In most of these cases, the advancing technology has made its predecessor less relevant. For example, low-cost video really put the hurt on radio (the Buggles wrote a song about it, for Pete’s sake!). As marketing evolved with communication technology, it tended to leave the old ways behind.

Interestingly enough, this doesn’t seem to be the case with the Internet. At first, the world wide web struggled to deliver video properly (remember when streaming was optional?), so the two technologies held an uneasy partnership. Today, Netflix and Hulu and Vudu do nothing but stream video – tons and tons of video. And you don’t have to be connected to your cable to watch it. Want to check out the game on your phone? In 2012, that’s no big deal.

For the first time, a new technology (the web) has completely merged with an established one (video). What began with shaky videos of dimwits jumping their skateboards off of parking ramps has turned into an integrated way of showing off products and services that is getting more and more professional.

If you have a TV commercial that people enjoy, they expect to be able to re-watch it on your web site. (Which is amazing in itself: people seeking out your TV commercial!) In fact, now you can have a single video production and use it for a ton of purposes. Make a commercial, make a bunch of videos for your web site, make a version for your meetings and presentations, put some video into your pay-per-click ads, then put all of it on YouTube and Facebook and tell the world.

But just as some things change, others stay the same. For a few years, shaky video and terrible audio were perfectly acceptable ways of communicating online (“Look – I shot it with my phone!”). Then human nature took over, and – as it always has – the better a message was put together, the more it stood out. At first, professionals spent a lot of time trying to look like everyone else (“I want it shakier!”), but then we realized that since everyone else had video that looked bad, the only way to stand out was to look – good! And now professionalism is taking over video online as well.

The good news is that professionalism doesn’t need to be expensive. In fact, high-end video is less expensive today than it ever was (we recently made a nationally- televised TV commercial for 1/10 the cost of a spot made 20 years ago). Anyone can afford video – and everyone can afford to do it right!

Video is here to stay, folks. And I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Under these circumstances, building a mobile version of your web site made a lot of sense. But things have changed a lot in the last two years, and now I have to question whether the “mobile web” is all that different than the “regular web.” Here’s what’s changed: (1) Most web developers have foregone the use of Flash entirely. Even Adobe, the makers of Flash, seem cautious about its future. (2) Research In Motion, the makers of BlackBerry smartphones, have dropped the ball and their smartphones have fallen out of favor with the public. This is good news for web developers, because the BlackBerry’s web browser is problematic to say the least. (3) iPhone and Android devices browse the Internet just like a laptop, and people are using them as their primary means of connecting to the web.

iPads and the Kindle Fire have made this even more hazy. Their larger screens are quickly propelling them ahead of laptops, and they occupy a weird space that is somewhere between the mobile and traditional Internet experience.

In fact, as more and more people use the Internet on their mobile devices, the overall line between the “mobile” and “traditional” webs has blurred significantly. That’s why I’m not sure a mobile version of your web site is necessary anymore. Instead, you need to prepare your web site to be viewed in a number of different ways. Maybe that should be the new definition of “mobile web” – a site that is mobile enough to be viewed on a smartphone, a tablet or a computer.

So there it is – you probably don’t need to build two versions of your web site anymore. On the other hand, if your web site isn’t made to be flexible, it’s time for an update.

It got me thinking about a speech I made at the University of North Dakota a few years ago. I predicated that Facebook and Twitter would look a lot different in just a few years once they decided that they would have to actually make money. We’re just starting to see the ugly truth in that prophecy now. It seems like every Facebook “update” now comes packaged with some way to make Facebook money. Since we’re all pretty sure that the company will go public in 2012, this isn’t too surprising, but some of the “sponsorship opportunities” are becoming a little much. Do we mind the small ads on the sides of our screen as we look over the day’s posts? Not really. Do we really want them in our news feed? Not so much – but that’s not going to stop Facebook from putting them in there in 2012.

Whether it’s more ads on Facebook, sponsored Tweets or “spokespeople”on Twitter (thanks for telling me about your favorite energy drink, Ms. Celebrity!) or your favorite TV show spending ninety seconds discussing the car they are driving (White Collar is notorious for this), some kinds of marketing are obvious while others are not.

I think we’re starting to discover that it’s not really about choice (after all, almost no users would choose to have ads if they could avoid them and still get their content for free), it’s about volume. When any media outlet gets greedy and starts to overload themselves with selling messages, users / viewers get turned off. We’re willing to live with that short ad before our video starts to stream, but don’t make us watch three of them. When the media outlet crosses the line (with too many ads), users find other options. The key is to ensure that your messages don’t interfere too much with the user experience. In my mind, Google is one of the best at this, as is Apple.

We’ll see how things play out, but it seems that the more things change, the more things stay the same.

It’s more complex than that, of course, but for the most part, every PPC opportunity on the internet shares most – if not all – of those characteristics. Google Adwords has long held the crown as the king of PPC, but virtually every other internet giant has used the model to make money, as well. Thousands (millions?) of web sites partner with Google Adwords to take advantage of PPC. Bing and Yahoo! share a PPC infrastructure. Ever wonder why Facebook is worth $100 billion when they don’t charge anybody to use their service? It’s PPC of course! Twitter now uses a similar model as well (they call it cost per engagement, but it’s the same thing).

Here at Anchor we work with PPC almost every day. We write ads. We identify keywords. We research demographics. Then we monitor results. Sometimes our goal is to increase visits to a web site, sometimes it is to directly impact sales and sometimes it is to add “followers” (Facebook “Likes,” for example). Whatever the result you are looking for, there are a few key tips to remember no matter where you are spending your PPC dollars:

(1) Identify Your Target Audience: A message you put in front of an uninterested user isn’t just a waste of time (because presumably they won’t click on it anyway), it can actually hinder something called “relevance” – a unique part of that mathematical algorithm that is meant to gauge how “good” your ad is. It’s important to create targeted messages for each of your primary and secondary target audiences. The more targeted your message is, the better.

(2) Make Sure Your Web Site Keeps Up: Another factor that can impact your “relevance” is how much your web site matches your message. This is meant to discourage advertisers from creating an ad for one thing (“Great Stock Market Advice”) and sending you to a site about something else (“Save On Prescription Drugs!”). If your PPC message talks about used cars, the web page that it sends users to needs to talk about used cars as well, because the magical algorithm software will check.

(3) Test Your Messages: This is the one that most people forget. It’s also the most time-intensive step of successful PPC – but it is absolutely critical. Make two ads, then see which performs better. Take out the laggard and replace it with something else, then test again. Repeat until your messages are performing like you want them to. Even then, it pays to test once in a while just to keep up with changing trends and attitudes. It pays to have a good creative team for this process – it can be a challenge to write and rewrite ads so that they can be tested. By the way, some companies make this task easy (Google Adwords is excellent) and some make it very cumbersome (Facebook, I’m looking at you).

(4) Evolve: As we all know, technology changes every day. It is said that Google changes its search parameters 10-20 times per week. What was good enough yesterday may not be good enough today. Facebook is notorious for making changes, then changing things back, then changing something else. The internet giants take evolution very seriously, so you need to, as well. Keep learning, keep reading and keep experimenting yourself. We recently discovered a way to add Facebook followers for our clients that has been tremendously successful for some of our clients, and we discovered it through experimentation.

Getting ahead of the curve with Google, Facebook and Twitter can be a big job, but it’s worth it in the end. If you’d like for us to help, give Anchor a call today.

I am a recovering Apple fanboy. I used to believe that everything that Apple Computer did was perfect. And if you’ve ever used a Mac at work, then went home to a PC, you might agree with me.  I love my iPod (anyone who reads this blog regularly knows how much I love my music), I love my iPad and I love my Macbook Pro. I’ve been a user for a long, long time. I bought my first Mac 20 years ago in college (and yes, they were incredibly expensive even then). I’ve used a Mac almost every day ever since.

But Apple isn’t perfect (sorry Jasper). I was around when Steve Jobs left to start Pixar, etc., and it was a dark time for the company. Leadership made some crazy decisions, the company lost touch with its core demographic (creative people) and worst of all, quality suffered. In other words, Apple without Steve Jobs was a below-average computer company.

That’s why it made so much sense to lionize Jobs when he returned. Apple chose to make Jobs the poster boy (something Jobs seemed to go along with willingly) for the company’s marketing efforts, and it paid off. Not only was Jobs a brilliant innovator, he had the right mix of personality and mystery to make him something of an icon. In fact, Steve Jobs very quickly became synonymous with Apple’s brand. When he fell ill, Wall Street panicked, solidifying the fact that the company could just has easily been called Jobs Computer.

Apple knew what it was doing when it turned the Apple brand into the Steve Jobs brand. It worked perfectly, and Apple has been printing money ever since. But now that he’s gone, Apple has a big problem on its hands – the same problem that any company has when all of their marketing equity is in a person rather than in the company itself.

If the CEO of CocaCola left tomorrow, would anybody know the difference? Would you be worried about the future of Coke? Probably not. The Coke brand is infinitely more important than any one person. That’s a long-term project that Coke has excelled at. On the other hand, Apple’s short-sighted gains may become a long-term headache, especially if their products don’t remain on the cutting edge.

I hope it doesn’t happen. I hope that they are able to find a new way to sell themselves, and I hope they keep up the good work when it comes to their products. In the meantime, we can all learn a lesson from Apple Computer. Your brand is bigger than any one person or thing, and that’s how you should keep it.

You may even know what Twitter is (short answer: a social media web site where you can follow someone else’s “Tweets” – 140 character messages about anything), but the truth is that – compared to Facebook – not many people understand it. In fact, a huge number of people who sign up for a Twitter account abandon it immediately when they simply can’t figure out what to Tweet (“I’m eating a ham sandwich.” “Watching Real Housewives ha ha.” “Waiting at the DMV.”).

On the one hand, this sort of gives Twitter a false sense of size (users shouldn’t really count if they never log in). On the other hand, it’s a shame that more people don’t stay with Twitter, because it is a vibrant, viable communication tool with a lot of potential. I have had a Twitter account for a couple of years, but rarely used it. Recently, I made a point of looking for organizations and individuals that I was interested in so that I could check my Twitter “feed” each night when I go over Facebook. I had a lot of luck with sports personalities (ESPN staff are very active on Twitter) and some actors and authors, but not many of my favorite musicians (a  lot of my heavy metal heroes had only ever Tweeted once, usually something like “How the X&#$!! does this work!” and then were never heard from again).

At any rate, I put together a pretty cool list of people that I am interested in and now I get an update on what they are doing (as long as they are active Tweeters). For example, Adam Shefter from ESPN keeps me up to the minute on NFL comings and goings, seemingly from his phone (it’s the middle of the night Adam… go to bed!) while actor Bruce Campbell tells me all about his adventures at various ComicCon get-togethers. My friend Steve likes to forward everyone links to interesting articles, something that web nerds love to use Twitter for. All in all, I like the information I get in short bursts from Twitter.

Now, you may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned what I Tweet myself. That’s because I rarely do, and that’s one thing about Twitter that kind of bothers me. It’s sort of a one-way street for many of us (though some media outlets such as ESPN use it for 2-way communication now more than email). We are mostly listening, but not really interacting that much. I don’t think that’s just me, either. I think it’s a lot of Twitter users.

What about marketing with Twitter? How can we put it to work for us to communicate with our customers? Well, in that instance Twitter is a lot like Facebook. That is, unless you have customers that want to hear from you, they really won’t follow your feed. And as for traditional “advertising,” Twitter has a long ways to go to even catch up to Facebook. You can buy “Promoted Tweets” that show up when someone searches Twitter for a certain topic (as well as other places). You can also purchase “Promoted Trends” and a couple of other marketing opportunities. All things considered, Twitter is only now getting cranked up with trying to make money by capturing marketing dollars (much to the dismay of users who have enjoyed a long relationship with no advertising to speak of), and they’re a little behind the curve. I look forward to Google+ being a lot more organized when they finally go live.

Anyway, what good is Twitter? It’s a great way for you to get information and share it. What good is Twitter for your business? I’m not sure yet. It may take a little bit for the good folks at Twitter to get a better handle on how to include small- to medium-sized businesses in the mix (at least for the purpose of finding new customers – a feed for your current customers is a great idea if you think they’ll pay attention).

Stay tuned… here at Anchor we have our fingers on the pulse of all things social media and pay-per-click and search-based. When you want to take advantage of the incredible opportunities those kinds of marketing promise, just let us know.

Things are a lot different in 2011. Today, the seeds planted in the 1990′s by everyone that hated Microsoft are coming to fruition. The consequent browser war has been excellent for users, but inconvenient (to say the least) for anybody with a web site. Today, there are regular people (meaning not technology geeks) who will view your web site with IE6 (an ancient browser that messes with modern code something fierce and is thankfully going away), IE7, IE8, IE9, Firefox (which aptly rose from the ashes of Netscape), Chrome (Google’s own baby), Safari and more.

And that doesn’t include mobile! People on their mobile devices are using Android (another of Google’s babies), the iPhone browser, the iPad browser, the Blackberry browser, Opera, Windows Mobile and more.

All of these look at your web site differently and display it as such. Most of them are “consistent” but none are exactly the same. Even subtle differences between versions of a browser (such as IE8.1 and IE 8.2) can be significant – and that’s especially critical when you consider the sheer speed of innovation that some developers move at (download Firefox or Chrome and you’ll get an update weekly – daily sometimes!).

So what does all this mean for a business that just want its web site to act as a solid storefront to the world? It means that if your web site is four years old, you really need an update. And that’s not just to take advantage of new technology (maybe it’s time to reconsider that Flash-only web site you built in 2005), but to ensure that new browsers display your web site correctly. To put things simply: not all new browsers are backward compatible – or at least not completely backward compatible. At some point they simply throw out support for technology that they deem too old, too clunky or too hackable (Apple vs Adobe anyone?). This is especially true on mobile devices.

All is not lost. Anchor can help. We spend a lot of time staying on top of things like browser usage statistics so that our clients don’t have to. When you work with us, you have a fighting chance of staying current in the 100mph world of the information superhighway. Give us a call and let’s talk about it today.

After all, we don’t drive with our eyes closed (I hope). We’re still looking around alertly (again, I hope) and that means we notice things around us outside of our vehicle. The trick is to make your billboard noticeable. It needs to be short – really short – and to the point. It also needs to be memorable. We recently had success with a bank billboard that has a huge tree protruding from the top of it. It really makes an impression as you drive by, making a strong point for the bank’s roots-based brand message.

The biggest challenge to outdoor adverting in 2011 is space. More and more communities are limiting the number of boards in their cities. That means you can’t build anymore billboards – and that means they are a limited resource. The result of that, of course, is increasing costs. Billboards can be expensive, but they can be worth it if you know how to use them.

At Anchor, we know all about outdoor advertising. Let’s chat and together we’ll discover if they’re right for you and your business.

Now, I have stations like Liquid Metal, The Boneyard, Watercolors and ESPN right next to each other on my “favorites” buttons. It sounds weird but it’s perfect for me. At the same time, it’s a little scary. Why? Because I hear almost zero commercials. Since XM uses a subscription model, very few of their stations need to be ad supported. That’s nice when I listen but frightening when I go to work here at Anchor. After all, how do I reach radio listeners if I can’t buy an ad on their favorite channel?

None of the big three radio invaders – the iPod, satellite radio and internet radio (like Pandora) – are set up to do much with good, old-fashioned thirty-second radio commercials. That doesn’t mean that you can’t put them to work building your brand, however. You just need to be creative. Most internet radio stations (such as Pandora, for example) have banner ads onscreen as the music plays. Or you may need to work out some kind of sponsorship with the provider that gets you name mentions rather than commercials.

On the other hand, where does this leave local radio stations? In a tough spot, that’s where. Radio sales has always been a tough business, and now it’s even tougher. But they still have one thing going for them: they’re local. Whether listeners tune in for local events (like weather or news) or local personalities (like a morning show), nothing beats local radio for inexpensive frequency aimed at a specific geographic area. You still have to buy a lot of radio to build your brand (which makes it less than ideal for that purpose), but for a specific campaign – especially a specific retail campaign – you can still drive traffic without a lot of waste.

I know it sounds complicated, but don’t worry. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’d love to tell you more. Just give us a call here at Anchor, and let’s explore the future or radio – both local and national – together.

Millions of Oprah faithfuls watch everything she does and buy everything she pitches. Want your new novel to be a hit? Booking Oprah’s show was a sure ticket to the bestseller list. Want your own talk show? The airwaves are filled with ex-Oprah regulars, pale imitations of the original.

How did she build such an incredible brand? She used the same steps that you can follow for your own business: commitment to a brand promise and  consistency with a brand image. If you’ve ever read anything about Oprah you know that she works tirelessly on her projects. Her production company makes movies and television programs that very much reflect the woman herself – whether she appears in them or not. Watch something made by Oprah, and you know what you are getting into. As for a brand image, it’s Oprah herself. Ever see a copy of Oprah’s magazine without her on the cover? Nope. She knows what her customers expect, and she gives it to them.

Here at Anchor we work with brands every day, building them, guiding them and rejuvenating them. If you want to talk about your own brand, give us a call.