PBNJ Marketing Blog

If you thought that Google was going to just sit back and let everyone else get closer and closer to their market share… Think Again!

Now this giant is thinking of dishing out ovr $1 Billion dollars to purchase ITA Software. They are the makers for the airline search and pricing systems that almost all airlines use. Read the article here.

Little by little.. I wonder what is next for this bohemeth.

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They say that people are going to start using Facebook instead of Google to do their searches.  Maybe I’m behind in the updates on businesses but i would probably guess that these two giants will merge one day.

Read more on this here

I used to wonder why I got invitations, game gifts, friend request, and all of the other requests that you send out in Facebook during the workday. Everyone is on at work and “visiting” Facebook. I play on Facebook as well so I can’t say anything bad about it. I’ve actually had to ween myself off of it because I was spending 1 hour every morning plowing, harvesting, seeding, or feeding the damn fish. TOO MUCH!

Check out these results from the article above:
Business Traffic and Bandwidth

Top five websites visited by businesses:

* 1. Facebook – 6.8 per cent of all traffic
* 2. Google – 3.4 per cent of all traffic
* 3. Yimg (Yahoo!’s image server) – 2.8 per cent of all traffic
* 4. Yahoo – 2.4 per cent of all traffic
* 5. Doubleclick – 1.7 per cent of all traffic

Top five business bandwidth sites:

* 1. YouTube – 10 per cent of all bandwidth used
* 2. Facebook – 4.5 per cent of all bandwidth used
* 3. Windows Update – 3.3 per cent of all bandwidth used
* 4. Yimg (Yahoo!’s image server) – 2.7 per cent of all bandwidth used
* 5. Google – 2.5 per cent of all bandwidth used

WOW! I wouldn’t be surprised that many companies are going to start blocking Facebook from their Internet Access.

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Today I came across these very simple but yet effective ways to promote sales via social marketing efforts. Read entire article here.

The three items listed are:
1) Expect social media to deliver measurable, qualitative outcomes, not quantitative novelty.

2) Trust your instincts, question your consultants and ask yourself, “am I a tool of the tools?”

3) Ask better questions that don’t seek universal standards.

Some think that creating a Facebook ad or group will accomplish their social marketing efforts. That is but the first step of many. There are several things that need to be researched in order for it to become effective. Any social marketing effort must have some sort of measurable outcome in order to know if it is truly working for you. Accumulating fans is great but how are you going to convert those fans to a sale? How are you going to keep your fans informed and interested so that they can keep coming back.

Questions needs to be asked of any marketing professional that is delivering this methodology to you and they should be able to answer all of them and/or at least go out and find the information for you. Innovation plays a key roll in all of this. What is ‘it’ going to be that makes me convert my status from a fan to an actual sales figure. Then once I become a ’sale’ why would I want to share that experience with everyone else. Those are the questions that need to be answered, tried, and practiced in order for any type of social marketing to take effect. You don’t just want to be like everyone else. You need to stand out and deliver.

“It is not easy being cheesy”, taken from the infamous Cheeto’s advertising, but you may have to think along those lines in order to get establish yourself an outcome.. that can be measured.

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A recent article in Advertisers Age about Pepsi’s new campaign targeting Hispanics is laughable. You can read the article by clicking here.

‘Yo Sumo’ which translated means ‘I Add’ and definitely not even close to the ‘I count’ tag line that they were hoping to capture. This campaign is laughable at best. As I read the positive and negative comments regarding this campaign, I wonder if big brands and ad agencies will ever “get it”. ‘Yo Cuento’ in spanish is as a clever as “I add” in English. I wonder if looking at it from that point of view, would Pepsi move forward with this campaign.

Then you stick a personality who is hispanic but gets by when speaking in spanish. There are several well-known personalities that speak spanish. If you are targeting the hispanic population, select someone who can speak both well and fluently. “We felt the Hispanic consumer needs to go beyond simply being counted, and count,” said Martha Bermudez, Pepsi’s senior marketing manager, multicultural marketing. Thank you for thinking of our community but don’t do something ridiculous and screw up the translation Ms. Bermudez. With the high ranking position that you hold, this should have been a big RED FLAG unless you yourself just ‘gets by’ with your spanish language literacy.

One more thing before I get off my soap box, this has nothing to do with not giving Hispanics enough credit or talking “down” to them. This campaign represents how disconnected Pepsi is to their target market. Maybe it’s time to try a new agency?

Yo soy hispano y yo cuento!

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