I would like to say Happy Thanksgiving to my friends over at Genie Knows and all of the other family-owned Websites out there.  It is a great thing to see an entire family building a Web company, not unlike a family-owned restaurant in NYC, is spectacular.  That just shows that the Web has come a long way in terms of accessibility where an entire family (with in-laws!) can pitch-in to build a business and generate an income.  Similar to a restaurant business, I’m sure it’s a ton of work for very little pay in the early years.  I wish the folks over at Genie Knows all the best and a Happy Thanksgiving.

Here’s a picture of me rocking my new Genie Knows t-shirt with the first and new addition to my family.   I will wear my shirt with pride, although it is a little snug.  I’ll just have to fix that in 2010.

GenieKnows.com T-Shirt

ad:tech New York 2009 was a great success this year. With more than 250 exhibitors, the Javits Convention Center was packed with the largest gathering of online marketers.

ad:tech is an opportunity for brands, agencies, publishers and service providers to come together to share, network, learn and do business.

So much hard work went into the setup for CPX Interactive!

CPX Interactive had a great booth location with tons of traffic.

“A lot of our clients are here,” said, Mike Zacharski, VP of Publisher Development for CPX Interactive. “It’s a great time to meet face to face with our advertisers and publishers.”

Some of the main discussions at ad:tech New York included maximizing international markets, increasing digital spending, increased focus on internal communication and innovation with branding.

Thanks to everyone for making this ad:tech New York a success! Check out our video of ad:tech Day 1 ! Or check out our pictures on Flickr.

Ad Tech conference is one the most prestigious gathering of publishers, online marketers, affiliates, CPA networks, MLM experts and other marketing specialists.

For the last 7 years, As Seen on PC has been regularly attending Ad tech conferences without any break. Due to this, Curtis Clarke (Founder/CEO As Seen on PC) and his team of experts have managed to build strong business relationships, collaborations and affiliati0ns with industry gurus and firms.

Ad Tech New York 2009 - As Seen On PC

Curtis Clarke met business associates and partners to discuss the potentials of As Seen on TV arena and its impact on affiliate marketing. As Seen on PC works with its affiliates to create success stories and winning combinations wherever possible.

Curtis Clarke

As Seen on PC has recently announced INCREMENTS in commissions / payouts to its affiliates. This holiday season is going to be every affiliate marketer’s dream come true. As Seen on PC is offering some of the highly prolific, most wanted As Seen on TV products with increased payouts.

Craig Amell - As Seen On PC

The top affiliate offers include:

-          Perfect Brownie™ Baking Pan

-          Snuggie™ for Dogs

-          Snuggie™ for Kids

-          Designer Snuggie™

-          Snuggie Blanket™

-          Swivel Sweeper®

-          Turbo Snake

-          InStyler®

Checkout the individual posts for above products, register for free and start promoting them on your blogs, websites, portals or emails campaigns now.

Everybody knows that professionals in the advertising industry know how to party…that’s why Advertise.com is sponsoring the VIP MIX & MINGLE event in conjunction with Ad: Tech New York! This event which is being hosted by Moss Networks promises to be the party of the week for industry professionals to mix and mingle. This party is by invitation only so make sure to stop by our booth 1324 and see if we have any passes with your name on it! Check out more details on the week’s parties and our picture of the beautiful Hudson Terrace.

Managed to wangle myself a free VIP ticket to the conference part of the ad:tech conference. Of all the presentations that stuck in my mind was the one delivered by Matt Dodd of Nielson Online about the effectiveness of online advertising. One of the greatest challenges working in this industry is proving that what we do is a) effective and b) measureable. Now you may all be thinking that your monthly/quarterly reporting shows this, but how do your marketing directors or MD’s compare your online activities to other channels, like TV & radio.

Well, the people at Nielsen have come up with a model that does exactly that. Using a series of electronic boxes, similar to those used in TV, connected to your computer they monitor and record every click and keystroke on your PC or laptop. This they have used to analyse users online behaviour much in the same way they do for TV.

Matt’s presentation demonstrated how they analysed a campaign by Danone from earlier this year. You’ll probably have seen it yourself; it’s the Evian Rollerskating Dancing Babies:

Aside from the fact this viral campaign was a huge success they were able to employ this model to prove that brand engagement was not only higher in those who were exposed to the campaign but this engagement lasted for longer than other more traditional forms of advertising. Personally I think this really demonstrates the power that a viral campaign with really strong creative can have. It also highlights how different this interactive media is. I mean thinking about it, this campaign just wouldn’t work in quite the same way if it was on TV. The problem with using this campaign is that it generated over 12 million views. Ok that brings it into line with some TV adverts shown during peak viewing hours but it’s also makes for an unfair trial. I’ve had some fairly successful viral campaigns but none that have (yet) generated over 12 million views. I’d really like to see this model applied to a number of other campaigns, perhaps ones that haven’t been as successful. Really, to prove the case for this model we need to see it applied to several dozen campaigns. Only then when we are seeing campaigns that fail to have the same, if not a better impact than TV campaigns will be truly be able to see the impact of this movement. This will enable us to retrospectively see how & why some online campaigns fail. Only when we can look at these campaigns in the cold light of day, retrospectively and in a quantitive way can our industry evolve and mature to a level that we can truly compete with traditional media.

As comScore and others have reported, we are spending far more time on social networking sites than on any other sites or web activities today. From eMarketer today:

Time spent on social networking sites is increasing steadily, taking users’ attention away from sites such as portals. According to comScore, the top 20% of social network users visit networking sites 2.4 times per day, on average, and spend 31 minutes on them—twice as long as the same users spend with e-mail or instant messaging. And that, in turn, means more time with ads.

The problem is, this inventory is sub-optimal for display and text advertising. The same article discussed the challenges of low CPM inventory. Users are too engaged in social communications and games to click away on ads. Also, when we are reading about friends, we are not demonstrating intent like we do in a search query, so ad targeting is harder.

The truth is that we do demonstrate intent, authority and endorsement while on social networks. We demonstrate who our closest friends are, we share links to goods and services we like, we click on links shared to us by friends we trust. We throw off all sorts of useful data for ad targeting. But social networking site inventory is not the inventory on which to display such targeted ads.

The solution here is to use social networking data and re-target existing customers, prospects, and friends of prospects. This allows highly relevant ads to be delivered to customers on inventory less likely to be interrupting task-based or conversational behavior. Media6Degrees, a Venrock portfolio company, is doing exactly this. And they are not dependent on a single social network, but instead have amassed a meta view of our connections on the web. They are building custom audiences for brands that are highly scaleable. The 50 or so advertisers who have used them have seen dramatic results. There are others working on the same problem. 33Across and Lotome are focused on a similar problem. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see Facebook launch social ads on an AdSense-type distributed platform in the future.

I spoke at Over The Air 2009 recently and have just uploaded my slides to share with the attendees and thought I’d share them with my readers too, in case you want to get a better view of what the BBC is up to on mobile and also, some of my personal predictions for what might happen in the mobile space.

Makes your life easier

Uses unique hardware capabilities on the device

Makes a better media experience on your device

Makes it FUN (aka GAMES)

Full details are in the slides and if you want to know more (since the talk isn’t on there), just get in touch.

The other part I wanted to highlight were my personal predictions around things that I think will unfold in the mobile space.  They are:

Mobile take centre stage as the first computing device you turn to

Everything becomes connected – clothing, toys, etc

Everything filtered via location

Mass participation and creativity will grow

Again, there’s more in the presentation but if you want to talk about any of these, or find out more, just get in touch.

I also gave a longer version of the talk at Ad-Tech London – part of London Digital Week.  If you want to see the extended version (with more details and examples of good stuff in the industry), dive in here:

So Tuesday and Wednesday was the big ad-tech show in Chicago at Navy Pier. To be honest, I wasn’t really impressed with it – granted I didn’t attend the 15+ speaker sessions, I stopped by to see some of the exhibits and meet and greet some people that I’ve know through the industry for a while. Some takeaways from what I saw on Tuesday:

• pretty slim on vendor exhibits (maybe 20 at most)
• most every vendor exhibit focused on ROI, clicks and traffic (I felt like I as at a math science fair)
• the book station was dead – no one wants to read anymore, sorry Josh Bernoff
• there wasn’t much food (I had to beg a vendor for a cup of coffee)
• no one was listening to the quest speakers in the Acquity Group keynote area)

The thing that struck me was the whole ROI thing. I totally agree that in a recession companies are thinking ROI, clicks, traffic and whatnot. But, excuse me if I’m just nostalgic but what about branding! What about branding your company or product and even more importantly WHAT ABOUT YOUR USERS! Come on! I mean, if all that companies are concerned about is drawing people to their site like cattle – then I’m done with marketing.

Especially in times of recession we as marketers should be thinking about brand – about people and why in the first place would they come to your website. I know a lot of people can make the case that ad-tech is about technology and marketing but please somebody talk about people instead of conversions.

Alright – I’m done venting

Looking forward to the ad-tech show in Chicago tomorrow. Tuesday & Wed at Navy Pier Chicago.
Here’s a link to the site (here)

My friend and fellow VC Raj Kapoor at Mayfield Fund has an insightful post about monetizing social networks. He believes social networks’ value is in the data, not in the inventory and I completely agree. In fact, this realization is the basis for our investment in Media 6 Degrees, who, so far, is the only company who has figured out how to do exactly this.

As Raj mentions, a new economy is developing around targeting data. As advertisers demand more performance out of the media they buy, the need for more precise targeting in the display space emerges. Data companies like Blue Kai and Exelate can sell you very specific audience based on a host of particular targeting criteria. Often times, the more precise your targeting, the smaller the audience you can reach. Media 6 figured out that social data is the key to both precise targeting and audience expansion. It is helpful to be able to target people who are interested in your product. It is better if you can also target their closest friends who are most likely to be interested in the same product based on the concept of homophily.

Today, the social nets have a treasure trove of data about their users and can put that to good use both in the service of advertisers and in making advertising more relevant for the end-user. It’s important to note that doing so in a way that actually produces great ROI for the advertiser is pretty hard. Media 6’s data scientists have been at it for years. It’s a new field (or at least a new application of a well-understood concept) and I look forward to seeing years of innovation in this space. It is fun to see interactive advertising technologists now spending lots of time with social scientists and behavioral psychologists.

Friday morning, we begin the journey back to London after a long, but extremely productive week in San Francisco.  We’ve had an incredible week here, learning a TON about about new trends in digital marketing, and what we’re doing and not doing well from a marketing perspective.

I’ve been inspired and greatly challenged by the dozens of terrific and creative speakers and panelists we’ve had the privilege of hearing this week, and the one message that we keep hearing from everyone, over and over again is this:

Great content is king—and context is its queen.

I think this is really valuable for everyone to remember, in whatever sphere of influence or vocation we have.

If we’re not presenting great content that fits the location, we’re not actually presenting anything of value.

From a corporate marketing perspective, I am reminded that we need to not just fire buckshot into the crowd, but actually be focusing on the people that matter most. For some of our companies, that means we need to figure out exactly who we’re targeting.

We need to do a better job of talking and listening, and not just have great execution, but great content.

From a blogging perspective, it’s an important reminder to stay focused on the “why”: Why am I blogging? Is it just to feel bright or to share something of value with others.

So, how does this affect the blog? Honestly, I hope that I can continue to apply these thoughts and improve the content of what I’m posting.

We’ll see. Thanks for reading.

Should you Talk About the Gospel in Every Sermon?

Piper at Desiring God:

The Gospel Coalition—Entrusted with the Gospel: Living the Vision of 2 Timothy

The Gospel Coalition’s 2009 Conference runs from this week, April 21-23, in Chicago. Speakers include D.A. Carson, Tim Keller, John Piper, Mark Driscoll and more.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Gospel Coalition, here’s a brief introduction:

And Now for Something Completely Different…

So, Compassion decided it would be a good idea to team up with Rob Bell for a Nooma video called “Corner.” It’s okay as far as Nooma goes, but it’s nothing ground-breaking.

That, and I find Bell’s glasses distracting.

(I should note that while I work in Compassion’s Canadian office, my views should not be taken as always reflective of the organization.)

I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane…

I’m off to ad:tech San Francisco until Friday, much to my excitement. I’ve never been to the left coast before, so I’m a wee bit excited. Ad:tech has a great line-up of speakers and break out sessions, and I’m looking forward to learning a lot while I’m there.

Ad-tech San Francisco is next week and based on the recent conversations, there is much more optimism than pessimism regarding online advertising spending this year.  Most people accept the fact that advertising is destined to decrease this year, but instinctively know that this is a zero-sum game of musical chairs and a finite amount of online advertising dollars are still out there for the taking.  The irony about the technology-advanced digital media advertising and marketing services sectors is that most business is still conducted at old-fashioned trade shows.  Most companies that I have spoken with are still attending the show even if they are not sponsoring or exhibiting, since their clients are going to be there.  

And where there’s water…bankers  and VCs are sure to follow!

If you are planning to attend ad-tech San Francisco next week, “ping me at JohnD@PeachtreeMediaAdvisors.com and we can connect.”  (That was my best attempt at new media conference speak.)  See you in San Francisco!

ROI. Get used to it, Madison Avenue.

In the past 15 years, the hyper-growth of interactive media has presented the advertising world with some of its most pressing challenges; since it is so easy to measure performance online, advertisers would like to better measure the performance of non-interactive media (print, radio, outdoor, TV). Spurred on by John Wanamaker’s legendary quote, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half,” advertisers have been asking big media to justify $30 – $100 for much of the last five years. The pressures of the current economic conditions have only added to the urgency.

My view of the prices of media advertising in general is somewhat controversial. I believe the reason print and TV have been able to demand the rates they have is largely because there were so few ways to measure the efficacy of the buy; they are largely opaque non-performance-based media. We all know TV viewing rates are “measured” by a measly 5,000 Nielsen Peoplemeters and rates have been artificially boosted by the entire “Sweeps” concept and the Up-front sales process. When you look at the TiVo data, you get a more clear understanding of how poorly correlated the Nielsen viewing numbers really are with reality (when DVR usage is taken into the picture.)

Why talk about this now? Because online, every click is known. We know people try their best to ignore ads. The heatmaps of eyeball viewership online demonstrate that people try their best to avoid looking at banners. But we have also learned that search is the best indicator of intent and that when highly relevant (text) ads are shown, users click in great numbers. And when we combine intent with relevancy and interactivity, the real value of reaching a customer is known. Today, Google’s adwords market is the best indication of what a customer is worth. And it is nowhere near $100 CPM.

Why are online CPMs $5 – $20 for text and banner ads and TV is 5-10 times that? Because TV (and most traditional media) has been significantly over-priced for decades and online media is priced closer to the value to an advertiser of reaching a consumer. In addition, there is a growing supply and demand problem. What percentage of total available web inventory is unsold? 60%? 80%? That drives down prices. And even so-called premium inventory (Yahoo home page, nytimes.com) is sold at half that of TV CPMs.

So, where is this all going? Traditional media CPMs are coming down. And as those media become interactive and can be sold on a performance basis, their effective CPMs will fall dramatically as the true value of reaching a customer emerges.

This means the race is on for making all media as hyper-targeted, efficient, and as performance-based as it can become. One of my favorite digital media sectors is the advertising technology space. There are a plethora of companies focused on exactly this. By using every type of math around applied to every piece of data thrown off by our surfing behavior, we can make advertising more relevant and measure its efficacy. This satisfies the advertiser’s need to buy advertising on a performance basis and, in theory, makes advertising that much more relevant to the consumer. (I am skeptical that, aside from search marketing, we have yet seen any advertising actually appreciated by a consumer, but that is the subject for a different blog post…)

So, stay tuned for more thoughts on this space. I’d like to explore some specific sectors of ad tech like media buying, behavioral targeting and media exchanges.

Just came across this useful list from Adage. Check it out here. Good to know who the online influencers are. Not surprised that Seth Godin’s blog is #1, he’s considered king amongst online marketers.

Also, high up there are Search Engine Land and Search Engine Watch, which I occassionally read as well to stay on top of the search game. Problogger is up there too, one of the top authorities on blogging and its Australian too!

Speaking of search, I’m going to be doing a few things to get up to speed on the search industry:

- I’m doing the google adwords webinars. They have these web seminars about various topics. It’s like 1 or two a week. There’s one on tomorrow at 11am for Quality Scores. This is free.

- I’m also attending the Yahoo search Masterclass at ad:tech. It’s on the 11 – 12 March at 12pm. Next Digital is actually speaking straight after at 1pm on Digital Marketing Strategy.Free.

Some of you may remember when Affiliate Summit was a small gathering of people off the coast of Florida.  To see how its transformed into what it is today can be startling at first to contemplate.  I’m always fascinated how ideas that are acted upon take on can lead to something like this.  In many respects, Affilaite Summit feels like the early days of Ad-Tech.  More focused, easier to navigate, and much more relevant to the horde of Affiliate Marketers.

The show was littered with the ususal suspects, and just seems to get bigger and bigger each year.  The usual verticals were well represented (mobile, debt, incentive, continuity).  I see many real challenges in our industry, which include:

1. How will the industry be affected by the 2009 recession? (cheaper media, or less consumer response)

2. Who does the FTC strike next (the acai madness?)

3. How and when does this industry grow up?  When you have armies of people making good money every month, do we ever really have to grow up?  Why join the Navy, when you can be a pirate?

All this being said, I cannot think of another industry I’d like to be in more.  Attending Affiliate Summit only re-affirmed this.

Running Rebels!

So the dust finally settled from the AdTech show, our bodies have healed from the exhaustion, we have caught up on our emails and follow-up has begun! We can safely say that this has been the busiest AdTech we have ever attended and we enjoyed every minute of it.  With the way business is these days, you can become the closest of business partners without ever physically seeing each other: it gets the job done, but at the same time something is missing…is it not being able to see their facial expression when you hit them with a funny joke?  Perhaps… but business was founded on an institution of face to face and hand to hand communication, which is why we look forward to these shows so much.  There really is something to be said for finally meeting that client you’ve been working with for 2 years or meeting a future business partner for the first time.  You give your fingers a rest and do what comes natural; talk.

Thank you to all who came by to visit us at the show to talk business or just to enter for the iPhone.  A big congrats to Jason Conquest from Idearc Media for winning the iPhone in our business card drawing!

Here are some pics of our crew hard at work at the show…

Of course we do our best to give everyone our attention at the booth, but if things got a little too busy at the show, please reach out to us directly and we’ll be glad to connect with you: 800.710.7009 or info@abcsearch.com.

-The ABCSearch Team

I had the fortunate opportunity to spend the first week of November in NYC at the Ad:Tech conference, and while I’m sure that there’ll be some more stories to trickle out about the city and the experience in general, I wrote a quick recap of the conference itself to share with our office.

Monetize This

Everyone in the US industry wants to “monetize the long-tail”. What does that even mean? It took us 3 days or so of hearing the term to have it finally start to sink in, and even after that I’m not too positive, to be honest. But in a nutshell the theory is that the industry needs to make money in whatever niche markets it can to counteract the cruddy economy.

Digital is growing, and slated to increase by double digits next year (like, 10%-12% or so supposedly), while most other medias will likely slide a bit. The “longtail” consists of all the smaller business that need marketing and digital services in order to survive. You can make money off of car companies, airlines, or hotel chains, but when their business slows down they tend to suppress spending. The gist of it is that you need to target the niche markets that still need to advertise to stay afloat. Or something. The term was coined by Chris Anderson from Wired, and you can find a stronger explanation on Wikipeida.

Stay Outta my Pocket

Mobile phone advertising is still not that welcome by 18-24 year olds. Its pretty much viewed as an invasion of privacy. They don’t want us “in their pockets”, so to speak. Most of the industry people are still trying to figure out how to make it work and how to avoid the privacy issue. If its permissive marketing, like an email campaign you sign-up for, then its a good tool. But otherwise, it’s a bit of a dangerous way to try to target a youth demographic.

However, and despite this, the Obama campaign was really called out as using new media to drive its election run. We all know that this worked for them. Even though Obama is basically also a brand, like Coke or Apple, he stands for a lot more, obviously, and people know that. His emails and text messages to his electoral basis were permissive though – you had to sign up, so it was ok to get the messages.

That’s the crux for the kids – its got to offer value and its got to be permissive. Something to think about.

OBAMA!

More about Obama. He came up a lot. Ad Age magazine picked him as Brand of the Year, and many of the speakers touched on how well his whole campaign made use of digital media.

Obama had a New Media Strategist working for him, and guess what, its one of the founding guys from Facebook. Some of the best brains in Social Media were on his team. And some pretty cool things came out of it. He said that he would reveal his VP running mate choice first by text message, two months ago, so he was able to capture a huge list of people’s names. They were all then sent messages later on reminding them to register to vote, and then to actually vote on Election Day. This was something you could see played out in the streets too. We were in a McDonalds in Manhattan and the girl serving the customers next to us asked every single one that came in, “You vote today? You gotta get it done.” That was very cool.

Obama’s text message and email campaign was almost an exact parallel of this real world phenomenon – these short quips and messages reminding one another to go out and do what needed to be done to make that change happen.

OBAMA!!

When Obama did win the election, all the people that had initially signed up got a text from him that said “I’m on my way to Grant Park now, but first wanted to thank you for your support in this historic occasion.” He signed the message simply with “Barack”. Grant Park was the big rallying point in his home city of Chicago. I just think that this was a pretty cool touch and a pretty cool way to deliver a message to a huge group of people that would be taken as personal and direct by every single one of them. Very smart.

Our Critical Commodity

Creative is alive and well. Shelly Lazarus, the CEO of Ogilvey Mather Worldwide, showed everyone in attendance this great campaign for Shreddies cereal that an intern copywriter at their Toronto office came up with. He was tasked with writing some copy for the boxes and suggested doing something about “NEW Diamond Shreddies!” The sr people there jumped on this and they rolled out a complete, integrated campaign. Sales of the 60 year old product went up 20% in a few months. All based on the simplicity and power of an idea – a Canadian idea at that.

She followed up her presentation by talking about the importance of the creative staff and how it is the industry’s main, critical commodity. She stressed that without creative, there’s no business, and if you have to scour the world to find those people, its important to do it. Nice to hear.

Digital vs Traditional Talent

One panel talked a fair bit about the talent blend in a digital agency. Traditional agencies will usually have a copywriter and an art director, under the supervision of a creative director, drive most of the concepts. But in digital so much of the work and so much of what’s possible is coming up from everyone – designers, developers, and other people that understand how the media works.

The concept is to keep the floor open for brainstorming and ideas from everyone, because ideas are way more than a simple image and a tagline. Because almost anything is possible to create in the online space, having all the involved disciplines contribute to the evolution of the idea – whether its some cool app, or widget, or site concept, or a whole campaign with all those things involved, is pretty important and makes for the best sauce. Isn’t that a neat, democratic thing? So timely with all the Obama stuff that was going on too.

ICMediaDirect.com Is the Gold Sponsor for ad:tech New York Once Again!

Moving To The Top As A Full Service Online Advertising Agency, ICMediaDirect.com Has Launched Two New Features: Branded Search Toolbar Technology and Exclusive Domain Marketing System!

NEW YORK, NY – November 3rd, 2008 – The trendsetter of online marketing, ICMediaDirect.com, will be sponsoring, once again, for the ad:tech conference located in New York on Nov 3rd through Nov 6th, 2008 at Booths T-20/21, maintaining its premier status as the gurus of the Internet world for marketing and advertising.

ICMediaDirect.com is a Full Service Online Advertising Agency driven by a united goal to provide online and offline advertisers with easy and affordable ways to plan and buy media. Our primary focus involves our relationship with advertisers and publishers. Advertisers use ICMediaDirect.com for their superior options, prices and performance. Publishers continuously partner with ICMediaDirect.com to achieve higher revenue and personal service.

Two innovative technologies just launched by the premier company:

A)  “Branded Search Toolbar Technology” for Publishers:

·        No banners, no pop ups, enhanced user experience, and branding of website/channel/company

·        400% increase in repeated visitors

·        800% increase in website traffic from viral marketing

·        Double revenue without banners or pop-ups

          Visit: www.ICMediaDirect.com/BrandedSearch

B)     “Exclusive Domain Marketing System” for Advertisers:

·        Exclusivity in currently shared domain real estate

·        Extreme Targeting

·        Better performance than first tier search engines

·        Increase in traffic due to exclusivity

·        Twice as affordable

           Example: www.icMEIDAdirect.com (spell the word “media” as MEIDA)

           For more information: www.ICMediaDirect.com/DomainMarketing

For those who attended ad:tech in New York last year, ICMediaDirect.com distributed theworld’s first book published by an online ad agency; The Internet Marketing Handbook, sharing our decades of combined experience in: Interactive Marketing Strategies, Search Engine Marketing and Optimization, Online Video Advertising, Blog Marketing, Display Media Advertising, Email Marketing, Online Public Relations, and much much more.

The strength of ICMediaDirect.com lies in its broad infrastructure of operations, as it encompasses a great deal of things beyond the standard operations of your typical online marketing company.  With its rapid growth in services, ICMediaDirect.com is the future of the Internet.

Press Contact:

Diana Lee

ICMediaDirect.com

TEL: 212-563-6455

Email: diana@icmediadirect.com

www.icmediadirect.com

Thanks to everyone who came out on Monday and made the Direct Agents ad:tech party a great success! The venue (230 Fifth Avenue) could not have been better and the view could not be beat, but it was all our great affiliates who really made the night.

Thanks again  to all of you who came out to 230 fifth Penthouse Bar and Lounge to help cap off a successful first day exhibiting at ad:tech. It was great to meet all of you!

The social media landscape today is like word of mouth on Steroids! 

In the social media ecosystem all platforms need to be evaluated individually, they are not all created equal. Publishers need to identify KPIs specific to each platform or network so they can be monitored and optimized. It’s about the push and pull relationship with the audience, some platforms are better utilized for being reactive, others more proactive. For example, companies can watch how fast their content is being spread and then adjust and optimize on the fly. If there is a big wave on Digg or Stumbleupon and you notice it is happening a badge to share can be added to the content to increase the wave.

People today care more about what other people in their social networks think or like as far as content goes. According to one of the leaders in the space, the Huffington Post, readers are moving away from reading thread of comments on a blog; they’re more interested in the comments that their social networks have. They’ve had great success with the Facebook Connect and FB API.

Had a great session with the folks from Levi Strauss & Co. – here are some of the thoughts.

Storytelling can be a way to take a customer new a new level of affinity by sharing brand experiences. Levis does a great job of this on many levels; there are stories about the denim, the people, the jeans lost in a time long ago when minors would wear two pairs at a time to protect themselves…. The way these same jeans came to be found, and the people who collect them as treasured items.

Stories are what connect brands with the customer and takes them to a new level of relationship. When telling powerful stories, use memory hooks that will take the listener to a place in their mind where they can paint a powerful picture. Mapping the audience to a place when telling stories will let them share more deeply in the experience. 

In telling powerful stories, they must represent something, they must have characters. Souvenirs can be left with the audience to take them back to the story long after it has been shared with them.

Imagination is perception in reverse.

Thats the quote of the day from yesterday, or at least one that stuck out…..

Learn something new with every interaction of your audience. Interactions are all related no matter where your audience is coming from. Pay attention, expand your field of vision, optimize with a 360 degree mindset and you will become more relevant to your audience.

Those who are able to pay attention and optimize based on the data will come out on top. Evolve based on the data and you will succeed. Darwin always wins!