Marketing Technology 5
Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed
MT5 Edition: #42
Stories This Week: Beginners Guide to Social, amazing Civ II game, top content tactics, fewer Zynga players and Microsoft buys Yammer.
1. The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media
[Mashable] Simple guides to Tumblr, LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook and Twitter. Maybe they are useful to you or to someone you know.
My Take: I read the Reddit guide and learned about its quirky customs.
2. Man plays Civ II for 10 Years
[Reddit] Reaching the year 4,000 AD, the world is a nuclear holocaust as people of the world suffer a war that has gone on for 1,700 years.
My Take: I had to include this story in this weeks post. While I’m not much of a gamer, but Civ II is a great PC strategy game that I spent countless hours playing. This story got picked up because it seemed somewhat prophetic, when in reality the game is supposed to end around the year 2,000. I liked how commenters gave the player some ideas on how to finally win the game. If you’d like to check the game out, or a more recent version, I recommend buying the iPad Civ Revolution game.
3. Develop Your Audience With Top Content Marketing Tactics
Top Content Tactics
[MarketingSherpa] A study of 1,745 B2B Marketers indicated that multi-channel communication,
improved thought leadership and segmentation are the three most effective content marketing tactics.
My Take: Well…duh…but there’s more to it. Picking the best tactics is a good start, but ultimately it comes down to execution. How well does your content strategy stand out from your competitors? Are you solving customer problems?
4. Why Zynga is Shedding Users
[CNBC] Cowen and Company issued a report titled “Facebook Gaming in Accelerating User Tailspin,” which highlights the fact that Zynga’s social gaming daily active users declined by 8.2 percent in May.
My Take: The report points to the shift to mobile gaming as the chief reason people aren’t playing “-‘ville” games. Personally I think there’s a bit of a social stigma associated with Facebooks gaming platform due to the annoying way it posted game updates to the players timeline (so and so needs a cow!). So my point is, Facebook and Zynga might have structured the social gaming aspect to keep it social, but less irritating. The larger point is Zynga’s dip eludes to Facebook’s mobile problem – they need a better mobile app. Recent updates have focused on photos (the Instagram effect) but aren’t really compelling. Although I’m not a big Google+ user, the mobile app is pretty good. It’s fast, attractive and easy to use.
5. Yammer Agrees to Sell Itself to Microsoft
[WSJ] Business-software company Yammer Inc. agreed to sell itself to Microsoft for $1.2 billion.
My Take: This buy plugs holes in Microsoft’s cloud Office productivity suite and adds social capabilities to their arsenal. How will Microsoft integrate Yammer with Sharepoint, Office365, Office (desktop) and Skype??? That’s a lot of products (and code) to bring together in a compelling fashion.
