It’s interesting to watch how social media continues to evolve and takes new paths. I’m pretty sure that when Facebook was created they never thought that people would be creating pages for their pets.

This morning on Facebook, I created a DogBook page for my cocker spaniel, Belle. So yes, my dog now has a wall, can post status updates and has friends on Facebook…now if I could only get her to clean up the backyard! Just for fun, I thought I’d search for dog friends for Belle. I didn’t put any limits on distance and found that their are 1.7 million dogs Belle can friend within DogBook.

This process got me thinking more about pets and social media, so I decided to do a quick search of the blogospshere and was shocked at how many dog blogs there were and, of particular interest, how many of them were written in the first person.

We are truly a nation that loves its pets, thinks of them as family and now are able to share their lives with others on a much larger scale. Of course, this process got my marketing mind going as well; with so many pets (and their owners) engaging online, what a great opportunity for related companies to engage with active, passionate audiences. Some have started already and I’m sure others will follow. But the real success will come from those who take the time to understand the audience and the social media space and learn how to engage in conversations without being invasive.

Ever since the first banner ad appeared and asked the question “Have you ever clicked your mouse right here?” (AT&T ad on HotWired in 1994), agencies and marketers have tracked and talked about the click…but is that really a valuable measurement?

Now, before I raise too many hackles, I do believe that clicks are an important metric, but it’s a relative measurement and doesn’t necessarily equate to business success. I recognize as an agency, we really only have one goal—helping our clients’ businesses be more successful. If you lose sight of that, you might as well get into a new line of work.

So what should we be measuring? Business impact, of course. As digital marketers, we need to expand our range of metrics. We can’t just stay in our safety zone by focusing on impressions, clicks and engagement (try to tie that to a business goal). Spend a little more time with your analytics team, you’d be surprised at how much more you can learn by taking your metrics to the next step. Changing your mindset from clicks to conversions is the first step, but don’t stop there; there are  lots of other things you can track.

According to a recent study, 66% of Americans do not want marketers to tailor advertisements to their interests. Reading this statement made me wonder: Is that a true feeling, or perhaps was the question worded in the wrong manner? For years, studies have shown that when asked, consumers adamantly believe that advertising doesn’t affect their purchase decisions, but clearly we know that this isn’t true.  So rather than focusing on the negative perception of targeted ads, I wanted to point out some key benefits targeting provides to consumers.

1 – Less advertising
In the ideal world, advertisers truly only want to reach prospects who have interest in their products and services. Any other spending is wasted. Advertisers don’t want to be everywhere; they want to be where their prospects are. So if we can reach better prospects in fewer places, the amount of advertising consumers are exposed to is going to decline.

2 – More relevant advertising
Given my age and gender, I often fall into the “sports loving” demographic profile and, thus, frequently see ads related to sports. But to be honest, I don’t follow sports at all. When I see these types of ads, I usually ignore them, but if I see ads related to things I do like, I pay more attention. While it may be subtle, my consumer experience is better when appropriate ads are immersed in relevant content.

3 – Lower prices
This point may not seem so obvious, but if it’s true that “half of the money spent on advertising is wasted” (J. Wanamaker), more efficient advertising lowers a marketer’s overall costs, which in turn, down the line would result in shifts in pricing strategy. An interesting related side note about this consumer benefit can be found in the the same study, less than 50% of respondents were opposed to receiving discounts tailored to their interests. For those of you who are counting – that’s a 35% shift in attitude compared with tailored advertising.

Given these three points, how do you think consumers would respond to this question: Would you like to see fewer, more relevant ads for products that cost less? I believe you’d see a much different result. There are some very real concerns about consumer privacy that need to be addressed and will be critical to successful behavioral targeting…but there are also significant consumer benefits. So let’s make sure we’re not throwing out the baby with the bath water.

We have heard it for years now …2006, 2007, 2008 was going to be the year of the mobile, yet year after year, we all realize that it wasn’t. Is 2009 or 2010 going to be it? Hard to tell, but mobile is certainly becoming more mainstream. With the proliferation of smartphones, billion application downloads, $199 iPhones, Android, the third screen is definitely gathering attention. Why wouldn’t it? With these types of numbers, it’s a great opportunity to engage with customers on their own terms.

I’m proud to unveil the new face of CatalystDirect.com.  It’s sleek and sexy, but then again, I’m partial…

The new look is more than just a design; it’s a story.  I don’t want to give it all away in this post so sit back, relax and enjoy — then explore and get an understanding of our viewpoint and see how we take it from conception to reality in 3 new portfolio pieces.

While you’re in here, send me a comment and let me know what you think!

I recently spoke with Ginger Conlon in the 1to1 Blog about how consumer behavior is changing, especially in the way customers communicate and interact with brands. Consumers are much more empowered. Increasingly they interact with businesses when, where, and how they want. Today, one of business’s greatest challenges is to keep up. 

There are four four areas that businesses should improve in to keep pace with customers’ changing expectations:

The process of putting your life online, in aggregate, has been called “lifestreaming,” so it’s inevitable that brands (having personalities all their own) would join in: Here’s a good introductory article on lifestreaming for brands.

An Excerpt: “It’s fairly obvious why companies want to get their brand out into social media sites like Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and then wrap it up into feeds. It’s to get their brand out beyond their website, to engage users and entice them into discussions about their products.”

While this article implies that lifestreaming for brands is particularly focused on lifestyle products, we’ve already recommended it to some of our non-profit clients.  For organizations who wish to build a feeling of “membership,” a lifestream can be just the thing to keep people involved but do so at little or no cost.

Kodak, one of our largest customers, is ahead of the curve here.   You can view (and subscribe!) to the Kodak stream here.  (BTW, kudos to Kodak for using off the shelf tools like FriendFeed, Twitter, and Flickr… they are doing it right!)

Please note: This post was originally written using the term “brandstream,” but I have since learned that that term was trademarked by Fricken Company in 1998.  Kudos to them for identifying such an important trend so early on!   Fricken does business as “Brandstream Inc.” and was founded by Scott Bedbury, the author of A New Brand World.

Found this excellent review of mobile trends in the US and UK.   Visit Mobile Life 2008 and download the full report (pdf).

I’m proud to announce the new ParagonSports.com is live.  If you live in the NYC area, chances are you’ve heard of Paragon Sports.  If you’re not in the area (just like me) their newly redesigned site (designed by Catalyst) has 30,000 of their products and major brands available.

The NEW ParagonSports.com

Going to the physical store is a great experience… it’s like visiting a niche specialty shop for running, or camping, or baseball, or rock climbing or… well you get the idea.  They have a ton of brands and a ton of lines in those brands.  That same breadth is available online too!  If you don’t believe me, just check out their brands page; the list is huge.

As you can imagine, that’s a lot of products to organize and wade through to find the right one.  They were available on the previous site (see screenshot below), but we really wanted to make it quick and easy to find the right one.   We also wanted to pull the feel of the store and what it all represents into the design and interface of the online store.

We also had to do quite a bit of research, as we questioned what someone in downtown Manhattan might need a kayak for.  It all made sense after some user research discovering the enthusiasts who walk the walk and appreciate Paragon’s authenticity… or the aspirationals only talk the talk, but they do it with style… or some of the other types of shoppers like jumpers or NBLBs (Need-Based Loyal Buyers).  I could go on and on about this… let me know if you want to hear more!

So, all in all, it’s a new navigation, a new page structure and user interface, new content, a new back-end to support it all and a brand focused visual design to bring it all together.  The products have been reorganized into the way you would shop and how you think about the products.  As you drill into major categories, the guided navigation gives you relative and appropriate attributes to help filter and narrow your search.  And, it’s all wrapped in a new look and feel that really targets in on the urban living sports enthusiast (and yeah, I love that phrase)!

The Previous ParagonSports.com Site

We all heard the headline last week. “Microsoft makes a bid for Yahoo!” (an unsolicited $44.5 billion bid to be exact).

Yahoo! has many great assets — e-mail, the portal site, flickr, del.icio.us. — but this offer is all about search advertising.

A “Micro-Hoo,” as some writers are calling the potential combination, “will have the second-largest ad network and a vast array of sites on which to place its own ad,” according to Saul Hansell of the New York Times.

Hansell has a great analysis of why this merge should make more sense to Yahoo! than the recently discussed alternative of turning over its own search advertising to Google.

“There is no longer a strict difference between search ads — sold in a huge auction — and brand ads — sold by a sales force over lunch. Rather, there is increasingly a smooth gradation, with even some graphic ads for big brands placed through automated systems and, soon, advertising exchanges. I suspect — although I’m not sure — that one big system that can handle all sorts of ads will have advantages over narrower advertising networks,” Hansell writes.

But if this acquisition does happen, what does it mean for your search (SEM and SEO) marketing strategies?

As we wait for this deal to shake out, here are two opinions worth a read:

• What Will Microsoft Yahoo Merger Mean for SEO?
• Microsoft-Yahoo: Search Marketing Trends That Matter