For some time now we have been living on a digital planet, governed by a social media ruler; where politics is discussed ad nauseum via twitter, friends are made and lost on Facebook, and the Lily Allen’s of the world are discovered via MySpace.  It is only natural then, that marketers should follow suit, with Forbes.com compiling a list of the “Best-Ever Social Media Campaigns”.

All these campaigns offered an element of intrigue and many a call to action, encourage online surfers to get involved.  Ikea created a Facebook page showcasing their showroom, where fans were encouraged to ‘tag’ items displayed in order to win them, promoting brand awareness and customer interaction. Burger King promoted their restaurant with a man in a chicken suit who would perform any commands viewers typed in, resulting in 5million hits in the first five days alone.

The viral campaign for the film ‘The Blair Witch Project’ was surprisingly the most effective, with tantalising websites provoking questions of “Is it really real?” amongst other canny web posts of fake newspaper clippings and police reports, resulting in huge box office success, raking in $29million during its first week of release and roughly $249 million to date worldwide.

The list proves how a clever idea and the use of the web can promote your product in a new and triumphant fashion.

As reported by Mumbrella there has been quite a buzz online this week surrounding insights that came out of Rupert Murdoch’s recent interview on Sky News. Murdoch stated that once News Corp’s websites transition to a paid model (where consumers must pay to access news articles) it would  de-list its websites from Google.

Think of the amount of hits that News Corp’s websites receive from Google each day! Internet suicide some would say?!

But herein lies Murdoch’s point. Its websites may receive staggering numbers of hits from the search engine but what type of quality of traffic is it driving? Will it encourage loyalty to its many printed publications when similar if not the same articles are available free online? And does the revenue received for online advertising make its websites profitable? Murdoch suggests definitely not.

In Murdoch’s logic, a low level of engagement with one-time readers drawn in by an eye-grabbing headline on Google does not encourage loyalty or increase engagement, which are two factors that can affect the pricing structure of online advertising.

Mashable claims that the interview illustrates how Murdoch is out of touch with how news and information is now disseminated. The article also outlines that it is possible to have paid news content partly accessible to search engines, enticing web users to pay to read the rest of the story.

Digital commentator, Jason Calacanis suggested that de-listing from Google creates opportunities for other search engines such as Bing to gain a competitive advantage, offering News Corp 50% more revenue then they are currently getting from Google search referrals in order to be exclusively indexed on Bing.

So who is right and where is the future of online news headed? If you have an opinion, leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Whilst YouTube can be useful for hours of mindless entertainment watching video clips on just about every topic imaginable, utilising video as a communications medium can have significant benefits for businesses.

We at Connecting Images have found clients who have instructional video on YouTube are pleasantly surprised when they check their view stats each month. This provides invaluable exposure of your business’ products or services and key messages to a potentially large audience. But remember you get what you pay for. If your footage warrants high quality streaming, consider paying for a hi definition full-screen streaming service like that provided by Vividas.

At Connecting Images we are experienced in utilising video communications, contact us for more information.