Relevantly Speaking HD

This week we’re looking at changes in social media behavior. In the last year, we’ve a seen a decline in the creation of personal content in favor of linking to professional content. What does this mean for social media and how it’s used?

We’re also taking a look at search behavior. We all try and follow best practices as marketers, but wouldn’t it be helpful to understand how people use search? We’ll take a look.

This week we’re taking an in-depth look at the recently launched Offermatic - a savings services that helps customers save money without needing to present coupons, promo codes of vouchers. Instead, consumers link their debit and credit cards to the Offermatic service and advertisers send relevant deals based on the user’s purchase history. Priced on a CPA basis for clients, initial tests are showing conversion rates in the neighborhood of 14.5%. Could this change the way we think about performance marketing?

We’re also looking at an article from RedWriteWeb. It was written by a 16 year old Morgan Stanley intern and it talks about why teen don’t use Twitter. If you’re in the business of marketing to teens, you’ll want to check this out.

Finally, we’re taking a look at paid search spending predictions over the next 3 years. How does it stack up to display advertising? How does online video figure into the mix?

Holiday shopping season has kicked off in a big way. This year online sales are expected to top $32 billion. That’s impressive, but when you compare it to the $852 billion being spent in total this holiday season, it’s really just a drop in the bucket. This week on Relevantly Speaking we’re going to be talking about ways that online retailers can boost their sales and capture a bigger slice of that holiday pie.

Last week we talked about the poor reputation that performance marketing has been saddled with in the larger advertising world. This week, The Economist is piling onto that perception with a quote calling affiliates “criminal freelancers.” We dig a little deeper into that.

Relevantly Speaking returns this week with a look at Facebook’s email announcement and what it means for marketers trying to get into consumer inboxes. We’re also covering stories about Twitter Analytics and what’s holding back the performance marketing industry.

This week we’re talking to Brent Csutoras about what makes good viral content. What types of things typically go viral? What’s the spark that sets it off? How can companies take advantage of content that spreads?

This week we’re talking to Don Batsford of 31 Media about the differences between tackling a social media strategy versus a search strategy. What factors should you consider for both? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each? Don helps us answer some of those questions.

This week we’re talking to Matt Mickiewicz, founder of 99 Designs and Flippa, about how publishers in the performance marketing space can use crowdsourcing to bring down the cost of design work.

This week we’re talking to Kim Kaplan, Vice President at Plenty of Fish, about a variety of topics including; their new ad platform, the importance of a strong brand and their foray into offline marketing with Lady Gaga.

If you’ve been a part of the performance marketing space for any period of time you’ve surely run across Murray Newlands’ blog. In addition to his blog leadership, Murray has also co-founded a company called “Influence People” that holds social media events around the world to educate people on best practices of using emerging channels.

We caught up with Murray a few weeks ago to get his take on some everyday situations that companies may find themselves in with the social web.

Murray Newlands Resource Links: Blog : Influence People : Twitter : Facebook