On Clickz.com I saw this nice discussion on the subject of using Flickr for commercial reasons.

In general social media is used more and more for commercial reasons and not everybody is staying relevant.  But the difference between wrong and right is not always clear.

Even if Yahoo is monetizing Flickr with more relevant advertising options. Free publicity will always exist.

Like in old media free and paid publicity have their own place and advantages. Big difference though is that in old media there are editors who are in charge of the quality of content. In new media it’s us, the audience.

It is again time for a restyle.

Banners and advertising are getting visually very attractive. However most websites stay behind.

If your customer clicks on your well animated banner and comes on your website, be careful the two match. Due two the use of flash in advertising your landing page or company website  is becoming a sort of disappointment.

Most websites are still built around text. This is changing fast. The web is getting more visual. We are able to send out and consume more pictures, video’s etc.

For Brands this is a very welcome change. With the combination of image and text your message can get out stronger. The only thing is don’t stay behind. Avoid the risk of looking poor.

If your banners look better than your website you know it is time for a change. You could either change your banners or change your website.

I would chose the latter.

MySpace advertising in Beta. Let’s start testing.

Lately I meet more companies doing online advertising, like Google Adwords, without a good analytics in place. When you don’t measure the results of any campaign, you waste your money.

You see your traffic is growing and you think you are doing a good job. But is this traffic interested in what you offer? Do they ask for more information? Do they buy your product? If you don’t measure that, you don’t know .

In stead of using your own analytics tool you should start with implementing Google analytics. It is free, and in stead of focusing on the amount of traffic you will move forward to a ‘relevant traffic’ focus.

With analytics you get insights in all visitors but you are especially interested in the visitors who buy, subscribe on your site etc. When you follow their behaviour you know what they search for and where they came from.

With this information you don’t need to buy expensive advertisements on crowded websites anymore. You buy ads on relevant places which pay off directly.

It is possible to protect your Brand name in Google Adwords.

A nice example you find if you try to make a text-ad with the term  “Euro 2008″ in it. You get the following message (see picture):

Trademarked Term.

Due to trademark reasons we do not allow advertisers to use “Euro 2008″ in their Google Adwords ads.

If this is a wise decision for all brands, I don’t think so. It has an effect on your distribution which you should consider. However it can give you some Brand control.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) can be found in most European countries and in various other countries of the world, even in South America. There are now attempts to launch the first Asian IAB in china.

Strange though that there still is no Swiss IAB.

Asking IAB Europe about it, they confirm that IAB Europe is in conversation with a group of people about opening an IAB here. They hope to make a formal announcement about it before June. That is in about 10 days!

Mission of IAB is accelerating the growth of e-commerce, interactive advertising and online marketing.

Everybody can make a widget today. We can, so we do. There are too many widgets, useless widgets.

The web and all the social networks are full of widgets. Only in facebook there are over 23.000. Most of them ‘just for fun’. When you are a company thinking of spreading one. Think about it. Do I just want a widget or do I have something to share.

To make a point I have created obvious useless widgets. You find them here (and here). If you agree with me. Share them, make your own, post about it etc. Be creative, take a stand.

Want to know more about widgets: wiki
Still want to make a widget: widgetbox, widgipedia
Example of a valuable widget. Google Site Translator

Brands are increasingly recognizing that customer experience is everything. With the transparency of the web, news travels fast. Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000. Micropersuasion.com is even talking about a digital job function: Chief Customer Experience Officer
They also did set up an easy example with a google ’search within results’. Just enter any company and check the results.

Most of us still have the presumption that with online marketing you only reach youth. The European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) now published a report about Digital Families. It is interesting to see that Digital parents engage in a wider range of digital activities than those that live without children.

The research also shows that the websites visited by digital parents and their online activities vary according to the age of the children. If you are planning on targeting this online audience this information is really useful:

People living with very young children (between nought and four) are increasingly visiting health and film websites (+24% since 2006) while those living with children between five and nine are going to games sites (+32%). Price comparison sites are seeing a boost amongst those living with children between ten and fifteen (+31%) while those with older children (between 16 and 18) are enjoying more TV sites (+77%). Users living with older children also seem to be more technically advanced – almost half (47%) of those living with children aged 16-18 use instant messaging services compared to 37% of people living with children aged nought to four. A similar trend is seen when comparing film, TV or video clip downloads (30% vs. 22%) and music downloads (36% vs. 32%).

(sources: Google Alert and marketingfacts.nl)

Online video advertising is getting popular.

Research from Isobar
found that around 90% of the French online audience ages 15 to 49 had seen at least one video ad in May 2007.

Over half (55.5%) of the respondents to the Isobar survey went on to visit a brand’s Web site, one-third searched online for further product information and over 22% requested further information. What’s more, one in five bought a product as a direct result of seeing a video ad.

See eMarketer

Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) now presents an overview of Digital Video Ad Formats to help us out with all the different possibilities.

Today, in the Netherlands, wehkamp.nl is the first with a video ad on the youtube NL homepage. (see marketingfacts.nl)

and there is a lot more to come..