Best Nicole

Interactive media will represent nearly one of every five dollars spent by marketers on media in the U.S. next year, according to estimates released Wednesday by WPP’s GroupM unit, the largest buyer of media in the world. The agency holding company’s new global ad spending forecast predicts interactive media, primarily online, will represent 17% of the U.S. advertising marketplace in 2010, up from 15.4% in 2009, and making.

 That makes interactive the third largest medium in the U.S., behind television’s 44.2% share, and magazine’s 18.4% share of 2010 advertising budgets. According to GroupM’s estimates, interactive media will overtake newspaper’s U.S. advertising share this year. Newspapers, which had a 14.8% share of U.S. ad spending in 2008, will fall to a 13.6% share this year, and a 12.4% share next year. Interactive media had a 13.9% share in 2008.

Radio’s U.S. advertising share also continues to erode, dropping to 5.6% this year, from 6.0% in 2008. GroupM predicts radio’s share of U.S. ad spending will drop to 5.2% in 2010.

Out-of-home media spending remains steady at 2.7%.

While the U.S. isn’t the largest interactive media marketplace in the world in terms of penetration, it is the biggest in terms of advertising volume. While the GroupM report does not break out the components of interactive media, it estimates that marketers will spend $23.9 billion on interactive media in the U.S. in 2010, representing 39.9% of the world’s $59.9 billion interactive advertising marketplace.

The largest market in terms of interactive media penetration is the U.K., where British marketers will spend 30.9% of their advertising budgets on interactive media, followed by Denmark, where interactive media will have a 28.4% share next year. Ireland has the smallest interactive advertising penetration of any major Western industrialized nation, with a 3.0% share in 2010, up from just 1.8% in 2009.

Globally, marketers will invest 14.6% of their worldwide advertising budgets on interactive media, up from 13.2% in 2009.

GroupM Futures Director Adam Smith, the author of the new forecast, said the only other major media to increase share during the global advertising recession are TV and outdoor media.

“TV and out-of-home have both added share of global ad investment, while newspapers continue to shed a point of share a year,” he noted in the report. “It may also be the case that TV and out-of-home’s relative cheapness compared to newspapers has encouraged this, and perhaps newspapers have been less willing to flex pricing too.”

Jennifer Openshaw writes an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal, that outlines how using social media tools such as blogs and twitter can lead you to success. There is no time for you as a business to put this key marketing strategy on hold. Dive in—success awaits!

Best Nicole

Twitter. Facebook. Blogs. Let’s face it: It’s nearly a full-time job just to keep up with these new media tools, never mind to learn them well. But how can you use them to strengthen your current career or, even better, to build yourself into a brand?

Think about online shoe retailer Zappos, which, thanks to its Internet-savvy CEO Tony Hsieh, has grown to $1 billion in revenue in about eight years. OK, the service is great everyone says, but that’s not the only thing going for it. Hsieh – and many others from Ellen DeGeneres to up-and-coming politicians, home-based business owners and concerned employees – have embraced online social media tools to take their names, companies and aspirations to the next level.

Though most experts agree there’s no substitute for face-to-face networking, using social media tools can help you become a thought leader in your space and even drive customers to your business.

“Let’s say you’re an insurance salesman and you’re really passionate about what you do,” says Jason Falls, vice president of interactive media at Doe-Anderson, a Louisville-based brand building firm, and author of the SocialMediaExplorer. “If you blog about it, then people searching the Web looking for third-party recommendations or information about insurance are apt to find your blog because you’re posting frequently and it’s relevant to those keywords.”

In essence, Google Inc. (GOOG), through its search engine, will crawl for information based on a person’s search terms and suggest this as a place you might go to learn about insurance, Falls notes.

“You start to develop a following not only as a thought leader or expert in the field but also as the preferred place to purchase that particular product or service,” he adds.

As an entrepreneur myself in the online world, I’ve been fascinated with how these tools are taking off. I’ve also been concerned about how ordinary people can increase their value on the job. Here’s a look at how you can use these tools to boost your career or maybe even save your job:

-First, pick your niche. Today, it’s all about niche specialties. What’s your forte? Whether it’s shoes [Zappos], humor [DeGeneres], or even topics you’d think not even your mother would care about like customer service or bowling, it’s all about knowing something that others will find valuable. And if you’re worried your expertise won’t attract others, think again. Did you ever think you’d see a cable show “At Home on the Range?”

-Know what you want. If you’re going to spend time using social media tools, then know why you’re doing it in advance. Do you want to become an expert to get into the media? Do you want to generate customers for your company? Do you want to help build your product’s brand? Are you looking for another job? Remember, companies – just like you – want to keep up with these tools. So why not turn yourself into a voice or knowledgeable expert for your company by taking what you know to the social media world? (Before going too far with this, check your company policies and with your management team to find the “win-win” for everyone.)

-Blog about it. Take your expertise to the Internet. While you could certainly write for other outlets – whether it’s your industry newsletter or magazine – the blog benefits you because you are building a relationship directly with your readers and can respond and manage content. You might even leverage others to join you as writers for your cause. And most blogging platforms today are free and easy to use, like wordpress, LiveJournal or Blogger, owned by Google. Others, such as TypePad, offer additional services for a nominal fee. Either way, be sure to take advantage of RSS feeds to allow others to get your blog postings automatically.

-Get linked. So you can’t keep up with all those social networking sites? Join the club. But probably the most important is Linked-In because of its high concentration of people searching for professional contacts or services. Falls recommends not only the basics of building a profile, but also joining groups. Remember that insurance expert? That expert can now jump into the “Answers section” and answer questions (check the directory organized by topics or search for key words), further positioning himself/herself as an expert. The more active you are, the more credibility you build.

-All the talk About “T.” Everyone, including Oprah, is now getting into the Twitter action. Sure, you can create your Twitter account and handle (mine is @jopenshaw) so others can follow you and your “tweets” of 140 characters or less (no kidding!). You can also send tweets out from your phone (just activate your mobile device from your Twitter profile) so that when you spill that Coke onto your jeans – as Hsieh did – you might send out a humorous tweet that you’ve just spilled it on the other leg to even-out your blue jeans!

If you really want to use Twitter to build your brand, check out search.twitter.com where our insurance expert once again can show what he knows: he can search for relevant terms like “car insurance” and start monitoring the conversation. When someone posts a question, he’ll be alerted and can respond to that person. Falls points out recent changes to Twitter that allow your answers to be seen by anyone monitoring the conversation, not just by those following you.

Are you guaranteed to build your brand, business or job with these social media moves? No, not at all. But you can avoid common mistakes and even use these new tools to land a better job in your organization.

Just remember: Face-to-face communication still has much more impact. As Falls notes: “That offline action of truly networking with people at events or conferences is very powerful in building your personal brand.” So don’t fall to the temptation of replacing your normal networking with new online tools. Remember, too, the tools are tools – you need to do the right things with them.

That said, it’s all about getting an edge, and the new social networking tools make that easier than ever.

The title of this post comes from an article I read yesterday in the Huffington Post which, since we’re on the subject of women, happens to be run by Arianna Huffington, founder. (As a side note, reports indicate that the news blog is now worth more than some traditional newspaper companies. But that, my friends, is a discussion for another day!). This particular article, written by Cecile Richard’s, lauds Obama’s selection of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State and the fact that she will champion women’s health worldwide. As I’m sure most of you are aware, this stems back from her stay in the White House (back in the early 90’s), during which time she was selected by her husband to head and champion a universal health care program for the US. The article continues:

“Senator Clinton understands that women’s quality of life directly affects the major issues confronting the globe: national security, environmental sustainability, and global poverty.”

Muhammad Yunus figured this out decades ago when he opened the Grameen Bank. In his book “Banker to the Poor”, he said, “If the goals of economic development include improving the general standard of living, reducing poverty, creating dignified employment opportunities and reducing inequality, then it is natural to work through women.” I use this as part of my signature in every email I send because I feel it’s important to let everyone know that it should be natural to work through and with women.

Ultimately, this all leads me to the following question: when will women truly be recognized as the integral part of society that they are? When will they be seen as a key target group filled with individuals who are leaders, caretakers for their families and friends, heads of businesses and corporations, key decision makers in most households, controllers of the spending of .80 of every dollar…and the list goes on. Businesses should move beyond focusing on better lighting and photos in their print collateral to directing their focus toward the individuals and personas that make up this key target market; a target market that is involved in the purchase of almost every product and service offering available.

From my perspective, recognition should be given to all successful and accomplished women who are finding ways to become visible, active role models for everyone. Condoleezza Rice was the first African American Woman Secretary of State (second woman after Madeline Albright). But because she focused on the mandate of her administration and not women’s issues, she didn’t appear to be carrying the same “women’s rights” torch. I am a proud Democrat, but I believe we should celebrate everyone who takes the opportunity to be first—leading by her own persona and individuality to push the next generation forward.

That being said, there has been a renewed awareness in many marketing and advertising trade publications (as well as major news papers over the last couple of years) of the importance of addressing how a company’s products and services must focus on marketing to, communicating with, and fully engaging women. Everyone is dipping their feet into this most important demographic pool. But no one has really expressed the thought that this important group of individuals does not need special treatment. What they do need is to be respected, included, engaged and viewed as vital participants in all the offerings that companies are looking to promote. Best Buy is leading the way with their WOLVES initiatives that encourage and support women within the company to share and partner with the company. This program helps to ensure that women have a place in management, and are considered in regards to store design, how sales people sell and how products and services are presented.

I myself partner with a great woman who happens to be the opposite of me in almost every way. We own and run a marketing/communications firm that primarily focuses on women, but have proudly included some key male members on our team. However, we chose a female-centric angle for our company so that we could use our unique perspective to speak directly to women. Currently in Canada, there are very few women run and owned marketing/communications agencies and even fewer firms with the technological expertise that we wield. BUT the most important thing for us is that we are passionate about creating intelligent, respectful brand strategy that honors this extremely varied and most important target market, while recognizing the modern person and the modern family.

I guess the moral of this post, and the real key for me, is that women are the modern people and family. Speak to them and you will surely be speaking to everyone they’re connected to. And it is through the power of women and their desire to be engaged that you will develop more than just customers—you will develop a fervent group of brand evangelists that will lead you into the 21st century.

Don’t talk at women—engage them!

Click here to read the Huffington Post Article.

Best Nicole

PS. Be sure to follow our partner’s tweets on twitter @ yyzsportsmedia!