One of the best ways to measure a company’s Twitter presence is to take an inventory of its followers. With that being said, companies and individuals put an extraordinary emphasis on obtaining as many followers as possible, and with good reason. It may seem like a popularity contest, but more followers means that more people are seeing the messaging of that company or individual and ultimately raising the visibility of that brand or person.

It’s so important that some people will do anything they can to increase their followers. But there is a right and wrong way to attract followers. Politicians have taken to Twitter to spread their campaign messages (some have ulterior motives, but we won’t name names in this blog). In the early stages of the GOP nomination process, Newt Gingrich boasted that he had 1,325,842 followers, whereas Mitt Romney and Michele Bachman have not even cracked the 100,000 mark. However, it was later learned that more than 80 percent of Gingrich’s followers were dummy accounts and were obtained by an agency that is paid to bolster Twitter followers for a fee http://gawker.com/5826645. As you can see, this is the wrong way to attract Twitter followers.

There are numerous ways to legitimately increase followers. Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.com, discusses 10 ways to increase followers in the following TechCrunch article: http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/25/kevin-rose-10-ways-to-increase-your-twitter-followers/. Here is one excerpt that specifically caught my eye:

“Start a contest. @jasoncalacanis offered a free macbook air if he reached the #1 most followed spot. That never happened, but Jason added thousands of followers…brilliant.”

Domus has developed and implemented numerous Twitter contests for its clients. A recent Dacor contest included various product giveaways and successfully increased the company’s followers from under 700 to 3,366.

The most important aspect of attracting followers is that a company’s Tweets should fulfill some need. Dacor’s Twitter feed is populated by useful information regarding the company’s products, money-saving deals, recipes and the occasional contest/giveaway. Contact Domus to learn more about our Twitter strategies and how we can help your company.

Greg Smore is a Senior Account Manager at Domus, Inc., a marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, visit http://www.domusinc.com. For new business inquiries, please contact CEO and founder of Domus, Inc. Betty Tuppeny at betty.tuppeny@domusinc.com or 215-772-2805.

In the era of Facebook and Twitter, has “engagement” with consumers been redefined as simply social media contact? Communicating effectively in a one-on-one manner with existing customers and the new generation of customers has become even more important in light of the bombardment of digital and traditional advertising messages. 

Experiential marketing, especially one-on-one interaction with customers, can create a branded and memorable experience to help strengthen your marketing campaign. This experiential marketing has the ability to appeal to all five senses, giving customers the opportunity to engage personally with your products and your brand. According to a recent online survey of 2,574 consumers ages 13-65, in the top 25 U.S. markets, the results confirm that this increasingly important marketing medium resonates strongly across demographics and product categories. In fact, 72% of 18- to 23-year-old consumers say experiential marketing would make them more receptive to the brand/product advertising; 59% say it would lead to a quicker purchase.

This study also indicated that live marketing experiences were shown to be a valuable way to increase marketing ROI:  75% of consumers say that participating in a live marketing experience would make them more receptive to the product/brand’s advertising; 75% of consumers said they would be extremely likely to tell others after participating in a live marketing event, extending impact through word-of-mouth.

Domus has had great success with live marketing experiences for the Pennsylvania Lottery to help launch its new instant ticket games. Each event utilized a creative overlay that reinforced the traditional advertising program of television, radio, print and outdoor. The theme was brought to life through a state-wide bus tour including live activities with audience participation, street teams, signage and ticket giveaways. Each tour garnered pre- and post-event press coverage as well as a multitude of attendees. The results? Another record-breaking year of ticket sales for the Pennsylvania Lottery!

Joanne Michael is an Executive Vice President at Domus, Inc., a marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, visit http://www.domusinc.com. For new business inquiries, please contact CEO and founder of Domus, Inc. Betty Tuppeny at betty.tuppeny@domusinc.com or 215-772-2805

Google has been consistent in its efforts to be a contender in the social media race. Their major efforts include the development of Orkut (you must be thinking what’s that – read on!), Google wave (was a hype once), the release of Google Buzz (remember that???), and now Google+ (Google Plus). With the outrageous popularity of Facebook and Twitter, Google clearly does not want to be left behind in this domain and has therefore upped its efforts and investments to be a key player in social media.

In 2003, Google offered to purchase the social network Friendster, but they declined the offer. Google then internally commissioned Orkut Büyükkökten to work on a competing independent project. The result was Orkut. The product launched on January 24, 2004, which was 9 days before the launch of Facebook, which now boasts nearly 750 million users (as per Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement on July 6, 2011) . Orkut.com initially had its largest user base in the United States, but that soon changed with the site being noticed in Brazil (later in 2004) and then in India (in 2006-2007). The site became highly popular in these countries but unfortunately failed to create a buzz anywhere else.

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Google’s Nexus One phone was an interesting marketing experiment – introduce a new, self-branded phone that Google sold directly, not through the wireless carriers. Unfortunately, sales never reached high enough targets and this week Google announced that it has ended production of the phone (through its manufacturing partner, HTC) and is closing its web store.

The questions of why the phone failed and even whether the phone failed are even more interesting, though. We’ll never know for sure, but here are some thoughts.

First, assuming the phone did fail (which we’ll come back to later), one possible reason is that Google did not pay enough attention to its four marketing Ps – product, price, promotion, and place (distribution). Let’s assume that the phone itself was good, so that leaves the other Ps.

First let’s look at the distribution channel (place). Cell phones – more than most other products – are inextricably entwined with their service provider, so attempting to bypass the service provider was already a daunting gamble by Google. Even Apple, which garnered enough interest in its phone independent of the network, still chose a service provider with whom to partner.

The cell phone distribution channel is especially important because of the marketing effort that the service providers put into their phones. First, there’s the next P, price. As everyone knows, you can always get phones for less than the retail price when you buy from the wireless carrier (as long as you accept the two-year commitment). So why buy outside of the wireless carrier? We’ve all been conditioned to think that way.

And finally, let’s consider the last P, promotion. Google didn’t just introduce a branded phone. More importantly, it also introduced a phone operating system (Android) that it hoped to induce others to use in their phones. One of those manufacturers who immediately decided to do so was Motorola. They, in conjunction with Verizon (as opposed to Google’s approach of going it alone), launched a huge advertising campaign for the new Droid phone (“Droid Does”) at the same time that Google started selling its Nexus One. With Verizon’s massive marketing push, everyone knew about Droid, everyone got a good price for Droid, and everyone associated the name, “Droid”, with “Android”. Where did that leave Nexus One? Apparently nowhere.

However, all of the above was based on the assumption that Google did fail with the Nexus One. What if, though, the primary purpose of the Nexus One was to generate enough buzz about the Android operating system to propel all Android-based phones (i.e., Google-based phones) to mainstream success? Once the buzz did its work, the Nexus could happily be retired. In that sense, maybe the Nexus One was an outstanding success. Android-based phones are quickly challening the iPhone for smartphone market share. Google never was in the physical product business anyway.

Domus, Inc. is a marketing communications agency specializing in integrating the digital and social media worlds with classic marketing principles to deliver high returns on investment for our clients. For more information, please visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

December, 2009 was the month that Google’s Chrome finally passed Apple’s Safari in the browser market share wars. (See Browser Market Share.) From a marketer’s perspective, one thing should immediately be added to everyone’s to-do list this January. If you’ve been paying less attention to Chrome than the other browsers when testing your web sites, it’s time to change that. Chrome is not only here to stay – Google is on a roll and will continue to push its market share upward.

So, download Chrome and start testing.

Domus is a full-service advertising, PR, and social media marketing agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

From one perspective, 2009 was a difficult year for Microsoft. It lost overall market share in the browser wars, MS-Office was being challenged by Google Docs, and Windows Vista was still being attacked by users and especially Apple. Overall, it missed its profitability targets and it was forced to do some cost-cutting (read: layoffs). Many have been saying that Microsoft has started its decline.

However, another way to look at 2009 is to look at the company’s actions in response to the changing marketplace. The most successful companies are not always the ones who lead the innovative charge, but the ones who keep building on their own and others’ innovations, responding one step at a time to consumers’ desires. Microsoft, in fact, is famous for this – most of their major products became industry leaders only after four or five generations of updates.

So how has Microsoft responded to the competition and marketplace in 2009? The list is pretty impressive. On the legal front, Microsoft successfully got the European Union to stop bullying it (for now) – it just dropped its antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. On the product front, Microsoft introduced new versions of Silverlight, a new HD Zune player, a new version of Internet Explorer, a completely revamped search engine (Bing) with a continuing stream of new features, a Bing App for the iPhone, and its Surface computing hardware. On the partnership front, Micrsoft signed significant deals with MySpace and Yahoo, and it launched a significant WebSpark program for small developers. On the advertising/promotional front, it launched massive campaigns supporting both Bing and Windows 7, it consistently posted some of the most watched videos on the internet, and it opened the new Microsoft Stores. And, on the R&D front, there are advances for the XBox (Project Natal), a new version of Office (Office 2010) with web-based availability, a possible new tablet computer (their Courier Tablet), and new work on IE 9.

Microsoft is certainly not standing still. And if 2009 is any indication, 2010 will be another interesting year. Anyone who discounts their competitive potential is making a mistake. In fact, most companies who are struggling in this recession should exude the same energy as Microsoft in updating their products and services to fit the changing marketplace. This is not a time for complacency.

Domus is a full service marketing consulting agency based in Philadelphia. Please visit our main web site for more.

(Barring government intervention) markets are governed by the laws of supply and demand. And in any market there are brands that stake out premium positions and those that stake out low-cost ones. The market of (on-line) news is no different. Most news has been commoditized, partially by the explosion of blog sites, partially by the stampede of traditional news organizations to post their stories online for free (using advertiser-based revenue models), and partly because of news aggregators such as Google News.

But who says news organizations can only survive if they find a way to be profitable by posting their content online for free? In fact, Murdach’s News Corp. has already shown that it can be profitable with its partial pay wall around its Wall Street Journal online site. True, it’s about the only major newspaper that has shown it can be profitable online, but one reason for that is the same reason it has remained profitable off-line – by positioning itself as a premium brand consistently delivering news and opinions that people are willing to pay for.

Now, Rupert Murdoch is considering raising its pay wall around its sites and de-listing them from Google, offering them exclusively to Microsoft’s Bing – for commensurate compensation. It’s a huge gamble, but brands like the Wall Street Journal have consistently proven that they can deliver content that people are willing to pay a premium for. If he does it, sites like the WSJ Online will certainly lose some traffic, but there’s a good chance that the added numbers of paid visitors plus the additional search engine revenue stream will more than make up for the display advertising loss (which is based directly or indirectly on traffic volume).

Moreover, Murdoch will shore up his brands’ premium positions, because they will have removed themselves from the game of giving away their product (news) for free. Murdoch is playing for long term profitability, and he has a good chance of succeeding.

Domus is a full service marketing agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

There have been a number of studies that show that online display advertising has a multiplicative effect on conversion rates of sponsored search listings – as high as 22% improvement. (See Microsoft Advertising Institute.) But it’s still hard to tell exactly how much impact your specific display ads have on your specific search campaigns.

That should be changing soon, though. As Advertising Age is reporting, Google is beta-testing their Campaign Insights tool, which will give you an indication of how effective your campaign is. As they explain:

With Campaign Insights, Google takes data from the advertiser’s server logs to determine who was shown an ad and when. Then compares that to web searches and site visits culled from data from the millions of Google toolbars on computer desktops. Those results are compared to a comparable group that didn’t see the ad.

Then Google measures the difference between the number of brand searches and site visits between the two groups. To filter out the impact of other media or influences, such as a TV campaign, Google compares the data to the two groups’ behavior before the campaign began. The incremental difference is attributable to the display-ad campaign.

This should be a win-win for both Google and marketers. Marketers will be able to refine display advertising campaigns for better effectiveness and Google will gain more of the display advertising business (because they will be able to objectively show the ROI of campaigns).

Domus is a full-service advertising, PR, and social media marketing agency based in Philadelphia. Please visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

Google just announced its quarterly financial information, and its profit hit its highest ever (Associated Press. Does this mean that the advertising industry is making a comeback? Maybe, but maybe not. Although Google’s numbers were all good, they were at much lower rates of increase than before. Moreover, given that they increased market share, some of their gains came at the expense of their competitors – not at the addition of more advertising into the market. Moreover, some of whatever new advertising did come into the market came from other online and offline advertising dollars – companies are still shifting budgets to shorter term strategies such as Search Marketing vs. old media advertising.

But optimism is good. This might be another of several recent signs that the worst of the recession is behind us. There are still some rough roads ahead for marketers, but hopefully we’ll continue to see positive signs.

Domus is a full service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

Google just recently introduced their new Google Toolbar-based Sidewiki feature. This allows anyone with the Google Toolbar installed (which is a large percentage of internet users) to add his own side comments to ANY web site on the internet. And those comments are then visible to any other Sidewiki users who later visit that site.

Prior to Google Sidewiki, marketers at least had a little control over their own web site, even if they had effectively lost control over references to them on social networking sites, blogs, etc. Now, however, even your home page is an accessible target for web surfers, whether or not their comments are accurate or even relevant. And you have little or not control over what is written, other than adding your own comments to the mix.

Moreover, as of right now, those comments are not visible outside of Sidewiki – they don’t show up in any search engine searches – so unless you have Sidewiki yourself, you’ll never know what people are writing about you on your own web site. Therefore, like it or not, as of today, marketers should have at least one machine on which they have installed Sidewiki, and should regularly visit their own site to see if any side notes are added by others.

Domus is a Philadelphia advertising, public relations, and internet marketing agency. We’re a dynamic agency, different than most you’ve probably experienced. In fact, maybe we should be called the “un-agency.” Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more.