Social networking site Tagged.com has agreed to pay $750,000 in penalties and costs to settle lawsuits alleging it engaged in deceptive email marketing practices. As part of the settlements, reached with New York and Texas, the San Francisco-based company also agreed to adopt reforms around its use of invitation emails. You can read more in this MediaPost Online Media Daily article.

The two states sued Tagged earlier this year for allegedly duping new members into providing their email addresses and passwords. Tagged then sent emails to members' contact lists that appeared to have been sent directly from the members themselves.

In addition to paying the fines, the agreement calls for Tagged to provide clear and conspicuous notice to users before accessing their email inboxes and to obtain users' explicit consent before sending email invitations to their contacts. On its blog, Tagged says it has overhauled its registration and invite-your-friends processes, and will soon be adding more new features to increase member privacy.

This is an interesting case on its merits, but what struck me is the potential implications for forward-to-a-friend and viral emails. While it's not the same thing, many marketers elect to have their viral emails appear to come from the friend who signed the person up rather than from the marketer. In this case, the friend had more knowledge about the resulting email(s), but I have to wonder if some future court will take this ruling and seek to apply it to the age-old forward-to-a-friend technique.

Posted by Bill at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I figured I'd open with a provocative title. No, I'm not really serious that Twitter might start losing its amazing popularity. But, a recent article in TechCrunch brought to light a defining moment in the world of Twitter.

Apparently, Miley Cyrus, the teen idol also known for her TV show, Hannah Montana, just released a video on YouTube that I'm sure the folks at Twitter are squirming over. Having reached 2 million followers, Miley is now quitting Twitter. She's had it. The video takes the form of a rap song, and it was fairly painful for me to watch so I’m not going to share a link to it. (You’ll have to search for it yourself if you really, really want to watch it.) <Grin>.

Of course, Twitter will probably be fine without Ms. Cyrus—a recent Nielsen study showed that Twitter has far fewer tweener viewers than you'd think. Nonetheless, they may have just lost a few hundred thousand Miley devotees.

Posted by Bill at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I bet you never thought you'd hear Twitter being compared unfavorably to voice mail … Think again.

SayNow, a free phone service that connects celebrities and their fans through voice mail, offers its customers something they say they don't get from Twitter—an experience that feels intimate and authentic.

You can read more in this New York Times article by reporter Brooks Barnes. In short, the service works by giving stars a personal phone number that they can publicize on their Web site, for example. SayNow's customers—mostly teenagers—can then call and listen to recorded messages of stars directly motivating or urging them to take an action. Callers can also leave voice messages of their own, which may be shared on the SayNow Web site. According to SayNow, the service is averaging about 10 million fan calls a month—double the number over this time last year.

Voice mail may seem old-fashioned compared to newer online social media. But once again, the key to great marketing is not the medium; it's the message.

Posted by Bill at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The use of social media as a marketing tactic has shot up dramatically in the last two years, according to an online survey of B2C and B2B marketers. Moreover, marketers have shifted from using social media channels primarily for brand building and now use them as a tool for driving awareness and interest in their products and services.

This despite the fact that marketers also cite as a top concern an inability to prove ROI and having metrics to properly allocate the mix of traditional and digital media. And, interestingly, although roughly half said they are planning to spend less on marketing this year, a majority said they are actually planning to spend more on new media platforms.

The survey, which included 172 marketers and was conducted in June, is an update a survey conducted two years ago by BtoB magazine and the Association of National Advertisers. In the updated survey, 66 percent of the marketers said they were using social media, compared to 20 percent of respondents in 2007. Among B2B marketers, the number is 57 percent, up from just 15 percent in 2007.

Two years ago 65 percent of respondents said their main objective in using social media was to build brand. Today that percentage has dropped to 51 percent, while using social media to generate demand has increased from 10 percent to 30 percent overall. Among B2B marketers, the percentage is even higher at 47 percent.

So why are marketers flocking to new social media despite an uncertain economy, admitted concern over how to allocate and measure, and why is the use of social channels evolving so drastically?

I’m sure we could have some great discussions around it. But in a nutshell, smart marketers have realized that the ultimate goal of marketing is to drive someone toward measurable lifetime customer value. To do that, marketers must create relationships that benefit both the customers and the company. The rise of online social networking means that it's the buyers, not the marketers, who define their brands today. And social channels invite them to define the kinds of marketing they will receive. Successful marketers are evolving with their customers, going where they are, and providing them with opportunities to participate in dialogues and interact with their brands.

Posted by Bill at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For a while now, I've been a vocal proponent of marketers participating in social marketing, and clearly many others see the potential as well. In his July 30 ClickZ column, Bill McCloskey shares some great data that illustrate the enthusiasm with which marketers have embraced social networking.

Since 2007, Bill's firm, Email Data Source, has been tracking how often brands embed a link within their email marketing messages back to their social networking site. The data point to two interesting facts: 1) the number of email marketing campaigns that contain links to the two top sites, Facebook and Twitter, have dramatically increased, and 2) in 2009, No. 2 Twitter began closing in on No. 1 Facebook, and in April surpassed its rival as the top social networking site for email marketers.

In 2007, Email Data Source tracked 215 emails with Twitter links and 729 with Facebook links. By June of 2009, the number of campaigns with a link to a sender's Twitter account soared to 41,399 and 41,052 for Facebook. You can view the stats here.

I do find it interesting that Twitter has surpassed Facebook. While Facebook's user base towers over Twitter's, Twitter is clearly the king of micro-blogging (at least today). A lot of the content that gets shared socially is the kind that lends itself to the quick shares that Twitter has made famous, but I have to believe that some of this traffic spike is due to Twitter still being in its “novelty” phase.

Posted by Bill at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apparently, Twitter is leaping us into the future today. No, it's not a new form of marketing (sorry, readers). It's not a new feature. And, no, it's not even a revolution in social communities. It's even more important... Yes, it's Robot Pick-Up Lines.

Today, the world of Twitter is overflowing with people sharing their favorite robot pick-up lines. Don’t take my word for it. Send your favorite lovelorn robot to this URL for thousands of ideas on how to find the love of its life.

My favorite so far: AFG85: RT @badastronomer your lips say 0 but your eyes say 1

Thanks to TechCrunch for alerting me to this amazing new innovation with 'bots and social networks <grin>. Have a great weekend.

Posted by Bill at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This recent blog post from Forrester shares some very interesting research conducted by the analyst firm on the widespread usage of social networking among business people. I've been a strong believer that social networking matters as much in business as it does in personal relationships, but seeing the numbers laid out so starkly really drove it home.

Among the findings: When it comes to making buying decisions overall, 91 percent of business people surveyed said they consume social content including blogs, user generated video, podcasts, forums or reviews—and 69 percent said they do so for business purposes.

Posted by Bill at 9:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google recently announced a new service called Latitude, which zeroes in on the geographic location of mobile phones to let your friends know where you are, and vice-versa. (You can read more about it here.) Other companies like BrightKite and Loopt have been doing this for a while, but Google's entrance into the arena shines a new spotlight on the functionality and the privacy issues it raises.

One big question on the minds of privacy advocates is whether consumers will be comfortable having their locations tracked as they go about their daily lives.

I cannot imagine any consumer being comfortable with the major mobile providers like Verizon or AT&T selling their location to the highest bidder. However, applications like Latitude allow location tracking to be done in a *somewhat* more benign way. Privacy advocates will still want to know how Google and others plan to treat geographic tracking information they collect—and ensure that consumers understand how their information is being utilized. But moving forward, my bet is that the social networking track-your-friend applications will be the initial platform for location-based marketing.

You heard it here first, but the idea that really excites me is combining location-based tracking with the Facebook-like idea of "friending" a company you like to create a privacy-acceptable location-based marketing solution.

Imagine you love McDonald’s (and McDonalds loves you). So you "friend" them in Latitude or a similar application. Whenever you turn on the application, it alerts your friends to your location, and—assuming you’ve provided permission—it also tells McDonald’s. McDonald’s can determine whether you’re nearby any of its restaurants and offer you promotions and specials that suit your tastes. Or, even more interesting, it may have made a few more Quarter Pounders than it needs, so it can offer a discount of that specific product to customers in the area and sell down the inventory before it goes bad. The marketing (and privacy) implications are staggering.

This may well be the ultimate in engagement marketing.

Posted by Bill at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This doesn't really apply to what we all do, but I found this recent article appearing in The New York Times very interesting, and demonstrative of the fundamental shifts taking place in how people communicate.

According to the story, the once-indispensable tool for busy offices and households, voicemail, appears to be going the way of the dodo. Compared to text messaging, which has increased more than tenfold over the last three years, voice mail is slow and cumbersome. As a result, fewer people are using it, and when they do, they are taking longer to check their messages.

Because people generally read at least twice as quickly as they can speak, and text messages require no log-ins or waiting, it's estimated that text messaging is about 15-20 times faster than voice mail for recipients. Text messages also tend to be more efficient because the people sending them get to the point more quickly.

So, ultimately, text messaging does a better job of respecting people's time. Something to think about.

Posted by Bill at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My colleague Loren McDonald recently presented a session to a group of our executives, and I was struck by one of the graphics he shared. It's a great visualization of the multifaceted and rich social world created by blogger, author and public-relations guru Brian Solis.

Posted by Bill at 5:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)