Viral marketing & buzz
Articles and advice about online efforts to drive buzz and awareness through "viral marketing" (i.e., turning customers into advocates with email forwarding and other tactics), guerrilla marketing, PR stunts and other word-of-mouth recruitment and promotion techniques.
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Yahoo Buzz! Availed to Plebeian Publishers
Six months after launching Buzz! to leverage reader gestures and third-party content, Yahoo it has removed all entry limitations, allowing anyone to post news to the site.
At outset, only 100 publishers were permitted to post content to Buzz!. Those were mostly major publishers, including Sa [...]
Posted: Wednesday, August 20th 2008
Cancer-Fighting 'Pink Channel' Goes Live on XM
Premiere Radio Networks and City of Hope, a cancer research, treatment and education center, have launched The Pink Channel, the first radio channel supporting the fight against cancers, particularly those that affect women, reports MediaBuyerPlanner.
City of Hope gets a portion of advertising and online retail sales revenue, as well as 100 percent of listener donations collected through the cha [...]
Posted: Tuesday, August 19th 2008
Casual Male Launches Supersized Social Network
Big men can social network about fashion and what it's like to be "big and tall" with a new network from Casual Male Retail Group, parent company of brands like Casual Male XL and LivingXL, MediaBuyerPlanner writes.
The site, BoldXL, targets larger-sized 18- to 24-year-old men, and will include articles, blog posts and videos on the issues facing them, [...]
Posted: Tuesday, August 19th 2008
AOL Snaps Up Feed Aggregator Socialthing
AOL announced plans to buy Socialthing, a social feed aggregator. Financial terms were not disclosed, but a source pegged the price at seven figures, wrote MediaPost.
Socialthing unites user data across 13 social media sites, including Twitter, digg, Flickr and Facebook. AOL plans to integrate its capabilities in Bebo and instant messenger service AIM, as well [...]
Posted: Monday, August 18th 2008
Fire Eagle Ensures You Never Lose Your Friends Again
Yahoo has launched Fire Eagle, a service that enables users to broadcast their current location automatically or manually, via mobile or on a computer.
The service is open to third-party developers, which can use Fire Eagle to add geo-location services to their apps. It could also provide local advertisers an opportunity to promo [...]
Posted: Thursday, August 14th 2008
Phelps Dominates Olympian Buzz; Visa Rides Coattails
Over the 'net, US Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps is the most-discussed athlete among fellow Olympians, reports Nielsen Online.
Nielsen Online tracked buzz about Olympic athletes across message boards and blogs posted between August 4 and August 10. Sports included Olympic basketball, gymnastics, beach volleyball and swimming.
Behind Phelps, the second most-mentioned athlete was Chinese basketball player Yao Ming, followed by US ba [...]
Posted: Wednesday, August 13th 2008
BzzAgent, Attensity to Wed WOM to Wallets
Word of mouth media network BzzAgent has partnered with Attensity, a text analytics software provider. The pair aspires to provide marketers with "unrivaled insights" into consumer brand conversations.
BzzAgent provides clients with a legion of volunteer consumers that provide detailed feedback on brands and products. They also "evangelize" brands to friends and family, then report the results.
Attensity helps analyze unstructured data, such as online [...]
Posted: Wednesday, August 13th 2008
Adidas Spreads Ultraviolet Sound with 'New School of Thought'
"The New School of Thought," Adidas Originals' back-to-school campaign, goes live this week with the Ultraviolet Sound widget, which gives users access to free Ultraviolet Sound music and a 30 percent discount on Adidas Originals items.
The incentives are expected to encourage fans to put the widget on their websites or social networking profiles, thereby driving the campaign viral:
[...]
Posted: Wednesday, August 6th 2008
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Download Clickatell's 'How-To' guide & start implementing your own mobile campaigns today!Youth Voters, Obama Supporters Lead Online Political Charge
Nearly half of all Americans (46 percent) have used the internet, email, or cell-phone text messaging to get news about the Presidential campaign, share views or mobilize others, according to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, reports MarketingCharts.
[...]
Posted: Friday, August 1st 2008
Mad Ravings of Busey Take GotVMail Viral
"Gary Busey on Business," an online campaign featuring TV star Gary Busey, appeared on the 'net this month, bringing brand awareness -- if not business -- to virtual phone systems vendor GotVMail. In each spot, Busy shares left-of-field business wisdom and anecdotal entrepreneurial insights:
[...]
Posted: Thursday, July 31st 2008
WOM Builds Loyalty as Businesses 'Tribalize'
The greatest value of online communities is that they increase word-of-mouth (35 percent), increase brand awareness (28 percent), bring new ideas into the organization faster (24 percent) and increase customer loyalty (24 percent), according to a survey of organizations using online communities - [...]
Posted: Tuesday, July 29th 2008
Social Media, Mobile -- and Microsoft -- Top Off Beijing Olympic Coverage
With the Beijing Olympics fast approaching, NBC Universal announced it would provide 2200 hours of live competition coverage across 25 sports on NBCOlympics.com. Others will appear on-demand.
NBCOlympics.com will also include home video-style content and blogs fr [...]
Posted: Tuesday, July 29th 2008
Web Opera, Feature Film Have a Snog for Angus, Thongs and...
Paramount Pictures partnered with UK-based Bebo to promote Brit teen movie "Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging." Based on a coming-of-age book by Louise Rennison, the movie debuts in US theatres this October.
A Bebo profile was created for f [...]
Posted: Monday, July 28th 2008
Opinions Sought for Ad Campaign Measurement Guidelines
The Interactive Advertising Bureau released its ad campaign measurement guidelines for community review.
The document was put together to bring uniformity to the interactive ad industry and maintain a standard of quality.
Comment upon the document at the IAB website, which divides commentary by type: publishers, ad agencies, brand marketers and technology vendors. [...]
Posted: Friday, July 25th 2008
(Still More) Money Lavished on New Media, Digital
Over 75 percent of senior marketers expect spend for new media and online initiatives to increase in the next year despite the poor economy, according to the sixth annual PRWeek/Manning Selvage & Lee (MS&L) Marketing Management Survey, MarketingCharts [...]
Posted: Thursday, July 24th 2008
Online Video Ad Buys Buttressed with 25% Make-Goods
Taking its cue from traditional TV networks, casual gaming ad network NeoEdge announced it will offer make-goods on online video buys.
Brands conducting video campaigns across its gaming ad network shall now receive 25 percent in extra impressions if performance benchmarks are not met, according to MediaPost. NeoEdge measures campaign success by click-thru rate [...]
Posted: Thursday, July 24th 2008
T. Boone Pickens Raises Marketing Flag to Promote Wind Power
"I'm T. Boone Pickens. I've been an oil man my whole life, but this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of."
The statement above was made in a $58 million ad campaign financed by Texan oil mogul T. Boone Pickens, who is using television advertising and internet outreach to push Pickens Plan -- a means of lowering US dependence on foreign oil by perpetuating use of wind power.
[...]
Posted: Tuesday, July 22nd 2008
To Bait Young Political Enthusiasts, Mochila Enlists Obama Girl
To compel Gen-Y voters to follow election news on its content distribution channels, Mochila formed a partnership with Barely Political, a racy political site that owns the Obama Girl brand.
Obama Girl -- played by Amber Lee Ettinger -- became an internet star last year with her video "I Got a Crush ... on Obam [...]
Posted: Thursday, July 17th 2008
1 Million iPhones Sold, 10 Million Apps Downloaded, Over the Weekend
Apple announced it sold its one millionth iPhone 3G on Sunday, just three days after its Friday launch in 21 countries.
The original iPhone hit its one millionth sale 74 days after launch.
What's more, the anticipated App Store enjoyed over 10 million downloads for iPhone and iPod touch applications.
"The App S [...]
Posted: Monday, July 14th 2008
Coworker Word-of-Mouth Strongly Influences Purchases
Americans in the workforce have a significant impact on coworkers' consumer shopping behaviors. 96 percent say they regularly or occasionally give shopping advice to their peers, according to (pdf) a recent WorkPlace Media survey conducted by BIGResearch, [...]
Posted: Monday, July 14th 2008
iPhone 3G Buzzing - Nielsen Online, Hitwise Issue Stats
With Apple's iPhone 3G scheduled to go on sale today, Nielsen Online and Hitwise provide a host of iPhone-related statistics.
Judging by search terms used, consumers are interested in more than just price -- such as the 3G network, release date, applications and plans, Hitwise said ( [...]
Posted: Friday, July 11th 2008
Last.fm to Pay Royalties to 'Indy' Musicians, Bands
CBS's online radio community, Last.fm, launched the New Artist Royalty Program, which will issue royalties to independent ("indy") and unsigned bands.
Musicians have the option of joining the royalty program when they upload music to Last.fm. Royalties will be paid whenever a user plays one of their songs.
The New Artist Royalty Program test-launched in January. Since then it reportedly generated 450,000 uploads.
Last March musician Billy Brag claimed social networks, such as Bebo and M [...]
Posted: Friday, July 11th 2008
VideoEgg Launches 5 'Engagement-Building' Ad Units
VideoEgg launches five new video ad units today:
1. LIVE, which uses RSS feeds to continuously update text or images in ads.
2. LOCAL, which serves ads by zip code. Advertisers can also add a map feature to the execution.
3. RICH, a simple means to launch and track rich multi-video ads. Tabbed widgets appear at the bottom of each video, so users can see different versions of the ad or request more information.
4. SHOP, which enables advertisers to promote multiple items from a single spot. [...]
Posted: Thursday, July 10th 2008
Frequent Outages Fail to Dampen Twitter's Growth
Despite frequent outages resulting from an insupportable traffic rate, weekly market share of Twitter visits was up 500 percent for the week ending July 5, compared with the same time last year, reports HitWise.
It continues to outpace rival microblogging services, most of which cropped up to give users a community with more stable uptime. Twitter's traffic outdid Plurk's and Friendfeed's [...]
Posted: Wednesday, July 9th 2008
Lenovo Tackles Summer Olympics with Social Media Blitz
Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence is helping Lenovo leverage its Summer Olympics sponsorship with a far-reaching social media effort.
The campaign is called "Voices of the Olympic Games." 100 athletes, representing 30 sports and 25 countries, were encouraged to blog their experiences over the course of the event. Each was given a Lenovo computer and Flip camera as an incentive.
This year marks th [...]
Posted: Tuesday, July 8th 2008

