LinkedIn's growing success is both admired and feared by many in the content business, but the rap against them for quite some time has been, "Well, yeah, but where's the monetization?" In truth LinkedIn has been growing revenues steadily through traditional brand ads, partnerships and payments for premium services. But with two key moves LinkedIn is raising the bar on its prospects for revenues - and for a potential exit at a more appreciable price.

The fist LinkedIn initative is its new DirectAds service, which enables LinkedIn members with profiles to produce simple text ads on a self-service basis that can appear in other members' profile pages. Similar in overall concept to Facebook's SocialAds program - a link to the advertiser's profile appears in each ad to ensure that marketing is on a conversational basis with a known entitiy - DirectAds has the added benefit of being able to target executive peers in the LinkedIn network with a great deal of granularity - and charges healthy but affordable minimum rates to do so - a $25 minimum for a flight of ads, with impressions based on a variable formula. Filtering options include many of the criteria found in a typical member's profile, including the ability to limit ads to specific geographic regions.

The potential for DirectAds is very strong within LinkedIn itself, but it also has the potential to provide B2B publishers with some real concerns as this evolves. Though there is no announced plan to take DirectAds off-site into other publishing venues, certainly classifieds in B2B journals and Web sites could be easily targeted by LinkedIn with its extensive network of top-shelf executives and salespeople. More importantly, it's not too hard to imagine that a B2B publisher seeking revenues from companies trying to get a message through to very specific executives would jump at the chance to use DirectAds to get rates far higher than classifieds for its very targeted profiling capbilities. In very tightly knit B2B communities DirectAds would play very well in B2B publishing venues. Technologically, it would not be hard to implement at all - it would only take enabling a B2B publishing site with Google's OpenSocial API. With such a combination DirectAds would have a Google AdWords/AdSense revenue combo for on-site/off-site revenues that could be impressive indeed. If done properly - hopefully avoiding Facebook's pratfall with its Beacon program that released private data in a user-unfriendly manner - this has the potential to be to B2B publishing what Google was to consumer publishing, turning advertising into relationship building with one click of the mouse. With its potential for ultra-precise targeting, it could put somewhat of a dent in marketing lists services as well in time.

The other interesting new program at LinkedIn is the LinkedIn Research Network, which leverages some of the concepts that it employed in LinkedIn Answers to provide a tool that can enable executives to conduct peer-to-peer industry research. As in LinkedIn Answers members of LinkedIn can pose questions to peers in the LinkedIn network, using LinkedIn's extensive structured and unstructured member profile data to zero in on just the right people to target for questions. The Research Network provides its users with a workbench to monitor responses to questions and to in effect build research panel who can be contacted for additional questions.

The revenue hook in Linked in Research Network is its use of LinkedIn's private InMail network to contact members. Members may use InMail for contacting up to 20 people at a time, presumably to cut down on "spam" research requests and presumably to make it easier to meter the pricing to a reasonable block of minimum requests. Of course, one can sign up for InMail at any number of premium levels, so the real hook is to promote InMail premium subscription revenues as much as possible. Given that the demo video was intent on saying that this product was targeted primarily at financial industry analysts trying to contact experts in companies and market sectors, perhaps their initial expectations for its use are limited. But clearly its ability to combine the art of research into the art of marketing will make this a popular option for many over time.

With both of these options LinkedIn is taking a relatively low-key approach to product development, moving relatively slowly to ensure that their most valuable asset - the trust and security that the LinkedIn system of opt-in relationships has protected through its development - will not be tainted or abused. Executives are a conservative bunch when it comes to dealing with their personal reputations, but LinkedIn has proved to more than 20 million professionals so far that it is by and large a very trustworthy environment. With that trust as a primary asset, it's likely that LinkedIn has set the stage for some solid revenue development that is likely to upend a few B2B applecarts in the long run. For the time being, though LinkedIn is just at the begininning of what promises to be a long battle for the rights to what professionals value most in carrying out their business - trusted relationships that can yield revenues.

Labels: advertising, financial information, LinkedIn, Monetization, Research

As noted earlier in ShoreViews Video there are two interesting reports that came out this week which paint a picture of online marketing increasingly dependent on content. The first item that caught my attention was an article from MediaPost, which references a research report from Yahoo and ChannelForce on online content's influence on consumer purchasing. According to the report seventy-five percent of consumers who researched their purchases before visiting a retail outlet used the Internet as their primary research source. The leading online resources were retail Web sites (73 percent), manufacturer websites (68 percent) and search engines (49 percent). Encouraging for search engines was data indicating that purchasers who use search engines tend to purchase more than consumers who don't use search engines - up to ten percent more for electronics such as digital cameras.

But there's an important wrinkle in this research process pointed out by data from a recent MarketingSherpa study of online purchasing. When the retail outlet is an online ecommerce site consumers are waiting longer than ever to make an online purchase. Where in a 2005 study there was typically a 19-hour delay between an initial visit to an ecommerce site in this year's study the lag between initial click and purchasing is up to more than 34 hours. Why the increased delay? Anne Holland at MarketingSherpa cites more research and comparison shopping being done, a view that seems to correlate with the Yahoo/ChannelForce study.

It's good news for content producers that there is more online digging than ever before, but what kind of content should buyers be dawdling over before heading out the door to the store or clicking on that shopping cart? Mike Moran at Web Pro News has some key points of advice on the Yahoo/Channel Force report:

Too often, marketers shy away from providing the most attention-getting and persuasive information. Do you have information on your site about the problems that your product solves? Not just specifications and fancy features, but real problems? Do you tell stories of how these problems were solved for real customers with your product?

Certainly the story-telling part of online content is an important part of a robust publishing strategy. As outlined by David Meerman Scott in his book on The New Rules of Marketing and PR sellers have to think more like publishers - both on their site and through public relations channels that let people encounter stories about their products through weblogs, press releases and other search-friendly channels. But the other side of the story-telling equation is to make sure that your stories are being told by your customers through social media. Though not spelled out explicitly in this research it's a fair bet that some of the extra time being spent by buyers at retail sites such as Amazon and Buy.com is in poring through user-generated product reviews - and generating their own questions and comments that take a while to get answers.

While brand advertising in traditional media outlets is still important to building sales this research argues for more highly targeted advertising techniques that focus more intently on reaching people when they are more deeply engaged in their product research efforts. Focusing ads more explicitly on social media sites and to complement consumer and expert reviews is certainly one part of the lesson to be learned from this research, as is an acceptance of the importance of reaching buyer-researchers when they are in search mode. But the other side of the equation is to think about what kind of content that you're using in your online ad campaigns and marketing channels. The research argues strongly for an approach that emphasizes widgets embedded with facts, product comparisons, customer stories and other decision support materials more than sassy messaging. This is not as easy to fathom out sometimes as your typical online ad run but it's essential to the process of transforming increasingly conversational shoppers into committed - and higher value - purchasers.

Labels: channelforce, ecommerce, marketingsherpa, Research, Trends

After yesterday's Neilsen/NetRatings decision to drop page views from their site rankings two studies remind us that online marketing is a very complex process in which search engines and social media play a key role. A take on Facebook's rise in the ratings, why WikiYou is probably another feature searching for a marketplace and Fair Use Day is celebrated at BoingBoing.

Labels: buyers, consumers, facebook, fair use, Research, shoreviews, video, Wikipedia

A new research report announced by online ad network BlueLithium provides some interesting insights as to how valuable social media sites are as an advertising medium. When comparing ads shown on non-social media sites to social media sites, the ads shown on non-social media sites had a 32 percent higher rate of converting users into action-takers. However, due to the lower cost of advertising on social media sites, the cost per conversion for non-social media sites was 58 percent higher. This would imply that there's a a considerably lower cost per conversion via social media, but there's a flip side to this stat. A second phase of the study revealed that the conversion rate of ads shown on non-social media sites from the comScore top 250 was 175 percent higher as compared to social media sites. BlueLithium points out that the non-social media comScore 250 sites have a resulting 7 percent higher cost per conversion as compared to social media sites.

So if you're going with a leading media site you're going to do well on conversions both from a penetration and cost of conversion standpoint as compared to social media. However, this data may be sidestepping one of the most important aspects of a social media site - their ability to create conversations on a more personal level. To some degree existing advertising services, being more tailored to major media outlet content, may not be providing the most effective messaging for social media sites. Social media has enormous potential for providing high multiples through advertising but the missing link may be to be able to target the people available through social media outlets in a personal enough way to take advantage of social media's ability to play to audiences as peers. It's nice that social media is a cost-effective medium for creating conversions but I'd rather hear that social media is worth its weight in gold in creating conversions. All in time.

Labels: advertising, Research, Trends

What makes social media work in today's online publishing? What are the best practices for social media? To answer these questions Shore conducted an analysis of leading and emerging Web sites that use social media as a key attribute in their offerings. We looked at not just the trendy online consumer portals but as well key offerings in business media and older services that have made good use of social media to establish the value of their publications. This report outlines key best practices for social media publishing, as developed through an analysis of nine leading Web sites that incorporate social media offerings. The report provides detailed profiles of social media features found in ALM Legal Weblogs, Amazon.com, Flickr, ITtoolbox, LinkedIn, Newsvine, VerdictSearch, Wikipedia and Zagat, as well as sixteen key best practices recommendations for social media site development, further summarized into a two-page checklist for reviewing your own product plans.

Click here for report details and purchasing

Labels: Best Practices, Research, Social Media

MediaPost reports on a new Netpop report on the U.S. broadband marketplace which highlights an interesting factoid: only five percent of Web users considered to be "innovators" use mobile devices to access Web content services. Sending email is the top use, underscoring mobile devices being used as messaging platforms, content use lags far behind. One of the main reasons cited for lower use? Price. None of this is terribly surprising given real-world experiences but it does underscore the need for content providers to consider whether the content licensing deals that they have struck with many of today's mobile providers haven't stymied overall mobile content growth. The stepchild in mobile access to date has been broadband wireless services, which are subject to telecommunications carriers trying to build tiered pricing into these services - which will likely slow adoption of these services.

With a looming gap between print and online revenues many publishers are concentrating full-bore on the move to online platforms to try to shore up margins. But as print continues its decline at a decreasingly ungentle rate publishers' horizons must turn to broadband wireless services more aggressively. Apple's upcoming iPhone features a full-screen browser to make online services more consumable via mobile devices, a trend that is likely to increase demand for mobile content - if the price is right. Publishers need to step up their lobbying efforts in Washington to ensure that cost-effective broadband wireless access can come online as quickly as possible to ensure that mobile users can stay connected to the services that are most likely to help publishers supplement declining print revenues with the medium that is most likely to become the default "reading on the go" medium.

Labels: broadband, lobbying, MediaPost, mobile, Netpop, Research, Trends

Information Today, Inc., Shore Communications, Inc., and respected analyst Jean Bedord recently completed an in-depth study of the dynamic enterprise search marketplace. More than 250 search professionals – users, buyers, and champions of the technology – provided unique insight into the trends driving and shaping enterprise search. This primary market research was supplemented by in-person interviews with representatives of market leading vendors. details and purchasing

Labels: enterprise, ITI, Jean Bedord, Research, search, surveys