When evaluating various metrics and tools for tracking social media, what should marketing and communications professionals look for?

First, know what you want to measure. The most complex tools in the world won't do you any good if they don't measure what your business needs to measure. So start with that.

Second, look for tools that simplify your job rather than complicate it. If you can find one tool that measures everything you want to measure, invest in it. The alternative may seem cheaper on the front end, but the amount of work required to manage several tools and a dozen separate data sets may end up costing you more in labor and headaches.

Continue reading "How to Measure Results from Social Media Ads, Efforts" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 20, 2009 at 8:26 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the under reported aspects of cell phone text messaging (SMS) and other forms of mobile marketing is that it is not a level playing field. The conventional wisdom is that younger people tend to use their cell phones more and be more receptive to receiving ads on them than older people. While that is certainly true, there are also significant socioeconomic and racial differences in usage.

One of the key reasons that Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in the primaries and then John McCain in the general election is that Obama had an extremely well thought out and integrated mobile marketing strategy. Clinton and McCain did not. Obama understood that it wasn't just the key demographic group Gen Y who used their cell phones more than the average eligible voter, but also the African-Americans and Hispanics. A year after the election, it is hard to remember that our first African-American president did not have the support of African-Americans early in the primaries. Clinton did. So Obama needed a way to reach and get out the vote amongst his supporters and part of that strategy was sending his message to the only device that we almost all carry around everywhere we go: cell phones.

Continue reading "Hispanics Respond to Cell Phone Ads 5-10 Times More Than On-line Ads" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 28, 2009 at 7:33 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 27, 2009 at 7:25 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Email marketing is regarded by many as the real killer application when it comes to social networking. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and the other so-called titans of social media have no where near the number of users and amount of usage as does email. It is amazing that in just a couple of decades, we've gone from a world where the vast majority could email only within their organizations or not at all to a world where we take email for granted.

Our biggest product by revenue for years has been targeted email campaigns. We typically deliver multiple campaigns a week and often a day on behalf of our employment and consumer marketing clients. That's not to say that every campaign is an incredible success. Some simply are destined to fail right from the beginning. When they do, it is usually do to one of four problems:

Continue reading "Four Tips for Reaching College Students Through Email Marketing" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 23, 2009 at 9:02 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) is finally acknowledging that many of their members market products, services, and other opportunities to businesses and consumers and that those advertising and other marketing campaigns should and now do fall under the purview of the DMA. No longer will members of the DMA be able to apply different standards to an ad campaign sent to the mobile phone of a consumer than to the same consumer's email address. That nonsensical "the same rules don't apply to difference devices" policy was used by a number of less ethical members of the DMA in order to circumvent the DMA's consumer protection policies. No more.

According to Direct Marketer, the five big highlights of the new rule are:

Continue reading "Cell Phone Text Messaging (SMS) Campaigns Watched by Direct Marketing Association" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 20, 2009 at 7:42 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Keith Luscher wrote an interested blog article about why it is better to have a smaller but more engaged group of Twitter followers than a larger but less engaged group of followers. Keith is great and I normally agree with his opinions, but on this one we diverge.

There are definitely two schools of thought on this issue and both have merit. One group follows Keith's opinion and emphasizes quality versus quantity when it comes to Twitter followers. They believe that the results they see from having a smaller but more engaged group of followers is greater than if they had a larger but less engaged group of followers. I respectfully disagree.

Continue reading "Why Quantity is Better Than Quality When It Comes to Twitter Followers" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 14, 2009 at 9:32 AM | Leave a Comment (2)

I first became interested in social media service / lifestyle Twitter about a year ago. I created an account without a clear vision for what it was, how I wanted to use it, or what were my goals. In short, I was like pretty much everyone else. It was interesting but no one really knew what it was and therefore how it should be used.

Over the past year, a couple of prominent camps have emerged. Some, like my friend Jim Stroud, believe that Twitter is best used as a niche marketing tool. Jim, with 6,600 followers, feels that it isn't about how many followers you have, but the quality of your followers. I've heard Jim say that having a lot of followers is worthless if no one is listening to you. To an extend, I agree but I favor the other approach.

Continue reading "Why Maximizing Your Twitter Followers is Important" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 2, 2009 at 10:23 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Our sales people are regularly asked by clients, especially ad agencies, for demographics on our site visitors. These buyers of advertising want to be sure that they'll be running their ads on a site that will help them reach their desired target market, whether that is college students, recent graduates, U.S. residents, or some other group.

But how do you get a rough idea of site demographics if they can't provide them to you, won't provide them to you, or you don't want to ask for them? Try sites such as Quantcast. Their methodology is somewhat flawed as they typically don't have access to the web site's server logs so at best all they can do is estimate the number and make-up of users to whatever site you're researching. Sites such as Quantcast typically do that by adding their tracking software to the computers of thousands of users. These users typically do so in return for being paid or provided some other type of incentive. That system ensures that they're not random and therefore not representative of the overall Internet population so you need to take the results with a grain of salt, but some information is usually better than no information.

Continue reading "Want Demographics? Try Quantcast." »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 28, 2009 at 7:33 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

I've got to admit: I've been thinking a lot recently about mobile web sites, cell phone text messaging, keywords, and other types of mobile marketing. CollegeRecruiter.com has been helping clients reach college students, recent graduates, and alumni through mobile marketing campaigns for several years now and we continue to see more and more interest from more and more clients. And as we accumulate more and more experience, we're starting to see some best practices develop.

Valista recommends the following for getting the most value out of each mobile campaign:

Continue reading "Best Practices for Mobile Marketing Campaigns" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 20, 2009 at 3:42 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

We've been selling mobile marketing ad campaigns for several years now, primarily cell phone text messaging campaigns to our database of 10 million college students, recent graduates, and alumni who have asked to receive such messages via email, text messages, or both. I've been astounded and pleased by the incredible growth of this industry and love seeing success stories for prominent brands. The latest is a mobile ad campaign for Adidas.

Adidas recently deployed a mobile advertising campaign to promote its Originals collection of vintage clothing, retro shoes, and urban wear. They blend designs from the 1970's and 1980's with contemporary sports styles.

Continue reading "Adidas Gains Traction Through Mobile Marketing Campaign" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 19, 2009 at 10:39 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

There are currently two primary legs to mobile marketing: push technologies such as cell phone text messaging (sms) and pull technologies such as web sites built specifically for mobile phones and keyword advertising. There are many, many other highly effective ways to use mobile marketing but, for most, these are the lowest of the low hanging fruit.

So why would I write that mobile marketing ad campaigns don't exist? Because any ad campaign which is confined to mobile technologies is doomed to fail. Barack Obama's mobile marketing strategy succeeded not because they made excellent use of mobile marketing technologies. They did, but Obama's strategy was successful because his people understood that his mobile marketing campaign had to be tightly woven into the fabric of his overall campaign. So the campaign encouraged those attending rallies to text three of their friends. They included their short code and trackable keywords on virtually all of their campaign materials. They were integrated and therefore they were successful.

Continue reading "Mobile Marketing Ad Campaigns Don't Exist" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 19, 2009 at 7:17 AM | Leave a Comment (0)