Thursday, December 16, 2010

Position2 Newsletter: December 2010

Content Overload - the Challenge for Companies Monitoring Social Media 

Finding ways to handle the deluge of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube conversations circulating on your brand is a challenge. To fully understand this, the Brand Monitor™ team at Position² analyzed social media conversations on Amazon, Best Buy, Dell, eBay, and Walmart®. Here's what we found.
Click here to read this articleUnderstanding the Online Sales Cycle Using Google Analytics 

The Holy Grail of Web Analytics: an online sales cycle deep dive, tracked through Google Analytics, reports the impact of PPC and organic search. This includes interesting data points on the time taken to convert visitors, depending on your website entry path.
Click here to read this articleAirtel Brand Revamp: Social Media Response 

The largest telecom service brand in India, Airtel, launched a much-hyped $65 million revamp of its brand identity. Right after the launch, Airtel social media conversations increased drastically. Read on for a detailed analysis of how they fared.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Futurewatch Series - 1

Well, they say it all started with barter. Where one man's produce was another's need. I made shoes, you made food - lets' exchange. Then it extended to a local community. Then appeared currency. Travel made it possible to expand your market. Then competition created advertising.
Ad for Coca-Cola, 1890s

 Advertising & marketing became an integral part of a business - as it had to identify customers to buy its product at the right price at the right time - this is important, if there was no constraint on price or time, a business could hypothetically wait for all inventory to sell on its own,  a.k.a monopolies!

And now, the internet's happening. Suddenly - every business has a market, distance does not matter. Technically all of what a business produces will find a buyer - somewhere - made easy by the internet


Do we still need advertising & marketing. We just need production and distribution. Ah yes - perhaps a few decades out - so we are safe

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Quick thoughts: Google Instant

My initial thoughts - Google Instant does not make sense. Google suggest was perfect, as it led people to potential search terms.

For those people who havent read about it, Google has launched a new service called Google Instant - where  search results start popping up as the user types in their search terms. This is an extension of Suggest - where the search box, suggested keywords based on what users typed.


Use case 1. Type "a", and you will get Amazon, and you could be searching for any keyword that begins with a.

Problem for user: Hey,  this is not what I want, do not disturb me as I type!
Problem for advertiser: Amazon ads will be shown to all people who search for a term that starts in "a". That's an exponential increase in impressions - wasted impressions. lower CTR, lower quality score.

And then, I may be completely wrong - only time will tell. :)

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Measuring advertising effectiveness using social media

Offline advertising that is...

If they like it they will talk about it. If they hate it, they will. Conversations are happening in social media. read what people are saying about your ads, products and marketing.

Well, you say, we had panels and research. But werent you aware of research bias. when you can silently listen in, why not?

You could do Google alerts. Or then there are platforms like Radian 6, Trackur, and Position2 Brand Monitor...among many

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

New Year, New Name, Same old thinking head

Today is Vishu, celebrated as the beginning of a new year across the south Indian state of Kerala, where I come from.

I am thrilled to start with a new name and focus for my blog. I have been writing here since 2007, but, as you can see, not too many posts to brag about.

I've been part of the digital marketing industry since pretty much the beginning. Being an engineer, with a flair for creative thinking, it cannot get any better! Though I have been based out of India, this industry is truly global, and except for the initial years when we started Webshastra (now Position2), most of our clients were global.

Advertising, for me, is losing its worth. The means as becoming an end. People do ads to win awards! Clients boasted about their advertising spends, media even awarded top advertisers. Think about it, getting an award for spending more?

As part of the change in name, I intend to focus my blog to share more experiences from my work, clients, and my thoughts in this amazing art (+science) of digital advertising.

Enjoy! and please do share your views. We may not agree, but a POV is a POV

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Google like ads on Twitter?


I just read through an article on this at All Things Digital.

Reminded me of the way people try to fit in existing familiar models, to try and predict how new systems would work. Greek? well, when the 'talking movie' was introduced, few believed that it could replace silent movies!

Here is an interesting excerpt:
All of this changed in 1926 when Warner Brothers, in conjunction with Western Electric, introduced a new sound-on-disc system. In this system, sound effects and music were recorded on a wax record that would later be synchronized with the film projector. In order to exhibit this new technology, Warner Brothers released "Don Juan", the first motion picture to have a pre-recorded score and synchronized sound effects. Although "Don Juan" proved to be a box-office hit, many movie studios still refused to adapt to talking picture technology, believeing that "talkies" would never replace silent pictures. (More here)

The point I wanted to make was, Twitter needs to find a model, based on how it functions, and that definitely is not like Google. I did post a comment there, and the same is reproduced here.

We are dealing with 2 highly different systems. While Google is more an entry point for people searching for content. Twitter is more of a system to help people follow folks who they percieve as experts, and be in the know.

In Google, the ad serves a purpose, so it is successful. In Twitter, an ad like Google is anything but a distraction.

Having said that, the best thing Twitter can leverage is fan following. Sort of like endorsements in the real world. People with the highest following, can be contacted to promote products - essentially endorse them.

Is it unethical? Not really. Celebrities do endorse products.

Watch this space...

Cheers, Vinod

Position2 Newsletter: Issue 2, March 2010


Heres' our second issue. And along with the link, here is a summary on what to expect. Happy reading!

In This Issue:

Position2 Newsletter: Issue 1, Feb 2010


Happy to present the first issue of our in-house newsletter. We have had many knowledge sharing initiatives in the past - these included events like Search Engine Marketing round-tables that we organized in the US, Mumbai, Bangalore and Singapore.


This one came out in February, and I will be posting them here on a regular basis. I will post the second issue for March, right here in a while.

If you want to get it on a regular basis, you could sign-up at our website (www.position2.com)

Happy reading!

Vinod