In 2010 alone, the video games industry as a whole made nearly $67 billion and is expected to increase to nearly $81 billion by 2016.  Even the Obama administration saw merit in advertising its election campaign in a video game in 2008.

So then, with an underutilized industry in the billions, and an indirect presidential endorsement, where might you be diverting advertising funds in the next few years?

According to venturebeat.com, “the global market for ads in video games is expected to grow from $3.1 billion in 2010 to $7.2 billion in 2016”.  In North America alone, advertisers spent nearly a billion dollars last year and that is expected to double by 2014.

Video games have often been looked down upon as a children’s activity.  This is more than apparent in the persistent and heated debate between parents and lawmakers coming to verbal blows over enforcing ratings, and trying to sensor certain violent and/or sexual content that continues to make its way into games, and into the homes and minds of today’s youth.  For more on that debate, see the recent state of California coverage regarding the ban of violent video game sales to children that came to a head earlier this year.

However, what advertisers are failing to notice is that video games, or games in general i.e. Facebook or even mobile games, are used willingly and readily by any consumer looking for some down time or to distract themselves from the monotony of a moment.  Public transportation has never been so fun because of it.

Facebook itself has a collection of games that has advertising not so much in the game, but around the games’ borders themselves, allowing for a drifting eye to consciously or subconsciously pick up the necessary information.

Another overlooked aspect is the fact that gaming is no longer a niche market.  This can be seen easily by the sales and saturation of the Nintendo Wii into the homes of people who never were and probably never will be considered “gamers.”  In fact, the Nintendo Wii’s demographic penetration was seemingly unmatched by any other console ever.  It reached into nursing homes, cruise ships, and even bars during its hay day as a compliment to happy hours and drink specials.  I remember my parents, who are in their 60s, asking me what all the hubbub was about and my father asking specifically about the golf games.

Furthermore, advertising is not just a one-way street.  What brands gain from exposure to the video game industry’s infrastructure, video game developers gain a little bit of creative freedom.  Whereas publishers are typically the sole source of money for projects in development, a product placement or two might alleviate some of the over the shoulder mentality that some might say is making “great” games few and far between.  Alas, I digress.

In closing, progressive advertisers need to be looking beyond traditional means of advertising if they want to reach a wider range of consumers.  If you can name it off the top of your head, it’s been done, but video games could be the next big thing.  One of the biggest franchises in the industry at the moment is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.  It has sold over 25 million copies since it’s release in the fall of 2010.  That means roughly 25 million people could have seen your ad, and continued to see your ad if it was integrated into the online multiplayer.

Just food for thought.

The Golden Circle

Standard operating procedure (SOP) when it comes to marketing seems to indicate introducing the product first and foremost into the consciousness of its intended audience.

Next, SOP traditionally introduces the features and their advantages of said product against and over its competitors to further sway curiosity into purchasing power.

Finally, SOP seems to indicate that profit in abundance will follow.  However, according to Simon Sinek, this is actually not the way the most successful individuals or companies in the world do things.

In 2007, Simon Sinek discovered a pattern to the success of some of history’s most accomplished innovators and leaders.  He discovered a very important process he later dubbed “The Golden Circle” which entails a three-pronged system that most if not all companies have in practice, but may be executing in the incorrect order.

In short, The Golden Circle, shown above, is defined by three words as follows:  “What” simply representing the product (or service) itself whether it is computer, car, beer, etc.  All companies know what they do.  ”What” is on the outer most rim of the circle.

Next, Sinek states that most companies know “How” they do what they do.  For cars it’s all about performance, features, and sleek new designs.  It’s about how their car stacks up against other competitors in its “class”.  “How” finds itself on the middle ring of the circle.

Lastly, but most importantly to Sinek’s point is “Why”.  Why, being at the core of the circle, represents the beliefs or the philosophy of the individual or company.  It represents their reasons for doing what they do.  Why isn’t about the financials, as Sinek says, the financials are just a result.  Why is simply that, why is the company doing this?

Now traditionally, companies market themselves as such:  Here is our brand new product.  It has these features which makes it better than our competition.  Try it.  This order of operations can most readily be seen in the current cell phone company dogfight.  Specifically here.

What Sinek discovered was that contrary to this belief, and although these companies that have readily put into practice the above way of doing things have found varying levels of success, companies that reverse this order have been the most successful.

In his 20-minute talk, for which a link can be found below, he gives the example of TiVo.  Much like Kleenex the brand becoming synonymous with the product tissue, the brand TiVo has come to be synonymous with the action of recording live television onto itself, its competitors, or standard issue digital video recorders (DVRs).  He speaks about how TiVo, though known and with a fair installation base, has never really made money.  It has never been exceedingly successful.

Sinek then moves on to one of the most successful companies in the world right now, Apple.  He says apple could state, we make iPhones (What), they’re beautifully designed and easy to use (How), and they’re made for people like you (Why).  Sounds right, but there’s nothing particularly special about it.  There’s nothing that compels loyalty or for that matter, purchasing power.  Now lets try it in reverse.

“We at Apple believe in challenging the status quo, we believe in thinking differently [Why].  The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user friendly [How].  We just happen to make computers [What].  Want to buy one?”

Rather than seemingly guessing at the need of it’s intended audience, this order of operations presents its reason and its cause.  If you are a consumer, and agree with a company’s cause, you are more likely not just to walk into their store, or try or buy their product, but you are more likely to stick with them through thick and thin, recommend them to your friends, and see what other products that company has to offer.

Marketing is more than data and numbers.  It’s more than demographics and a thorough understanding of supply and demand.  It’s marketing a feeling.  It’s appealing to the emotion of the consumer and allowing that emotion to drive their purchase.  It’s about connecting with the aspect of the consumer that if your service or your product goes away, you will truly be missed.

For the full Golden Circle video click here.

And if you’d like anything from a consult to a strategy, contact MarCis Interactive.

On the other hand, there are also recent studies that seem to indicate that the social networking behemoth Facebook and its fans may be neglecting the once unstoppable giant.

So the question presents itself: are companies simply too late to the social media party?

Duke University conducted a study with nearly 250 companies and CMOs to discover how much of their budget had been, has been, and will be carved out to tackle the social media issue.

As a whole, companies direct about 7.1% of their current marketing budget towards social media based marketing.  If trends continue, this is expected then to increase to approximately 10.1% within the next year and to 17.5% within the next 5 years.

Specifically, in the business-to-consumer sector, businesses and companies plan to direct as much as 24% of their overall marketing budget to social media based programs.  That number currently stands at about 10.5%.

So then, with all these companies ready to jump on the social media bandwagon, the question proposed to them is how?

Most companies plan to ultimately have an integrated social media strategy as their spending increases i.e. they will evolve, train, and/or grow from within, but in the meantime, they will be looking to outsource their company’s social media strategies with social media strategists such as marCis Interactive.

However, as companies seek to achieve this balance between building from within, while first building from without, the question has been proposed as to whether companies like Facebook will be able to maintain their relevance in the social media stratosphere by the time the necessary spending catches up.

In just two years, Facebook has seen its active user base increase from 150 million users worldwide in January of 2009 to 750 million users as of July 2011, but in the United States, that number has begun to stagnate and level off at about 155 million user per month.

In a recent global study of approximately 100,000 active Facebook users conducted in 27 markets, sharp declines were found in everything from status updates, visits, content sharing, messaging, etc.  There are even findings that indicate that the original users of Facebook, the postgraduate 20-somethings of America, are starting to lose interest.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily spell doom and gloom for the social media giant.  155 million active users is actually representative of about half of the population of the United States, and its waning user attentiveness can possibly be attributed to the frequent redesigns that do off put users initially, but never seems to have any lasting effects.

So then, is social media a fad or an industry?  It’s safe to say if it was just a fad, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn amongst others would not be giving pause to marketing departments worldwide, but if you are a company that’s looking from anything to a consult to a working strategy, look no further than marCis interactive for all your social media needs.

For more information on the CMO survey itself please click here.

How about a lot of pictures moving in sequence, one right after the other? Moving so close that you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins?

That’s video. That’s the potential power you have at your fingertips. What’s amazing about it, though, is how truly underutilized it is. It’s not something you see on a lot of commercial sites. Maybe you’ll see it on their recruiting pages, but not in demonstration of the product.

That’s kind of dumb. Commerce sites should take that more seriously. Here’s why:

Video attracts new and relevant search data

No talk about commerce is complete these days without some mention of SEO. Search engine optimization is the king these days, what with everyone getting online and doing their thing. You can’t earn business unless you distinguish yourself from the competition. Sites that do video are gaining an upper hand in this because Google slants the search results toward video these days. They’ll show up right at the top almost every time.

Video assets can be easily syndicated

Come on, haven’t you ever heard of viral marketing? This is it, and video is key for that kind of thing. This is because video plays pretty well everywhere. You can use this not only for digital marketing, but also for mobile marketing as well, since mobile plays video just fine.

Videos Encourage Sharing

And sharing is caring.

In all seriousness, video tends to get the most traffic. A video on Facebook is going to generate more traffic, more likes, and more discussion than a little bit of text and a link. Pictures and video both get the lion’s share of engagement when it comes to these kinds of things. Think about it – every time a video is liked, it gets posted on a user’s wall. That user’s friends see it, like it, it posts to their wall, and again.

Video Engages Site Visitors

This is actually better than the set up of most sites. People come in and if they’re not ready for it, they may not know how to navigate their way around. They won’t know what to click to go where, and for some people that can be a genuinely intimidating concept.

Video in that case represents a sort of introduction. It explains who you are, sets up the user’s expectations, and if you embed a call to action it will drive people to get through the site.

The Halo Effect

If you’re selling a product, as we mentioned, you have to worry about your conversion rate. You need people to click through and buy. Fortunately, video gives you a wonderful way to demonstrate your product, which quells the fears of prospective buyers. Ideal, particularly, if you have a lot of competition.

So, it all sounds awesome. But like most awesome things, it can be pretty daunting. That’s why marCis interactive is here. We’ve worked with companies like Playboy Golf to help their social media marketing. Video was a key part of that.

We have some ideas for you.

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Still, if you’re involved in digital marketing, it’s important. For one thing, it’s your results. For another thing, it tells you what you’re doing right, and what you’re doing wrong. It can give you concrete data on what’s happening, and you can react to that data to change what’s going on.

It’s a cyclical thing, a game of setting up your goals, working to meet them, and meeting or missing entirely, in which case you figure out what you did wrong and do it again.

Here are some ways to make it better.

Know Thyself

The first part to make sure of is that you know what your purpose is. You want to know it, because it’s ultimately going to affect everything that you do. If you don’t know your website’s goal, you can’t possibly meet it. Furthermore, you can’t act in any way that could possibly be construed as meaningful.

Know Thy Worth

In other words, make sure that your blog is genuinely contributing value to the people who are reading it. Don’t just throw down some words and expect people to just buy it. You’re going to have to work for it. Fortunately, you have a way to measure your success, either by your RSS feed or by your email marketing efforts. Also, make sure to track these numbers.

The Fine Art of Conversation

Start eliciting a call to action in your blogs – kind of like we’re doing here. Ask questions. Say something controversial like how pi is 3 – but that only counts if you’re blogging about math. Make sure to check your comments sections. See how many comments you get. The more you have, the better. This way, you can figure out how many people want to converse with you. The more people you talk to, the better it is for you.

SELL!

Obviously, this point doesn’t apply to every website out there. But if you have something to sell, you’re going to be keeping a really close eye on your conversion rate. Fortunately, Google has a webmaster tool that lets you track that statistic. And the cool part about it is that it’s free, so you can access your analytics without worrying about paying someone for it.

Keyword: Keyword

Basically, you need to keep track of what keywords people are using to get to your site. Compare your articles to the keywords that people are using to find you. This way, you can figure out if you have an optimal keyword strategy or not.

Keep in mind, this more than just crass manipulation. This is how you meet the needs of your prospects. You aren’t manipulating anyone, you’re making sure they get what they want.

Kind of like how team members at marCis interactive met the needs of SAP and Four Seasons Hotels. They did so by analyzing their results and tailoring a strategy for them that led to increased traffic and conversions.

Wouldn’t you like for us to help you with that too?

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But not just businesses. It’s also for the entertainment industry. Sure, some of you might say it’s not a business per se. But that would be incorrect. Everything from Jersey Shore to the Thor movie is calculated. Businesslike. Planned.

That means there’s an opportunity for profit. And that means that Facebook can be used by the entertainment marketers too.

Facebook Photo

This is something that gets overlooked a lot so far as it being a way for the industry to generate some strong impressions. The tool actually has the ability to let businesses generate images that are up to 2048 pixels high. That is a big picture. Just imagine the Captain America Shield that size, and you get an idea of the power of impression. Anybody who clicks on that is going to recall it easily, which will lead people back and, hopefully, generate sales.

New Groups

Facebook introduced a New Groups kind of feature. It’s sort of like a mini Facebook – only with group chat and the ability to upload documents. The entertainment industry could really use this. This could be used to set up premieres, or to set up a place for people to talk about Comicon or whatever. It’s a powerful brand advertising tool.

Facebook Questions

Facebook questions is the more relational side of brand marketing. Because if they know you’re asking questions with the intention of selling them something, you’ll either get trolled or ignored. You don’t want that. But if you ask questions that the fans are bound to resonate with, you’ll generate a conversation. That leaves a good impression with companies.

It’s wise to think of it as a LinkedIn kind of feature. Only fun.

Places

This one’s a bit more general in its use, but with a little creativity you can make it work wonders. Places is a way for you to establish a connection between your online profile and your offline venue. Clearly this is something you’d find used more by hotels, but this can be particularly useful for events. You want to encourage people to check in, and if you’re doing this for a temporary event then it’s even easier. Remember – you need to make sure that what you’re doing is visible.

Likes

Like is definitely not a new tool. It is an old tool, but it’s one that has a lot of untapped potential. Say you’re hosting an exclusive party requiring tickets to get in. Say that the first ten likers get ten free tickets, or something like that. Facebook can let you arrange to make that happen. This makes you even more visible and does you more good.

Would you care for some further ideas? The team at marCis interactive has a ton more that have helped companies like Zyr Vodka enjoy a greater degree of success.

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When it started off, it was cool. I remember being invited as a college student by a friend I’d not seen in a while. And it had that awesome new-site smell to it and everything, you know? Being there felt like I was part of a club, like I was doing something unique and awesome that hadn’t been done before.

And that was all true. Facebook wasn’t the first to do social media but they were the first to do it right. Nobody questions this. And if you have any doubts, just check out The Social Network. That’ll set you straight.

Nonetheless, there’s an uncomfortable truth that’s implicit in being the first to get things right. In order to do something right, you have to know how to do it wrong. Facebook didn’t walk into this knowing how to do right or wrong. In figuring out how to let businesses exploit and develop themselves into conversational partners, they made mistakes. They’ve had to deal with issues of censorship, online privacy issues, and technical issues on numerous occasions.

Also, they let my parents join. Something just ain’t right about that.

But now there’s someone new on the social media scene, and it’s prompting some people to ask if Google can out-social the king.

And so far, they’re off to a good start. You currently can’t get in without an invite, and they’ve filled to capacity since the doors first opened. What we’ve seen out of it so far, however, seems to represent nothing if not a genuine attempt to do just that – to give users a social experience unlike anything they’ve had before. Alternately, it could be an attempt to return to the old days, when social media was something new and exciting and we weren’t calling it social media yet.

Either way, there’s no denying that it looks and sounds darn interesting.

You start with a few details about yourself and a photo. It doesn’t look like there’s any way around the photo requirement, but just about anybody who’s going to do something like that is going to have some means of getting a good photo online anyway.

The site supports streaming feeds and offer five different pieces:

Circles are groups of friends that you maintain around a certain idea. Friends, acquaintances, the like.

Sparks are the Google+ version of an RSS reader. You put in a subject, it spits out the feeds that are related to it.

Hangouts offer live video conferencing for up to 10 people.

Huddle is a group texting feature.

As for Instant Uploads… well, there’s no reason not to think that it’s exactly what it sounds like.

Now, obviously, this is a new platform for SEO and the like. Speculations are already running on what will be happening there for businesses and how they can take advantage of the new platform.

Of course, the team at marCis interactive has some ideas. We’re even willing to share.

And of course, most people don’t know what to do with it. Sure, you probably know enough to know that a fan page is more than just a good idea. But that might just be the end of your ideas.

You’re not alone in your confusion. A lot of hoteliers know that Facebook and social media at large represent a lot of potential, but they don’t know what to make of it.

Well, if nothing else, consider this: Google is taking stock of Facebook interactions when it comes to creating search results. By being social, you create search engine optimization. It’ll give you an edge over your competition. Here are some other tips.

1.) Create a custom URL for your Facebook Page

This is vital, if for no other reason than that it serves to distinguish you. This makes your page easier to remember. Also, search engines are starting to index these pages based upon their names. They’ll come up as URLs if people go searching for them.

With your name, don’t be afraid to get specific. You can’t just list your URL as facebook.com/thehotelcalifornia. That’s not going to work. Instead, try something like facebook.com/yourhotelnameseattle.

2.) Promote your visual identity through video

Of course we’re not going to say that old ad campaigns had it right. But they did understand one thing. A picture is worth a thousand words. And if you can get a series of moving pictures, well, all the better. Set up a YouTube account and use it to host videos on Facebook. It can be general or specific, either will work for you. Additionally, it will give you more hits from search engines. It’s another way to put SEO to work for you.

3.) Use Facebook insights

Seriously. It’s not quite the same as using the Force, but it’ll do in a pinch.

As the administrator for the page, you’ll be able to use insights as a miniature web analytics program. You can use it to monitor how many fans you have, what posts are generating the most traffic, that sort of thing. You’ll even be able to tell which of your fans have ‘hidden’ your content from others. If that describes a lot of your fans, you may be putting out too much.

4.) List the hotel on Facebook places

You want to be known on Facebook. You want people checking in on Facebook too. Offer them free incentives like room discounts or free drinks.

5.) Use the reviews application

Facebook has an app that lets people leave honest reviews. You want this. This is the conversation that we talk so much about. And even if it’s a bad review, it’s still an opportunity for a positive response.

Of course, there are other things you could do. The team at marCis interactive is familiar with the ideas that will get you what you want. They’ve done SEM for Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, with the result being increased bookings and increased revenues for non-room offerings such as wedding packages and business conferences.

That’s a good thing. Right?

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And nobody’s visiting.

Now, don’t panic. Remember, this is the internet. The internet is a big place. The fact of the matter is that making yourself distinct enough for people to come visit you is a daunting task even in the best of times. Everything that you’re saying has been said before, about a million different ways.

Also, that cool head that you’re keeping on your shoulders is going to help you see through all those hucksters who are going to sell you their traffic systems. And how unwise is that! No two businesses are going to have the exact same needs. If that’s true, then no one system can adequately meet the needs of all businesses. On the other hand, principles are universal. And there are certain things you can do to prosper without need for any system at all. Here are some ideas shared from increasetrafficrank.com.

1.) Article Marketing For Traffic

By article marketing, what is meant is creating original copy or content, and then submitting it to an article directory. Working with any of the top 10 article directories will get you traffic immediately. This in turn leads to better ranking in the search engines, which will help your overall SEO efforts.

2.) Social Bookmarking to Increase Website Traffic

Now this is, literally, a little big one. It’s something that’s hugely important, but at the same time, for the sake of your digital marketing, you don’t want to spend much time on it. The goal here is to establish deep links that will raise your rank on Google. That’s another thing that can help with search engine optimization. Anything that lets you increase your page rank is going to be helpful in generating traffic.

3.) RSS Marketing To Increase Web Traffic

RSS marketing is so common these days that the idea of not using it is just stupid. Yet, the amazing thing is, even though you can use it, it’s still quite possible to use it poorly. Instead of using RSS feeds to create backlogs of content, you have a much more diverse set of options. You can do things such as create backlinks – thousands, if you’re wise about it – to create fresh content, and to create affiliate product feeds mixed in with your own.

Lots of potential. And keep in mind, there’s not much pressure either. The worst thing you can do is not do it at all.

4.) Blog Submissions for Increased Traffic

And not just on your blog either. You want to be a guest author if you really want to get the content going. But that takes a certain amount of connection, and that’s not necessarily the easiest thing online. An alternative is to use a free web traffic service. Free Traffic System, for example, lets you submit articles, and sends them out to up to thirty blogs at once, sending you two backlinks for each.

5.) Blog Commenting to Increase Web Traffic

After all, it’s all about the conversation these days. Don’t take too much time worrying about finding blogs with dofollow allowances. It’s better to find blogs relevant to what you do and leaving comments with linked text designed for SEO. Even little niche blogs will suffice, provided that you’re relevant to them.

Just ask ZYR Vodka for example. The Mixed Digital team helped ZYR increase their web and Facebook traffic using a coordinated effort. As such, we have a couple ideas that you might find handy. So stop by and let’s talk.

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It’s worth pointing out. Especially given that you can link your Facebook status updates to your Twitter account, thus organizing it and making sure that everyone’s getting the same conversation. And because of its experimental nature, it plays around with formatting changes all the time.

Case in point: Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends, and Promoted Accounts. These are new ways to leverage the unique strengths that Twitter brings to bear. But marketers are finding themselves overwhelmed, it seems. Nobody really seems to know what to make of this new opportunity.

We’re not alone in these ideas. But we think you ought to hear them.

1.) Use Promoted Trends or Promoted Tweets to Publicize an Event

As is noted in the link, Twitter is about right now. People will check back in to Twitter throughout the day just to see what’s trending, what’s popular. That’s natural – most people on Twitter are listeners anyway. But Twitter’s given advertisers a new tool in Promoted Trends. These basically give the advertisers premium space for advertising purposes.

Clearly you can use this to enhance your engagement – getting more people to click through is never a bad thing. But it’s much more useful to you to make these happen if you have a product launch going on, or some kind of press release. Just imagine Blizzard tweeting about an expansion pack. Can you imagine the engagement they’d get from that?

2.) Build the Brand with Promoted Accounts

If the Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends are about the here and now, Promoted Accounts are your long term investment. Twitter positions these accounts in front of users who might be interested in the brand’s advertising based upon the results of their web analytics.

3.) Use Your Hashtags

This is where the more conversational element is going to kick in. The linked article uses the example of Audi’s inclusion of a hashtag for their Super Bowl ad. As a result, they ‘completely dominated’ all related discussion on Twitter. That said, there’s a lot of different ways to use this thought. Obviously you could center it on your brand. Or, you can use it to foster a general discussion. Letting users add their thoughts is a great way to build that relationship.

4.) Counterprogram

During the NCAA tournament, AT&T ran TV ads. Verizon decided to run an online campaign using Promoted Trends. Two guesses as to who actually won the most discussion.

…

It was Verizon.

5.) Follow Through

Social media is very different from regular media. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. You have to, if you want to keep that relationship alive.

Speaking of Twitter, the marCis interactive team has experience in getting companies more fans. Just look at Playboy Golf. The marCis team managed to get them over 8,900 fans in their time working together. You could always use more fans, right?

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