Category Archives: Reblogs

FTC Announces Settlement Over Influencer Campaign for Xbox One

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Thanks to Gonzalo Mon of Kelley Drye & Warren LLC for flagging this story. It’s a really important one for those thinking they can get away with paying for endorsements without telling their public.  I hope the pay-for-play blogger companies take note.

“In January 2014, AdAge interviewed me about news reports that Machinima had hired influencers to create videos promoting Microsoft’s Xbox One gaming console and games. In a native advertising campaign, the influencers posted positive reviews, but didn’t disclose that they had been paid to do so. During the interview, we speculated about whether the FTC might take action against the campaign and what the result might be. Now, almost 20 months later, we have the answer. This week, the FTC announced a settlement with Machinima.

According the to the FTC, Machinima, the operator of a popular YouTube network, paid two influential gaming bloggers to create videos promoting the new Xbox One console and three new games, but didn’t require the bloggers to disclose that they were paid for the reviews. The bloggers posted four videos that had more than 1.6 million views. To capitalize on this success, Machinima later recruited and paid more people to upload positive reviews, again without requiring a disclosure. This generated another 300 videos and 30 million views in a five-week period.

If you follow our blog, you can already guess the problem. As Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said: “When people see a product touted online, they have a right to know whether they’re looking at an authentic opinion or a paid marketing pitch. That’s true whether the endorsement appears in a video or any other media.” Under the proposed settlement, Machinima is required to ensure its influencers clearly disclose when they have been compensated in exchange for their endorsements.”

For Gonzalo’s original story go to:

http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ftc-announces-settlement-over-16317/

And here’s the original AdAge story:

http://adage.com/article/digital/microsoft-machinima-native-youtube-blunder-risks-ftc-ire/291273/

Reblog: An Expert Makes Influencer Marketing Easy for the Influencers Read from OnlineVideo.net’s – An Expert Makes Influencer Marketing Easy for the Influencers

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Thanks to Marcy Massura of MSL for this. Once more, it’s stuck on the assumption that ‘influencers’ by default means ‘social influencers’ but it still makes some worthwhile points.

http://www.onlinevideo.net/2015/04/an-expert-makes-influencer-marketing-easy-for-the-influencers/#ixzz3bGOqVHFz

Reblog: Lithium’s view on identifying brand advocates

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I certainly don’t always agree with Lithium’s take on identifying & working with influencers, but fair play to them, this blog from Rob Tarkoff posted to SocialTimes makes sense to me.

http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/rob-tarkoff-guest-post-brand-advocates/620414

Reblog: Why Word of Mouth Should Be a B2B Marketer’s Top Priority

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Fairly interesting post here from Pam Neely. Contains some hard-to-argue-with stats. Nothing revelatory but further proof of which marketing channels perform best for sales conversion. Thanks to the often excellent Business 2 Community site for this.

http://www.business2community.com/brandviews/act-on/word-mouth-b2b-marketers-top-priority

Reblog: The Rating Game: Are “Influencers” Swaying the Score of Online Product Reviews?

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The title says it all. Makes sense to me.

Thanks to itbusiness.net for the story.

http://internet.itbusinessnet.com/article/The-Rating-Game:-Are-quotInfluencersquot-Swaying-the-Score-of-Online-Product-Reviews-3850632

Reblog: New Study Shows LinkedIn is the Tool of Choice But Blogging Declines Among the Inc. 500

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Screen Shot 2015-07-30 at 7.22.05 AMThere’s a new study from the Society of New Communications Research (SNCR) this week that looks pretty interesting. No surprise about the continued success of LinkedIn – much as we question the B2B impact of Facebook and Twitter, we’ve never had any doubts about LinkedIn. But these are the first figures we’ve seen to state that blogging among the largest U.S. companies is declining. And a 6% decline is significant. Maybe it’s just too time-consuming for almost immeasurable return?

Here’s the original. Well worth a closer look.

http://news.sncr.org/news.php?include=145547

 

New Entrants Flooding Marketing Technology Industry

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Screen Shot 2015-02-24 at 2.51.38 AMThis post from UK Marketing News reports on the astonishing rise in marketing tech vendors over the past few years, up from 100 in 2011 to 1900 this year! It states that influencer marketing is one of the specialist areas behind much of that rise.

http://www.ukmarketingnews.com/new-entrants-flooding-marketing-technology-industry/64/

Reblog: Your customer’s buying process doesn’t have to be a mystery

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Screen Shot 2015-02-11 at 9.01.27 AMAnother great post from Bob Apollo (@bobapollo) at Inflexion-Point. Quoting Gartner research he suggests buyers may be quite willing to help most salespeople better understand their buying process.

“It seems like a self-evident truth, doesn’t it? One of the consistently effective b2b sales strategies is to sell the way your customers want to buy. All you need to do is to understand their buying decision process.

According to research published last year by Hank Barnes of Gartner, your prospects may be more willing than you think to help you understand how they go about making purchase decisions. Not unexpectedly, a quarter said that they view that sort of information as confidential.

But to varying degrees, and depending on how they were asked and on the quality of their relationship with the the vendor and their representative, the remaining three-quarters of the clients Gartner surveyed expressed some degree of willingness to share the information with a sales person…”

http://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/your-customers-buying-process-doesnt-have-to-be-a-mystery

 

IHS Survey – “Which Influencer / Advocate actions does your company value most?”

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Influencer Marketing, Influencer50, Nick Hayes, Influencer Marketing & Influencer Relations, The Buyerside Journey.comInteresting evidence from Barbara Thomas, head of the Customer Recognition Program at IHS, when her firm asked 100 organizations, “Which Influencer / advocate ‘activities or assets’ are most valued by companies?”

Top of the list – no surprise it’s Customer Videos and Customer Case Studies.

However Barbara says she was surprised at the two lowest rated activities – Facebook Likes and Twitter mentions. Yet this ties in with one of the themes we’ve talked about for the past few years – the over-emphasis on engaging with customers / prospects through social media. B2B customers are just not using Twitter, Facebook et al anywhere near as much as vendors think they do. Good to see her research reinforcing it. Hat-tip to Barbara.

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