Tim.McGuinn.es/s

Just spell it out

Kids and Their Brand Logos

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DAYTONA BEACH, FL - FEBRUARY 16: Kasey Kahne,...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

NASCAR has started and I’m watching the Daytona 500 with the nearly 3-year-old –
“Daddy, Cheerios!
Look it’s, Target!
Hey, M & M’s!
Home Depot! Can we go Home Depot?”

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Estimating Views: Newspapers vs Facebook

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Vineyard overlooking Canandaigua Lake, from Ro...

Image via Wikipedia

Some people do puzzles to stay sharp, I like to run a marketing model.  The kind where I set up a spreadsheet, make some assumptions and justifiable estimates, and then hope like hell my hypothesis is in the ballpark. From there I usually have to spin it to make it easy to digest.  Good times.

This week an idea came up about the effectiveness of using PR to support a regional project that would cover Central to Western NY vs using a Facebook Fan page.

Here’s some background with the names changed.

About the Newspapers:
Below are the five largest regional newspapers and their circulations that I found by searching around.  The two assumptions that I added are:
a) Views – each purchased newspaper is viewed twice
b) Impressions – I assumed that an article like this would be read by 20% of the buyers.

Bottom Line: Getting an article in each newspaper in the region would be seen by 180,000 people.

NEWSPAPER    Circ     Readers/Circ   Views  Impressions
Buffalo    160,000   
Roch       119,000   
Syr         85,000   
Bing        65,000   
Elmira      23,000   
           452,000           2        0.2    180,800

 

Now, Facebook:
a) Group size – I used 30,000. I realize that this is a fairly large group, but there is a similar group in the region that already has more fans than this, so it is certainly achievable either working independently or doing a coordinated project with the other group.
b) Impressions – Total impressions are generated by getting “Like” clicks and comments that will then get your post to appear on Facebook walls of non-fans. To determine how many impression a single announcement post would get, I used 5 impressions/fan. This is a very conservative estimate since it is based on the impressions I get for another project that is non-consumer so less viral, but let’s go with 5.

FACEBOOK    
Group Size   Impressions/Fan    Total Impressions
   30,000           5              150,000

 

Bottom Line: A post to our groups Facebook page would get 150,000 impressions.

From the bottom line numbers it seems like newspapers would still prove the strongest plan.

Intangibles:
If you ever placed a newspaper article, you know how much work it is. Now think about doing that for five newspapers. It’s a lot of work to get thos 180,000 views.  Along with the work, you have also relinquished the message to local writer, so you have lost some control in the message. Now let’s look at the effort for doing a Facebook post.  Once you tweak the voice of your press 

Now let’s look at the effort for doing a Facebook post.  Once you tweak the voice of your press release to talk directly to your buying audience, you can post it right up.  You control the message and you don’t have to do all the follow-up and scheduling involved in the newspaper placement.  For this I estimate 150,000 views.

But still 150K is still less than the 180K for the newspapers, so why is this better. First the work effort is less, but #2 is the big thing — you can do it again next week!!  Why not? Add a few new pictures and an update to the schedule, and bam! Another 150,000 views.

FACEBOOK    
Status Update Imp/Fan Fans: Finger Lakes Wines   
imp/fan 2 30,000  62,821
    
Picture Update 4 to 6 30,000  150,000

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Doing It Right

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I had a conversation today with a local CEO that runs a media buying agency that only deals with user acquisition campaigns for their clients.  First it was great for me to have a conversation that included the phrases CPM and click-thru, but it was even better to hear a person talk about setting his own schedule and having the opportunity to choose his clients.

Think about this idea of choosing your clients.  So many of us are in the constant state of trying to acquire new clients that it never seems possible that you can have all you can handle or, more importantly, all you want.  The best part is that he can use Binghamton as his base and its easy access to NYC and Boston for working with clients.   Ahh, just sayin’.

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Setting the Subscription Fee – Where’s the Line?

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This week saw two new major brand entries to the world of subscription-based content.  First the Boston Globe announced that next year they were splitting and enhancing their online content offerings by creating a paid subscription site at BostonGlobe.com for $14.95 per month.  Their flagship Boston.com will remain free.  Magazine publisher (can I still use the “M” word?) Condé Nast announced Golf Digest on Demand as a premium subscription service for $9.99 per month, offering on-demand golf content like instruction videos. This is great. I have no problem with paid-for content. My question: how do you set these prices?  I once used the HBO test when deciding if a monthly fee had value. That worked until the day I signed up for a DVR and realized that a $10/month DVR was so much more valuable by allowing me to control by viewing compared to the $12/month for HBO.  Earlier this year. I tested the value of the DVR when we moved into our new place and tried to go with the HD over-the-air antenna = $free TV, but no DVR (unless I wanted to buy and pay monthly for TiVO).  We quickly learned the value of on-demand Curious George as the only way to get a two-year to sit long enough to fix dinner. Back to the fees question … where do you set that value?  The $9.99 for the Golf Digest on Demand makes initial sense, but every month?  And that’s where the line needs to be set, you want to find that sweet spot where the subscriber is willing to pay, but not inclined to cancel. The other issue these publishers should build into their pricing is that paid subscribers are FAR MORE valuable for partnership programs.  Any subscriber that is willing to pull out a credit card is going to be a FAR MORE desired target. These publishers should look to setting a price that is low enough to make the decision to join easy, and not one that makes the subscriber evaluate it’s value against another service. My take is to price low enough to cover operational expenses in order to encourage subscriptions. Then look to scale revenue on the ad/partnership side of the equation.  This is especially true if you are counting on user interaction and content to drive engagement since you’ll need the people to ensure the traffic

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When Managed Services Make Sense

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Multiple racks of servers, and how a data cent...

Image via Wikipedia

The more I look at business cases related to whether an organization should consider moving their data center operations over to a managed services solution the more obvious it seems that it should be done. This is especially true for smaller businesses.

I’ll quickly recognize (and diffuse) the argument that some organizations have people on staff that can run their systems, and I don’t disagree.  However, what about making decisions going forward?  Is the current staff focused on just keeping current systems up and running to meet the current needs?  How about handling issues in the future to keep pace with growing tech requirements?  I am certain that the answers to these types of questions seldom consider issues that will be faced down the road, considering that so many teams are understaffed so maintaining current projects is enough to keep everyone busy.

I also used this article: Making the Case for Managed Services to think though other issues that need to be evaluated in the decision, such as hardware, new staff requirements and facilities.  It is also important to remember that costs are not just the people costs for keeping your systems online. 

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One-Man Foursquare Directory

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St. John's Combo Platter: Pierogi and Holupki

 

I feel like I’m a one-man directory for Foursquare in the Binghamton area — sort of a modern day Lewis without Clark.  It seems like everywhere I go requires that I enter the name and address.  This doesn’t mean that I’m the only local user, far from it. It means I’m the only local user with a kid. While the others are fighting over mayorships at the bars on State Street, I’m commenting on the blueberry cheesecake at Apple Hills and holupki’s at the St. John’s Festival.  That was just yesterday.

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Semantic Web Meets Tim McGraw

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Tim McGraw

Tim McGraw via last.fm

One of the tricks of country music song writers that are out of fresh ideas is to write a song that does nothing, but drop proper names, such as people (Conway Twitty rhymes with so much), places (Cabo is a fav)  and things (happy hour).  You don’t even need to be a country music fan, and I’m sure you have a jukebox of bad music in your head right now.

Well, I’m going to test one of the worst offenders of this:  a song called Southern Voices that is sung by Tim McGraw and was written by  Bob DiPiero and Tom Douglas — to make sure the blame is spread fairly.   The opponent Zemanta and their semantic web publishing tool.  I’m afraid to paste in the lyrics, because this thing will explode. The song is nothing but a name dropping brain dump in the hope that somewhere ol’ Tim will be able to hit the right note with the music public to make you, yeah you, want to buy this drivel.

(Now, before some heads explode, please note that I am not condemning the names in the song, which range from Charlie Daniels to Jesus. I’m a big fan of these people. It’s the shameless use of their names that is bad.)

Ready… time to hit ctrl-v, and I’ll tag the names that Zemanta finds:

Number 3 drove it
Chuck Berry twanged it
Will Farmer wrote it
Dolly Parton graced it
Rosa Parks rode it
Scarlett O chased it

Smooth as the hickory wind
That blows from Memphis
Down to Appalachicola
It’s hi ya’ll did ya eat well
Come on in I’m
Sure glad to know ya
Don’t let this old goat cross
In this Almond Brothers t-shirt and throw ya
It’s cicadas making noise
With the southern voice

Hank Aaron smacked it
Michael Jordan dunked it
Pocahantas tracked it
Jack Daniels drunk it
Tom Petty rocked it
Dr. King paved it
Bear Bryant won it
Billy Graham saved it

Smooth as the hickory wind
That blows from Memphis
Down to Appalachicola
It’s hi ya’ll did ya eat well
Come on in I’m
Sure glad to know ya
Don’t let this old goat cross
In this Crimson Tide t-shirt and throw ya
It’s cicadas making noise
With the southern voice

Jesus is my friend
America is my home
Sweet iced tea and Jerry Lee
Daytona Beach
That’s what gets to me
I can feel it in my bones

Smooth as the hickory wind
That blows from Memphis
Down to Appalachicola
It’s hi ya’ll did ya eat well
Come on in child
I’m sure glad to know ya
Don’t let this old goat cross
In this Charlie Daniels t-shirt and throw ya
We’re just boys making noise
With the southern voice

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
I got a southern voice
A southern voice

Now, let it be said that I’m a big fan of Zemanta and their publishing tool is great for making the blogging process easier. However, Zemanta tried, but it was just overwhelmed by the country music hit formula. 10 of the 24 proper name references that I found as ‘in-text links’, but it did much better finding 20 of 24 pictures, and it offered a wide range of related articles to choose from.

To the Zemanta people and power users: If there is a way to request more in-text links, let me know and I’ll send it through again. This song should become the benchmark for all future improvements.

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Just 161 Games Away

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CHM First Game

Citi Field - First Game

My tickets for the Red Sox / Yankees on Oct 2 at Fenway came in the mail today — only 161 games away.  The key to getting these was that they were single seats, but directly behind each other in rows 12&13 behind home plate.  Which is cool.  The thing is that the game time is TBD, so I have to hope it is a day game, so we can take the Little Monster to see the Green Monster, though that probably means that it isn’t a big game.  Again just 6 1/2 months away.

The real downside to this is that there is no way I can keep Colleen a Mets fan considering that the first game she went to was a Mets/Nationals battle for last place last September. Now it the Yankees/Red Sox, and I can only dream that it is a battle for last.

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Blogging from the iPhone

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This is the first post from my WordPress for iPhone app. It took two versions and help from the tech support team at 3essentials.com. Thanks to their team who went beyond the norm to make it work: Patrick, Josh, Damon and Sam (hope I got you all).

Here’s to trusting auto-correct.

— Tim