What Happened to Google +?

Via Ad Age Digital

Google+ launched brand pages six months ago, introducing new social lingo, including “hangouts,” “circles” and “+1s.” But strike up a conversation with a digital marketer these days, and talk of “+1s” has been replaced by that of “pins.”

Rather than challenge Facebook and Twitter for mindshare, Google is a distant fourth to Pinterest, with its “pin it” button now appearing alongside Facebook, Twitter and email buttons on prime web real-estate such as eBay and Amazon product pages.

Even the platform’s “best” brands haven’t put a ton of effort into building out the pages. Nissan, for example, was lauded late last year for having one of the best new Google+ brand pages, even down to the animated GIF in its header image that gives the illusion of a car speeding by. Nearly 424,000 users have added the page to their “circles” (Google+ lingo for following a person or brand) and yet Nissan’s agency decided early on not to invest in developing content specifically for the page, which mostly contains repurposed content from Facebook.

“The bottom line was that it was pretty bleak in its traffic,” said Brandon Kleinman, director of social media and strategy at TBWA/Chiat/Day. Read Rest of Article

Endeavour Marketing & Media, LLC

Do Consumers Scan QR Codes?

Great Article from Tom Martin on his Blog, Positive Disruption –

During the 2011 Christmas season, Sears ran an interesting digital outdoor-mobile campaign. Taking a cue from Tesco’s incredible QR code campaign, Sears built and deployed a number of outdoor executions to test whether consumers would scan QR codes to learn more about and ultimately purchase the some of the hottest toys of the season.

But the campaign was more than just another holiday promotion, it was really a bit of digital R&D on Sears part. According to Julia Fitzgerald, Chief Digital Engagement Officer at Sears Holdings Corporation, Sears faces a problem that was very similar to Tesco’s — not enough stores to compete.

You might think that is pretty crazy given Sears has over 890 Sears Department Stores nationwide, but think about it. If you add up all of the Toys-R-Us stores, Walmarts, Targets, and let’s not forget Amazon or just the WWW in general, well, Sears is seriously lacking in store fronts in the USA.

Enter the Tesco example. Can you say lightbulb moment?

So Sears set forth to test the idea of QR codes as mobile bridge and shopping activator. But just to be safe, they also included a short URL that took the consumer to a mobile friendly shopping landing page.

Now, a couple of interesting notes of context provided to me by Julia during an interview she was kind enough to provide to me. Read Rest of Article

Endeavour Marketing & Media, LLC

YouTube Focuses on “Engagement” Metric to Replace “Views”

From AdAge

YouTube is getting smaller in a metric that used to mean everything: views.

Since December, views on YouTube have dropped 28%, and March views are only slightly above what they were a year ago, startling for a site accustomed to breakneck growth.

It’s an intended consequence of the Google-owned site’s shift from a video search engine filled with snack-size content to a full-fledged, couch-potato-optimized entertainment destination. At YouTube, the “view” is out and “engagement” is in.

After investing $100 million to create content channels, YouTube’s focus has shifted from directing viewers to videos of skateboarding dogs to enticing them into longer, more engaging videos—the kind that are, not incidentally, more appealing to advertisers.

On March 15, YouTube altered its recommendation system to make the time spent with a video or channel a stronger indicator than a click in determining which videos to surface to a user.

Read Rest of Article

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