Business Line Articles

Do social media ads even work? Question: When is an ad not an ad? Answer: When it’s a story, maybe even one shared by a friend. "Call of Duty" game maker warns of zombies in Promoted Tweet In the ever-changing world of digital advertising, and the never-ending quest for business models for online publishers, “social advertising” is suddenly all the rage. In part this stuff resembles what we called “advertorial” back in my print days. The rule then was we had to clearly mark advertorial so it wouldn’t be confused with properly vetted editorial content. On the social web those lines are somewhat blurry to non-existent. A case of banner blindness It’s natural, even predictable this would happen. I’ve written in this space before about the ineffectiveness of banner ads. Publishers need to find other mechanisms to generate revenue. Brian Solis, principle at the Altimeter Group, a California-based technology advisory firm, put...

  But ads have to be relevant to the consumer Internet advertising is a big deal and getting bigger – generating almost $3 billion in revenue per year here in Canada. Credit: GapingVoid.com with h/t to DaveFleet.com According to the latest available figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada“In 2010, Online ad revenues surpassed Daily Newspaper ad revenues. As a result, the Internet is now second only to Television in terms of share of total Canadian media advertising revenue (15.9 per cent). Online advertising’s 23 per cent increase from 2009 to 2010 also bested other major media, all but one experiencing only single-digit growth rates during this time.” A banner year for banner ads In past years this advertising spend was dominated by “digital display” ads (i.e. banner or button ads and the like). In spite of years of dire predictions of the demise of banners, total spending on digital display...

  Be careful out there Facebook thinks I’m an old man. Correction, Facebook knows I’m an old man, and the worst part is, I told it so when I voluntarily filled in my profile. Credit: Ecoetsy.com As Internet marketing expert Jeff Nelson of Anduro Marketing told me “You entered your name, your birth date, who you were married to, where you live, where you went to school, who you work for, what languages you speak, what you like to do, what music you enjoy, etc. As you can see, this information is a marketer’s dream.” Personal information as product It is often said, “When you don’t pay for the product, you are the product.” This is absolutely true of Facebook – our personal information is the product being sold to advertisers. It’s like an admission fee to get all the fun of Facebook. I, for one, have long come to terms with...

AVG is a top-of-the notch Advertising Agency based in the heart of Delhi dabbling in Print, Creative and Advertising services. An amalgamation of creativity and technology, it believes in out-of-the box thinking and creative innovation. AVG stands for Audio Video Graphics and has truly proved its worth in all three of these areas replete with pure instinct and conviction. AVG houses some of the best designers who conceive and nurture amazingly creative ideas in their minds which are given appropriate form and shape by their writers and creators. AVG can be described as designs in motion as it is a unique blend of quality and dedication. Ever since its inception, AVG has landed creamy projects and executed them to the satisfaction and contentment of all. It works more like an inter-connected unit or network of individuals than a company with mediocre employees who have no targets to hit and no goals...

Search Engine Optimization is the employment of techniques to get your website found on search engines (google, bing, yahoo).So how do you know if you need it?Have you ever googled your business?Do you come up on the first page by typing in your name and location?If you do, congratulations, you have achieved the first and very easiest step.  Now how will someone find you if they do not know your name?  Try googling your services or products you offer and the area you serve (the towns that you do business in).Does your website come up at all or even close to the first page?If not, you want to consider getting help.  With our SEO service we consider all avenues that people search, not just search engines, but whatever is generating the most searches at the time.  We analyze your website to make sure there is nothing about your website that is...

In 2009 the Canadian Public Relations Society held its annual conference “On the Edge” in Vancouver. Like the good communicators they are, John Kageorge and his organizing team encouraged members and attendees to blog, tweet, debate and discuss the communications issues of the day. It was a lively exchange and I’m sure made for a better conference. One of the blog posts really caught my attention. A recent PR grad at the time posed the question “Should marketing report to communications?” In this case the word “communications” was code for Public Relations. Some folks find PR to be a dirty word (okay, phrase) and look to disguise it. I do not. She went on to say: What I have come to understand is that the job of the communications team is to listen. Marketing’s job is to speak. Proactive versus reactive messages. It has taken me two years to calm down enough to write about...