One Half Amazing!

At times we get so wrapped up and focused in ourselves that we forget the real questions that your customers want you to answer.  When selling any new product, service or big idea make sure you answer the following 3 questions from the customer’s point of view.

• What’s in it for me (the customer)?
• Why should I care?
• Why should I believe you?

A new advertising trend I’ve seen recently isn’t groundbreaking by any means, but I think it signals a new shift in the way major companies and advertisers are thinking about social media in their campaigns.  I’m starting to see both online and offline ads pushing users to their facebook page rather than their .com homepage. Check out the Bud Light banner ad below or watch one of the new Vitamin Water 10 commercials.

My quick thoughts on why this is a good thing;

• Once the user takes an action, the advertiser doesn’t have to pay to retarget you with new ads.
• The advertiser gets more bang for their buck.  The word of mouth marketing is worth a lot more than a visit to a lame website with only nutrition facts available.  Your entire network now knows you’re a fan.
• If you google ‘Vitamin Water 10′ the only page (besides paid placements) that is related with Glaceau is in position 5 and falls below the fold. This probably has to do with the entire site being in flash, lacking detailed product page titles and basic SEO, but I guess if you can’t own your brand name, then you change the rules.
• Facebook allows you to create almost an exclusive club for the product, providing a stream of new content and interactions with the brand on a regular basis.
• Directing users to your social site allows you to talk to them in the space they spend a lot of  their time without the waste of the usual banner ads.

What do you think?  As a consumer, would you rather interact with a brand on Facebook? If you’re an advertiser, have you tried this approach? If so, how did it work?

Here is a simple Greasemonkey extension for Google Analytics that adds social media metrics right in with your web reports. The developer promises more services to come, but as of now it measures Digg, Sphinn, Mixx, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Del.icio.us and Yahoo inLinks.  Check it out.

There are tons of great webapps out there today that can help you do one thing really well.  Here are a few of my favorites.

1. Prezi – move beyond the standard linear presentation and give your next deck a stunning zooming effect.  Create maps of texts, images, videos, PDFs and drawings. Prezi is still in private beta, but they have a test tool you can kick the tires with.
2. Fliggo – is a platform solution for creating your own video website. Whether it’s a video blog, a YouTube-like community or a private site for your company or family, Fliggo can be as much or as little as you’d like.
3. FeedWeaver - combine multiple RSS feeds into one. Feedweaver allows you to create, filter and mashup personalized RSS feeds similar to Yahoo Pipes, but without the learning curve.
4. Qipit - copy and share notes using your mobile phone.  Capture whiteboards or handwritten notes with your camera and they are converted into a PDF form.
5. Pixlr – online image editor built in flash similar to Photoshop Elements.
6. Drop.io – easily share images, video, audio, documents and other digital content using a simple and private interface.

What is your favorite new webapp?  Login to the comments with your Facebook account below and let me know.

A great introductory video on how the Google Ad Auction actually works.  Chief Economist, Hal Varian (Mr. Personality 2003) shows how your max CPC bid and quality score determine how much you pay for a click within your Adwords account.

“I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the sermon “But, If Not” delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967.