There is a big football game Sunday. Lots and lots of people are talking about it. Some major stories: This guy thinks he looks like Tom Brady (really, though?), Chad Ochocinco is making headlines by not making headlines, and Ferris Bueller is back!

Honda's nostaligic Super Bowl spot brings back memories. How will it stack up Monday morning?

OK – the real headlines made this week and next are about the ads. Let me break down the ad viewing process for you in a couple simple steps: People will be watching the game. They’ll be watching the ads. They’ll be talking about the ads on Twitter. They’ll be watching what other people are saying on the sites that monitor the ads. Then people will be talking about the sites that monitor the ads and watching what other people are saying about the sites that monitor the ads.

Sorry – more complicated of a process than I’d hoped. See, it’s tough staying on top of everything! So, I’ll simplify things by giving you 3 great ways to follow Super Bowl ad chatter.

1. Brandbowl: Brandbowl is a project that was given birth by two not-so-small companies a couple of years ago. Since its first iteration, Brandbowl has become the de-facto place to monitor how the Super Bowl ads are doing in the eyes of Twitter folk. By looking at ranking factors like volume of tweets and ad/brand sentiment, Brandbowl adjusts ads on a scoreboard in real-time throughout the game. 2012 bonus feature: the halftime show will also be rated. What’s the over/under on Madonna getting better ratings than the Black Eyed Peas?

2. USA Today AdMeter: This was the original Super Bowl ad monitoring tool. In 1989, USA Today thought it would be a nice idea to put a few people in a room during the game and have them rate the ads on a scale of 1 to 10.  A great idea it was. The results released the Monday morning after the game helped USA Today become the authoritative source for Super Bowl ad buzz. It told advertisers that they had to be in the top 10, or else their spot would be considered a multi-million dollar failure. This year, USA Today has partnered with Facebook to pull social data to help declare the winners and losers.

3. Your Living Room/Bar of Choice: Among all the Internet chatter, the best form of commentary is shared in the moment over wings, beer, and nachos. What the guy at the party who thinks Eli is better than Tom (hate that guy), or your girlfriend wearing the Gronkowski jersey says about that car commercial with a talking monkey, fuels our trending topics, Facebook posts, and Instragram photos.  Social events spur social chatter.

How will you measure the success of this year’s Super Bowl spots?!

Newsletter sponsorships never get enough attention.

What comes to your mind when you hear the term Online Media? Banner ads, right? Banner ads or display ads are synonymous with online media campaigns, but did you know that online media is not just about banner ads? Online media is also about newsletter sponsorships, emails, text ads, buttons, videos, webinars, virtual conferences, whitepaper syndication, and many more. A good media campaign should have a full media suite. While effective display and rich media banners are certainly major factors in campaign performance, let’s not forget the supporting cast.

Newsletter sponsorships can also be highly effective, and are usually very cost-efficient. They’re effective because they’re already targeting your preferred audience (and you can further dial in your targeting by choosing content-relevant articles or themes). And they’re cost-efficient because they are usually cheaper than direct CPM buys.

Plus, if you have a good media planning and buying team who can negotiate amazing rates for you (ehem), then you may be able to get these newsletter sponsorships as a value-add or at a heavily discounted price.

We include newsletter sponsorships in both B2B and B2C campaigns, and not only do we get good brand visibility, conversion rates and clickthrough rates are pretty good. Sure, sometimes, newsletters get ignored (so pay attention to your open rates) BUT they offer something that display banners don’t: longetivity.

Let’s say you sponsor a newsletter today (you’ll be in any or all of the red spaces marked on the newsletter image above), but the subscriber doesn’t open it because he’s busy. But he doesn’t delete the newsletter, he just saves it for another day.  Newsletters stay in inboxes for days, weeks, even months. We have one B2B client whose newsletter sponsorships keep generating leads up to three months after send date! Three months!

So don’t ignore newsletter sponsorships and the other media placements that aren’t as flashy or attention grabbing as the omnipresent display ad on a website. Pay more attention to the bridesmaid!

newsletter sponsorships should be considered the Pippa Middleton of Online Media

You’ll be pleasantly surprised to realize how your direct response and branding campaigns will benefit from these often-overlooked media placements. And if you need any help, you know where to find us.

New media consumption habits are emerging amongst consumers as a result of the rising popularity of smartphones and tablet devices. According to a recent study conducted by the Harvard Business Review, the average person is now consuming twelve hours of media in only nine hours.

While it was once feared that digital would compete against television’s share of consumer attention, studies are finding that, instead, consumers are simultaneously using both platforms. Reported data indicates spikes in tablet and mobile usage during primetime TV viewing hours, as consumers research and interact with content related to what they are viewing.

Though digital is not necessarily eating away at TV viewing hours the way it was once expected to, studies are showing that the new digital platforms are competing against the traditional desktop computer. A recently study by comScore found that digital platform usage varies widely by both the day and the time of day.

During the work week, desktop usage is at its highest during typical business hours, meanwhile, mobile and tablet usage tends to spike during primetime TV viewing hours.

On the weekends, usage tends to spike for desktop, tablets and mobile in the early morning when people first wake up, but declines during the remainder of the day as people spend time socializing or catching up on errands.

How do you currently use your digital devices?

In January 2012, The Raspberry Pi Foundation, a UK registered charity foundation will begin production on the Raspberry Pi computer. This mini computer is about the size of two credit cards and won’t hurt your wallet at a price of $25 per computer. You can even acquire the optional model for a paltry $10 more. This model (called the Model B) contains an Ethernet port and 256MB RAM. No Ethernet hardware is found in the Model A which holds 128MB of RAM.

The Raspberry Pi was created as a means to let children play with an affordable computer. One of the trustees from the Raspberry Pi Charitable Foundation observed that students and younger children spend less time learning about programming and more time on other activities. Since the idea’s inception, many other groups have approached the foundation and have expressed interest in using the Raspberry Pi for applications that are outside of its original scope as an educational tool. This new product is sure to be far reaching in developed and developing countries due to its highly competitive price.

($25 Mini PC)

The Raspberry Pi website references that hospitals, museums and agencies have expressed interest in finding new applications for this device due to its highly affordable price point. We may see all sorts of products containing similar architecture in the future since the Raspberry Foundation is encouraging other companies to leverage the idea.

Specifications for the Raspberry Pi:

1. Micro USB Power
2. RCA Video
3. HDMI
4. USB 2.0
5. SD Card
6. Ethernet port (Model B)
7. Audio Jack

This mini computer weighs only 45 grams and runs on some versions of Linux, while containing an ARM processor. In the event that you need portability, the device runs well on four AA batteries.

The product will contain exposed computer components.   This will help to keep the price down, but it will also encourage owners to tinker around and explore the mechanics of the computer. Though buyers will eventually be able to get a case for the Raspberry Pi, who knows? People may not want them.  Personally, I think the future looks bright.

One of the major roles I play as my company’s CEO is to act as an educator. It’s one of the most satisfying things I do in my career – I see people both on the client side and agency side transform from marketing experts to online marketing engineers.

Becoming a marketing engineer is one of the real challenges people face in becoming or transforming themselves into genuine online marketing experts. You need to bring everything together to connect the dots. You cannot be an expert in just one thing because everything is interrelated. The success of one step is dependent on the success of the next step. You need to map the whole ROI path from impression through engagement, conversion to retention, and finally tracking and analysis. Of course, it doesn’t stop there – you need to look at the whole cycle and say, “How do we improve?” And connecting all these parts requires knowledge of not just media and creative but the underlying technologies that drive people down the click and engagement path to success.

Now don’t be alarmed or intimated. You don’t have to be a coder to understand technology or be a marketing engineer; you simply have to understand what the technology does and be conversant in it. You have to know what different marketing technology applications and elements do. And to do this you simply have to a) surf the web and act like a consumer and take note of what happens, and b) Google industry terms that you hear people throwing out every day and read up on them. OK, there are some more complex technologies you should get your head around like cookies, web analytics, and marketing automation. But again, you don’t need to be a coder – you just have to understand what this stuff does.

So to get you on your way, I’m going to give you the trick to becoming a real digital marketer and true marketing engineer. It all boils down to asking one simple question.

“And Then What?”

Now say it again. And again. Now one more time. Asking this question over and over will help you to connect the dots. It forces you to map the whole customer and ROI journey you’re trying to encourage. It forces you to become a marketing engineer!

When you’re looking at your media plan, search ad, or banner (or any part of your marketing program), keep asking “And then what?” until you hit the ultimate end. That end may be conversion but typically it should go beyond that to include retargeting, retention, and analytics.

So let’s explore what asking “And then what?” yields in terms of user flow and tactics. If you can conceptualize this flow and understand it, congratulations! You have graduated and become a digital marketing engineer!

Sample “And then what?” user flow (B2B):

1. User sees a banner or keyword ad with research report offer and clicks.
2. User arrives on a targeted landing page promoting value of research report.
3. Set tracking and retargeting cookies (Google Analytics, Dart, Google Network retargeting, Eloqua).
4. User fills out lead gen form.
5. System kicks out personalized auto-reply email.
6. User presented with research report download .
7. User also presented with more engagement options (engaging video, relevant links, more materials, etc.).
8. User is encouraged to share the report via Facebook, Twitter, email, or other means.
9. Lead data is sent into Eloqua for lead scoring and future marketing automation.
10. Lead is sent into Salesforce to rapid response.
11. Transaction and cost per lead tracked and reported in monthly campaign report.
12. Google Network retargeting keeps brand top of prospect’s mind during purchase consideration phase for next 90 days.
13. Sales rep cannot reach lead; lead goes cold.
14. User returns via direct hit (yourdomain.com).
15. Eloqua recognizes the visitor’s cookie and presents user with home page graphic/offer relevant to visitor’s original keyword product category.
16. Eloqua pings Salesforce to “awaken” lead; scores lead as repeat visitor and valuable prospect and triggers series of events.
17. System also informs sales rep of pages viewed by user.
18. Eloqua kicks our personalized email to prospect based on site sections viewed in last user session.
19. User is scored high enough based on user activity, title, and employing organization to activate print on demand direct mail piece.
20. Sales rep reaches user and sets up a meeting.
21. Deal is closed and contract revenue is reflected in long-term ROI report.
22. Marketing automation (Eloqua) keeps customer engaged for cross-selling, up-selling, and retention.
23. Data is consolidated into quarterly report for analysis so entire channel can be optimized.

You see what I’m getting at here? Whether you’re doing B2B or B2C, it doesn’t matter. If your goal is to make lasting connections with consumers and drive them into a retail environment, then map your way to that. The web (and the mobile web for that matter) has built in response and engagement potential that allows you to target, engage, convert, track, and in general escalate prospects to sale. It serves all phases of the customer lifecycle journey. Digital marketers understand the whole path and it starts by simply asking “And then what?”

(Boston, MA- January 4, 2011) Online and social media marketing agency Overdrive Interactive released a new infographic entitled, “Election 2012 Social Media Rankings.” This infographic is a visualization of the 2012 presidential candidates’ social media rankings based on their cumulative Facebook likes and Twitter followers. The visual shows how many friends each candidate has amassed on the most important social networks: Facebook and Twitter.

The infographic is available for viewing, download, sharing and republishing at:

www.OverdriveInteractive.com/2012

The ranking, and visualization of the data, shows a clear social media disparity between the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, and all the republican candidates.  The graphic shows how far the GOP must go to catch up with the social media marketing potential of the Democrats. President Obama has many social connections from his last campaign and has continued to build his social connections throughout his presidency. His current Facebook and Twitter friend counts exceed 36,072,492. This total is 22 times greater than the nearest GOP contender Newt Gingrich who has 1,611,128 and is 7 times greater than all the social connections of the republicans combined. (Statement is from data on 1/3/2012 at 3:40 PM.)

Overdrive Interactive’s CEO, Harry J. Gold says, “The sheer scale of the President Obama’s social media marketing platform is huge and could benefit the Democrats for years to come even after the elections and his presidency.” Gold added, “The media equivalent value of this kind of social presence and communications platform is certainly in the tens of millions of dollars and in most cases cannot even be bought – it has to be earned.”

The data was compiled through Overdrive Interactive’s social media tracking site, the Overdrive50, and its Election 2012 section. While still in beta, the site shows nearly real time and accurate listing of companies, organizations and people ranked by how many likes and followers they have amassed on Facebook and Twitter. Candidates featured in the Election 2012 section include Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Gary Johnson, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman and Buddy Roemer.

While Obama was at one time one of the most popular people on Facebook sitting at the top of the Overdrive50, he currently sits in position 15 of the www.Overdrive50.com behind the star and brand power of celebrities and entities that include Lady Gaga, Facebook, YouTube, Rihanna, Eminem, Justin Beiber and Coca Cola.

Overdrive is allowing Bloggers, publications and all media outlets to publish and broadcast the infographic image as long as it is not modified and when shown online, a link is given to the distribution page located at http://www.OverdriveInteractive.com/2012. The infographic will be provided in a variety of formats and sizes.

ABOUT OVERDRIVE INTERACTIVE
Overdrive Interactive is a full-service online marketing agency that brings together  social media marketing, paid search engine marketing, organic search engine optimization, online media planning and buying, online creative and web and application development to provide its corporate clients with fully integrated digital marketing programs that drive measurable results and ROI. For more information, please visit http://www.OverdriveInteractive.com.

Check out photos of our Office Tour! We have a lot of fun in a creative atmosphere- can’t you tell?

Get a panoramic view too! Don’t get dizzy…

Brace yourself Facebook users… come January, Facebook’s Sponsored Stories will migrate from only being in the Ticker and sidebar to also appearing in the News Feed. At first, this may seem daunting to the average user, but in reality, Facebook is being strategic about how these ads appear and how often. In addition, even though you will not be able to opt out of seeing the Stories, you will be able to delete the post from your News Feed if you wish.

A user will see no more than one Sponsored Story in their News Feed per day and the ad will appear from only Brands that they have already Liked. No ad can appear from a Brand Page you have not previously Liked. Ben and Jerry’s will be the first brand sharing their advertisements in users’ News Feeds- see below. At first glance, Sponsored Stories look very similar to organic News Feed stories from friends. The only giveaway is in the bottom right hand corner, the last place the eyes would look, displays “Sponsored.” If you hover over it, a message appears letting you know that, “This was already shared with you. A sponsor paid to feature it here.” At this point, the user has most likely already processed and internalized the ad’s message.

Even though Facebook has been experimenting with ads and the placement of ads for years, Sponsored Stories are relatively new, as they premiered in 2011. When someone interacts with a Brand Page such as liking it, the brand can pay to feature that story more prominently to reach more Facebook users.

With Sponsored Stories appearing in the main News Feed, they will be noticed more by users than ever before making these stories incredibly valuable to advertisers. User’s main viewing attention is constantly on the News Feed checking out status updates from friends and the latest pictures posted from the weekend. Sponsored Stories located in the sidebar have a 46% higher click through rate than traditional ads and this number will be much higher once Sponsored Stories settle in on the News Feed. As we move into the New Year, everyone, especially advertisers, are asking themselves how they can grow with social media for their personal and professional brand. How do you feel about Sponsored Stories coming to the News Feed?

One thing I often talk about is the blurring of the lines between social media, search marketing, and online media. The days of specializing just in one area are going away because focus in one area limits your ability to create synergy between those three channels.

For example, you can’t run a social media marketing program without a strong knowledge of SEO (define). Without SEO expertise, you lose the extra benefit of universal search and inbound links. Conversely, if you are not used to tracking and optimizing online media and paid search campaigns, your ability to treat social media like a measurable medium is greatly diminished. And nothing ads octane to a Facebook Fan drive like online media integration and specifically, Facebook ads that encourage consumers to connect to your brand. Finally, utilizing social sharing technology (chiclets – see my column, “Socializing Your Banners With Chiclets“), your ads and landing pages for media and paid search can turn a single paid click into hundreds of free impressions and clicks with no cost.

Now, take away the combined knowledge of how all three of these disciplines work, and the potential of each one is greatly reduced.

So, here are some quick examples of how these online channels are coming together to blur the lines between disciplines:

• Google Content Network: paid search or online media? Both – you can target by keyword, site, demographics, and geography. You can serve text ads, banners, videos, and rich media. You can manage it through the Google search interface or do a direct media buy. You can track with your PPC (define) tracking or your ad server.
• YouTube sponsored videos and overlay ads: online media, social media marketing, or paid search? All three! Bringing together the video content you have placed in your free YouTube channel with the online media and paid search options of YouTube and AdWords is very powerful and can create a huge amount of low cost-engaging impressions and drive valuable video views of video content you have invested in producing. Furthermore, the social sharing elements of YouTube encourage people to post videos on Facebook and Twitter.
• Facebook advertising: online media or social media marketing? Both. You can do a media buy but then link the ads to your free social media marketing fan page. You can deploy engagement ads that encourage people to become a fan (friend on Facebook for companies and brands) or share your message with their friends.
• Social content development: SEO or social media marketing? Both. Video production, tweeting, and Facebook posts are not just for SEO – that is a huge amount of effort just to get links. We do it to create a powerful standalone social channel. However, that does not mean it should not be infused with keywords, links, and content that drive the search rankings of your site and help that content to pop in Google Universal Search, like video and image results. You want your socially distributed content to help your site pop and you want it to pop in the engines on its own!
• Contextual ads: paid search or online media? Both. An in-text ad like Vibrant Media’s IntelliTXT is targeted by keyword and is typically sold on a PPC model. Yet, it can display text ads, flash ads, and even video ads.
• Blogger outreach: social media marketing, PR, online media, or SEO link building? All four! Involving bloggers in your content development is a powerful way to interact with an influential group and create content that can be used in your social channels and Web sites, drive links to your Web site, and enhance the value and credibility of your advertising. Just look at what we did for Progress Software in its IAC award-winning Blogger Video Forum Banner. Progress was able to reach influential bloggers, create valuable video content for its site and YouTube channel, and then use the content in rich media ads.
• Chiclet-enabled ads and landing pages: online media or social media marketing? Both. There is no better way to squeeze extra value from an online campaign than to embed social sharing chiclets into your ads, thank you pages, and landing pages. Be sure to apply the right tracking links and methodology to the content you spread around with your chiclets.

There are many more ways to integrate all this stuff and I would love to know what you think! Please add other integration tips and tactics below!

This column was originally published on March 30, 2010 on ClickZ.

In this day and age with smartphones and tablets erupting in popularity and growth in both the personal and business settings, the question being asked is: “Is now the time to take the plunge into mobile learning?” Our client, SkillSoft, a leading provider of on-demand training and e-learning solutions, has developed a mobile learning infographic, Five Calls To Make When Developing A Mobile Learning Strategy to help companies answer this question, and to begin a mobile learning plan.

The infographic takes you through five steps beginning with the broad question, “What does mobile mean” to “How does mobile learning fit into your existing learning strategy and ecosystem”?

Mobile learning can improve employee performance and productivity but it needs to be integrated correctly into your overall learning strategy. Mobile learning, similar to social media, is continuing to grow and to develop. Check out SkillSoft’s infographic to take steps into implementing a mobile learning strategy that will work best for your company’s broader framework.