A great advertisement disguised as a YouTube video of game footage from Wario Land for the Nintendo Wii is being passed around today. If the counts are accurate it hit over 250K views today alone. The ad cleverly leverages a flash physics engine and pretty much speaks for itself. This is a great example where a creative team pulled together a compelling use of the technology to drive a marketing campaign. The content is clean, well produced and is based off a great idea. Simple, well-executed creative, matched with great execution can yield phenomenal results. I’d love to find out whether an agency was involved in generating the content or the idea.
Universal McCann has done it again and assembled a very informative presentation on how strangers are influencing brand buying decisions. This presentation is definitely worth the read. Some key takeaways, looking through the eyes of retailers trying to figure out how to leverage social media for connecting with broader communities: Overall participation rates for sharing […]
Universal McCann has done it again and assembled a very informative presentation on how strangers are influencing brand buying decisions. This presentation is definitely worth the read. Some key takeaways, looking through the eyes of retailers trying to figure out how to leverage social media for connecting with broader communities:
Overall participation rates for sharing product opinions is very high. All brands need to react by becoming more transparent and active in social and conversational media.
Even low interest categories (insurance, finance, real estate) have high participation rates, although music, movies and technology lead the pack in discussion. Travel is one of the most sought after categories for information.
“Super influencers” – bloggers, video sharers, photo uploaders – are very real and have a definitive impact.
Don’t be afraid to advertise in new social media platforms – it’s where consumers and influencers “live.” But in concert with that, brands need to have a presence and “exist” in the social media services that consumers contribute to.
There are some great examples as well. What do you think? Coming soon in a future post: some “quick hits” ideas on how retailers can get quickly engaged in social media.
Social Media is a commitment. It's not something individuals or businesses can dabble in and expect to be successful. Here are some top ways that I've found Social Media to require commitment. Chalk this one up to both lessons learned personally and bordering on the obvious to folks who have been leveraging social media for awhile. 1. […]
Social Media is a commitment. It's not something individuals or businesses can dabble in and expect to be successful. Here are some top ways that I've found Social Media to require commitment. Chalk this one up to both lessons learned personally and bordering on the obvious to folks who have been leveraging social media for awhile.
1. Blog Frequency
Best practice often suggests that while maintaining a blog, the author(s) should post new content 2-3 times a week at a minimum. This keeps readers engaged and setting a regular pattern will keep them coming back. For anyone whose main responsibilities have nothing to do with blogging, it can really be a challenge to keep up. There are lots of strategies, from keeping a queue of posts and topics drafted, to scheduling regular time to dedicate. What helps most of all is having an author or authors who are passionate about the topic. Those folks will find a way to make it work, but long term dedication is a major factor in a blog's success.
2. Personal (or Professional) Brand Management
Once you have a blog, a twitter account, an account on Friendfeed, etc – you need to keep up with those who comment and respond. It takes time to search twitter results for posts with your name buried in the middle, blog posts and other tools for people to keep up. I sometimes stumble across a valuable response to a comment I made days earlier and regret not addressing it right away or capturing the RSS feed for that comment train. A great aspect of these social media tools is that the information lives on, but much of the conversation takes place in a short time. You can miss a window to participate with the primary group if you don't take time to keep up.
There are lots of free tools to leverage for this, including search.twitter.com, Google alerts and Technorati among others. Our agency recently partnered with Radian6, a social media monitoring package. I'm still learning about it, but so far I would compare it to robust web analytics packages – with a major advantage that you can gain insight not just to your own brand, but competitors.
3. Ubiquitous Content
The beauty of RSS is the distribution of content. Social networks are proliferating. New blogs are cropping up, and new tools are adding to the way we can share information with each other. Frankly, there is so much valuable information to digest it's hard to keep up with it all. There also is plenty of less than valuable content to sort through. I use Google Reader and at times feel like I have to declare "feed bankruptcy" and mark everything as read, and I'm sure I miss valuable content in there. Imagine if everyone you know had a blog, was connected to you on Friendfeed and was on Facebook. Even apply this just to your company, or your industry. Would you be able to really keep up with all of the content?
4. Relationship Building
I mentioned before that I use LinkedIn and Facebook regularly and recommend scrutinizing your social media connections. These are great tools to keep up with friends and colleagues, but also to build relationships with contacts from networking events, business meetings and other settings. Setting up a profile is a one time event for the most part, but truly using these tools to build upon relationships takes effort and consistent usage over time.
5. Participating
Regardless of whether you have a few dozen or a few hundred connections, tools like Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and others require dedication to participate in conversations, answer questions and 'consume' the media. Uploading and tagging photos, booking trips on Dopplr, checking out events on Upcoming… When you start to interact with other folks, there is almost an informal contract you sign jumping in to participate. You license people to reach out to you and they expect a response back, otherwise they may move on. It takes a long term commitment to get the most out of these tools.
When people ask me for advice about social media, I often start with, "It's a commitment – are you ready for it?" What other ways do you see social media needing commitment? A logical next question – what advice do you have for folks trying to balance the commitment with everything else they have to do?
Roll over, hit the snooze button if you like, but opportunities are there, waiting. It's inevitable – someone in your marketing department is going to ask you how you are including social networks in your plans for the next year, maybe even for the holidays. Alarm Goes Off Recently, Gartner says that social networks have […]
Roll over, hit the snooze button if you like, but opportunities are there, waiting. It's inevitable – someone in your marketing department is going to ask you how you are including social networks in your plans for the next year, maybe even for the holidays.
Alarm Goes Off
Recently, Gartner says that social networks have too much traffic to ignore. (Thanks to Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester for highlighting the release – gotta love analyst firms giving each other props).
Some highlights from the Gartner article:
"Social networks are rich in Word-of-Mouth discussions about Retailers and Products." Over 100 million people are on Facebook, so chances are retailer brands are being talked about there. There are many networks and platforms for consumers to interact. Brands are definitely being discussed, now it's up to retailers to choose (and very importantly, to choose how) to engage in those conversations.
"Gartner says that retailers must first understand how each of the major social networks will allow them to leverage their [social] graphs. then decide what to do with that access." Deciding what to do can be challenging – it takes a deep understanding of social networks and a creative digital approach. It also takes a clear understanding of objectives before starting.
"Social Networks Are Merging Into the Real-Time World — Coming to Your Mobile Phone." The emerging practice of leveraging the combination of social networks and location based targeting is new but growing rapidly, especially with the adoption of the iPhone and its capabilities.
The article is worth the read for anyone exploring how to leverage social networks in a business context.
Another Wake Up Call
This September, STORES magazine – the official publication of the National Retail Federation (NRF) – decided the growing trend of retailers leveraging and exploring Facebook was worth a cover story. I was honored and delighted to be interviewed by Executive Editor Susan Reda, based upon our study from May of 100 of the top online retailers and their use of fan pages. Susan did a great job outlining the different points of view about Facebook – with over 100 million users now (the article mentions 90 million but was authored a month or so ago), it's hard to ignore the level of reach and access. In the article, I recommend exploring Facebook and learning about it – but in the context of a broader list of objectives for engaging in social media and not for the sake of jumping in. I also caution about interaction with customers – social networks are about connecting and sharing content with friends, not about selling and users can be resistant to "forced messaging."
What Do You Think?
Is Facebook the right forum for retailers? What retailers do you think are leveraging Facebook well? Are you concerned about the invasiveness of advertising? I'd love to hear what you think and your reactions to the two articles above.
I came across this presentation in feeds this morning and thought it was worth sharing. Among the many salient points:
Some great statistics on the fundamental boost to mobile that the iPhone has initiated. For example, nearly 50% of all iPhone users visited social networking sites, compared to 4% of all mobile users.
If you have a buisness and looking for more marketing strategies then check out SMS reseller white label software where you can send messages to new and old clients.
The convergence of better networks, differentiated equipment with full keyboards and photo capabilities, location-aware technologies, the popularity of social networks and a desire to “stay connected” are all driving forces.
Challenges include privacy, ability to test and finding the right partners.
Recommendations include taking the plunge to make mistakes now – taking risks is easier to absorb in an immature marketplace.
Web 2.0 and social media are changing the way we interact online. Can it change how we interact offline too? You bet it can. I'm participating in two events coming up that are purposefully out to show how social media can affect change. sm4sc Are you in the Boston area, interested in social media, and […]
Web 2.0 and social media are changing the way we interact online. Can it change how we interact offline too? You bet it can. I'm participating in two events coming up that are purposefully out to show how social media can affect change.
sm4sc
Are you in the Boston area, interested in social media, and interested in social change? A group of social media enthusiasts in the area have started Social Media for Social Change. The background of the cause:
Social media has broken down walls and created conversations. IBM does product testing in Second Life. Old college classmates reunite on Facebook. Zappos does intra-office communication via Twitter. All great, paradigm shifting events.
But what about change for the greater good?
You don't have to be in Boston to be interested, and I see this as a grass roots effort that can be spread to other cities as passionate people pick up the vibe. Here are some social media footprints around this group already:
A fundraiser has been planned for Friday, October 10th, at the Harvard Club in Boston, with all proceeds going to Jane Doe Inc:
Jane Doe Inc., The Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence brings together organizations and people committed to ending domestic violence and sexual assault. We create social change by addressing the root causes of this violence, and promote justice, safety and healing for survivors.
More to come as the date approaches. If you are interested in becoming a corporate or personal sponsor, drop an email to sponsors (at) sm4sc (dot) com.
Blog Action Day 2008
Blog Action Day is a consolidated blog outreach program asking bloggers of all genres to talk about what they do best, but relate a post on October 15, 2008, to the topic of Poverty. Register your blog and be part of the awareness campaign. It's easy – they even have ideas to help come up with a post. This is an easy way to get involved in a good cause. Check out this video, a well done production to give an overview of what Blog Action Day is about.
When I talk to clients and colleagues about social networks, most think of LinkedIn and Facebook. A few more familiar with social media will talk about Twitter and other bookmarking tools like Delicious and StumbleUpon. Lately, I am seeing niche social networks pop up through Ning and other tools. With the profileration of community building […]
When I talk to clients and colleagues about social networks, most think of LinkedIn and Facebook. A few more familiar with social media will talk about Twitter and other bookmarking tools like Delicious and StumbleUpon. Lately, I am seeing niche social networks pop up through Ning and other tools. With the profileration of community building online, is there a danger that communities become too diluted?
Take the following examples. I was recently recruited by the business folks behind local Boston sports personality Jerry Remy to join Sawxheads.com, a community for passionate Red Sox fans. Within minutes of joining, I had a few dozen connection requests from complete strangers – our only bond a passion for the good guys. The community allows "friending," blog posts that are proprietary to the network, and the equivalent of Facebook wall posts. The Boston chapter of the American Marketing Association has also changed up how folks interact with the site adding many social features, like ""friending" and wall posts as well. (It's actually pretty slick – if you are a member please feel free to connect with me.) Not too shabby.
Here's the problem: I want to go to one place, one portal, to get all of my social activity. I'd almost prefer the front end of Facebook as a single 'portal' that I can access from there, and to maintain contacts in one place. Do we really need to perpetuate the YASN acronym? Yet another social network? I love the idea of connecting with other Sox fans, but I don't like the idea of another profile to update, another source of BACN with all of the connection requests, etc. There is lots of proprietary content on Sawxheads, and maybe if I could RSS stream the activity to Google Reader it would be a lot easier to digest in one place.
There are startups looking to carry the torch on being content aggregators, whether it's merging activity streams to centralizing the management of profiles. It seems a long ways off before the pain becomes so compelling that these services will emerge as mainstream…but I think it's going in that direction. In some upcoming posts I am going to explore the functionality of some of these tools, thanks to some of the folks who have reached out to me to ask for a point of view. This could be interesting – but hopefully each solves a fundamental problem of spreading out that social goodness too thinly.
