I’ve had the good fortune to write thousands and thousands of words for ClickZ and other publications about digital advertising. I’ve been doing it so long that I’ve seen the entire space move from media fad to force. Now I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to write a monthly strategy column for ClickZ. In agreeing to do this I had a very specific objective in mind. My goal for this column is to discuss and debate the meanings behind some of the words used to define the space we inhabit in advertising.

So, here’s how this will work. Every month I’ll give you my take on defining a single word that has significant impact. If you have read some of my previous work, you already know I rely heavily on pop culture and sports references to make my point and this will be no different.

We occupy a fascinating space where “pictures are worth a thousand words” (or a billion dollars if you are Instagram) and “actions speak louder than words,” yet words are our tool of the trade more often than not. Words inspire and motivate, they can harm and hurt, and they can take on different meanings depending on context. Take the word, “word,” for example.

Merriam-Webster lists no less than eight different uses where the application in sequence changes the meaning of “word” from its root meaning to information or confrontational and other things in between. Brands have built iconic status on words. In some cases taking ordinary words and transforming them into something extraordinary.

“Just Do It.”

“Breakfast of Champions.”

“M’m! M’m! Good!”

I’d guess almost everyone recognizes those slogans from Nike, Wheaties, and Campbell’s. Consider for a second the power of words. Campbell’s defined its brand by building an association off an emotional and positive visceral reaction to interaction with its brand. In fact, the company uses sounds married to a single word, “good,” to define itself.

So, while we all get seduced by 30-second commercials, rely heavily on display ads, and now embrace native advertising as well as social, let us not forget that our ability to select the right words at the right time will have as much impact as anything else we do. This is true not only in the work put into market but the interactions with employees and everyone else. In an increasingly limited bandwidth world where social media and mobile communication encourages fewer and fewer characters, our judicious use of words becomes all the more critical.

As Socrates once said, “The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.”

Or put into the modern day poet Christopher Wallace’s words, “Biggie, Biggie, Biggie, can’t you see. Sometimes your words just hypnotize me.”

My hope is this becomes interactive. What words do you think we should discuss and define? Post your comments on the ClickZ site or send a tweet to @C2Next.

TV has a new love—that little blue Twitter bird. And like any new infatuation, the promise of what’s to come is almost too good to be true.

Most recently, the Grammys became #Grammys. Host LL Cool J (@llcoolj), when not busy doing bicep curls off stage, spent most of the evening hyping the “Hashtaggrammys.” At one point, Beverly Jackson (@bevjack), senior director of marketing/social media for the Grammys, tweeted that they were averaging more than 200,000 tweets per minute. The only thing CBS didn’t do in promoting its Twitter social connection was put a hashtag on Carrie Underwood’s dress. She’s @carrieunderwood, by the way.

On the heels of Nielsen and Twitter announcing a Twitter TV rating system and the social giant’s acquisition of TV social monitor Bluefin Labs, it is clear that 2013 will be the year social TV makes its first full-on run at becoming mainstream.

Exactly what that thing will be is still unclear. For social TV to be meaningful to advertisers and TV viewers alike, a few pieces of the puzzle have to be put into place. For one, we need to find a way to make tweeting work for live episodic TV as well as it does for event TV.

Massive watercooler moments like the Super Bowl, the Oscars or even the presidential elections are ideal for social TV. Recent Trendrr Social TV data found that eight of the 10 most popular cable shows were reality/sports content. For the Grammys, the E! Network’s pre-event red carpet show drew as many social TV mentions as The Simpsons, the longest running scripted show on network TV. Scale is a must for marketers, but it’s not there yet for social TV during the average drama or sitcom (with the exception maybe of The Walking Dead; the AMC show’s season premiere did 10 times the social media traffic of The Simpsons on Fox).

We also need to find a way to get hashtag TV out of its own echo chamber and apply some filtering to Twitter. During the Grammys telecast, LL Cool J joked about being backstage trying to keep up with all the tweets being posted. Since the volume of tweets (at 200,000 per minute) would be the equivalent of a full-length novel every hour, I’m guessing no one read every single comment made about the show. This challenge is not only for celebrity award show hosts but also all Twitter users.

This is a big, long-term problem for the social site. If you can’t keep up with the chatter, you have a skewed noise-to-sound ratio. Your network may or may not be made of valuable communicators on a given topic, but without real-time curation by Twitter or another source, you are left with a less than stellar experience. Twitter is reportedly working on this, but it remains to be seen how Twitter’s determination of relevancy impacts individual users. For the time being, it’s too easy to miss entire conversations or be exposed to tweets that fail to paint a complete picture.

The other big hurdle facing social TV is the “where does it happen” factor. The single biggest variable in determining just how real social TV will be in 2013 is the technology experience. GetGlue, Viggle and IntoNow, among others, want to be the de facto destinations for TV viewers who are using a second screen to enhance the first.

At the same time, Twitter is searching for ways to keep people on its own platform to own its combined experience. Other players, from TV manufacturers to console systems, will want in on this as well. The ad dollars flow through this end of the pipe, so there will be a battle to see who can put metrics and scale against the destination. Today, everyone is willing to go to multiple sources and buy inventory, and Twitter continues to increase price based on its clubhouse lead at the moment.

Not every TV show is appointment viewing, and it’s safe to assume that not every show will be hashtag TV. But, as deal flow and content production better align with the social opportunity, social TV is going to explode. Whether that happens in 2013 or beyond is difficult to forecast.

The resolutions to make social work for live TV, balancing noise and sound on Twitter, and owning the platform from which social TV originates will determine if this becomes “The Year of…” or if it simply lacks the clarity to make a breakthrough.

“I wanna be like you, I wanna talk like you” – King Louie, “The Jungle Book” (Disney version, of course)

Social search. It’s become the buzziest of buzz words in the search space over the past 12-18 months. Google+, Facebook’s Graph Search, and a host of other companies and signals of consumer data utilized for rankings have made this the hottest topic for discussion of where search is going.

That said, social search is still a bit of a mystery — not for what it seemingly is in the minds of the search industry, but for what consumers want from it and whether those perceived benefits will ever be realized. Facebook obviously believes that associating you with friends that have common engagements is of great benefit. Google seemingly agrees through the advent of Google+, but is refining that approach to suit a very Google-like approach that suggests it is less about friends and more about select experts in given topics as defined by usage of circles.

Home is a downloadable application for Android devices, which transforms the operating system to integrate Facebook into the look and functions of the device. Instead of Facebook’s current app, which opens and closes at the user’s request, Home is an always-on application – a clever, almost devious strategy, co-opting devices instead of creating their own.

Main features to get familiar with: Cover Feed and Chat Heads

Impact for Apple and Google
For now and the foreseeable future, Facebook Home will only be available on Android devices. In an interview with Wired magazine, Mark Zuckerberg summarized the challenge of bringing Home to iPhones:

“We have a pretty good partnership with Apple, but they want to own the whole experience themselves. There aren’t a lot of bridges between us and Google, but we are aligned with their open philosophy… Of course, a lot of people also love iPhones — I love mine, and I would like to be able to deliver Facebook Home there as well.”

Zuckerberg predicts that the availability of Home will help sell more Android devices. That type of market pressure is only reason that Apple would change their stance and allow an operating system-altering application such as Home. For Google, if Home boosts the sales of Android devices, that means increased use of its services such as search and maps. However, it could mean usage of Gmail and Google+ could drop on Home-enabled devices.

A Home for Ads, too?
The advertising implications are hazy – Facebook has neither confirmed nor denied if ads of any kind will be a part of Home. If ads are integrated, it could be a powerful platform for marketers. Using location data, a brand could deliver ads to users on their lock screen when they are close to a store, or potentially target users based on data from usage on their other apps.
There are two major roadblocks for ad integration on Home. First, Google restricts monetization on apps sold through Google Play. Facebook could skirt Play by creating its own app store, similar to Amazon’s, but that is a can of worms Facebook will likely avoid opening.
The second roadblock is potentially bigger. How many advertisements will users tolerate on their lock screen and home screen? On Facebook.com and the current Facebook app, users are exposed to ads, but it is seen as the cost of doing business in exchange for a free service. Home changes the equation. Will users tolerate Facebook ads when they are not engaging with Facebook? In all likelihood, Facebook will not launch ads with Home for quite a while.
Even if ads are never a part of Facebook Home, the data which Facebook captures from Home users will almost certainly be used to target Facebook ads on its website and on the traditional app.

The SuperApp Litmus Test
Zuckerberg has stated one of the reasons Facebook did not pursue creating a device is because it would limit scale. Home will only be a success if a significant portion of Facebook users adopt it. If Home is a success, it is not hard to imagine more functions being added and its expansion to more devices. Facebook already has a tablet version of Home to be released later this year.
Ultimately, Home’s success will depend on how much control users are willing to give to a company. Home is essentially Facebook asking users to give up their control of the “on/off button” in exchange for a better user experience. It is a large-scale litmus test for this new type of relationship, one that will have far-reaching effects on the future of digital interfaces:

» If Facebook Home is successful, a wave of always-on SuperApps will surely follow, and not all of them would have to have a billion-person user base in order to be successful. Twitter could create a similar interface with always-on timelines, Amazon could have a stream of Gold Box deals for your lock screen, or ESPN could create an immersive sports experience.
» If Facebook Home flops, it will send a signal to the market which will make other companies hesitant to develop anything similar for their brand.

For these reasons, Facebook Home will be fascinating to watch over the next 12 months. Home could be a game changer in mobile applications or a case study in overestimating brand loyalty in the same vein as New Coke.

Today, Twitter announced a significant enhancement to its Promoted Tweets that lets consumers make the first move. “Keyword targeting in timeline” allows brands to show ads to users who have tweeted or interacted with a tweet containing specific words and phrases. Advertisers get the best of paid search within a social platform. Now, brands can let consumers make the first move, responding to interest instead of pushing ads to an audience.

How keyword targeting will operate

The process works similar to paid search. Advertisers create a keyword list, set a bid, and when a user tweets using words that match something in the keyword list, they are served an ad. Slightly different from search, the user is not served the ad immediately; instead, it will show up in the user’s timeline within the next several minutes.

For example, Bob sends a tweet about looking for a new computer. If Dell has the words “new computer” in its keyword list, the next time Bob refreshes his timeline he gets served a Promoted Tweet from Dell. Further, if Bob does not send a tweet, but instead interacts (replies, favorites or retweets) with someone else’s tweet that references a “new computer,” he could also be served a Dell Promoted Tweet.

Finally, a breakthrough for Promoted Tweets?

The success of Twitter, much like Facebook, Google, and other free sites, is ultimately tied to its ability to monetize. At this point, Promoted Tweets have not been a roaring success. EMarketer estimates Twitter’s advertising revenue at about $500 million in 2013, a far cry from Facebook’s estimated $2.75 billion. Facebook has far more users, of course, but the point remains – Twitter needs Promoted Tweets to take off.

Keyword targeting in timeline is the innovation that will potentially push Promoted Tweets over the hump. Performance remains to be seen, but, in theory, keyword targeting will be a large boost to the efficiency of Promoted Tweets. Twitter is now a “pull marketing” platform where the user first expresses intent.

Maybe most exciting, marketers can still make use of three targeting options – location, device and gender – in conjunction with keyword targeting. This means that a swimwear maker can target girls in Miami on their mobile device who are currently tweeting about looking for a swimsuit. That level of relevance is an opportunity worth exploring, particularly for brick and mortar stores looking to reach mobile devices nearby.

Social media marketers have actually been keyword targeting for years because it works so well. However, it was a manual process that was labor intensive and slow. Twitter’s enhancement allows for scale and speed. It will allow marketers to have larger keyword lists and to serve ads to users within minutes of their tweet.

Match types are a concern at launch

Twitter will launch keyword targeting with two types of keyword matching:

»      Phrase Targeting – A series of words in the exact order, with no words in between. For example, for the phrase “new computer,” matching tweets would have to contain that exact phrase; same words, same order, no words in between.

»      Unordered Match – A series of words that appear in any order, with words in between. For example, a tweet containing “I need a computer, new or used,” would still match to the phrase “new computer.”

Those targeting options are not nearly as robust as Google or Bing, but they are a good first step. Twitter will offer some keyword tools at launch to help marketers with word tenses and plurals. Also, bulk keyword management is supported immediately. Users of Buddy Media and SHIFT will see the changes incorporated into both technologies within the week.

The biggest issue with match types is the lack of negative keywords. In SEM, negative keywords keep brands from wasting spend on irrelevant queries or being associated with unfavorable keywords. In social, there is an additional use: sentiment. Twitter will use an algorithm to help identify negative sentiment within a tweet, but language interpretation can be extremely hard for an algorithm, particularly when hashtags are involved. It is easy to see how an algorithm could miss the nuance of a tweet such as: “Can’t wait to eat at McDonald’s again! #notreally #neveragain.”

The algorithm is sure to improve over time, but brands concerned about serving ads to users with negative sentiment may not want to be early adopters of keyword targeting (or at least have a contingency plan to be prepared for backlash). The addition of negative keywords should help to ease these concerns, but there may never be a 100% accurate sentiment solution.

SEM and Social are a winning combination

Even with concerns about match types taken into account, keyword targeting in timeline is a win for marketers, and thus, for Twitter. The reason paid search has been such a successful platform for Google is the user expresses interest first. On top of that, Twitter’s targeting options trump Google’s. Particularly for brands which skew heavily towards one gender, or those looking for a specific device/location combination, Twitter just became a much more attractive marketing platform.

By now, everyone in the search marketing industry has read either the full study recently conducted by eBay about search, or has at least seen some of the coverage of the report. For those too busy focusing on transitioning to Google’s Enhanced Campaigns, the highlights are this:

• eBay conducted a study that found that for its own brand terms, paid search was ineffective and a negative cost versus simply relying on organic queries alone.
• Further, eBay found that on generic terms, the value was questionable at best.

This research has garnered mainstream coverage in the trades, leading more than a few C-suite executives to question their own investments with Google. And for that I say, “Thanks, eBay.”

Just as the idiom goes that no publicity is bad publicity, so should it go that no questioning of media value is a bad question. For years we have worked with brands to measure the influence of paid and organic search in tandem and isolation. We’ve measured paid and organic versus TV, social media, and all other forms of digital media. It’s what you have to do in this interconnected consumer world.

So, I applaud eBay for doing the work and determining that for its brand search doesn’t hold the value. But, take a moment and name the largest competitor to the following companies: Coke, Apple, Nike, Ford, and eBay. I bet the first four were much easier to answer than eBay. In fact, you could make the case that there’s only one eBay and it fulfills a very unique space with minimal direct competition.

Which is one way of pointing out that while search may not work for eBay, it’s also not struggling to achieve digital shelf space on Google or any other search engine. The biggest point of contention for eBay was around branded terms. Anyone in this space knows that branded terms for a well-known company with minimal competition represent a small fraction of total search investment, likely as CPCs in the pennies, not dollars. So, while eBay has started a public discussion of the value of search, it’s very difficult to suggest many brands could take the same approach. One of the most underrepresented facets of paid buying, even with strong organic placement, is the competitive click share prevented by presence. Since eBay does not run the threat of this, organic can do more lifting with minimal repercussions.

It’s obvious that eBay uses search in the purest form: direct response, down funnel conversion. Brand building is not part of the equation, and as such, every word has a value. And when the cost exceeds the return, it ceases to be of interest. In that, I wholeheartedly agree with eBay. While eBay has suggested it is swearing off branded keyword buys, it’s still active on PLAs and with non-brand keyword buys.

Here’s the thing. Search works, but only if, as a brand, you know what it’s worth to you. Too often brands allow outside influences (competitors, corporate vanity of presence, top-line revenue) to shape their buying strategy. Just as damaging is taking what eBay has published as anything more than one unique company taking a curious public position around corporate buying choices. It’s not dissimilar from GM’s declaration of Facebook failing it.

Brands need to understand what search is worth to them. Accepting this study as gospel is no more palatable than accepting the long-standing Google view that if it’s delivering, you should just keep writing checks. There’s a proper brand point of investment in search for any company, just like any other media channel.

The truth is it doesn’t really matter if eBay is right for anyone but eBay. Whether eBay is an anomaly or spot-on is far less important than knowing: What is your paid search value point? And are you constantly evolving your measurement to ensure you know the worth at all times?

Unlike many recent announcements from Facebook that focused more on new ad products and infrastructure, the March  event showcased News Feed improvements which are intended to greatly enhance the user experience. While this “upgrade” is certainly consumer-centric news, it’s obvious that brands and marketers will benefit as well.

Key Takeaways:

» Content is still king

o With much larger images and greater use of onscreen real estate, Facebook aims to deliver a cleaner, richer and more immersive content experience. Storytelling on the platform could become more interesting for brands. This shift signals a continuation of the growing role that content creation plays in the social marketer’s responsibility set.

» Greater choice for consumers

o Users will now be able to filter content into feeds based on photos, music, friends, games, video and more. The various feeds provide more opportunities for users to discover content. Meanwhile, marketers can refine engagement and optimization tactics based on specific types of content. Adoption of this functionality could have a great impact on a brand’s reach. If there is abundant adoption of pages besides those of brands and public figures (i.e. 70% adoption of friends-only feeds), the importance of fan engagement will increase. This could make it more essential than ever for brands to have connections that will be seen by others in “friends only” filtered views.

» EdgeRank implications

o As of now, there will be no change in how the algorithm surfaces content within each feed. However, the fundamental ability to now segment content could diminish the algorithm’s impact on what we see, compared to the existing version of the News Feed.

» Continuity of experience

o Facebook has adopted a mobile-inspired user interface that will now be the same across all screens/devices. Brands can design and plan with a single interface in mind as opposed to separate desktop and mobile ideation. Time will tell the true effect related to mobile advertising.

» Video

o The expansion in options for how users can engage with video content is exciting news for marketers. Third-party video providers will now be allowed to have “equal footing” on the platform.

» Staggered, slower roll out of changes

o Facebook continues to demonstrate its willingness to listen to and embrace user feedback, often applying the insights gleaned to new products and platform updates. Expect the latest changes to come more gradually, over a longer rollout period.

Strategic Implications:

» Content creation; be it in real-time or programmatic is growing in importance. These moves further increase the imperative for brands to devise proper strategies against this ongoing shift.

» These News Feed changes also lend more credence to the integration of community managers and those who manage the paid social budgets. Brand demand for tighter integration should lead to stronger collaboration and more effective allocation of community resources and paid dollars to amplify experiences that will enhance story telling capabilities.

You can sign up to join the waitlist for the new design here.

Our whitepaper about this research details behaviors and factors that influence shoppers who price compare online while shopping in-store, and explores:

• The combination of variables that factor into a consumer’s decision to purchase online rather than in-store
• Demographic and behavioral traits that help identify shoppers who are likely to engage in showrooming – and how brands can capture this influential customer
• Differences in behavior between consumers in the United States and Canada

Read the report, below:

Retail Showrooming In Canada – A report from GroupM Next and Catalyst by GroupM_Next

Facebook has been making significant improvements to its technology stack over the last few years. In Q2 2012, it launched a program called Facebook Exchange (FBX), which granted programmatic capabilities to select proven partners. More recently, the company launched Graph Search in an attempt to expand its platform capabilities beyond social connectors. With Atlas, purchased from Microsoft, Facebook is further expanding its position as a robust connector of digital platforms.

Atlas’ proprietary ecosystem focuses on digital media ad serving, reporting, targeting, workflow and dashboarding. It leverages partnerships for those functions it hasn’t directly developed, such as search, mobile and gaming ad serving. Conversely, DoubleClick focuses on building a single integrated stack. Atlas’ partnership approach may mean that it will have an easier time with its integration into Facebook.

With this investment, Facebook will gain significant capabilities and reach outside its own social infrastructure.  There has been speculation that Facebook intends to develop an off-deck network capability with the Atlas acquisition. While this is a valuable component, it is the advanced data and targeting that Atlas brings to the table combined with unparalleled social and soon to be search data of Facebook that gives this acquisition its greatest potential impact.

On the reporting front, Atlas will provide Facebook with data pass-back capabilities, including cookie level reports with interaction and conversion data. Engagement mapping will also provide a way of applying different conversion attribution models to an action tag that takes into account a cookie’s total ad exposure when assigning credit for a conversion. Combining the reporting system for Atlas and Facebook data into one may provide powerful creative optimization reports for all assets, including combined reach and frequency, time, geo, daypart and keyword path analysis.

Atlas will bring new targeting capabilities to Facebook including behavioral, IP and A/B testing, as well as targeting including geo, segments, system data, Windows Live ID and custom segmentations. Facebook will need to tread as carefully as Microsoft has on ensuring customer privacy is a top priority.

Overall, the purchase of Atlas by Facebook is exciting.  Atlas needs a renewed sense of technology vision and investment in order to compete with DoubleClick and MediaMind. If Facebook invests in elevating Atlas in mobile, video, search and gaming, and integrates its own social data into the ecosystem, it will succeed in making Atlas a viable alternative for marketers.