Marketing Pilgrim Published: "Google Maps Continues to Grow, Adds More Android Features" plus 3 more

Link to Marketing Pilgrim - Internet News & Opinion

Google Maps Continues to Grow, Adds More Android Features
'Surround Sound' and Measuring Social ROI With Email Signups
It's the One Media Device That Really Doesn't Matter to Marketers
New York Times Using People for Twitter Feed (For A Week At Least)

Google Maps Continues to Grow, Adds More Android Features

Posted: 26 May 2011 04:41 AM PDT

Yesterday Google's Marissa Mayer said at TechCrunch Disrupt that Google anticipates that Google Maps use in the mobile environment will surpass the usage on the desktop by June. This is a significant milestone as the search giant continues to make its play into the location based / social / 'whatever it is they want' space.

Mayer called Google a 'twitchy' place to work which is an interesting descriptor because their efforts for social thus far seem to reflect that notion of an almost spastic approach to putting together a 'product'. They are like a kid trying to put together something with Lego's by using various pieces of several kits rather than having one set with all the parts designed to work together. Nevertheless, people are using Google Maps which is the cornerstone of whatever direction they finally end up going in. TechCrunch reported

Mayer noted that Google Maps for mobile has now surpassed 200 million installs. And those are active users of the product. Perhaps even more amazing is that mobile constitutes over 40 percent of all Maps usage. And in June, Mayer says that she expects mobile will surpass the desktop version of Maps for good.

She also noted that some 20 percent of the searches now seen on Google are for local information. And on mobile, that number is more like 40 percent. As Google's head of Geo (which includes both Maps and Local), Mayer is clearly proud of these stats.

Another key indicator is the continued tweaking of Google Maps for Android. The latest changes make it even easier to check-in somewhere using Google Latitude and then rate the place using the Hotpot engine that was assimilated into the Google Places machine recently.

Here is a screenshot from the Google Mobile blog showing this addition.

Also, the blog gave a reminder of the Location History feature of Latitude which I can't figure out why I would need personally but it seems interesting (I guess).

In her talk at the Disrupt conference, Mayer basically admitted that there is work to be done to get all of these disparate pieces to come together to make a cohesive and coherent offering.

She noted that one of her challenges has been to make the wide range of products in her department more streamlined. She said that one such maneuver to help with that was the folding of Hotpot into Places. And eventually, Mayer sees Latitude simply as a part of Maps (it already is on Android devices).

Although I am completely confident that no one at Google will care, here is my advice. Don't create any new features until you take what you have and Frankenstein it together into a cohesive offering! Geesh, why is it that every offering from Google ends up like the toy a kid discards after 5 minutes on Christmas? Who is going to be the 'product parent' at Google who will pick up after these messy little engineer geniuses and put together something that makes sense for the people who might actually like to use these things?

If Google is going to ever truly keep Facebook and other more socially adept companies from taking away market share in other areas of Google's existence, it simply has to slow down a bit, be a little less 'twitchy and a lot more focused on putting together products that mere mortals might actually, gulp, use without scratching their heads.

Your thoughts?

'Surround Sound' and Measuring Social ROI With Email Signups

Posted: 25 May 2011 01:08 PM PDT

Does your Facebook page ask people to sign up for your newsletter? I'm guessing not. After reading about this idea in the new guide from Lyris, I went to Facebook to take a look. I checked the fan pages for four of the brands I follow and not one asked me to sign up for their email list. Interesting.

The Lyris guide, which is all about creating "surround sound" with your marketing efforts, hones in on the idea of using Key Performance Indicators (KPI) rather than traditional methods of figuring ROI.

In this case, the goal might be increasing your email list by 10%. That's a measureable goal that is likely to bring results because we know that email conversions are excellent.

They use the example of Carter's, a company that has been in the baby gear business for 100 years. When you hit their Facebook page, the first thing you get is an option to sign up for their email program. The promise is of special offers and birthday deals — a level of customization that they can't put forth on Facebook.

Clicking the Join button, takes you to the sign-up form on Carter's webpage. It's simple, clean and oh look, there's a banner ad for 20% off my order. There are no public numbers to back this up, but I imagine they have a high rate of sign-ups and a nice rate of sales coming in off that discount button. That's Facebook to Shopping Cart in two easy moves.

So why aren't more companies asking you to opt-in to email when you "like" their Facebook page? Do they think that it's redundant? I already communicate on Facebook so we don't need to send those people emails? Or is it simply that we keep forgetting the marketing loop, or what Lyris is calling "Surround Sound."

That's a good name for it. It implies input coming at you from all directions, but in a way that is harmonious and that's good marketing.

Are you surrounding your customers with the sound of your marketing message?

It's the One Media Device That Really Doesn't Matter to Marketers

Posted: 25 May 2011 11:18 AM PDT

You would think that any report showing a rise in a media device would be of interest to marketers, but it's not so when you're talking eReaders. Why? Because eReaders are only just now starting to take on advertising and it's a case of coming way too late to the party.

eMarketer has a new chart that shows eReader usage is on the rise. There's no doubt this is true. With Amazon's Kindle leading the way and the glut of Nooks that turned up under the tree this past Christmas, more people than ever are experiencing the joy of virtual paper. As it goes, the rise in eReader devices has led to a rise in the number of ebooks being published, so the logic is that this trend will continue.

Not so, says Nielsen. Now that tablets are all the rage, folks are setting aside their single-use devices in favor of a well-rounded workhorse. Their recent study showed that 27% of people who own both devices, now use their eReader less or not at all.

The good news for marketers is that eReaders have never been a viable marketing channel. . . unless, I guess, you're an author selling books. Kindle's new ad supported device is a step in that direction, but the presentation is like watching a black & white TV alongside an HD flatscreen.

eReaders may continue to rise in 2012, but as more reasonably priced tablets begin to flood the market, it's unlikely that the rise will continue much beyond next year. It's the CD player vs the iPod all over again and one step in the digital media path that marketers can feel free to avoid.

New York Times Using People for Twitter Feed (For A Week At Least)

Posted: 25 May 2011 08:22 AM PDT

That headline seems funny in this day and age doesn't it? You half expect automation everywhere you turn but in certain areas automation just doesn't cut it. One of the areas where it is less and less attractive is social media and apparently the New York Times is taking the hint.

According to an article at Poynter.org

The New York Times is turning off the automatic feed for its main Twitter account this week in an experiment to determine if a human-run, interactive approach will be more effective.

Social media editors Liz Heron and Lexi Mainland are taking turns running the@nytimes account during weekday business hours, hand-picking and writing the tweets and engaging with readers.

What you'll see: "@" replies conversing with users, retweets of non-Times accounts and more engagement opportunities for followers.
Well I guess the humanization of social media is getting close to being a reality if the "Old gray Lady" has decided that it has to, ahem, actually converse wit their readers.

To think that this is something that is treated as news is pretty funny considering all the talk of social media being 'interactive'. Despite the daily in and day out clamoring of this concept among the social media industry it's taken a lot longer for it to get to people who don't waste inordinate amounts of time talking to people in the same industry about the same stuff over and over again (that's the social media industry in case you are a little slow today).

The Poynter article continues

It's a departure from the normal "cyborg" approach, Heron told me, which combines an automated headline-and-a-link feed of homepage stories with occasional contributions from the social media editors. That combination has created a bad perception: "that it's mostly an RSS feed of auto headlines," Heron said.

This week's experiment "is about changing the perception, and it's about being a little more strategic about what we put out there — finding the most engaging content."

By calling this an "experiment," the Times is implying that the outcome is yet unknown. I'd say it's really more of a demonstration: an effort by the social media staff to prove to the rest of the newsroom that the paper's main Twitter feed deserves additional resources to maintain this human-driven, personal approach.

I think this 'experiment' should be fun to watch and one that may need some assist from people who really want to see this medium become the communications tool it is purported to be.

Interestingly enough, the paper probably already realizes that having two people manage an account with close to 3.3 million followers could get unruly. As a result they are running this initial go for a week. My guess is that since most people are so used to the Twitter stream being just headlines they may not even see the difference in a week's time because they are blind to what the Times is saying. I have several feeds I 'follow' that in reality I simply ignore because it's not engaging. I keep them active as a 'just in case' but rarely do I really give them any notice. People may be 'tweet blind' to a cyborg headline feed like the Times has done up to this point. I know I can be.

So what's you take on this experiment from the NY Times? Is it an 'well it's about time!' kind of reaction or is a 'could care less' take for you?