Let them do the advertising for you

Social Networking sites such as MySpace are full of young people (and some older) looking for new and innovative ways to personalize their “space.” Many MySpacer’s choose to personalize their page with images from their favorite movies, TV shows, bands, books, comedians, actors and actresses.

Sony Pictures has teamed up with Photobucket.com to create branded Spider-Man 3 skins for the Photobucket’s popular slideshow tool. The tool allows users to upload their own photographs, which are then organized into a slideshows and displayed in a Spider-Man 3 branded window. Users can post the slideshows on their own MySpace pages and blogs as well as on their friend’s pages.

Now social networkers, who are already searching for ways to associate themselves with their favorite products, can do the advertising for you. They are already looking for ways to showcase the things they love. This is a great way to facilitate the word of mouth advertising and hopefully create a buzz throughout the social networking space.

Effective Online Target Marketing

From the perspective of the consumer it's too much. The clutter of ads popping up everywhere when you're on a site. There are banners, floaters, and many others. From a marketing standpoint it's easy to understand the process. How do you get the most important information in front of the user? Easy, place it where he has no other choice but to look at. This process replicated time and again by the multitude of marketers can lead to over saturation.

So the discussion becomes how do you target an audience effectively? The answer, it depends on the goal of the campaign. In a study conducted by TACODA and Next Century Media, contextual targeting (based off of subject interest) and behavioral targeting (specific group identification) should not be used interchangeably.

So if the goal is to launch new messages, ads based on specific subjects worked best, but if the message already has a sturdy foundation behavioral targeting can help sustain the campaign.

With this being said, marketers need to stay afloat of what consumers are researching and where they are going on the Web. The use of web analytics can be a huge support to help track consumers and help marketers form and place better, more effective marketing campaigns.

Read the whole story here.

Newspapers making front page in online advertising

The Internet is so accessible and expansive in today’s fast-paced world it displaces some of the traditional forms of media, in particular the cornerstone of American reporting—newspaper.

Today people have traded in eating breakfast and reviewing world events for the paperless versions. So newspapers evolved, they added color to increase circulation, they added different sections to reach a wider audience. Now, with so much reliable information, newspapers must compete in the online forum in order to avoid extinction.

Competing isn’t just throwing up a Web site that mirrors the printed version. It’s offering value to the consumer, it’s offering something that consumers can’t live without. An article from AdAge.com stated that Tribune Co., publisher of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, announced a plan to make all of its online general-merchandise classifieds free. The news came as a surprise because newspapers have historically charged for classifieds.

While it’s only a small step, it is a step in the right direction. Newspapers have to do something to compete with sites like Craigslist, which has always offered free online classifieds, according to the article. The forward thinking of Tribune Co. should serve as a rude awaking for other news corporations that are seriously lacking in the ability to compete with cheaper, more effective Web sites.