The last couple of weeks have served as proof of how effective social media and viral marketing can be. Also, there has been a lot of questioning on whether Twitter can act as a legitimate marketing tool…the answer is Yes.
We launched FuelFrog two weeks ago yesterday and have invested nothing in marketing it. As of this morning we have over 2,300 users. Soon after launching the founder of Twitter, Evan Williams, took notice and “tweeted” a message to his followers about FuelFrog. Many people then “re-tweeted” that message and sent out messages of their own, as they continue to do now. We were fortunate to have coverage on ReadWriteWeb and others followed including:LifeHacker, Download Squad, WebWorkerDaily, and Bnet.com to name a few.
Much of the coverage has to do with timing as well. Gas prices are quickly approaching $4.00/gallon in some areas and a tool like FuelFrog will especially come in handy during times like these.
We’d like to thank everyone who has signed up thus far and continue to sign up each hour. We have a lot of cool things in store for FuelFrog so be sure to follow us on Twitter and continue sending in feedback.
AOL has aquired Tacoda, an advertising network headquartered in San Francisco. The deal is rumored to be between $200-$300 million. I’ve been working with Tacoda at iContact. Out of all the networks we’ve worked with they are by far the best. Congrats to the entire team at Tacoda!
I’ll be in New York Wednesday and Thursday of this week at ClickZ’s conference: “ClickZ Specifics: Online Video Advertising - Strategy and Practice”. The conference is on Thursday, so we should have some time to enjoy the city on Wednesday. I’m excited to learn more about online video advertising and it’s always nice visiting New York!
The conference was great! We didn’t return until Saturday afternoon because of the FAA’s computer glitch affecting most of the east coast, but hey I can’t think of a better place to be stuck than NYC.
First of all, congrats to the entire team at Carson Systems for choosing a great venue. Gotham Hall was very nice! Kim Malone (from Google) spoke of some interesting recent and future releases from Google including rich media advertising on a CPC-based model and ad placements within online video. There was also a lot of stress placed on the importance of testing your creative. There was one example shown where the firm tested two ads: one showed the product earlier and the other showed the product a few frames later in the ad. The ad that showed the product sooner (exact same ad) had 20% more conversions.
No surprise, but I think we’re going to see FeedBurner’s stats improve greatly as Google incorporates Google Analytics, in some capacity, with FeedBurner. I’m looking forward to that.
Drew Schutte, from WIRED, spoke about mixing online and offline advertising effectively. He gave a great example of how they allowed their subscribers to be on the cover of WIRED. The first 5,000 to respond were allowed to upload their photo and when the issue arrived in the mail it would have their face on the cover. This was obviously expensive so anyone else who would like their face on the cover was allowed to visit Wired.com and create a custom cover they could then print out. I thought this was a great promotion that blended online and offline advertising. It’s such a challenge to blend these two effectively and find the right mix. Online advertising is such an attractive option given the ability to track every penny invested and know exactly how many impressions your ad is receiving. You don’t always have that luxury with offline advertising. With that said, putting together a campaign that can blend, or complement, the two can be very powerful.
Thanks Ryan, and the team at Carson Systems, for putting together a great conference!
The team at 37Signals have asked the question: "What do you want to know?" Out of this has come some great questions and very interesting answers. I couldn’t agree more with this response:
What I am most interested in is how you (Jason) sought out the talent/team that is 37signals…
"We look for great people. I’m not talking about talent (yet), I’m talking about character. Everyone that works at 37signals is a great person. Trustworthy, considerate, curious, passionate, motivated, smart, good teachers, good listeners, responsible, mature, kind.
I would never hire someone I didn’t like as a person. I don’t care if he/she is a rockstar designer or programmer or whatever—if I don’t like them as a person they won’t be working here.
You must trust the people you work with. You must be able to learn from the people you work with.
As far as talent goes, you just have to know what to look for. It’s not really possible to explain that in words. It’s more of a feeling. And it also has a lot to do with the culture. The talent has to fit the culture. Programmers who only care about programming aren’t welcome at 37signals. Same with designers who only care about design. The talent needs to respect the other talent.
Most of all, I think it’s about seeing the potential in people. We all have a lot to learn, so it’s not always fair to hire someone based only on what they can do today. You need to be able to figure out where they can go. What they can get better at. And what they want to get better at."
Jeep is using this awesome technology at car shows to market their vehicles. It’s a system that releases water at certain intervals to create text and images. Check it out.
Many companies are releasing campaign specific websites as of late. I’m digging the implementation of these campaigns. A co-worker sent over a link to Philips’ campaign for their Norelco BodyGroom. It’s great to see large companies like Philips ‘loosening up’ a bit. And what a great idea to push the envelope with something that could (and did) go viral.
Kleenex has recently launched their “Let it out” campaign and they’ve set up a dedicated site at letitout.com. With this campaign Kleenex adds social/networking capabilities allowing visitors to create an account, upload videos and photos of special moments, and comment on posts from other users. They have also set up the “Let it out” blog. This is an awesome campaign that very effectively markets a product that isn’t very exciting. Great idea and nice execution.
