Samantha Karol
Marketing Assistant, CPX Interactive

Professional networking site, LinkedIn, recently asked its users to choose which new platform is the most important for brands to master among: Digg, Facebook, iPhone, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Of the nearly 4,000 respondents, 30% chose Twitter as the most important, followed closely by Facebook at 26%, and LinkedIn at 22%. These results are just further evidence of the important role social media is playing in marketing campaigns.

Check out CPX Interactive on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and our other Web 2.0 pages.

Welcome back to the CPX Interactive Blog! If you haven't already, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed, and be sure to connect with CPX across the Web! Thanks for visiting!

By Samantha Karol
Marketing Assistant, CPX Interactive

Over the past couple of years, the blogosphere has exploded in popularity, and corporate blogs, like this one, are on the rise. According to a report by e-Marketer published this month, five separate surveys found that blog use by US companies and marketers had increased in 2008. “A University of Massachusetts survey of companies on the Inc. magazine 500 list found that 39% of respondents used blogging in 2008–more than double the 19% of a year earlier,” the report says.

Thus far in 2009, many marketers have begun employing social media strategies, and are considering blogs part of the equation. A February 2009 survey of US marketers by iMedia, cited in the eMarketer report, found that 70% of respondents were “personally spending a lot of time on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. but not moving dollars there,” and the remaining 30% had already spent money on social media and were planning on increasing their investments.

Over the past few months, CPX Interactive has employed a successful social media marketing strategy that includes a number of Web 2.0 sites, in addition to this blog and two others.  According to eMarketer, the number of US blog readers (Internet users who read blogs at least monthly) was 86.8 million in 2008, and they project that number to reach 96.6 million this year, and 128.2 million by 2013. If the number of blog readers does increase, then blogging will continue to be a successful and innovative way for companies like CPX Interactive to reach out through the Web.

Mike Seiman, CEO & Co-Founder of online ad network, CPX Interactive, is making a name for himself in the Web 2.0 world. He is now sharing news about CPX through his Twitter feed, and a newly created vlog (video blog) that he will update on a regular basis. Stay tuned for the latest information about CPX and the online advertising industry, straight from the top!

By Samantha Karol
Marketing Assistant, CPX Interactive

Twitter poses a simple question to its users: What are you doing? Trying to gauge public opinion of the social networking site, which now boasts over 11 million members, is anything but simple.  In addition to its staggering growth and dramatic rise in popularity, the existence of Twitter has led to the creation of numerous programs and websites to help people manage their feeds and the feeds of people they follow.  Twitter has also given new meaning to common words like “follow,” and created new words like “tweeps” and“retweet.”

As it has continued to develop, the site has been the subject of an incredible number of news articles and blog posts (including our own).  Often, the focus is on the value (or lack of value) for businesses using Twitter.   There are some who believe that Twitter is a great way to network with industry contacts and keep people updated on company happenings.  Entire sections of sites like Mashable are dedicated to Twitter tips, and some industry websites provide links to the most useful Twitter tools for businesses.

However, not everyone is completely sold on the Twitter hype.  There are some who believe the concept of the site is overrated, or at the very least, is not a legitimate business strategy.

A major part of my job since I joined CPX in January has been to utilize the plethora of Web 2.0 sites to get our name out there and connect to people.  The CPX Interactive Twitter feed is just one of our many social media profiles.

A number of the arguments against businesses using Twitter have to do with not using the site properly.  These points are certainly valid, as a company has to keep certain things in mind when they tweet that an individual may not. For example, following everyone you can find, is probably not the best idea, and simply posting tweet after tweet without any interaction with the community defeats the purpose.  It’s also important to go in with a realistic mindset, and be fully committed to making the most of it.    However, if a company does its homework before joining the “Twitterverse,” and is willing to put in the time on the site, there can be some pretty great benefits.

CPX is proud to have built up a following of over 500 tweeps.  Twitter has allowed us to share information on events we are attending or sponsoring, link to our other social media pages, share company news, and connect to countless valuable people and companies in our industry.  Like all of these sites, how much you’re willing to put into it greatly affects how much you will get out of it.  Different things work for different companies, but Twitter is definitely working for us.

There are so many social media sites on the Web that it’s often hard to keep track. Back in February, Marketing Assistant, Samantha Karol, posted instructions on using RSS feeds to stay connected to CPX. To make it even easier for people to find us on the Web, we have recently created pages on two new sites that allow us to provide links to all of our profiles in one place.

Check the CPX Interactive pages on cpxinteractive.mp and UnHub.

By Samantha Karol
Marketing Assistant, CPX Interactive

On the front page of the Business section of last Sunday’s New York Times, was an article about the tremendous growth of social media giant, Facebook. The question the article posed was whether Facebook has grown too fast since its inception five years ago.

This week, the site was projected to reach 200 million users, astounding considering that they only reached 100 million last August. The article goes on to tell the stories of several Facebook users, and mentions the various conflicts that have ensued between Facebook and its users. However, it was when I neared the end of the article that I found some information that is very relevant to us here at CPX Interactive, and to the advertising industry as a whole.

If you have been on Facebook recently, you may have noticed stories in your news feed about someone’s choices for “Top 5 Movies of All Time,” or been offered the opportunity to become a fan of a certain company. This is all part of Facebook’s new “engagement ad” campaign. According to the Times article, these interactive ads are aimed to be a solution to consumer resistance to intrusive advertising on the Web.

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook is referenced as saying that “her company’s revenue was growing despite a brutal downturn that is hurting other kinds of online advertising.” While Ms. Sandberg is not incorrect, CPX is also among the online players continuing to succeed and bring in revenue despite the economy. We owe that largely to our own continued innovation of creating ads that people want to click.

We also find that the ads with the highest conversion rates across our network are ads that are interactive in some way, and that offer users the opportunity to engage. This can range from invitations to respond to trivia questions to brain teasers (example above) to playing a game, like duck hunting, within the ad space.

Another aspect of this new ad initiative is to offer advertisers the opportunity to target Facebook users based on language and geographic location, a major advantage of the online advertising space in general. The article goes on to state that some advertisers see this type of interactive, targeted advertising as the future of the industry. As a member of the Facebook generation, I find that I am more apt to respond to ads when I feel like I am being targeted directly. The key is engaging the user, and these new ad formats certainly accomplish that goal. If this is truly the future of the industry, it will be very interesting to see what comes next.

By Samantha Karol
Marketing Assistant, CPX Interactive

The number of online social networking sites has increased drastically in recent years, along with their popularity. Now,  other sites are jumping on the social networking bandwagon in an effort to expand their user bases. According to The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, the most recent example of this is Hulu, the online video channel that lets users share their favorite movies and TV shows with friends and family. To mark their one year anniversary, which occurs today, Hulu will be adding social networking functions to its site. Users can still share their favorites on other networking sites like Facebook and Myspace, but they will also be able to connect with people on Hulu itself.

Hulu’s content goes beyond TV shows and movies to instructional videos on channels like food & leisure or home & garden. According to the Hulu Blog, the company has achieved great success in its first year: they have approximately 24 million monthly users (comScore VideoMetrix, January 2009), their video library has grown from 12,000 to 40,000, and there has been an increase in streams from the site from 63 million in May 2008, to 308 million in February 2009 (Nielsen VideoCensus).

It’s not quite clear exactly what the new features will be, but Hulu hopes that allowing users to connect with one another and share their videos will bring greater success to the site. If it works, other sites will surely follow in their footsteps.

We love Twitter, and we’re not the only ones! Visit the CPX Interactive Blogger Blog to watch a video on the amazing growth of Twitter, courtesy of industry metrics leader, eMarketer.

And of course, follow CPX Interactive on Twitter!

By Samantha Karol
Marketing Assistant, CPX Interactive

Twitter has become such a phenomenon that even its founders are surprised by how it continues to evolve. Last month, in a TED conference speech, Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, spoke about just how much Twitter has developed beyond its original purpose. Twitter users still answer the original question, “What are you doing?” but they also tweet during real-time events that range from natural disasters, to gas shortages, to Williams’ speech at TED. The founders never expected that their users would include the many businesses, like CPX Interactive, who now have company Twitter streams. Originally, they expected friends to connect to friends, but they did not imagine that Twitter would also become a popular marketing tool for companies. Williams divulges some key Twitter tips, like using the search feature and updating your Facebook status via Twitter. He won’t even begin to predict where Twitter will go in the future, but he is certainly happy with how far it has come so far. Watch Williams’ entire speech here.

By Samantha Karol
Marketing Assistant, CPX Interactive

Love reading our blog, but don’t always remember to visit this page?

Not interested in joining Twitter yourself, but want to read all of the CPX updates?

• Create a page on  MyYahoo or Google Reader. (If you’re big on simplicity and ease of use, choose Yahoo)
• Follow the instructions below to put our RSS feeds on your page.

NOTE: These instructions are based on Mozilla Firefox. If you are using Internet Explorer, feeds will automatically be added to a Feeds folder if you follow these instructions. Keep reading for more info.

Blog:

1) Go to the main page of the blog by clicking on the CPX logo at the top of this page. Click on the little orange RSS icon in the upper right corner of the page above Recent Posts.

2) On the feed page,  click on the drop down menu and select either MyYahoo or Google (depending on which site you’re using).

3) Click Subscribe Now, and you’re done. It’s that easy.

Twitter:

1) Go to http://twitter.com/cpxinteractive

2) Scroll down until you see the rows of little pictures on the right side.

3) Below them you will see the same little orange icon. Click on it.

4) This will bring you to a similar feed page as above, so do the same thing.  Choose, click, and you’re done.

For Internet Explorer users, as I said above, the process is a little different for you. If you would rather have these feeds on a page like Google Reader or MyYahoo instead of in the Feeds folder, you can add them through the Add Content feature on those pages by inserting these feed links:

http://cpxinteractive.wordpress.com/feed/

http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/16246531.rss

Help Resources: Google Reader Help and MyYahoo Help.