WebiMax Founder & CEO, Ken Wisnefski’s appearance on NBC10 Philadelphia
Ken Wisnefski on NBC10 Philadelphia – Twitter Allegations Against 76ers Executive Bryan Colangelo
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Category Archives: Press
Ken Wisnefski in The Street on how Google’s Pixel Could Upend the Smart Phone Industry
Apple and Samsung Electronics periodically trade places dominating the smartphone market.
However, Apple recently angered many by removing the headphone jack from its latest devices, and Samsung Electronics blew a crater into the cellphone market with its latest feature, exploding batteries. These missteps by two top players may have created an opportunity just in time for the holiday shopping season, an opportunity that Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL) seems to have seized on with the perfectly timed release of the Pixel.
Ken Wisnefski in The Street.com on Rumored Twitter Sale
Twitter (TWTR) investors are seeing a nice boost in share price today on rumors of a sale. Of the two companies looking to buy the troubled social media platform,Alphabet‘s (GOOGL) Google and Salesforce (CRM) , Alphabet appears to be the one most likely to be able leverage Twitter’s data and user base to drive revenue…
Google is one of the richest corporations in the world, and how it has amassed that fortune is primarily by selling ads that are related to people’s search queries. This is an extremely effective way to reach customers, because when you know exactly what somebody is searching for, you can deliver ads directly related to those queries. For some circumstances, it really is the only way to go.
But in other circumstances there is a different way to target customers and that’s using ads based on demographics, in Google’s case that’s called display ads. With demographics essentially you can reach users who you know have an interest in what you have to offer. When it comes to this type of advertising, Facebook (FB) is king. Facebook knows your age, sex, behaviors, what you like, it knows what you like to talk about and even what you’ve said. On top of all that, Facebook buys information about its users from third parties to know even more about them.
Facebook uses all that information to match its users to the appropriate ads. Marketers supply Facebook with the info to match up to. And yes, it has been very profitable. In my own marketing agency, Facebook has begun to eat up a percentage of ad budgets typically slated for Google.
If Google is still looking for ways to compete with Facebook on display ads, while creating a more effective environment where marketers can choose specific user traits, then buying Twitter could be a real way forward for them.
Ken Wisnefski on SnapChats Billion Dollar Valuation from Financial News Site The Street
Facebook and Instagram are the two most viable advertising options in the social media environment today. With their targeting and large user base, marketers report substantial return from their advertising dollars on these platforms. While Snapchat has a large and growing base, many advertisers have struggled to see true valuefrom their advertising campaigns on Snapchat. While that notion doesn’t mean that over time marketers won’t see better returns from Snapchat, after all it took Facebook some time to get it right before marketers began to see return from their platform, however the reality right now is that money is better invested in advertising on Facebook and Instagram.
Ken on CBS3 Eyewitness News – Momentum in Camden
CAMDEN, NJ (CBS) – Dreams are taking shape along the Camden Waterfront.
The city’s planning board has approved a new 156-unit apartment building next to Campbell Field to compliment the billion-dollar Camden Waterfront mixed-use development project.
The apartments will be developed by Dranoff Properties which also did the Victor Lofts.
They will be incorporated into Liberty Property Trust’s mixed-use development that will bring a hotel, shops, restaurants and a million and half square feet of office space in a high-rise building.
“Literally within 5 years this will be a completely different waterfront. It will be thriving with residents, with commercial visitors and with the over 2 million visitors a year to this waterfront,” says Camden County Freeholder Director Louis Cappelli.
The Grow New Jersey Assistance Plan has helped Camden bring in billions of dollars worth of investment by offering tax incentives.
76ers Basketball, Subaru and Holtec International highlight some of the larger companies to move their headquarters to Camden. One of the first to make the move to Camden under Grow New Jersey is the digital marketing firm Webimax.
Founder and CEO Ken Wisnefski says his new neighbors bring excitement and will be pleased with the location.
“It’s been a great move, honestly every day that we have clients come to our office people are always amazed and say wow we can’t believe how beautiful it is here, how great Camden really is,” says Wisnefski.
Move Over Emoji, Here Comes Giphy – from Mobile Marketing Watch
WebiMax CEO Ken Wisnefski penned this blog on the new Giphy Keys for Mobile Marketing Watch
I know new smartphone users in their 70s who not only use emojis, but talk about the meanings and nuances behind them. In 2015 Oxford Dictionary named (smiley face with tears of joy) its word of the year. I hope this helps make it obvious that technology affects the way that we communicate with each other, sometimes changing what we say, and sometimes fundamentally re-shaping our thoughts into new modes of communication altogether. Giphy’s new keyboard is a big deal and is one example of tech with the potential to re-shape our communicative capacities.
How it works:
Giphy Keys allows people to quickly and easily find an appropriate (or inappropriate) short looping video file or “gif” and share it in just about any app with a text field and a send button. Admittedly, sharing gifs is nothing new, but up until this point sharing gifs took a little bit of internet savvy and enough steps to make it prohibitive to some. Thanks to Giphy Keys it’s about to get a whole lot more common, much like the use of emoji has become.
Everyone knows the old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and in our modern world of abbreviated communication, that fact is not lost on emoji users. The use of Emoji has already proven to be a necessity to digital marketers looking to engage younger audiences, in fact, a recent study by appboy shows that emoji use in emails has increased by a staggering 7,100% and 777% in campaigns since last year.
Videos in the form of gifs however offer distinct advantages for marketers over the static emoji both in that they are potentially more evocative and more fun. Giphy’s own advertising slogan is a play on the old (picture = 1,000 word) adage with, “A Gif is worth 1,000 feels.”
Last month Giphy brought an app to Android that allowed users to search the Giphy database and copy/paste gifs into other apps, however this still required users to be in two separate apps to get the job done. About a year ago, Facebook began testing the integration of Giphy’s database into their messenger app, which worked in conjunction with smartphone keyboards with essentially the same functionality of the new Giphy Keys app; however this functionality stayed exclusively inside the Facebook Messenger App. With its new keyboard, Giphy is both streamlining and democratizing the use of Gifs. While it is true that Giphy Keys is only available on IOS, an Android version is in the pipeline according to Giphy.
Giphy proclaims “Gifs are a language…, and we all know how to speak it,” and I would tend to agree with that. The creative options are both limitless and ever-changing; and Gifs will certainly find their way into the marketer’s lexicon if not the Oxford Dictionary someday. Professional communicators, i.e., marketers, PR pros, media, and politicians will have to adapt in order to connect.
Brazil bans messaging app WhatsApp – Ken Weighs In
Authentication Is Crucial in the Collectibles Market
The 69th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball is a good time to speak about collectibles as an investment and about authentication.
This week, Collectors Café, a company for which my company WebiMax handles the digital marketing, unveiled the original signed Jackie Robinson contracts for both the Brooklyn Dodgers and Montreal Royals. These contracts were authenticated by several experts and have been appraised at an estimated value of more than $36 million.
While collecting may be a passion for some, rare and valuable items can also yield astonishing returns, and may be a particularly good option when things get rough in the securities market. In 2010, The Wall Street Journal analyzed the past five year’s ROI of 30 of the most sought-after sport trading cards and measured that against the return of 30 companies that made up the Dow Jones Industrial Average at that time. What they found was that the cards outperformed the Dow Jones with an average return of 12.4% to the DJIA’s 7.9%.
But investors need to be careful. While securities markets may sometimes seem rife with fraud, the collectibles market can suffer similar problems, but without the same regulatory oversight.
To protect themselves, potential collectors should at least seek some kind of a guarantee of authenticity from a dealer, though it would be better to get a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) from a third party. That’s where each COA includes a hologram sticker serial number that corresponds to that authenticator’s own database. In many cases, an authenticator will be present to witness the signing of items.
The reputation of third-party authenticators is at stake for every piece on which they sign off. Some of the most reputable names in third-party authentication are James Spence Authentication or JSA and PSA/DNA. Collectors Café differs in that
the authenticity of its collectibles is underwritten by policies from seven insurance companies — Lloyds of London (HISCOX), AIG , Liberty Mutual, Chubb, CV Starr, XL, and Navigators.
Ken on Donald Trump’s Twitter Presence
Ken on Newsmax TV’s The Hard Line Discussing Donald Trump’s Twitter Activity
WebiMax CEO Ken Wisnefski discusses the FBI vs Apple standoff with CCTV’s Rachel Akuffo
Ken Wisnefski in Avalara TrustFile On Why Your Ecommerce Site Should Have a Blog
Sooner or later, most online sellers ask themselves, “Should I have a blog on my website?” Maintaining a blog and generating new content on a regular basis requires a lot of time and energy — which is only justified if the results are greater awareness of your brand and heightened customer interest.
A recent unscientific survey of ecommerce veterans turned up a resounding “Yes” to this question, with plenty of thought-provoking advice on how best to go about it. Here’s what they had to say.
Blogging plays a key role in building trust in your online business.
“Informative and valuable content not only improves trust among potential customers, it also goes a long way towards improving a brand’s visibility in search results, which has a direct effect on the bottom line,” says Ken Wisnefski of WebiMax, a digital marketing company.
Blog posts also offer an opportunity to educate prospective customers, indirectly selling them on your product and business.
Ken on Mid Day with Dr. Drew – Apple Vs. the FBI
Ken’s Article in Financial News Site The Street: The Future of Elections: Presidents Will Be Chosen Online, and Ad Budgets Will Follow
Political ad budgets on broadcast television are on track to be six times as much as they are online this year. Yet, the interference that the Internet has introduced into this election has been palpable. Our elections are going to be decided online either in this cycle or the next — not via online ballot box, which actually could be on the horizon. A large percentage of the actual political battlefield action is originating on the internet, leaving broadcast news discussing on-screen what has transpired online.
Overall, digital ad-spending is predicted to surpass television as early as next year, and with every new forecast, that date moves up closer to now. Digital political ad-spend this year is estimated at $1 billion, up 5,000% from 2008, and is predicted to be over $3 billion by 2020. While the televised attack ad is still with us, the online attack ad is here now, too.
Here’s an example. Just last week it was reported that the domain addressTedCruzForAmerica.com actually displays Canada’s own Immigration site, a challenge to Cruz by pointing out his Canadian origins. This isn’t the first time this has happened to poor Cruz, as TedCruz.com is a website simply displaying the message “Support President Obama — Immigration Reform Now!” JebBush.com redirects to Donald Trump’s campaign site.
Ken in Luxury Daily on Twitter’s 4th Quarter
With Twitter facing an ongoing challenge driving usage rates, the company is investing heavily in live streaming platform Periscope to drive engagement and ad revenue as video use continues to grow.
“As agencies have figured out Adwords and gotten more optimized on that platform, Adwords itself has gotten more expensive,” Mr. Wisnefski said. “A percentage of ad budgets have begun to shift over to other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and even Bing which have all proven effective and reasonable for the time being. Twitter has not seen any of this shift.
“From the agency perspective we’re not inclined to spend a whole lot of money on Twitter Ads because their ads are such a quick hit scenario that brands simply don’t have the ability to either engage users or stick in people’s minds given the format,” he said.
“We do a lot of work on Twitter for brands that want their social media messaging managed, but Twitter does not see a dime of that. A 10,000 character limit could change that.”
Ken Talks Twitters Fourth Quarter Earnings With Chantal Tode of Mobile Marketer
Social influencersAnother possible move Twitter could make would be to partner with influencers, who are becoming an increasingly important part of the mobile social marketing landscape.
“The return of co-founder Jack Dorsey, who knows the product and perhaps the best direction forward, has yielded some interesting propositions for ad agencies looking to spend money,” said Ken Wisnefski, founder and CEO of Webimax. “Mr. Dorsey has hinted at expanding Twitter’s character limit to 10,000 characters.
“This is a big deal because Twitter ads have not proven effective thus far at providing a positive ROI for brands in general,” he said.
Twitter needs to make some significant changes if it is to start doing a better job of attracting advertising dollars.
“As agencies have figured out Adwords and gotten more optimized on that platform, Adwords itself has gotten more expensive,” Mr. Wisnefski said. “A percentage of ad budgets have begun to shift over to other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and even Bing which have all proven effective and reasonable for the time being. Twitter has not seen any of this shift.
“From the agency perspective we’re not inclined to spend a whole lot of money on Twitter Ads because their ads are such a quick hit scenario that brands simply don’t have the ability to either engage users or stick in people’s minds given the format,” he said.
“We do a lot of work on Twitter for brands that want their social media messaging managed, but Twitter does not see a dime of that. A 10,000 character limit could change that.”
Ken Wisnefski Quoted in Marketing Mag on Twitters 10,000k Character Proposal
Marketers everywhere felt a great disturbance in the Twittersphere last week. CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed the company is considering expanding its character limit from 140 up to a comparatively endless 10,000.
That likely won’t mean that tweets themselves become screeds that clog up visitors’ feeds. The way Dorsey described it, people will be able to attach longer blog entries to their Tweets, similar to Facebook notes or LinkedIn articles. Dorsey insists that “the majority of tweets will always be short and sweet and conversational!”
Still, Twitter users weren’t happy with the threat to Twitter’s sacred 140-character cap. On Wednesday after Dorsey’s announcement, #Twitter10k trended worldwide with the conversation taking a decidedly negative slant.
We rounded up what some of the experts had to say about why Twitter may make the move, even in the face of so much backlash.
Online marketer Ken Wisnefski, writing for The Street, was also in favour:
The way things are on Twitter right now, everything moves so fast; factors like catching the right trends, using the right hashtag or just finding the right time to do a promotional tweet are so much more crucial. For that reason, Twitter hasn’t generated much return for advertisers (my clients)… If Twitter becomes a more detailed platform, while it’s a huge derivation, could create a better marketing platform and scale ad revenue.
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Ken Writes Article Regarding Twitter’s Discussion to Expand Their Character Limit to 10k – on Philly.com
Twitter’s core users are either there to get brief updates from the influencers they care about or interact with folks they don’t know personally, but with whom they may share a common interest. For influencers, it’s perhaps one of the greatest tools ever created for easily broadcasting a message. In fact, one of the best scenarios we’ve seen for advertisers on Twitter has been to pay those influencers and celebrities to tweet to their followers; of course that revenue goes directly to the celebrity and not Twitter.
Twitter needs to give people another reason to use Twitter. Quoting Matthew Ingram from Fortunemagazine, “What Twitter needs is new users, and lots of them-and it needs them to spend longer on the network, interacting with tweets and (hopefully) Twitter ads.”
While ad-spend on Google remains dominant, digital marketing agencies like ours are finding themselves to be fully optimized on that platform, and have started to spread budgets out to cheaper options like Facebook,Bing and Pinterest. To a lesser degree, we are using LinkedIn as it can get expensive and only works for business-to-business applications. Twitter is on par with LinkedIn in the number of our clients that utilize it for sponsored ads.
If Twitter becomes a more detailed platform, while it’s a huge derivation, could create a better marketing platform and scale ad revenue. While this significant change seems to alter the most basic functionality that made Twitter popular in the first place, it still offers something that you cannot get anywhere else, and that is a single online space where people can quickly see what the influencers they care about are saying.
How 10,000 Characters Makes Twitter Relevant Again for Marketers – By Ken Wisnefski
Wall Street has long been skeptical of Twitter (TWTR – Get Report) due to its inability to drive revenue through ads the way some other platforms have (see: Facebook).
But, there’s hope. With the return of CEO Jack Dorsey, Twitter is nowreportedly contemplating removing the 140 character limit on tweets and replacing it with a 10,000 character limit. With this change, Twitter would begin to compete with Facebook and Google for advertising dollars and take the platform from a stagnant brand and launch it into a new direction. Allow me to explain.
In the social ad sphere, Facebook dominates. But unlike Facebook, Twitter hasn’t attracted advertiser’s dollars because it’s a “quick hit” scenario without stickiness for strong ad development. The way things are on Twitter right now, everything moves so fast; factors like catching the right trends, using the right hashtag or just finding the right time to do a promotional tweet are so much more crucial. For that reason, Twitter hasn’t generated much return for advertisers (my clients).
Ken Comments on the Republican Race to the White House
Reputation Management Expert Ken Wisnefski comments on why it seems Donald Trump is rewarded for saying things most would be criticized for.
“While I certainly wouldn’t advise my clients to make such defiant political statements, I do advise my clients to acknowledge the importance of transparency. In a world where people have so much information at their fingertips, it’s never been more important for a business to take control of their message. Trump’s proven that the masses appreciate directness in all manners,” says Ken Wisnefski, CEO and founder of WebiMax, a reputation management group. “Trump has garnered more media attention than any other candidate because of his ability to throw political correctness out the window.”