12.31.07
Posted in AlterSage at 7:22 am by Christine
Wow, what an eventful year it has been. Today is the last post for 2007 and tomorrow we welcome 2008!
AlterSage has gone through so many changes this year: Employed more staff, moved into our first offices and expanded on our service offering to give our clients much more value for their campaigns. We sponsored a few industry events (StarCamp and Joomla! Day) and presented on Social Media concepts at one of the most well received seminars this year, the FaceBook Developer’s Garage held in October.
We have gone from strength to strength this year, and could not have done it without the belief and support from our valued clients, and a passionate team who fulfill their marketing needs!
Three new members will be joining our team from January, filling roles for strategy, copywriting and project management respectively. They will enable me to focus on improving and expanding the AlterSage service offering as well as client services and delivery for 2008 even more.
We look forward to providing you with even better service in 2008 and wish you, your loved ones and family all the very best for the new year!
Thank you for making 2007 a success!!
There is a lot to look forward to in 2008.
Permalink
12.21.07
Posted in Online Marketing, Social Media at 6:25 am by Christine
Is social media marketing the only solution to ROI? Or is that the buzz word that agencies are tuning into?
Agencies are loving it.
With social media marketing there are a variety of options that one could choose.
To name but a few: Blogging, Linked In, MySpace, Twitter, Plaxo and of course the current popular choice, Facebook.
I personally think one of the reasons for its surge in popularity is not only because it is something tangible, but because there is a marked improvement in both brand awareness and ROI. And as a marketer you want to see people interact with your brand.
Facebook’s applications are a great and powerful way to get fantastic brand awareness for your company. We’re not talking about the annoying ones such as “Vampires” or “Hotness” etc, but the real marketing gems such as Roshambull (RedBull); Visual Bookshelf (Amazon) and Movie Quiz (Flixter) to name a few, where companies are gaining super exposure based on fun activity applications.
They are a hybrid between Social and Viral marketing, so the more useful they are, the more exposure the company will gain. And what better way than to target where you can captivate your audience on a daily basis?
The ideas for good, useful and fun applications are abundant, and there is a creative solution for every single industry. But you have to get on this sooner rather than later as many companies have realised this and been getting on board with some awesome applications. So get it whilst it’s hot!
AlterSage offers Facebook Application Marketing consulting as part of its Social Media offering. We are partnered with an exclusive Application Development specialist to create these solutions for you. Speak to us if you’d like to learn more about this very exciting medium!
Permalink
Posted in General, Social Media at 5:51 am by Christine
Social media is about many things, one of which being about conversations - conversations are powerful. One of my favourite analogies is about restaurants. If I say that there is this Cape Town restaurant that you simply have to go to, you might consider going, but if 10 other people tell you that same restaurant is a ‘must-do’, you are definitely going to make it happen. That is the power of social media.
Which brings me to an interesting question: If a blogger can lead to increased sales for a product and or company, should he get commission? Will it become a very biased medium (and or how trustworthy or credible would you think someone is) if they get “sponsored”, “paid” or “commission” for talking about a product? (Now this path can lead to a much broader spectrum of affiliate marketing and so on too…)
Joseph Jaffe mentioned Dell in a blog post the other day, and received an email from a reader saying how he should start an affiliate programme or get commission for what he said, as he inspired others to buy Dell from the post…
We have already leant towards that, but citizen journalism in an ideal world should be spontaneous, and not ‘forced” - sponsored spoonfeeding (as what it then becomes) surely makes it less credible?
But I guess that could be said from many of the other mediums too, right? Such as SEO and or PPC as examples. We manipulate websites (or pay for PPC ads) to appear higher in rankings for certain keywords. Does that truly make them more relevant than another?
I guess I am a little biased here though, as SEO is my passion, and the way I insist my SEO campaigns function is to ensure that the content is indeed relevant, but there are many other people that don’t operate that way…
I’d like to hear your feedback, whether you’re in the industry or looking inward from a marketing point of view. Is it all fair-game or are we shooting specifically Blogging in the foot?
I guess there is a variety of ways in which this can be executed properly, even if you’re paid for it…Stormhoek and Matt Cutts are two good examples of this being done positively, but early Dell is a way in which not to do it…
Permalink
« Previous entries