ProjectNewAge.com Blog

In Search of the Killer App

Build it and they will come. In the first 30 days after the iPhone released the “App Store,” users downloaded more than 60 million applications and brought in over a $1 million in revenue each day.

Like with the iPhone, corporations, small firms and individual developers are building third-party applications that bring additional functionality, integration and fun to popular platforms like Facebook, Firefox, Wordpress and Twitter—and get this, most are free.

As such, The New York Times recently highlighted a new app that uses the Twitter platform called Twitpay (Note to self: Not all product names require in-depth market research or a 20-person creative team to develop.)
 

Twitpay allows users to send small payments through Twitter. For example, you can pay back your co-worker for that beer the other night or your roommate who picked up your dry cleaning.

Here’s how it works:

•    Sign up for a Twitpay account
•    Add funds to your Twitpay account through a service like PayPal
•    Send a tweet to another Twitpay member like “@johndoe twitpay $10 for lunch”

Once you have accumulated more than $10 in Twitpay payments, you can cash out in the form of Amazon gift cards. Twitpay takes a five-cent commission on all transactions over $1. But the founders say their real mission is to facilitate social giving and create an easy way to donate money to good causes.

You can check it out at www.twitpay.me.

In the future, we hope to bring you updates on other financially based apps. Keep checking back.

Is Integrated Marketing the Key

With the economic crunch, the changes in consumer behavior and the new advances in Web technology, marketers and advertisers see the opportunity of social media to not only reach but also engage consumers. So does that mean we should abandon traditional marketing tactics all together?

If you look at E*Trade’s Talking Baby Campaign, it seems integration is the key to their success. Sure, they use the holy grail of television advertising to get their message to the masses…a $3 million Super Bowl ad. But it was their pre- and post-game tactics that made the difference—integrating traditional marketing tactics with a strong online presence.

Prior to the Super Bowl, E-Trade showed “outtakes” of its upcoming Super Bowl ads on their YouTube (viewed over 3 million times in three weeks) and Facebook pages. They even “Twittered” about it to build anticipation. And when viewers turned to search engines and social media after the game to find out more, E*Trade was there with a unified message across all platforms.

As of today, E*Trade has 5,827 YouTube subscribers, 7,129 Facebook fans and 815 Twitter followers waiting for new updates from the E*Trade Baby...and they are adding new fans each day.

In fact, Reprise Media Search Marketing Scorecard noted the increased integration with many of the big Super Bowl advertisers:

•    95% were visible on the first page of organic search results
•    69% bought paid search against their brands and products
•    22% of ads included a specific call to action to their website (highest percentage ever)
•    25% linked their landing pages to social networks like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube
•    42% rewarded users with “bonus” site content such as behind-the-scenes footage or sweepstakes

So as the old saying goes, “don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.” Traditional advertising still has a place in our marketing mix but there is real power in the integration.