency”. After that, he says, the campaign reverted to a fairly standard effort dominated by television advertising.

via economist.com

 

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Advertisers Are Watching Your Every Tweet

For Twitter users, all this is a reminder that privacy and Twitter don’t mix. Not only is what you tweet there for anyone to read, it is there for anyone to take, copy and exploit. Twitter’s terms of service, unlike those on most other user-generated sites, assert no claim to the users’ tweets or place no restrictions on how others use them.

In other words, don’t tweet anything that you aren’t willing to see on a billboard in Times Square or broadcast on the Super Bowl.

via bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Not only are advertisers watching what we tweet, but they are apparently busy encouraging us to tweet favorably in their general direction. And, with no obvious way of adding Creative Commons or other licensing restrictions to texts, firms just may be able to use them. Is that what we want?

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