out” online with no particular goal, while women users tend to be a bit more goal oriented. Also, the younger the web user, the more likely they are to go online strictly for fun. Other determining factors in web usage for fun are Internet experience and home broadband access. Thirty-six percent of those Internet users with more than six years of Internet experience will surf the Internet for no particular reason, and also 72 percent of those with home broadband Internet connections will use the web in this way.
The Importance of Social Networking Channels
Surfing the web for fun often leads users to get involved in the fastest growing online phenomenon: social networking. In the past few years, online social networking has become a core component to a successful new media strategy, which is why in this second edition of Marketing in the New Media I have dedicated a new chapter to this topic. Skip to Chapter 3 for Social Media Optimization (SMO) strategies to help leverage your company, brand, or message on top social sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, MySpace, LinkedIn, and more.
The Growth of Blogs
Donald Trump has a blog. So do Michael Moore and Ariana Huffington, as well as thousands of celebrities, musicians, business executives, and average people. Blogs (also called “weblogs”) provide a way for nontechnical people to post information about their personal lives, beliefs, politics, businesses, products, services, or anything else in a chronological, diary-type format. Many blogs allow visitors to provide feedback on those comments as well.
Since 2003, the growth rate of blogs has doubled about every six months, reaching 35.3 million in April 2006. According to Technorati (http://technorati.com), a blog tracking site, the Internet world sees an average of 1.6 million legitimate blog posts every day, many posts related to new product announcements and scheduled events (Burns, April 2006b).
Blogs are an important marketing tool for your business for many reasons. First, they allow you to develop a closer connection with customers, to generate feedback, and to provide customer support. For an example of a corporate blog, take a look at GM Blogs (www.gmblogs.com) — the General Motors home for their corporate blogs.
The second reason blogs are an important piece of marketing is because they are a great way to help increase search engine ranking for your site. Because blogs are largely text based, they are easy for search engines to index. And because every entry includes a date and search engines look to post the most recently updated site first, your blog has a good chance of ranking high. If your blog entry contains relevant keywords, a recent date, and links to more pages of your website, you have a good chance of increasing your ranking. Likewise, because blogs open products up to consumer feedback and word-of-mouth marketing, you are more likely to find both media and consumers referring to and linking back to your blog, which provides added points to increase your search ranking.
However, despite the impressive growth of blogs, corporate blogs still account for only a small percentage of the current blogosphere. Although many executives realize their importance, they are either unsure of how to make blogs work effectively for their company or they simply lack the time and energy to keep a corporate blog updated and running (Burns, May 2006). (More about corporate blogging and how it can enhance your brand and consumer trust in Chapters 3 and 7.)
Promotion through RSS Advertising
Journalists and reporters for media outlets, both traditional and new, are definitely an important segment of the digital lifestyle. Thanks to the growth of RSS feeds for easy syndication of online news, journalists now rely on new media channels more than phone or fax as a means of generating fresh content. (RSS allows users to access and be alerted of content that is frequently updated.) In fact, more than 92 percent of journalists working at newspapers, magazines, and broadcasting outlets nationwide use the Internet for article research, and 81 percent of those journalists search online daily (Crowell, June 2004). (More about how to reach online journalists in Chapter 7.)
RSS technology has been traditionally used by news professionals to syndicate content online primarily by organizations such as Reuters, CNN, PR Newswire, Business Wire, and the BBC. These providers allowed other websites to incorporate their headlines or headline-and-short-summary feeds under various usage agreements. Today, anyone with a website, blog, press release, product announcement, or other marketing promotion can benefit from RSS technology, and because there are so many niche content sources now available, using RSS feeds to send out targeted content is an excellent way to get results. RSS feeds are proving more effective to advertisers than email marketing because it is such a new and uncrowded medium. (More about RSS advertising and how to implement an effective online PR campaign in Chapter 7.)
Online Gaming Is Also on the Rise
Another new media marketing opportunity that is growing involves online gaming. As of April 2006, 31 percent of American Internet users are playing online games (according to Pew/Internet), and in-game advertising is quickly becoming one of the top advertising choices of the new media marketer (Fallows, February 2006). According to the Yankee Group, the ad budget spent on this medium drastically increases every year, with $732 million expected to be spent annually by 2010 (Burns, April 2006a).
And online gaming isn’t just for teens. I often find my 35-year-old husband logging on to his favorite video games in the late hours of the night, to compete online with his former college buddies who are scattered throughout California. They’ll have an instant messenger going alongside the game, so they can “talk smack” or just catch up on old times during a little friendly competition.
My husband and his friends are definitely not alone out there in the world of cybergaming. According to an Associated Press-AOL Games Poll, 40 percent of Americans play video games, and 45 percent of those play them online. The study also found that while men play more games online than women, they also use the online gaming more socially than women. While women tend to play games solo, men often play online with others. Since 41 percent of gamers play three to four hours per week, they are probably reducing their television viewing (eMarketer, May 2006b). This could be one of the major reasons why one in three people born after 1980 can’t name the TV networks (Evans, May 2006b).
Who Is Watching Online Video?
Online video is quickly become a standard part of the new media experience. As discussed in Chapter 1, a primary way the television industry is attempting to market its new shows to media-savvy audiences is through online video. While both men and women watch online video files, a study by comScore Networks found that males are much more engaged, watching an average of 120 minutes per month, while females watch 80 minutes per month. Males aged 25 to 34 make up the most dedicated viewers, averaging 140 minutes per month. These numbers represent an 18 percent increase from October 2005 to March 2006, showing that online video use is continuing to grow (eMarketer, May 2006e).
As more brands enter the new media market space, we will see more sophisticated video campaigns emerge. In other words, as the new media market space matures, advertisers will have to do more than simply posting television shows or commercials on the web. With so much creative and innovative content to choose from, Internet users will be looking for videos with more value — whether it’s education, humor, or simply original entertainment. As the novelty of online videos wears off, consumers need more motivation to seek out an online video or share it with friends. As marketers, if you can put together the right combination of originality, humor, and entertainment, the marketing potential of that video can be absolutely viral.
An original online video is what launched the US band OK Go! into instant stardom. It all started when the band was practicing a dance routine in a modest Chicago backyard
