Line Bound to Blur Between Advertising and Editorial | MarketingProfs

matt grant is a thinker. it shows in everything he writes, including this piece on the use of long-form "advertorial" content. it seems to me (and to matt) that as the trend continues toward content marketing, sponsored content will risk convergence with "real" content. this excerpt is from an interview matt did with the atlantic's digital editor shortly before they ran a poorly received ad from the church of scientology.

“The reader needs to know what is an ad and what is not an ad,” he told me. “We are not trying to confuse the reader into reading advertising products and thinking they are reading editorial products.”

As far as interfering with the reading experience goes, he added, “I should say, ‘Don’t unduly interfere’ because some people believe that any ads interfere with the reader’s experience.”

I've seen studies indicating that magazine readers consider advertisements an integral part of media consumption. I expect this is more true for dedicated readers of vogue, but I've enjoyed my share of clever ads in the new yorker

I agree with matt's belief that there is nothing inherently wrong with pushing the line with content marketing. the key to success is what every content guru has been graciously displaying in his or her storefront for a while - be clever or go home.

via mpdailyfix.com click through for full article

(note: I am testing diigo.com's annotation features. please click through on the 'magazine readers link above and let me know if the yellow highlighting shows up about halfway down the page. thanks!)

Embeddable Tweets Packing More Punch | PCMag.com

good news from the makers of the embeddable tweet - it will now act like it does on twitter.com no matter where you stick it.
"Embedded Tweets display photos, videos, article summaries and other content shared in a Tweet, just like you see on twitter.com," Twitter said in a blog post. "You can also view retweet and favorite counts to better understand engagement, and we've made some tweaks to the design so that embedded Tweets are easier to read."
via pcmag.com click through for whole article

 

Google Plus is a Social Backplane Service | Chris Brogan

chris brogan offers another "not dead yet" perspective on google plus.
he makes some good points, including this closer:

Don’t reply with “no one’s there.” You don’t buy a fridge and find it full of food. Millions and millions of people are there. You’re just not doing the work. If 500 million have an account and reports estimate about 250 million people are fairly darned active, that’s more people than Twitter. You’re just not following them yet.

via chrisbrogan.com click through to read the whole article. t's worth it

 

Google Plus Local: Do's and Don'ts | ThriveHive

nice article from thrivehive on boosting your profile on google's local business profiles. google plus is still not getting a lot of respect in the marketing world, but when you're talking local search, it is smart to play as nice with the big g as you can. I have summarized the recommendations in the excerpt below.


we’ve pulled together our list of four things to do and 2 things to avoid to help your Google Plus Local listing dominate the local results.

Do

1. Link it up

include a link to your google plus listing on your website 

2. Take a N.A.P.

consistent use of business name, address and phone number

3. Show your stuff

photos and video - visual content is more engaging

4. Seeing stars

try to get customers to review the business

Don’t

1. Can’t buy me love

don't try to game the system with phony reviews

2. Quit nagging

google doesn't like reviews resulting from "please review us" reminder emails. thrivehive suggests using a QR code to encourage customers to do quick reviews on site.

via thrivehive.com click through for full recommendations

 

Like It? Click and It's Yours on YouTube | ClickZ

that was fast. following on my post the other day about youtube's opening up of external annotation, here's an example of how retailers are using the feature to make awareness to transaction shopping almost seamless.


Todd Pollak, industry director of retail at Google, summarized what he calls the first "Nonline holiday shopping season" in a blog post. "In short, the shopper's journey looks less like a funnel and more like a flight map, and the lines between online and offline shopping experiences are blurring," he noted.
via clickz.com click through for full article

 

Link Directly to Your Website On YouTube | reelseo.com



gotta agree, this is cool stuff. now everybody who jumps through a few "I'm not a scammer" hoops can leverage their quality video work...and get some verifiable roi. brand new news, although everyone will have it tonight or tomorrow. check out the reelseo writeup for more. h/t to mark traphagen
So everyone rejoice, it's here!  You can now link within videos to do just about everything now: send people to other videos, send people to a featured video, send people to the merch store, and send people to your website.  This interactive video thing is awesome, and it increases the power of what you can do with YouTube videos.
via reelseo.com click through for full article

 

LinkedIn Releases API, Opens Floodgates | Adweek

linkedin continues to move aggressively to increase its allure for advertisers. this excerpt describes why an API is so important for big advertisers:
An ads API is like steroids for an ad platform. Consider Facebook. The social network in 2009 began letting a few companies access its ads API and brought even more on board in 2010, when advertising revenue grew 145 percent to $1.87 billion. The following year Facebook officially released the ads API, which would open it up to more developers who would be able to manage and run more ads for marketers. Facebook closed 2011 with $3.15 billion in ad revenue; it already has $2.95 billion in ad revenue over the first three quarters of 2012. Obviously the ads API isn’t the only reason Facebook has seen such a steep rise in ad revenue—hitting a billion users and increasing ad rates certainly helped—but the API definitely catalyzed that growth.
via adweek.com click through for full article