Second Screen Effect, AmEx Teams with Facebook, Top Email Marketers

The Content Strategist picks the day’s most relevant and interesting stories about the world of content from around the web. Here’s what you should be reading today:

The Second Screen and Its Relation to TV

A new survey from the Deloitte found that in the United Kingdom, 24 percent of people are on second screens while viewing television, and almost half of 16-to-24-year-olds are using them for communication.

Deloitte’s technology, media and telecoms director Paul Lee told PaidContent.org, “Second screening’s impact is far greater in driving conversations about a programme, as opposed to interaction with it.”

He cautions companies against focusing simply on the second screen, and instead figuring out how the first and second can work hand in hand: “Every pound spent on second screen content may be a pound diverted from the first screen; in order to justify the investment content creators need to get the balance right between all screens.”

Facebook and AmEx Helping Out Small Businesses

American Express and Facebook have collaborated to create the second annual contest, “A Big Break for Small Businesses,” according to ClickZ.

Ten finalists have been chosen the 12,000 applicants from around the United States. The winner of the competition will be determined upon which ones can receive the most Facebook votes throughout the next 12 days.

The grand prize for the winning business is $25,000 and marketing consulting from Facebook and Amex Open. Right now, a cooking school in New Orleans and a popsicle stand in Washington, D.C. are in the running, among eight others.

The Best Email Marketing from Top Brands 

Mashable’s Loren McDonald highlights the most effective email strategies from top brands including Amazon, Betty Crocker, and Air New Zealand.

The airline’s tactics include sending out personalized pre-flight and post-flight emails, which leads to high click rates. Betty Crocker’s content is full of recipes that are printer-friendly and engagement-enhancing programs like “Quick Polls” and “Ask Betty.”

Issac Mizrahi Clothes Up for Sale on LivingSocial

Issac Mizrahi, whose clothes have been sold for high end stores and everyday places like Target, is now going to be selling a GM-inspired fashion line exclusively on LivingSocial.

Mashable’s Lauren Indvik says that the line is for women ages 25 to 45 with the intent of getting them interested in GM’s 2013 Chevy Malibu. Ads will run for the next three month in People, InStyle, and other publications from Time Warner.

Charles Schwab’s Flite Success

After the S&P downgraded U.S. treasury bonds in the summer of 2011, Charles Schwab decided to partner up with Flite, an ad technology that allows for real-time updates of banner ads, writes NewsCred’s Claire.

Since it’s been signed up with Flite, Schwab has boasted a 63 percent higher click through rate and 15 percent more time spent on engaging with the ad. In addition, “The ad also outperformed industry benchmarks, yielding a 62% higher CTR, a 2.7 times higher engagement rate and 2.3 times more time spent within the ad unit.”

The Downfall of Alternative Weeklies

Alternative weeklies such as New York City’s The Village Voice and Minneapolis’ City Pages have been struggling to stay afloat in this economy, writes David Carr of The New York Times. The lack of money being made can also be attributed to the fact that the writing on the web now fills their niche.

“The idea of the alternative weekly — that news would be covered absent the agenda of mainstream media and that truths would be told without paying heed to any kind of formal balance or objectivity — has all but been overwhelmed by the Web,” says Carr. “Listings, spicy writing, coverage of the next big thing, all of that has been digitized and democratized and many alternatives have ended up looking, of all things, stodgy within this new-media context.”

How Marketers Can Respect, Engage, and Connect with Customers

Cella Irvine, former CEO of About.com, wrote in a piece for AdAge that the best ways to persuade customers to buy products are to respect, engagement, and connect with them.

For the first rule, marketers need to empower the customer by giving them content they can control. Engagement can be done by providing customers with the information they need, and connections can be found when brands “meet the users on platforms that matter to them most.”

Image courtesy of Monkey Business Images/shutterstock

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