http://mashable.com/2011/12/08/media-ad-trends-2012/

1. Social Curation and Mobile Will Drive Growth for Media Organizations

The rise of mobile and tablets is having a profound impact on media consumption habits. At Mashable, for example, our average iPad app user spends 6 times as much time with the content as our average web user.

More broadly speaking, tablet apps that also take into account what your social network is sharing – like Flipboard, Zite and Pulse – are becoming important new distribution channels. And early signs point to Apple’s Newsstand becoming a key driver of growth for traditional publications. Conde Nast, for example, recently reported a 268% increase in digital subscribers after launching on Newsstand.

Facebook’s social news apps are also opening up Zynga-like opportunities for publishers. Just last week, The Guardian revealed that its app has been installed more than 4 million times and is driving more than 1 million additional daily pageviews for the publication.

2. The Impact of the Second Screen on Television

The growing ubiquity of mobile is being felt in the living room as well. According to data from Yahoo/Nielsen, 86% of web users now use a mobile device while watching TV. That creates new opportunities for marketers to launch more interactive campaigns, and we’re already seeing startups like Into Now and Shazam create platforms for engaging with the second screen audience, with advertisers like Pepsi, Gap and Starbucks jumping on board.

The TV networks are also starting to leverage the second screen. Most networks are now offering up streaming content on mobile devices, and some, like USA, are building robust social experiences for the second screen – features the networks hope will result in stickier audiences and increase ROI for advertisers.

3. An Explosion of Content for Connected TVs

The promise of Internet connected television has lingered for several years – so much so that some might see the medium as a flop. But that’s far from the case.

While current estimates suggest about 35 million people have an Internet connected TV (either via the device itself, a set-top box or a gaming console), 65% of TVs sold in 2012 will be connected TVs. Add to that the likelihood of an Apple–made television hitting the market within the next 18 months and suddenly the outlook looks much brighter.

At the same time, we’re starting to see content providers open up their offerings to alternative viewing options. Xbox just added dozens of live TV channels to its programming lineup. And while that does still require a conventional cable subscription, it will help warm consumers to the idea of consuming content through their televisions via the Internet. Meanwhile, YouTube is investing $100 million in original web-only programming that will also be available on connected televisions, where YouTube is often a default “channel.”

That will ultimately lead to the TV of the future: consumers enjoying the same diversity of choice in video programming in the living room that they currently enjoy on the desktop. And for advertisers, that means the biggest marketing medium of them all opening up to the same type of targeting that was previously only possible on the Web and more recently mobile devices. To that end, LG recently announced a partnership with YuMe to launch an ad network for the company’s connected TVs, with Toyota as a charter sponsor.

4. Connectivity in the Car Makes Autos the Next Great Platform

In the same way the TVs of the future will be powered by the Internet, so too will the cars. And while that could impact everything from fuel efficiency to finding parking spots, its impact is already being felt on the radio dial.

With car manufacturers developing their own app platforms that can access the Internet – currently through a smartphone but eventually through built-in connectivity – the AM and FM worlds are ripe for disruption (check out how MOG works in a Mini in the video above for an example).

For example, Pandora users can now listen to their music through their car stereo in BMW, Ford, Mercedes-Benz and GMC vehicles, among others. And the online music service now accounts for nearly 4% of all radio listenership in the U.S., with the majority of its $50+ million in quarterly ad revenue coming from mobile advertising.

As music shifts to the cloud – an undeniable trend – and cars increasingly add options for accessing online content, look for radio advertising to get an Internet-powered overhaul.

5. Mobile Commerce Brings it All Together

Adding to the intrigue of advertising being delivered via the Internet across media platforms is the rise of mobile commerce. Already, ecommerce juggernauts like Amazon and eBay are reporting billions of dollars in sales taking place via mobile. Overall, Jupiter Research estimates mobile transaction volume growing to $670 billion by 2015.

Meanwhile, you have products like Google Wallet, PayPal Wallet and Square — not to mention the oft-rumored prospect of Apple moving into the mobile payments space — promising to connect location, deals and purchasing all through your phone. When you combine that concept with ads that are integrated seamlessly across media platforms, you suddenly have the purchase process of the future on the horizon.

This table give an indication of the popularity & growth of ecommerce since 2000:

The register of recommended agencies is collated from research carried out by RAR for the London/South area.

RAR independently research the UK market every year for the best of the UK agencies across different disciplines. They talk to over 1500 client marketers and ask them to rate their agencies for account handling, creativity, strategic thinking, value for money and overall professionalism.

Proof that it’s not the most expensive agencies that make the list.. but the ones that are best at what they do!

Driving organic search traffic and sales through multinational search engine optimization requires a fusion of keyword relevance and geo-targeting to send location relevance signals. The search engines have to decipher a site’s geo-targeting signals to deliver the right page in the right language with the right SKUs, pricing, currency and availability. Optimizing the geo-targeting signals a site sends is critical to driving organic search traffic and sales in multiple countries.

Consider a searcher in the U.K. who wants to buy a toy for her daughter’s birthday. She searches Google U.K. for “dolls house.” Along with her query, the searcher is unconsciously sending location signals that the search is coming from a U.K.-based IP address and the query is in English. She may have also set her Google preferences to favor certain languages or countries. In response, Google quickly serves up all the pages from U.K. sites with English content relevant to “dolls house.”

An ecommerce merchant in the U.K. that serves only the U.K. market is most likely sending U.K. signals without even trying. Google can easily match the U.K. seller’s location signals plus its “dolls house” signals to the searcher’s desire to buy a doll’s house in the U.K. However, merchants with sites based in the U.S. who also serve the U.K. market and other English-speaking countries have a much greater challenge. Regardless of the strength of the keyword’s relevance, the number of relevant product offerings or customer service, U.S. merchants are not going to win the U.K. search or the U.K. sale if their multinational sites don’t geo-target their content to send U.K. signals.

How to Send Geo-targeting Signals to Search Engines

1. Register all relevant country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), such as .co.uk and .ca, even if the site’s content will be hosted on a general top-level domain (such as a .com). The ccTLD can then be redirected to the content’s true home on the .com to channel link popularity and customers.
2. Host the site’s content locally in each country. This can be fraught with business issues, and it isn’t a deal breaker if it’s not possible; but it’s a strong signal if it can be accomplished.
3. Build local links (ccLinks) in each country. The strongest ccLinks will mirror the site’s desired geo-targeting signals. For example, strong ccLinks for an English-language Canadian site would be hosted on a .ca ccTLD in Canada, and the content would be topically relevant and written in English.
4. Establish crawlable country navigation. A simple HTML country sitemap or crawlable navigation ensures a clear path for search engine crawlers to find and index country content.
5. Offer content in the local language. This signal impacts SEO by distinguishing between countries that speak different languages natively, such as geo-targeting the U.S. and France.
6. Register each country “site” in Google Webmaster Tools and geo-target each to a specific country. This is helpful whether a country “site” is hosted on its own ccTLD, or as a subdomain or subdirectory of a multinational domain.
7. Use the standard language and country codes in the URLs as the country’s subdomain or root directory, especially if it’s not possible to host the content at the ccTLD. These URL identifiers serve as a signal to observant humans to influence click-through in the search results, as well as sending a small signal to engines.
8. Establish language meta tags. While not generally considered a strong geo-targeting SEO signal, accurate use of country and language metadata can only help. Use the standard language and country codes to identify each site’s target either in a language meta tag or in the language attributes of the HTML tag.

Geo-location Challenges

Geo-location refers to the delivery of a default country/language content based on the visitor’s geographic location. Generally considered to be good usability practice, it can be disastrous if SEO concerns aren’t taken into consideration.

Consider the geographic footprint Googlebot leaves: California, U.S. Same with Yahoo’s bot, Slurp, and Bing’s MSNbot crawls from Washington. If geo-location occurs on every page of a site with no persistently crawlable navigation to all country/language sites, the search engines may only be allowed to crawl U.S. content based on the IP address. If this happens, only the site’s U.S. content will be able to rank in Google, Yahoo! and Bing, seriously limiting international traffic or sales. Analyze the URLs indexed in each country to determine if geo-location may be impacting SEO.

If you are an ecommerce merchant, your business likely cannot survive without search engine exposure through Google. But Google has over one hundred other services and products that have blossomed from its core web search tool. Just keeping up with the names of these products is challenging, let alone figuring out how you can utilize them to improve your bottom line.

Let’s take a look at the Google services most relevant to ecommerce site owners and some of the newer features that you can leverage for your business.

Google Web Search

Google’s flagship search engine is still the go-to Internet entry point for much of civilization (with Facebook representing a worthy challenger). One of Google’s more recent advances in search technology is called Google Caffeine. Caffeine is not something you can see, but it is the underlying framework that Google now uses to deliver search results. Theoretically, Caffeine allows Google to crawl the web more quickly and deliver more timely information. The key concept is speed. Part of Google’s need for speed means it considers the load time of your site’s pages to be a key factor. You will want to be sure that your pages load quickly and meet Google’s other quality standards.

Google Products

Google has a tendency to rename some of its properties. What once was Froogle, was then Google Base, then evolved into Google Product Search, and now is found under the Google Merchant Center. The important thing to know is that Google has made shopping results more prominent on its search pages. If you have an ecommerce site, you need to have a Google Product Feed so your products will show up in Google Product Search. If you have over 100 products you will likely want to set up a “feed,” which means creating a formatted file and sending it to Google at regular intervals.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a very useful tool for tracking and analyzing your site’s traffic. The level of detail overwhelms many people who use Google Analytics. If you are a new user, I recommend setting up weekly emailed reports. If you are an advanced user, you will want to get a handle on Analytics Intelligence, which you can configure to track shifts in key aspects of your data and alert you when important changes take place.

Google AdWords

Google’s main revenue generator is its AdWords pay-per-click program. Not all ecommerce owners want to spend money to garner traffic. The reason so many site owners do partake in AdWords, however, is because it works for them in producing a positive return on the ad dollars they spend. At the very least, you should educate yourself about AdWords and whether it makes sense for your business. To jump into AdWords, you should either invest the time to learn how you can use it to build ad campaigns and monitor results. If you are not prepared to put in the time, you would do well to hire a professional firm to help you. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, we recommend reviewing the Google AdWords Editor, which will allow you to build your AdWords account from a Windows or Mac desktop application.

Google Maps/Local Search

Google Local Search might not be relevant for every ecommerce site, but there is a rapid shift occurring across all the major social/search web properties to emphasize the local aspect of search. You will want to develop a local strategy and stake your claim in your city or region. The best place to start is by establishing your Google Local listing. Here’s something new with Google Local: Google is testing a paid ($25 per month) Enhanced Local Listing service that allows participants to create a more developed listing that displays in Google Local Results and includes links to photos, videos, coupons, and other specific business information.

Google Webmaster Tools

Webmaster Tools is yet another service with no up-front or recurring fee. Using it is very easy. Webmaster Tools gives you valuable stats about how Google views and crawls your site. You can see data, such as the most common keywords Google associates with your pages or the anchor text found in external links to your site. Tying into Google Caffeine, Webmaster Tools now has a Site Performance section that gives data on the load time of your pages.

Google Website Optimizer

The optimizer is an awesome tool for testing the effectiveness of your website’s pages. You can deploy A/B and multivariate tests for a range of characteristics. Suppose you want to test whether your home page will produce more conversions if you add a message emphasizing free shipping. Setting up a test in the Optimizer requires a little technical knowledge. But once you figure it out–and assuming that you have enough traffic to gain some meaningful data–you can really boost your site intelligence and make some more powerful decisions about deploying your site.

YouTube

Are you utilizing videos for your ecommerce business? It is cheap. It is easy. And it is effective. You would do well to figure out how to incorporate product-related videos into your marketing strategy. Google’s video service, YouTube, is not the only place to post your videos on the web, but it pulls the most traffic of any video hub. A good YouTube approach involves building your own channel and using some of the same optimization practices you would for organic search.

Google Affiliate Network

Google has rolled out its own affiliate program called Google Affiliate Network. Google has strict criteria for participating merchants, but if you qualify, you can set up pay-per-conversion campaigns and have access to Google’s large pool of publishers who would be happy to drive traffic to your site in return for an affiliate commission.

Google Checkout

There is a range of reasons why utilizing Google Checkout is a good idea. Above all, if you feel that a significant segment of your customers use Google Checkout, you want to be there to offer that option when they shop on your site. In addition, Google Checkout gives you additional exposure through other Google properties, such as Google AdWords and Google Products.

To protect customer information, an online merchant will comply with the Payment Card Industry’s Digital Security Standard and, also, use a 128-bit or great secure socket layer (SSL) to ensure that sensitive data passes back and forth between the web browser and the web server. Having taken the steps necessary to secure a payment transaction, online merchants want some way to show their potential customers that they have done everything possible to make shopping secure.

Enter VeriSign’s Secure Site Pro with Extended Validation. First, the service provides 128- or 256-bit SSL encryption, meaning that it offers the most powerful encryption available to protect payment information as it passes between your servers and web browsers. Second, the service provides you with two clear ways to market this to your customers.

Top Notch Encryption

SSL is a protocol that was originally developed to facilitate secure communications over an insecure network.

When a consumer surfs to your website, checks out some products, that consumer has no real way of know if you are who you say you are. You might claim to be reputable, but how would they know?  An SSL solves this problem since SSL certificates are unique to a particular server and domain name. When a consumer’s browser makes contact with the web server, the SSL ensures that your customer knows who he or she is dealing with through a process called public key cryptography. It is used to encrypt data. The other key is private and secret. It is used to decipher data encrypted with the public key.

Next, when a customer sends data over the Internet, which is generally an insecure network, how does that customer know that some hacker is not lurking, and waiting to intercept credit card or account data.  The more complicated the encryption, the more secure the data. VeriSign’s Secure Site Pro offers up the 256-bit encryption. This means that if someone were trying to guess the encryption code it would take that person several billion years to have tried every possible combination.

Recognizable Security Badge

Once a site has been secured with the Secure Site Pro SSL certificate, the site owner gets to display a VeriSign Secured Seal. The seal lets a site owner brag about all of the good work that has been done to ensure that a customer’s data isn’t intercepted or stolen. And seals like this one have a positive effect on sales.

Price

VeriSign’s Secure Site Pro with EV SSL is $1,499 per year if billed annually.

While this is, quite obviously, an infomercial style competition designed to get bands to select this blogging software over some of the other sites available, the concept behind it is one which demonstrates a shift in the way a bands success is measured.  These gigs aren’t being booked on how many records are being sold but instead entirely on the way in which a band’s web presence is managed.

In Mike Ragongna’s enlightening article, (Found at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ragogna/the-business-of-music-ii_b_527570.html) Panos Panay, the creator of Sonicbids, argues that there is now ‘a class of artists that is completely redefining the way the music business works and the way that music is experienced and discovered.’   This ‘middle class’ has nothing to do with the funds behind the artists but much more to do with the value that they place in their relationship with fans. By considering themselves ‘entrepreneurs,’ using social networks and blogs to increase their profile, these musicians can raise their game into the music business without the help of execs and A&R men taking a cut of their profits.

While WebFest 1.0 may well, for all we know, not even get off the ground, this shift is here to stay.  This concept shows there is plenty of weight in the theory Panay puts forward and that tour bookers are starting to take notice of the power of having a group of seriously engaged fans.  Serious artists are those who ‘make things happen for themselves’ and engage their fans in every way possible.

If you are a musician and would like help engaging your fans through the internet then check out Indigo sky’s dedicated Online Music Promotion website – Indigo Sky Music.

The best job in the world – Video case study

Fantastic,

While traditional outlets, such as a great festival booking or a single that catches the attention of Drowned in Sound are still a surefire way to get noticed, what options are there for bands who aren’t quite there yet but want to spread the word as far as possible?

Just like anywhere else, the power of a friends’ voice online cannot be underestimated.  A recent white paper entitled ‘The Influencer: A Consumer Voice With Legs,’ confirmed the concept that online influencers have an ‘inherent’ desire to participate in word-of-mouth recommendations and although that currently still primarily takes place offline, the digital music environment offers a particularly convenient way for these influencers to share the music they are loving online.  A link on a Facebook page, a quick tweet; the power of these cannot be underestimated and the key is to reach out to those powerful voices, the ‘leader of the gangs’ and get them to love your music and more importantly, share it to others who trust their opinion.

While this may not come as a great surprise, what is surprising is how many of these influencers may be hidden away in your own friends list.  If even a small proportion of the thousands of friends sitting on your MySpace page are the kind of people who like to prove they are in the know (and trust me, there will be many,) it takes little more than a simple but personalised recommend a friend campaign to spread the word further than you imagine. The power of the influencers is sitting in your own contact list; it is simply up to you to learn how to use it.

If you’re a musician and you’d like help with your social media campaigns then visit our dedicated Online Music Promotion website – Indigo Sky Music.

Indigo Sky built a dedicated flash microsite at www.simonellismusic.com, which included a live Twitter feed from the controversial Britney Spears ‘Circus’ World Tour Australian leg. Indigo Sky is also running a comprehensive social media strategy across Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, as well as SEO and Google pay per click ads

Simon Ellis was the Musical Director for Britney Spears ‘Circus’ Tour. Also a ITV & BRIT Award winning pop songwriter/producer/ musical director for artists like SClub7, Spice Girls & Jamelia

When asked what he would do do if he was starting out in todays industry he replied:

“I would probably build a site, a home for my music, a destination where people could come and see me and what I do and what I’m thinking about.

“And then I’d probably assemble a team of kids that would go and bug the hell out of advertising agencies and marketing companies to use my music.”

(see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8478000.stm for the full story)

It’s an interesting, but yet obviously practical point of view – and one which we here at IndigoSky agree with wholeheartedly. As digital specialists we can help bands build a professional image along with an engaged community of fans, as well as help them to effectively distribute mp3s, video and other media across the web. Between these specialist digital services and the extra avenues for music distribution available through more traditional ad agencies a band can get the proverbial ball rolling without ever going near a record label.

Why is this any different to before though? What has changed?

The answer is simple: both making music and marketing it has become cheaper and simpler than ever before, creating affordable options where before there were none at all.

On the music side the availability of increasingly cheap and accessible recording facilities/equipment, and a more technologically savvy generation of musicians allowing for DIY recording/mixing (its amazing what you can learn to do on the internet these days…) means that the average band can produce high quality recordings on their own.

On the marketing side, Digital Marketing is more cost effective and demonstrates a greater and more immediate return on investment than traditional print media meaning that less money is required and the bands will see immediate results directly attributable to different aspects of their marketing. In short a digital agency (a relatively new concept) opens doors which until recently didn’t exist.

If you’re in a band and you’d like to know more then just drop visit our website dedicated to online promotion of music and bands or drop IndigoSky an email hi@indigoskydigital.co.uk

It seems that industry insiders believe a shift has already happened with plenty of talk of an ‘investment gulf’ from the major labels who have been choosing to pile these vast sums of money they speak of into a small number of acts in order to guarantee a high success rate.   It was brought up at the UK festivals conference last year that bookers and promoters have been starting to back new artists, on the promise of a performance at their event, simply to ensure the steady flow of talent through the industry, where major record labels have been failing.  While Alison Wenham, chairman of the indie label network WIN, makes a perfectly valid point in stating that ‘artists generally prefer to leave the complex administration…to someone else,’ who that someone is depends entirely on how adventurous you want to be.

Some of the most obvious shows of alternative funding and management models can be seen through schemes such as Slice of the Pie and Pledge Music , where fans choose to pay towards an artist’s release.  While the collapse of Sellaband (albeit apparently temporary) has certainly dented buyer confidence in these models, what is impossible to ignore is the fact that the power is shifting away from the record labels and into the hands of those who will be buying the music.  The latest Facebook trend, the group ‘Storm the Charts,’ coupled with the recent Christmas number 1 uprising suggests that music fans aren’t willing to do what the established protocols tell them they will anymore.   This isn’t a new thing; pop has been very separate from other types of music for a good while now.  But what is different is the phenomenal rise in internet use for well, everything, has meant that they finally have the right platforms to make their voices heard, and on a seriously large scale. As user engagement online becomes increasingly impossible to escape, so too does the concept that anyone involved in the music industry can ignore the views of the consumer and carry on regardless.  Consumers expect more, they expect to have a say and they expect to be involved but what’s more, in many cases, they are more than happy to pay towards the privilege.  They might not be willing to pay for a traditional album in a jewel case but once they are engaged, tell them their favourite artist needs their support and you’d be surprised at quite how quickly that £7.99 can be found.

I think it may be way too early to say the major labels are counting down to their doomsday although those following the EMI situation may beg to differ.  However, the model itself is shifting…no longer can a label spot a band playing in a bar and thrust them off into stardom.  Labels expect more; they want an already engaged fanbase, they want to know what they are getting themselves into- they simply can’t afford to take the huge risks needed to throw that $1 billion behind someone who might end up in the bargin bin two years down the line.  With any of the models, record label or not, fan engagement is going to be the key to success. Like it or loathe it, social networking; twittering, buzzing and commenting, cannot be underestimated.  If you want to be fan funded, you need the fans.  Record label funded? You need to prove that the fans want you and will line the increasingly empty pockets of the major labels.

Huge commercial success is still going to be measured in the same terms for a long time yet.  But for those who aren’t Lady Gaga or the Kings of Leon, the way forward seems to me to be engage your fans, spread your word.  Whether you choose to embrace the modern and go fan-funded or hope to seek out that ever mystical record deal, the support and numbers will open up these doors to you.  You can offer every Pledge reward in the world but if nobody knows who you are, nobody will care and nobody will buy.

Read the full article here: www.digitalstrategyconsulting.com/documents/DIR_Media_Planning_2008.pdf

Indigo Sky launch clients include Britney Spears’ musical director and BRIT award winner Simon Ellis, and Image Foundry who recently won a BAFTA & EMMY award for their CGI studio work.

Founder Matt Thompson spent 2 years as Account Director at US-based digital agency, Booyah, where he led digital accounts for Coca Cola, Dish Network, Dominos and Thomson Gale.

Matt Thompson said: “The United States is the leader in online marketing and we have brought these developments to the UK market. There is a knowledge gap in the UK of US digital marketing innovations like video ad networks, cookie exchanges and search re-targeting and it’s our intention to fill that gap. US marketers are profitably employing tools & technologies which are still relatively unknown over here to extend audience reach, leverage their online data and ultimately drive sales. UK agencies simply aren’t talking to their clients about them. Indigo Sky are here to prove that the old ‘2 year technology lag’ myth of US innovations crossing the pond is a thing of the past.”

London-based Indigo Sky has already attracted attention as an innovative, forward-thinking agency in the areas of display/rich media planning & buying, e-commerce marketing, and social media.

Indigo Sky is a Google AdWords Qualified Company, a Yahoo Search Ambassador, Google Analytics Consultant, and member of TopSeos.com

1.) If any of your pages have the same title, change the titles to reflect the content of the pages. This is good for SEO because the search engines prefer pages with different names, and people are less likely to click on a search result if it has a generic title. Avoid using titles over 60 characters long.

2.) Add brief, descriptive “ALT text” tags to your site’s images. Internet users with text-only browsers will see this text in place of graphics. Its good for SEO because search engines can use this text to interpret the subject of an image, giving them a better concept of the page’s content.

3.) Test each of the links on your site to make sure they still work. If any produce errors, either replace, update, or remove them. This is good for SEO because some search engines will downgrade your site’s search ranking if it has too many outdated or incorrect links.

4.) If any of your pages contain information on more than one distinct subject, divide them into separate pages. For example, a page that lists every product a company offers should instead be split into multiple product categories (unless all of the items are very similar).

These SEO tasks can be accomplished in less than 2 hours for many web sites. However, they do not address other important SEO issues like keyword density, META tags, link building, and site maps. If in doubt consult i) an experienced search engine marketing agency, or ii) an internet marketing agency with experience in search engine marketing.