The MySpace Nuclear Option

Transform MySpace into a dating site.

The signs of MySpace problems go way back but really surfaced when CEO Owen Van Natta resigned. I won’t dwell on the many reasons why MySpace is declining (declining market share, shrinking revenue, loss of key employees, etc), instead I would propose that MySpace reinvent itself and become a dating site. Yes, I said it. A dating site. The demographics are there. 50-50 male/female ratio (at least in U.S.), MySpace is huge in the 18-34 age range (very pop culture), and nearly 40% earn an estimated $30-$60k/year. Plus you have the MySpace freaks, strippers, gamers, nerds, and everything "Twilight". Most importantly, the online dating industry is worth $1.049 Billion. Customers of dating sites spend an average of $239 per year. The average visit per site time is 22 minutes. 22 Minutes! Think advertising revenue as well as pay wall revenue right from the start. International revenue (specifically China) would be HUGE. The MySpace brand (like it or not) is formidable. MySpace should integrate the Twitter API with profiles and dating ads. I could go on and on again, but the main point is that MySpace trigger that nuclear option and become a dating site. Take all that revenue away from eHarmony, Match.com, and the adult dating sites. Do this ASAP. The revenues will be terrifyingly enormous. Game over.

See breakdown below.

How to Measure (ROI) Non-Tangible Social Media Campaigns

Before starting any Social Media effort. DEFINE your goals and targets. Alert: Possible future blog post.



Basic Social Media Campaign KPI (Tangible) measurements:

1. Product sales or qualified leads. New customers acquired. Not included: "converted leads" which are the responsibility of the sales organization or account manager.
2. Increased SERP ranking.
3. Increased revenue, and/or market share.
4. CTR (Click-through rate), etc.

These are just a few basic metrics that you can use to measure your Social Media campaigns. So how do you measure the ever important "non- tangible" Social Media ROI?

1. The quality of "buzz" or change in sentiment. Think Twitter buzz or the quality/quantity of blog feedback/comments. Develop an in-house engagement metric.
2. Amount of relevant people handling digital content.
3. Amount of "followers" or new members after a social media campaign. Not everyone’s social media goals is to sell product. Could be a branding goal or a service type goal.

In the end, Social Media campaign goals must lead to increased revenue, SERP rankings, leads, branding/loyalty, or better service. It’s easy to present the tangible information to your boss or client. Make sure the non-tangible information is measured as well.

Las Vegas Social Media Review Take Aways

1. Luxor was the winner with an A+ in Social Media, although, still lacking a Facebook fan page. Correction: Luxor has a Facebook page!
   
2. Venetian was the winner with an A+ in SEO.
3. Only Luxor & Stratosphere have a corporate blog (astonishing).
4. The Luxor scored an A+ with a corporate blog, twitter account and MySpace page but the other MGM MIRAGE Property "MGM Grand" did not = which leads me to believe that each MGM MIRAGE property has its own PR & Marketing department making their own decisions. This good or bad.
5. Most, if not all hotel "dance clubs" or lounges have a social media presence (especially on MySpace and Facebook) = which leads me to believe that either the "dance clubs" are under different ownership and management or their marketing/Promo department is of younger demographics that pushes social media.
6. Hotels such as the Riviera, Sahara, Rio, Fitzgerald's, Hooters, Red Rock have virtually no official social media presence. This could be due to older, less flexible management with an inability to change or add social media marketing tactics to their marketing arsenal.
7. The Venetian rocked both Social Media and SEO grades. The Venetian marketing & PR department is very Internet "aware" and they "get it". They show up #1 in Vegas hotel Google searches = this is due to their online presence (Facebook, MySpace pages) that helps in organic search rankings. They also participate in PPC for the words Las Vegas Hotel(s) and much more.
8. Las Vegas hotels (in general) seem to be a little behind in the Social Media marketing realm. This surprises me as Las Vegas is built around entertainment.
9. A few of the hotels are owned under one umbrella corporation, yet the use of Social Media is erratic at best. Not practicing a unified online marketing strategy.
10. Planet Hollywood is by far the best Facebook fan page built by a Vegas hotel. Not only is it updated frequently, they use the fan page medium for special promotions and hotel room discounts.

How to Monetize Twitter

Rumor has it that 2009 is the year Twitter finally will monetize its website. This chatter has been growing the last few months from Internet Industry experts and media pundits. The latest rumor has it by end of Q1 2009, Twitter will debut its monetization plan.

For newbie’s, here is a quick review of Twitter. According to Wikipedia, Twitter is a "free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length". But this doesn’t tell half the story. Twitter is much more than a micro blogging platform. Twitter has morphed into a new media channel where you can gossip, opinionated interaction, news reporting, info (web) commercials, links to news and articles. With old Media dying a slow death (today only four in 10 households subscribe to a daily newspaper compared to a more than 100% household penetration in 1950), Twitter has emerged as a new powerful media channel. Twitter is also useful for small to large corporations i.e., from media relations to product technical support.

New uses of Twitter arise every day.

How would you monetize Twitter? Easier said than done. Being a big fan of Twitter, I'm getting a bit restless waiting for them to announce or roll out an idea or platform they can generate revenue from. My guess is that the plan will be this year and management (and their VCs) are not ready to show their hand yet. So with that, I’d like to give my 2 cents and show them the money!

First, you want to monetize the Twitter network while at the same time increase its user base. My overall idea centers on giving each new and existing user a small amount (%) of ad revenue. What! Am I crazy?! Nope. Let me explain. The new ad section would focus on user’s profiles (tweets). Only ads that are “click thru” on the individual user profile will get a % payout. Rectangle box at the end of Twit section will serve as ad section.

Ad section:
- Simple box
- Contextual advertising in tweet box. Figure users psychographic profile. Useful in Market segmentation in serving up individual ads.
- Use entire Twit section background as some sort of a movable ad or movie preview clip with twit text clearly outlined as to make it the focus first, background ad second. No Ads in every single consecutive tweet. Make them appear in every other Tweet or every "third" tweet. Look at psychographic and behavioral variables so as to not lose the focus of Twitter.

*For hard-core twitter users (traditionalists), create a box upper right corner "Ads OFF/ON" switch. Twitters annoyed with ads, click =ADS OFF. Twitters who want to participate in ads = ADS ON. The Ad revenue system inside Twitter is the killer app. New Twitter register users can opt into participating in ads or not. Existing Twitters will receive a note, email, or Twit to ask them if they want to participate. They can turn on or turn off the ads. Hard core Twitter enthusiasts could choose to not run ads.

Why would a Twitter user want to choose to run ads? Twitter users allowing ads to roll on their profile would get (for example) anywhere from 1 cent to 10 cents for every unique click thru. Revenue sharing (Twit ad sharing). This would depend on how popular your profile is at the time (just like buying keywords). Revenue would be payable through PayPal or check when revenue hits say $25.00. Paid out monthly. This is just the basic idea.

Results: More users will sign up for Twitter and this free ad money giveaway will go viral. Everyone will want to sign up. Profile/User base will approach MySpace and Facebook user numbers.

Benefits to Twitter:
1. Increased user base
2. Real Revenue
3. Ad options will satisfy the Twitter hard core base (no backlash)

Infrastructure strategy and costs? Depends. Twitter can build their own ad server infrastructure or get a third party ad server company to help integrate (much cheaper). One thing’s for sure, the ruby on rails platform will have to go. Make this new ad-centric platform more robust = no more predictable downtime. The Google Adsense and Adwords platform would be easy to implement inside Twitter. Of course, once this has been implemented, Google (maybe even Yahoo now that it’s under a new CEO) will have to pay a higher price to acquire Twitter.

Random thoughts: Since this is a “web 2.0” company, why not…
1. Ask their users to provide feedback on monetizing ideas (harness the collaborative feedback loop).
2. Roll out a preview or beta and ask the Twitter community to test (bugs). Again, harness the collaborative feedback loop.
3. Give the Twitter user control over the ad content on their profile tweets.

Facebook Now The Most Visited Social Network On The Planet

Its official now according to comscore. While this may be true, its MySpace that dominates the U.S. market. The U.S. market is where the advertising revenue is at. Funny thing about all these stats is that they are overall numbers. Who knows how many spammers have MySpace accounts? Until they breakdown the numbers, be weary of reading too much into these stats.

Online Advertising: Are You Leaving Money On The Table With Your International Traffic?

It was reported in the wsj Thursday that Internet companies from blogs to large Amazon.com types are now drawing more of their web traffic from overseas. I know from personal experience that this blog’s traffic is more than 50% international. I’ve seen this trend rising the last couple of years (research data).

What exactly does this mean for companies that charge advertising? It means that when a foreign overseas visitor clicks on your site and your running banner ads that get you a monetary % of click thru’s, you are leaving money on the table. How? For example: European visitors clicks on your landing page and you (or the ad network platform you use) serve them a Verizon ad special that is only available in the United States. Is that ad compelling to the visitor? Do you think this International visitor is interested in clicking thru the US centric ad? No way!

Thousands upon thousands of ad revenue is lost and sitting right there on the table. The problem is that if your running a global media company and your serving up US ads, your potential revenue is in danger. Most of the US ad network platforms that websites use, only serve up US ads. What can you do to solve this issue? If your ad network is in house, make sure you serve your clients international visitors a country specific ad. it’s real easy to identify these visitors thru international domains, first-party cookies, and IP addresses. If it’s a U.S. visitor, serve up a U.S. ad. If you outsource to an online ad network that does not have these capabilities, try hiring an international advertising platform company. There are a lot of them that are London based. Need an ad network platform on the Pacific Rim or India where Internet usage is sky rocketing with the arrival of DSL? Try ad companies such as Komli Media (India). Selling internet ads to local international markets is a tough issue right now. Larger companies with resources have sales teams set up outside the US. Companies such as MySpace and Facebook (that now get over 50% of traffic from overseas) are trying to ramp up their sales teams internationally. The majority of Facebook's growth is international. Of the 75 million uniques it added in the last year, just 13 million (17%) were in the U.S., where MySpace is still twice Facebook's size. Internet usage overseas is anywhere from a few years behind to ground zero. As they gain access to telephone lines (DSL) and cable, this customer base will grow exponentially. You have to prepare to exploit your platform to serve these international visitors. Get to them now before your competitor does.