What sounds like middle-school gossip can mean more frequent customers and more loyal donors to marketers.  Soon, Facebook will permit marketers to mix their ad messages with users’ regular news feed. So, your Facebook news feed will show your friends’ regular posts and ad messages will be interspersed.  This could be very good for marketers.  After all, more than half of Facebook viewing is from a mobile device and the layout just doesn’t have room for the right sidebar ad area. But there’s a catch: the user must ‘Like’ the marketer’s page for the ad messages to appear in the flow of the news feed. The new features are called “Premium on Facebook” and could be a great opportunity for marketers and non-profit organizations: During a fundraiser, listener-supported radio stations can buy a place in the news feed of those who ‘Like’ the station At the end of the year, a non-profit can make a specific offer through the news feed Marketers can craft a specific offer to increase frequency of use ...Read more »

"No one wants to buy radio anymore, so we're selling Facebook," said the radio station manager. I've known him for a long time and seen him as a strong manager of both commercial and non-commercial stations. He is now at a non-commercial station and talked about the great difficulty his Business Development Representatives are having with getting appointments today. He said his business development representatives are now opening conversations with prospects by saying, "How's Facebook working for your business?" The rep probes to hear what the prospect's desire for his Facebook marketing. Most businesspeople are discovering that Facebook marketing is not as easy as what they read in the press and they become dissatisfied. The rep keeps discovering more about the business prospect by asking more questions. The rep makes it clear that he is more interested in hearing about the prospect's business than telling them about the work he does at the radio station. When the prospect asks about the rep's work, he say ...Read more »

John Chambers runs the Internet. His work touches almost everything on the Internet.  He has a presence in almost every cranny of the Internet.  From the router than runs the broadband connection in your home to the network switches, gateways and such that run businesses and telecommunications networks, Chambers' company is driving today's Internet. And John Chambers has no intention of slowing down the progress of the company he leads--Cisco.  He envisions the Internet 2.0 where real-time video replaces the ubiquity of today's text-based world. The economic downturn doesn't dissuade him from his vision.  Chambers looked at the history of economic cycles, the tech industry and his company in devising a game-plan.  The Wall Street Journal, in a interview with Chambers, outlined the four pillars of his game-plan for a tough economy: Be realistic.  Gauge how many challenges are created by the economy and how many are self-inflicted Assess your situ ...Read more »

My brother had a pogo stick when we were kids.  He got to be pretty good with the pogo stick, but I never could get the hang of it.  With a goal of bouncing across of our driveway, I would only hop twice then sprawl all over the concrete. In our neighborhood, there weren't many who were as good with the pogo stick as my brother.  While my brother could skillfully bounce to the end of the block, I could only go that kind of distance on two feet. Two Feet Better than One Stick Technology companies caught onto this concept decades ago.  When a well-known company knew they had a ground-breaking technology, they also knew that consumers might find unintended uses (and problems) for the product.  So rather than having one Research and Development team, they put two smaller R & D teams in competition to build the new product. One team would launch the first version of the product while the second team would take prototypes of the yet unreleased product into the field and observe cust ...Read more »

Success follows those adept at preserving the substance of the past by clothing it in the forms of the future. Dee Hock Founder and CEO, Visa International All those opinions on the future of traditional media are dizzying: newspapers are old news; television has no vision; radio--well, few talk of radio. Maybe that is because radio is a part of our past that will continue to be a part of our future.  But even radio isn't immune to the dramatic changes in the media scene. There are just about as many radio listeners as any time in modern history. There are just fewer radio advertisers than any time in modern history. Even still, radio powers consumer awareness and consumption of the events, the services and the products America purchases. Sure, online venues (social media, blogs, micro-blogs, search engines, email marketing--to name a few) are growing new viewers and increasing time spent with media.  But new media seem t ...Read more »

Mark Ramsey sees many radio stations across the country ideally positioned to be local media companies that engage large groups of people through any media necessary. He says we have hundreds of thousands of audience relationships already and we can grow far beyond with social media (Facebook, MySpace, twitter, et al), web, email--and I'll add direct mail and promotions to the list.

In essence: The more exclusive and vibrant the relationship, the more valuable the group becomes when you desire to appropriately monetize the relationship.

Ramsey spoke at the Christian Music Broadcasters meetings during GMA week in Nashville. Here's a video of his speech. It is truly worth every minute.

How can up really be down? The Up Part: Nielsen Online says that social networks and member communities grew their reach to exceed e-mail. Social networks score an active reach of 66.8% while e-mail expanded its reach to 65.1%. Social networking saw Time Spent Viewing increase dramatically in the past year. Sounds like member networks are the social thing to do. The Down Part: But take a look at the marketing impact of these media. IDC found that 43% of social network users never clicked on ads, and only 11% of those who did actually purchased anything. Those who don't use social networks clicked on ads at least once per year and 23% bought something. So Econsultancy and R.O.EYE (my vote for current favorite business name) found e-mail marketing to be very cost-effective for customer acquisition. Very cost-effective Quite cost-effective Not cost-effective E-mail marketing 51% 33% 17% Affiliate marketing 46% ...Read more »