This week, we asked: Do you tie your social media marketing efforts into your traditional marketing campaigns?

• Sometimes: 44.3%
• Always: 41.61%
• My brand doesn’t use social media marketing: 6.71%
• Never: 4.7%
• My brand doesn’t use traditional marketing: 2.68%

Everyone hates organizational silos. They poison innovation, fuel miscommunication and hamper efficiency. You will never* hear your boss say, “What this department needs is become more insular and secretive — only when we’ve destroyed all semblance of coordination with the rest of the company will we really start to perform at out best.”

Marketing silos can be just as dangerous. If all your company’s marketing is all done in complete isolation, you’re not only duplicating effort, you’re potentially weakening your brand with mixed messages and definitely missing out on ways to improve targeting and deepen customer engagement.

Good news, everyone! It looks like more than 2 in 5 SmartBrief on Social Media readers feel the same way — since they say they always find ways to link their social media marketing with their traditional campaigns. And an additional 40% say they sometimes coordinate their marketing efforts. Fewer than 5% say they never bother at all.

In practice, it may not always make sense to fully integrate social and traditional marketing for every campaign. Certain campaigns may only work properly in one medium or another, or perhaps technological or budgetary limitations make it difficult to roll everything into one ubercampaign. What’s most important isn’t whether or not you can always achieve perfect alignment; it’s whether or not you’re taking integration into account during the planning process. Are you looking for ways to coordinate and then branching out as your campaign needs dictate? Or are you working in complete isolation, not knowing or caring what the rest of your organization is doing? Because if you’re not even looking for ways to use social and traditional marketing in tandem, you’re just leaving money on the table.

How are you making social media and traditional marketing work together at your organization?

*If you ever do hear your boss say this, just go ahead and quit on the spot. The company’s not going to be around much longer. You might as well beat the rush.

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As we near the end of 2011, it’s only natural to make predictions in anticipation of the new year and what might be in store in the world of online video. During the past year, we saw unprecedented growth in advertisers creating content-driven video in ways that elegantly put their brands to the top of their audience’s mind in a nontraditional advertising format. We think 2011 was a mere glimpse of what online video advertising will become during the next few years.

These 12 trends are our predictions for what lies in store for online video for content producers and consumers, as well as for brands and publishers.

1. The merger of Web and TV talent: We see YouTube producers taking on even greater impact and influence. While the emergence of Internet fame on television will come in fits and starts — remember “$#* My Dad Says”? — TV stars will be looking to use their name and reputation to move across the digital transom and gain more significance in social video, while YouTube and Twitter celebrities start to make more waves on TV.
   
2. User-selected ads: Look for more choices in video advertising emerging across ad networks and direct-sold pre-roll inventory. While efforts around user-selected advertising have largely been relegated to Hulu Ad Selector, as inventory becomes commoditized and brands focus on user initiation as a metric of engagement, this type of advertising is going to grow.
3. Branded-content production: This is a trend that has been going on for some time, but we will continue to see more marketers get into original-content production. Where once only automotive and large consumer-packaged goods providers dared play, we will see education, finance, credit, insurance, telecom and several others creating branded integration that not only makes the industry more robust but also introduces challenges and standards for successful campaigns.
4. Pre-roll and broadcast interstitial inventories merge: For agencies, the distinction between online video content and television content will become less pronounced. With Nielsen’s announcement of measurement service Extended Screen, which creates a single C3 rating across TV and online channels, expect budgets to start flowing much more freely towards pre-roll. Unfortunately, it also means ad loads are going to increase dramatically — the other requirement of the merged measurement standard.
5. Dramatically increased ad load: With video-ad viewership growing faster than video viewership — 128% versus 97% year-over-year, according to FreeWheel — and budgets increasing at a similar rate from a larger base, we’ll see an increased ad load on sites such as Hulu, CBS, NBC and other television-centric online properties. However, even YouTube will begin to see significantly increased ad loads as it shifts focus more toward prosumer content channels (see below).
6. Publishers are going to finally focus on video: Even today, most traditional online publishers are still focused on expanding display inventory over video inventory. As pre-roll demand grows and sales commission for direct-sold video inventory increases in lockstep, expect to see much more video on publisher sites, even if it starts in display.
7. Pre-roll prices will continue to stratify but will level out: For media buyers, pre-roll pricing will continue to see downward pressure on the network side, as networks fight harder to gain access to premium avails. Large publishers are going to increasingly look to acquire inventory through direct sales, cutting off some critical audiences. However, prices have generally found their stasis point as network transparency has increased. Upward pricing pressure for premium direct-sold inventory will be mitigated by a dramatic increase in video availability, as publishers become more effective at building a video audience — even given the explosion of demand on the agency side.
8. YouTube pre-roll explosion: There will be a dramatic increase in pre-roll ad load on YouTube. Gone are the days in which YouTube was viewed as a risky environment for brands. Advertisers are going to continue to flee to high-quality, well-lit environments, and YouTube fits the bill. Google goes to great lengths to ensure authentic user engagement. It is building relationships with premium channels, and it has the brand relationships to move mountains of budget quickly; Premium content is a relative term; the audience is what’s important.
9. Crowdsourced video production is set to grow: Crowdsourced production of video, in terms of creation and dissemination as well as consumption and sharing, will be a big deal in 2012. As brands look for better engagement for their videos, they will increasingly rely on influencers to sell their story. With social platforms, ham-handed efforts at viral marketing can backfire quickly. Expect brands to bring authenticity to the table by loosening control over the creative process.
10. CPV pricing grows in importance: Cost-per-view campaigns will expand beyond viral videos to include several unique types of video assets, product reviews and even — taking a page from Research In Motion founder Mike Lazaridis’ recent playbook — CEO mea culpas; really, any sort of video content that’s designed to build public awareness. There is no reason engagement-based pricing models should be limited to a specific niche. Expect YouTube to continue to lead the way, with the Interactive Advertising Bureau certifying those efforts with CPV standards by year-end.
11. Demo-targeting comes to CPV campaigns: Demo targeting is going to get only more standardized in click- and engagement-based campaign buys, as brands move beyond vanity view counts on YouTube. Expect marketers to insist more on accurate demo targeting through analytical research and best-practice delivery methods. Brands know which demos their buyers fall into; they want to have a high degree of confidence that this is the actual demo being hit.
12. Mobile video advertising still disappoints: Even given the growth in smart devices that are fully video enabled, video-advertising growth of the mobile Web will continue to disappoint. HTML5 as a standard for Web video still has some growing to do, and until carriers’ networks are sufficiently upgraded to provide a reliable high-capacity connection to most metropolitan areas, the experience of watching streamed video on your smartphone will continue to be rivaled only by rabbit-ear reception.

We expect 2012 to be a year in which video continues on its trajectory. Display and search will continue to rule the roost, and budgets are finally reaching parity for individual campaigns. Video is on its way to the top of the heap — it’s only a matter of time.

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The Wall Street Journal raised some interesting questions with its article “Big Brands Like Facebook, But They Don’t Like to Pay.” While 96 of the top 100 U.S. advertisers bought Facebook ads in the past year, the majority of Facebook’s advertising revenue comes from small, local companies, the article notes.  I’ve been thinking about how Facebook has landed in this position, and I have a hypothesis.

Smaller, less well-known companies can rely on the targeted nature of Facebook ads to reach new and repeat customers in their specific demographic.  On the other hand, the largest, most well-known brands might not necessarily see the upside of the small, marketplace ads that run on the social network.  Most of them have not yet harnessed the power of the highly targeted niche advertising Facebook allows.

Another challenge for Facebook is that large brands are becoming more likely to have dedicated social media staffers at work building a robust community and creating an engaging social media experience for their fans. Data that Summus collected last year in The State of Social Media for Business shows that 35% of the largest companies (more than 50,000 employees) were “using multiple social media platforms in a coordinated effort” and more than a quarter (27.1%) of these largest companies had “at least 2 employees dedicated full time to social media.”   Useful Social Media found that in 2011, 79 of the Fortune 100 are using social media as a major channel for their marketing and communications.

While it would seem like this dedication of human and financial resources would be a positive development for Facebook, it also means that large companies can more easily pull off complex social media campaigns such as the Ford Focus campaign around its spokespuppet “Doug.”  The campaign cost Ford many millions of dollars to produce those ads and pull off that viral campaign, according to the WSJ.  Unfortunately for Facebook, it didn’t see very much of that investment.  The WSJ article explains how once “Doug” got 10,000 likes, Ford pulled the rest of its advertising and let the power of the network take over. Ford says Facebook only saw 5% of Ford’s total online ad budget for the Focus campaign.

If companies can inspire true engagement on social media networks by spending very little in traditional ad dollars, how does Facebook ever hope to grow its ad revenue?  Many of the options Facebook has would seem to run counter to principles Mark Zuckerberg has stood by for seven years.  Larger ads or branded environments, where a company could “sponsor” an individual’s Facebook page, could certainly irritate already frustrated users.  Facebook could go the way of other “free” networks like Craigslist and start charging companies to use the site.  Craigslist is free to users (and ad-free, I might add) with the exception of job postings that companies must pay for.  Facebook could start charging companies to maintain corporate sites or to post certain types of content, like videos or surveys.  But I wonder if such a policy would, in turn, hurt ad sales.   Facebook seems to be maintaining a carefully calibrated balance between the needs of users, companies and its own bottom line.

Of course, advertising is not the only revenue stream open to Facebook. The true wealth of the network likely lies in the value of all these interconnected social ties — what Facebook calls the social graph.  Facebook is not just another website with millions of users.  The level of personal engagement and the power of the social graph is unprecedented and opens up a number of revenue possibilities.

If Facebook chooses to go the way of other social revenue models, it could compete with online marketplaces (such as eBay) using its credits system. It could also make companies pay for recruitment services (a la LinkedIn), enterprise services (a la Twitter’s paid tweets), or even a Facebook app store where some programs were free and some weren’t (a la Apple).

Facebook also stands to drive significant revenue through partnerships with developers using its API.  Large companies are already leveraging the social graph to create innovative user experiences that have immeasurable marketing power.  Toyota recently launched their Facebook app, called Social Media Racer, an innovative take on a racing game that turns the user’s Facebook page into the racetrack.  Toyota could never have created this experience without access to the social graph.  If Facebook can find a way to monetize these developments, the upside is huge.

Of course, what Facebook has right now is millions of engaged users and the natural corollary is good ol’ fashioned targeted advertising.  “Advertising dollars follow eyeballs, and both the number of users and time they’re spending on Facebook has and continues to go nowhere but up. With consumers actively engaging directly with brands alongside their friends and family — and the opportunity to measure those interactions — Facebook is arguably the most transformational media platform of our time,” explained Ric Calvillo, CEO of Nanigans, a fully automated Facebook advertising solution built specifically for large-scale advertisers.

Companies are learning to love social media because it allows them to connect with their customers in new and sometimes innovative and exciting ways.  But what’s good for companies isn’t necessarily good for the social networks themselves.  The free and open nature of the networks means looking outside the language of traditional online advertising to find new and innovative revenue streams.   Social advertising is in its nascent stages; with it Facebook has the opportunity to create a multi-billion dollar ad space.  It just has to figure out how to lure the big fish.

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Blogger relations continues to be a hot topic among advertising, marketing and public relations professionals. A bad PR pitch can be dangerous. At best, they’re ignored and at worst they can become unintentional blog fodder, should a blogger decide to create a post bashing a company that reached out to them.

Maybe the problem is that these bloggers don’t have a clue what they’re being asked for or why they are being asked for it, said Jason Falls during a recent session at the BlogWorld Expo in New York City. Falls has worked for a national advertising agency, won awards for his work as a social media strategist and now serves as a corporate social media consultant in the field of social media marketing. On top of this, he is a blogger himself which allows him to speak candidly for both sides.

Falls said that the rules governing PR relationships are changing before our eyes. He explored how brands can do a better job when pitching to bloggers:

• Understand the power of the niche. Realize that while a blogger may not have the number of impressions you are looking for, they may have the most influential people in that niche reading and commenting on their blog, which is just as important.
• Make all outreach relevant. Sending a blast e-mail to a BCC’d list is spam. You need to tailor your pitches. Read the blog, know what the blogger talks about and is passionate about before you make contact.
• Know and respect that every blogger is different. It’s not the same as pitching a reporter. Bloggers have opinions of their own and each one has their own way that they like to work. Find out what their requirements are and respect their wishes.
• Have a plan for advertising asks. If a blogger responds to your pitch with the suggestion that you buy an ad on their site, you can’t just brush them off. You need to be prepared to give a thoughtful, reasonable response.

Bloggers can do their part to improve the relationship as well, Falls said. Here’s how bloggers can make PR painless:

• Teach brands how to handle you. If a PR pro pitches you and its irrelevant, take a minute to tell them why. Then they will hopefully either tailor the pitch so that it’s relevant or stop bugging you. It’s a win-win.
• Ask for the media buyer. If you want to talk about having the brand buy an ad on your site instead of you writing a post, don’t ask the PR person who contacted you. Instead, ask them to put you in touch with the brand’s media buyer and ask the media buyer what they look for when choosing places to advertise. Then make a case for why your blog is a good fit for the brand, including as much hard traffic data as you can muster. Maybe you don’t have 500,000 views on your blog a month but maybe the views and comments you receive are from the influential people in your community and that makes it extremely relevant to the media buyer.

“As a blogger, I don’t want you to make the same mistakes as the horror stories we have heard, and as a brand/pr/marketing person I want to help you understand bloggers because in the end we should all have a mutually beneficial relationship,” said Falls.

As a blogger, what are you doing to build relationships with advertising/marketing/PR professionals? As a professional in the industry what do you find makes for successful blogger relationships and outreach?

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SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social-media practices and issues.

Last week’s poll question: Have you bought ads on social networks? If so, did the ads deliver a high return on investment?

• No, I have never purchased ads on social sites — 64.86%
• Yes, I have bought ads on social networks and the return on investment was low — 27.03%
• Yes, I have bought ads on social networks and the return on investment was high — 8.11%

U.S. advertisers spent $1.99 billion on social ads in 2010, and they are estimated to spend $3.08 billion in 2011 — a 55% increase over last year, according to eMarketer. If you are like me and intentionally ignore advertising on social networks at least 99.9% of the time, then you and I probably have the same questions: “Why is the ad spend on social sites growing so rapidly, and will it continue?”

I am astonished by these ad-sales figures, since everyone I seem to ask either says they’ve never purchased social ads, or they have bought ads, but would never do it again because of extremely low return. I thought maybe I was asking the wrong audience, but the bulk of respondents to this week’s poll say they agree.

I think it is safe to say that most individuals don’t like ads, and intrusive advertising on social networks is no different, given that people are there for relationship-building, not unsolicited banners on their profile pages. However, there is no doubt that social networks provide a platform to purchase highly targeted ads based on people’s behavior and interests. These social ads seem like they must be working for someone, since ad-spend expenditures are so high.

Luckily, Google and Mozilla are already rolling out ways for people to opt out of so-called behavioral advertising. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission is working hard to find a way to control online solicitations, which may probably change the way ads are displayed on social networks. It will be interesting to see where the social-advertising realm is headed.

What has your experience been with social ads, either from an advertiser or consumer point of view? Would you opt out if legislation gives you the option?

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This summer, I was able to catch up with the rest of the world by watching the first three seasons of the TV show “Mad Men” on DVD. The show is a marvel on many levels, but given my position in the world of advertising, I was particularly drawn to the scenes when Don Draper, creative director at the Sterling Cooper ad agency and the show’s protagonist, presented creative ideas to clients.

Certainly, Don was a force of charisma and confidence, practically bending clients to his will. What was startling, however, was the continuous simplicity of the big ideas Don presented. Maybe it was a clever headline, or compelling artwork, or a memorable theme, but the concept was always presented in the context of a print ad, or, at a higher level, a television spot. No matter the client or the product, the big idea was always a form of advertising.

Now contrast that with today’s world. Certainly captivating advertising is still part of the mix. But now, creativity can be applied to a health care marketing challenge at so many levels. Visionary concepts can come in the form of an innovative media strategy, or the enterprising use of specific channels, such as social media or mobile technology. Online strategies are rife with creative opportunity such as interactive websites and smartphone applications. Hospital marketers can drive breakthrough ideas in service innovation or enhanced patient experiences. They can also be innovative by understanding and approaching new markets in new ways.

At the highest level, marketers can pull multiple components together to form imaginative strategies, combining a new experience with a twist on an important customer segment and mixed with clever social-media components. As an example, consider the popular Old Spice Guy campaign. The advertising, featuring a macho spokesman as “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” and featuring hilarious, over-the-top spots, was considered extraordinarily creative. These videos went viral and were seen millions of times on YouTube. But the company took creativity to a new level when it hosted an “Ask the Old Spice Guy” event on Twitter, where followers could post questions and the Old Spice Guy would answer his favorites through quickly shot videos that were pushed out to Twitter in near real time.

Some may harken back to Don Draper’s world and dream wistfully of the simplicity of creativity in that earlier time. It’s true that today’s world, with all of its options for creativity, may seem complex or confusing to many health care marketers. But those who pursue creativity in all its forms will see that the opportunities to break through have increased exponentially.

Put another way, imagine what Don Draper could have done with Facebook!

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SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social-media practices and issues.

Last week’s poll question: Because of the social-media shift, do you think consumers are looking to be treated and spoken to as individuals instead of unknown statistics by brands?

• Yes. They are humans who want to be treated as such by building relationships, getting involved and interacting with brands 61.59%
• Neutral. Consumers don’t care as long as brands continue to offer products and services they need and want 35.76%
• No. Consumers know they will always be nameless numbers, and they are used to being spoken at through advertising 2.65%

It’s no secret that the social-media shift has changed how some brands refer to and engage with consumers. For years, many brands misunderstood the essential role of treating consumers as individuals, rather than nameless numbers. As a consumer, I want to be referred to as an individual.

I want to have a name. I want to be listened to rather than ignored. I want to be spoken to more willingly than spoken at. I want my wisdom to be considered instead of my intelligence insulted. In addition, I want to feel cared for and appreciated. Most importantly, I want companies I do business with to treat me as a colleague or close friend by building a genuine relationship with me. If I get the above along with great products and services, the brand will have their finger on my pulse which will allow them to discover how I think, as well as what I want and need. They will also have my loyalty, trust, more respect and lots of referrals. And given that approximately 62% of readers agreed that consumers want to be treated as humans by building relationships and interacting with brands, I know there are many people out there like me.

Of course, many brands still struggle with this notion and there are exceptions to every rule; however, some brands have found the keys to the kingdom. Numerous companies now understand that the social Web has become a fertile ground for enabling consumers to interact with them on a more personal level. The brands that are using social media properly — as a tool to monitor feedback, provide customer service as well as communicate and collaborate with their audience — are finally starting to apprehend that consumers are not just nameless statistics, but an influential voice that needs to heard, respected and appreciated.

It is extremely essential for companies to understand that social media is not just a marketing initiative for generating leads. Treating consumers as individuals by engaging them through social media and outstanding customer service, combined with amazing products or services and revenue-generating initiatives, can help make the relationship between a company and its customers a more powerful experience and a win-win for both.

Do you believe social-media shift is changing the way of consumers are treated and referred to by brands? Do you think brands are starting to have a grasp of what they need to change in order to treat consumers as individuals instead of just numbers?

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Mike “Zappy” Zapolin, author of “Internet Warrior” and the creator of Music.com and Beer.com, led the panel. Joining him were John Battelle, CEO of Federated Media; David Liu, managing director and head of digital media and Internet for Jefferies & Company Inc.; Andrew Miller, founder of Internet Real Estate Group LLC; and Michael Steib, director of emerging platforms and TV ads for Google.

Among the key takeaways from their lively conversation:

• Think of ways to help people do what they already love. It’s really easy to build a website now, Miller said. “Now the key is how you cut through the clutter. The best websites are ones the facilitate behavior people are already engaged in,” citing the success of Internet dating sites.

• Think about how to make your product worth talking about. Brilliant marketing strategies won’t save a terrible product or service, said Steib. “If the chocolate sucks at Chocolate.com, it’s not going to work.”

• Think small – and then even smaller. Liu says the most impressive business models he’s seeing today rely on segmentation of the web. They target a specific group of power users or customers that really value the brand. He’s less bullish about businesses that try to be all things to all people.

• Think mobile. When you shift to a mobile environment, everything changes, Battelle said. The very way that we interface with the web will soon change – instead of text searches for comparison shopping, we’ll be able to just scan a bar code inside the store. “That changes the entire retail supply change,” he says. “It then means your brand has to mean something in terms of value besides price.”

• Think like a millennial. Gen Y doesn’t interact with the Web in the same way as older users, Liu said — if they aren’t connected to the cloud, they felt disconnected. When they’re in a shopping mood, they don’t even search in the same way, he said. They just post it in their status on Facebook and their friends give them advice.

• Think beyond the traditional ad/content divide. Your best ad might not even look like one, Battelle said, and consumers don’t care. “As long as you like something and it ads value to your life, it doesn’t matter where it came from,” he said.

SmartBrief editor Sean McMahon sat down with “Internet Warrior” author Mike “Zappy” Zapolin after the session to discuss the next big thing in social media. Find out what he had to say.

Click here to view the embedded video.

How is your company devising its branding strategy to accommodate such a rapidly changing environment?

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That’s all well and good — I hope Twitter is able to use the model to support the network we’ve all come to know and love. The question is: Will these “Promoted Tweets” prove to be a worthwhile investment for advertisers?

I’m not privy to what the network plans to charge for these ads — but I think it’s a safe assumption that the total cost in money and time of running an ad on Twitter will be greater than the cost of just having a Twitter account and using it to promote your brand. And I suspect that having a static ad — the Twitter equivalent of a banner ad — may not be as effective as some companies may hope. I think it’s harder to get a consumer to engage and connect with a paid advertisement. Will people respond to these ads? Will they want to connect with the company to learn more? Will they re-tweet the ads?

I’m not saying there’s no way that Twitter ads can ever have a positive ROI. But I am skeptical. I worry that companies will look at these ads as social-media billboards, instead of additional opportunities to engage. I suspect the companies that fare best under the new system will be the ones that best understand how to use social tools to reach out to the fans.

What do you think of Twitter’s advertising system? Will “Promoted Tweets” prove to be a better investment for businesses than the Twitter tactics we’ve seen to date? Does using paid media hurt a company’s ability to generate earned media?

Image credit, kentoh, via Shutterstock

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