Archive for May, 2011
Give us today our daily Bre.ad
Mashable recently published a post regarding the URL-shortening tool Bre.ad. Bre.ad automatically links a created (shortened) URL to a “toast” page which is customizable by the creator. The toast is displayed for five seconds before the viewer is redirected to the intended website.
For example: if we at Word-of-Mouth Newsletter wanted to link to the article on Mashable.com, we could do so via a toast page promoting something entirely different, let’s say our Twitter account. For a more comprehensive and visual description of how it works, read Mashable’s post here.
The obvious question that arises is of course: will Bre.ad turn out to be a useful and innovative marketing tool, or just a new way of bombarding internet users with unwanted ads?
Here at womnewsletter.com, we’re not just fans of social media solutions, but also of initiatives promoting democracy, debate and freedom of speech. Luckily enough for us, YouTube is launching a feature that encompasses both of these! YouTube Town Hall matches members of the American Congress for debates on all kinds of topics, ranging from international issues such as the US involvement in conflict abroad to national healthcare.
Although we’re still waiting for a similar initiative to hit Europe, we encourage you to take a look at the US debates here.
A few days ago Mashable published a Q&A with Geoff Cottrill, chief marketing officer for Converse, in which he revealed the brand’s strategy for communication via social media: acting like a good party guest (or host, depending on the channel and role). According to Cottrill it’s all about bringing something to the table and knowing how to engage in relevant and interesting conversation with your target audience.
“We think that the fans of any brand want to know about product and like offers too, but they also want to have an emotional connection -– we’re trying to be a good host for that connection.” – Geoff Cottrill
Can this allegory of social media as a party to which each guest brings their own topics of conversation and experiences, be used by marketers to further understand the possibilities and hurdles of social media- and Word-of-Mouth marketing? Time will tell.
Never has the expression “A picture is worth a thousand words” been more fitting when discussing news media: in the image shown below (or rather, on the site it links to – click here to go there), the german newspaper Berliner Morgenpost enhances their readers’ experience by tagging the image with links and brief descriptions. The tags in this particular linked image are in german, but even those of us who don’t speak the language will get the gist of it.
Note how the image is easily shared via Twitter, Facebook or e-mail. It quite likely that we’ll be seeing more and more of this type of reader services in the future.