Pierre’s logs

"We've found most pharmaceutical advertisers have been sitting on the sidelines and asking us not to pitch social media in our programs," said Michael Keriakos, co-founder and president of Waterfront Media, parent of health portal Everyday Health.

He estimates that packaged goods companies are spending about 10% of budgets on social marketing initiatives, while pharmaceutical companies may devote less than 2%. Chris Schroeder, CEO of competing health site HealthCentral, agreed.

"We've had several advertisers who have and are experimenting here, but most are still being very cautious --'most' meaning the legal departments," he said. "I've not see folks rush to it yet, even with this statement, but we've been viewed as a 'safe' group that really works with them."

The search giant has started offering marketers ad units that stream their five most recent "tweets" across the Google AdSense network.

(If Google don't buy Twitter today, then it's Twitter that will eventually end up buying Google tomorrow !)

• Create SO GREAT products that they are worth to talk about
• If your product, company,... is not cool... offer great attractive content with it
• Don't sponsor the entertainment... Become THE entertainment
• Or let consumers to participate in creating your marketing - User Generated Media & crowdsourcing
• Provide a service to the community Viral Marketing : Make it easy for people to forward your message
• Buzz Marketing : Surprise your audience to grab its attention
• Digital Influence : Engage with opinion leaders...

(I have the strange impression that the user-centric shift that is dramatically empowering the people vs brands is already being bypassed by marketers, who advocate among consumers that they eventually are the real winners, back at the center of brands strategies, while they keep making huge amount of money by selling to brands 'innovative' 2.0 social strategies that purely consists of 'buying' online audience by seducing targeted influencial bloggers with privileges and 1$ goodies to secure positive word of mouth !...)

Success factors in mobile viral marketing

• Perceived usefulness by receipient
• Reward for communicator
• Perceived ease of use
• Free mobile viral content
• Initial contacts
• First mover's advantage
• Critical mass
• Scalability
  

1. Stronger relationships with customers will improve loyalty.

2. An online community will increase Search Engine Optimisation thus driving more traffic to your website. It will also increase the proportion of positive consumer comments online.

3. Your online community will provide a better understanding of customer needs and a platform for immediate customer feedback on new ideas and services.

4. Online communities build and amplify positive word-of-mouth, advocacy and PR.

5. An ongoing dialogue will help keep customers at the heart of the business.