 |
|
Archives
|
How Lady Gaga Moves More than Just her BodyPop sensation Lady Gaga has managed to sell 8 million albums since 2008, in a time when no one is buying CDs. How did she do it? By leveraging social media and developing creative partnerships to sell product, albums and singles. She is the first artist to score four consecutive number one singles from a debut album and the video premiere of her “Bad Romance” video lead to a Universal Music server crash and over 110 million views on YouTube. Not only is Lady Gaga scoring in the singles and album sales department she is also reaping the benefits of creative partnerships. With the success of Lady Gaga’s career, big brands are reaching out to Lady Gaga for her help in selling their products. She has been named creative director for Polaroid in the hopes of reigniting the brand and the Estee Lauder Group is seeing record sales of Lady Gaga’s and Cyndi Lauper’s Mac Viva Glam lipstick. Lady Gaga boosts 2.8 million Twitter followers and over 5.2 million Facebook fans that are more than eager to hear the latest Gaga news. This army of followers is gaga, well, over Gaga. In the February 22 Ad Age issue, Steve Berman, Universal Music’s president of sales and marketing states in the article “GAGA, OOH LA LA: Why The Lady is the Ultimate Social Climber”, “Gaga has worked tirelessly in keeping up daily if not hourly communications with her fans and growing fanbase through all the technology that exists.”  Her Facebook page features a merchandise store, events calendar, and gift shop of Lady Gaga images to send friends. Her Twitter page is filled with tweets which encourage users to watch videos and tweet with the singer. “Check me out on the Today Show with Cyndi” and “Any scousers gotta video if “the living dress” so happy I could die? Tweet me!” However, for someone not down with the lingo (as in me), more than 140 characters would help translate her tweets.  Labels: Brand Awareness, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter, twitter social media, Video, Viral Marketing Are YOU measuring Social Media ROI?The Alterian Integrated Marketing group recently released their 7th annual survey on social media and marketing adoption. Almost 1100 marketing professionals and executives participated worldwide, and the results paint a very interesting picture. Highlights include:
 With core metrics like unique visits and time spent on the biggest social networks continually ballooning upward, these figures come at no real surprise. But when the medium and large businesses making these big buys into social are consistently downsizing across nearly every industry, it's also easy to see where more than a few executives raise eyebrows over social's 'real' value. Where, how, or how much does social media marketing contribute to the bottom line?The social media Kool-Aid dictates that if you're not in it, you're outside of it. Now, it doesn't take money to register a Facebook page, but it certainly does take time and effort (and ultimately creative, development, and maintenance dollars) to impact the opinions and ideas gathered and exchanged in social media. And it takes alot of effort to do so in a positive, meaningful, and above all, sincere way. Brands are certainly counting how much they're spending on social. Shouldn't they be paying attention to what they're getting out of it? Almost 85% are in the dark.  Would you put a dollar in a vending machine without bothering to see what comes down the chute? Would you spend on an online media or branding campaign and not pay attention to the analytics? There's clearly a disconnect here.Social media spending is on the rise. That's a fact - money is going where the traffic is, makes sense. CMOs want measurable results, also makes sense. But most of them don't know where to start. MarketingProfs reports that 10% of marketing executives can't find measurable success in LinkedIn or Facebook, and 15% believe there is NO ROI associated with Twitter. Guess what, Dell made almost $7M off of Twitter last year. How'd they do it? With defined end goals. What are you end goals? Followers? Leads? Registrations? Links? Sales? Define these goals before you engage. Structure your campaigns and their success metrics around these goals. Listen to the conversation about your brand before you engage. Want to know Dell's other Twitter secret? Tracked clicks. Simple campaigns + measurable assets + a defined end goal = Social Media ROI. Are you measuring? Labels: Brand Awareness, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social media roi The Future of Social Media: A 2010 Blog SeriesAs we now have buried our eyes & minds into a very exciting 2010, the focus on social media marketing will be ever growing. In fact, from this point on, I believe we are going to see a number of changes in marketing strategies, on and offline.  If you think closely, the world’s operating system is morphing. In the past, you have had a number of “closed” model marketing systems that prevented the singular idea that social media describes: collective interaction. In past years, marketing strategies have lived within specific business models and relied on “closed” channels to disseminate the message. For example, a newspaper would advertise a static ad, a direct-mail message would take a matter of days to make even a single impression. Once that message was delivered, the channel relied on a number of “closed” systems to tie into the medium properly, and the need to pause and wait for participation was often days, weeks, even months depending on the type and length of the campaign. In today’s world, the operating system is being revamped, what took days, now takes seconds, and together this process of marketing evolution is pushing today’s marketing programs into an “open” system. This “open” system allows for instant connections with the customer, while the opportunity for response, collaboration, sharing, and growth increase tremendously. Fundamental Shift While this shift in marketing systems is underway, this “closed” to “open” environment is going to expand further beyond business into our everyday lives. Obviously, as marketers, we think of this in relevancy to the delivery of a message, in some manner. But, as time expands and social media begins to consume users’ lives online, the idea of an “open” system will fall into a number of funnels, including media and content, advertising, business solutions, education, legal environments, lifestyle, entertainment, love, religion, sex, etc... And as this shift into an “open” system expands, a number of brands and individuals will be wary of moving so quickly into such an environment. A system like this is cluttered with a number of worries, such as “out of control”, “chaotic”, “risky”, or “feeling of being unsafe”. This inescapable feeling of being in “risk” is common among brands, but learning to trust the system will be the hardest step to overcome starting in 2010 and moving beyond. If relating this change in marketing ethics to social media, the door must be swung open to attain any success. To what level you remain “open”, your business growth will be directly related. Social Media: 5 Years Into the Future 12-18 Months: Social Media is CRM As social media slowly becomes a part of everyone’s daily web interaction, this reality and change in systems means that YOU, your brand, must adjust and focus on agility instead of just optimization when it comes to integrating social media into your marketing programs. And as this becomes more of a reality, Social Media CRM systems are becoming a necessity, rather than option as more users begin to take part in social media and recognize your brand.  In the next 12-18 months, brands will work to close the gap on effectively managing dialogue with the market in terms of:
Social Media monitoring devices such as Radian6, Visible Technologies, Buzzlogic, TNS Cymfony, Trackur, and other social media monitoring tools allow you to keep a finger to the pulse of your brand and see real-time data as social media mentions take place. 12-18 Months: Digital Jet Lag Goes Into Red Alert As information already within social media is becoming clogged, expect a massive increase in the next 12-18 months with the uptick in both users and social media popularity. Because of this, expect filtering and curation to become a huge business. When it comes to finding methods to cull the information being pushed into the social networks and allow users to sort through it more efficiently, a step toward contextualizing and connecting with the ‘right’ information will step into the forefront with a number of new tools, platforms and systems to help control this excessive amount of content. To be continued... This post is part one of a continuous series that will be posted throughout the rest of January and February. Here is a sneak peek to some of the topics that I will be covering: • Resistance to Change Ends? • Privacy will become a MUST for Users • Real-time, Social Mobile: Feedback, Rating, Comments, Tagging • Uprising in Automated Social Agents • Socially Augmented Reality • FREE Access to a Global Network • Social “Books” • Smarter Social Advertising: Mobile, Online • The End of One-Way Communications • Social Advertising Budgets Explode • The Extreme Reputation Economy • The Importance of Social Capital • The Global Social Brain Labels: Brand Awareness, Social Media Marketing An Alternative Approach To Social Media Marketing - Your Social Brand“Your Brand is what identifies your business to consumers. If you were to ask most people about ‘branding” as it applies to their business they will most likely respond with an answer rooted in a company’s products and services. Sure, they will speak to the importance of emotionally connecting with their target audience, but at the heart of it all it still boils down to what you do or the products you produce. In short, for your brand to be effective it needs to sell and move product or services.
Social media is definitely changing how we market and connect with consumers. Therefore as marketers, we need to also think differently about how we approach our business and look to connect with consumers. In the end traditional branding models will not always work, because they were not constructed to deal with a high degree of social interaction and input from consumers. Therefore, we need to look at branding as a form of subsets, including how we will and want to socialize with our target. Labels: Advertising, Brand Awareness, Facebook, Integration, POV, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter, twitter social media Facebook Creates A Better Experience Between Pages & FansTwo big changes have just been announced for Facebook Pages and Profiles that will help increase user experience, as well as create more valuable interactions between users and brands. The first very exciting update gives administrators of Pages the option to customize their status updates to Fans in the News Feed. These custom updates include the feature to target by geography and language. This is HUGE news for national or international brands who are trying to figure out how to manage their Facebook presence in the world of social media marketing.   How this option could help you: - Ability to target promotions/contests to a specific country or state. - Ability to target job listing to a specific country or state. - Ability to target a specific language or run multi-lingual campaigns. - Ability to gain valuable market research through comparing comments and results when asking the same question (or different question) targeted to specific regions. - Ability to gain a better understanding of local or regional consumer opinions and values. The next big change in the works for December 2009/January 2010 is the modification of Facebook Pages and Profiles. In order to help brands emphasize their identity and customized content, the following changes will be made: - Tab width changing from 760 to 520 pixels. - Boxes tab will be removed as the focus has switched to custom tabs. - Application tabs will be the exclusive integration point for applications on Facebook Pages and Profiles. I never was a believer in the Boxes Tab so this is a very exciting change to me. The more Facebook can help support brands create custom tabs within their Facebook Page, the greater the interaction these brands will have with their Fans. There’s already brands doing a great job of this like Liberty Medical and Harley-Davidson, but it can only get better from here! Labels: Brand Awareness, Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Marketing If You Build It, They Will ComeAdvertisers, that is. The 'IT' in this case being social media. The popularity of social media has finally reached the point where marketers believe they can profit from it, and it seems that everybody wants in on the game. For businesses & advertisers, social media is quickly becoming more of a Need To Have than a Nice To Have. However, this is a path that must be traveled carefully. Social media has the power to connect people to their friends and the world around them. Many people have a very personal connection to their Facebook profiles and Twitter accounts. With this level of personal investment, marketers plastering these sites with ads could run the risk of alienating their customer base. For example, the recent changes to Facebook allow for ads to be more prevalent and expand their reach, much to the chagrin of users. Less than a week after these changes were implemented, a Facebook group called "Change Facebook To Normal" has garnered over 1.2 million members. Personally, I'm torn over the issue. As a person I tend to feel ads invading my online life somehow cheapens the experience and reduce my individuality - "Bill Holmes is brought to you by Jeep" just doesn't have that ring to it. As a marketer however, of course I want my ads to show up everywhere I can get them, with an unlimited budget and millions of impressions. The inevitability of this argument is that people will eventually accept ads prevailing in social media. Until that time comes though, marketers will have to walk the line between getting their message out while not interrupting user experience. Absolutely there are many ways to do this. Jeep in fact has a great game 'Boostin Nuts' along with forums for Jeep enthusiasts (myself included) to post pics and brag about their rigs. Other applications such as the Celtics 3-Point-Play are a great way to be involved with the team (brand) while still maintaining a good social media experience. I think overall advertising will always be part of just about everything we do, but the most successful marketers will be those who can promote their products while still maintaining the personal user experience that social media provides. Labels: Advertising, Brand Awareness, Facebook, Industry, POV, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter Social Media Strategy & the Importance of Listening to the ConversationSo, you’ve been tasked with developing a social media strategy, but where do you start? In most cases the focus is on building an actual presence, which means building your Facebook page, MySpace profile, Twitter page and YouTube channel. Then, just like a magician waving a magic wand, your social media channel will be up and running. 1) Listen 1. Listen to the Conversation Thanks to social media monitoring technology such as Radian6 and other tools, it’s now possible to monitor this river of news and understand what people are saying about your brand and organization. These tools enable you to see what people are saying on Twitter and in the Blogosphere and by monitoring the conversation, you can get a handle on what’s being said. *** Topics of Conversation *** *** Sentiment *** *** The Plan *** This is obviously a huge endeavor, but when based on steps 1 & 2 of Listening and Learning, it becomes much easier and more strategically sound. The reason for this is that your plan and all of its components are rooted in the realities of the social conversation that’s happening and what people are responding to. Therefore, you can be confident that the plan you put forth will ideally be well received because its based on the realities of what your audience wants, not what you think they want. In doing so, your key advantage here is that you will be building a platform that’s based on knowledge of how your constituents are already socializing, so it can be constructed with this in mind. Therefore instead of merely constructing a social media presence, what you can construct is a platform for socialization. With this being said, the following are a few key components to any engagement strategy and how listening to and learning from the conversation can impact them. Conclusion Labels: Application Development, Blog Outreach, Brand Awareness, Facebook, online marketing, Online Monitoring, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Strategy, Twitter, web 2.0, Widgets, YouTube Social Media & Narcissism – Individuals and Brands: Remember to Love YourselfBecoming a star on the Internet these days does not seem as far fetched as it once might have been. Social networks have become a ubiquitous tactic in helping connect individuals with family, friends, and strangers alike. And over the past several years, a number of those random individuals have become overnight sensations – all thanks to the Internet. Do we all remember Tay Zonday? After his composition “Chocolate Rain” became an overnight Internet sensation in July 2007, garnering more than 40 million views to date, this Minneapolis grad student went from no one to someone, in mere seconds. He has appeared on the Opie & Anthony Show, G4TV’s Attack of the Show!, VH1’s Best Week Ever, Lily Allen and Friends, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Maury where he performed Chocolate Rain on national television just three months after posting his video to YouTube. He made the front page of Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, the Toronto Sun, Chicago Tribune, Star Tribune, People magazine, and even has appeared on CNN for a televised interview. He’s made appearances on Fox News, and even made it on to an episode of South Park. And that’s just the beginning of it! Singer John Mayer mimics Zonday’s keyboard riff with his guitar in concert regularly. Even Green Day drummer Tre Cool recorded a cover of Chocolate Rain, which he posted to YouTube. He’s even been mentioned in episodes of The Office, 30 Rock and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And this is from a YouTube video, a YouTube video!? Think of it, one day a college student decided to sing some strange, yet catchy song, records it, and ends up becoming an overnight star. Comedy Central, Dr. Pepper, Intel, the rock band Weezer, NASA, Warner Brothers, and BBC have paid Zonday to appear in a variety of promotions. Zonday is just one of many YouTube celebrities who happen to have corporate sponsors, and are paid for product placement in their videos online. Some have even quit their day jobs or changed careers to accommodate their YouTube filming schedules. And a handful of individuals are also official “YouTube Partners,” meaning YouTube cuts them a share of ad revenue. Lonelygirl15, the Obama Girl, the Angry German Kid, Dancing Matt, Charlie bit me, the Boom goes the dynamite guy, the prison thriller, even the guy who screamed “Don’t Tase Me, Bro!”- all of these individuals went from having normal everyday lives to notable online prominence.  Some might think of this notion as absolutely foolish, some might think of it as a form of humble genius – nonetheless, they are stars, overnight sensations that have proven their worth in numerous inescapable maneuvers. Those mentioned above hold our deserved scrutiny, but they are from years past. Ergo, who shall we take notice of now in 2009? Who will be the next Tay Zonday to speak highly of? - Leaping on to the national stage and then slipping back into anonymity, this seamless performance seems to act as a contagious flu anyone might catch. And in 2009, only can a deceased cat, a 48-year-old Scottish woman and Dominos pizza employees have so much in common. For just a brief second, we read, watched and spoke about these individuals at some point - all thanks to the Internet, and the instant-celebrity, be it a person, video or website might deliver us. Drum Roll Please. Here are just a few of those viral sensations that have struck 2009 in more than just simple terms: (some personal grading was also applied here based on impact) Keyboard Cat This sensation began with a video clip of a decade old cat appearing to play the keyboard. Add in a video-savvy 22-year-old to the mix, and marry that clip with another of a person falling down an escalator – you have stardom my friends. This one video attracted the attention and interest of millions, including comedian Stephen Colbert. The AP reports Brad O’Farrell, syndication manager for MyDamnChannel.com in February 2009, put the keyboard cat into motion. Since that point in time, hundreds have taken the keyboard cat clip and combined it with a video clip of an embarrassing accident – the result is absolutely hysterical in some cases. The keyboard cat’s (aka Fasto, who’s said to be long dead) performance is meant to play the person “off the stage.” This is a great example of how users can take a moment someone creates, and ‘recycle’ the content on their own to produce user-generated content that allows users to decide the hilarity behind who the keyboard cat will “play off” next. Rating: A+ Susan Boyle If you have not heard of Susan Boyle, chances are you’ve lived in a cave for the past 6 months. Her melodramatic tale began as a 48-year-old reality show contestant for the U.K. reality TV show “Britain’s Got Talent.” When this very sweet, and very unassuming individual belted one of the finest versions of “I Dreamed a Dream” for what would eventually be the world, never did she see the stardom marching her way. Camera crews and interviews on several major news broadcasts, including the NBC Today Show – caught Boyle off-guard and soon she was thrown into a newly found fame courtesy of the Internet. And even though this unemployed Scottish church volunteer did eventually lose the contest, the online video of her debut performance was downloaded more than 200 million times, and had the paparazzi camped outside her home, and had Oprah and Larry King begging for interviews. Watch her video here Rating: B+ (Sorry, she lost…can’t give you points for that.) 25 Random Things About Me This 2009 e-mail chain-like fad fascinated Facebook users and took them to another level. Chances are if you are on Facebook, at some point you saw this pass into your inbox. And you either loved or despised the forwarded message, reluctantly giving in or galloped to quickly toss into your trash bin. The overall point of the fad was to share 25 random things about yourself, and then forward it to 25 other Facebook users. PC World Magazine estimated that more than 5 million motions of the chain letter forwards populated Facebook pages in just one week. The fad grew to such a massive following; a Facebook user spoofed it with a “25 Things I Hate About Facebook” video. Facebook quickly followed up with the user, Julian Smith, and worked with him on other videos. This 2009 sensation had a prolonged spike in mainstream media, and did help Facebook further its popularity. Rating: A Dominos Pizza Videos In May, videos of Dominos pizza employees violated public health laws when they decided to have ‘fun’ with people’s food while preparing it and recording the entire segment on video inside the Dominos pizza kitchen. Watch the video here Their antics, which eventually made it to YouTube, sparked a PR nightmare for Dominos pizza, where the company made a public apology from the CEO online via YouTube. This drew the eyes of several million people, damaging the brand greatly overnight. But, like any other Internet sensation, these moments are short-lived, and what was once a wildfire, seems almost like it never happened. In the end, an interesting study was done by MediaCurves.com, where they obtained American’s perceptions of the event’s apology, as it revealed that 65% of respondents who would previously visit or order Domino’s Pizza were less likely to do so after viewing a “prank” video. The results can be seen here Rating: B- Runners Up: The Obama Puppy: The moment President Obama promised his daughter’s a puppy, the world had no choice but to care. Bo, the Portuguese water dog eventually made his way to the White House and the ‘online’ world went into a frenzy. Online polls, kennel associations, blogs, and users across all social platforms scratched and clawed to want to help the Obamas pick the breed. Rating: B The AIG Bonuses: When the world found out that $165 million was paid out in bonuses by insurance giant AIG, the world fought back. Both the public and government officials were outraged by the event of a crumbling company to release bonuses of this size after receiving more than $170 billion in taxpayer funds to stay afloat. As in the case of the Dominos Pizza event, this saw a large spike, then quickly bottomed out and lost interest. Rating: B+ Conclusion. There is one interesting point about viral sensations that strikes me, the time involved. People seem to obsess for a short period of time, and then poof…it’s off to the next ‘hot’ thing. In this tiny village we all live in, there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to run, nowhere anyone won’t find you. The Internet, in an exceptional way, has transformed our lives into ‘live’ events. We can record, we can tape, we can see what others are doing and transmit that event quicker than ever before, to a stage where the entire world can view. Some might argue this and describe our ‘personal space’ as being lost and violated – It’s hard to disagree. But, in reality, it has been, and apparently we are OK with that. There is a reason we share our lives on the Internet with both friends and strangers, why each of us try and climb the plateau and look over to see who might be looking up at us on occasions. When taking this into perspective, it’s all relative, whether your Joe the Plumber or a big brand like Microsoft – there is point to all of this madness. You want to see me, and I want to see you. We might be trying to play those subtleties off on occasion, but in the end – why fight it? Enjoy the self-absorption, swagger with the best of them and remember, narcissism will always get you somewhere in this world. Labels: Brand Awareness, Facebook, Social Media, YouTube Facebook Set to Launch Vanity URLs - Time to Line Up!Ever since Facebook launched, people have always wanted to use their real names to connect with their friends and share information. If you are on Facebook and you look at your web address for your profile, the URL was just a randomly assigned number. Not Anymore! Facebook is now opening the door to allow people to find and connect with you easier. Now, when your friends, family, or possibly stalkers go to your profile or Pages on Facebook, they will be able to enter your username as part of the URL. This makes it much easier for people to find you on Facebook.  Facebook is even hinting that they expect to offer even more way to use your Facebook username in the future.  Starting at 12:01 EDT on Saturday, June 13, you will be able to choose your username on a first-come, first-serve basis for your profile and the Facebook pages that you administer by visiting www.facebook.com/username/ A notice will also appear on your profile page when you login starting at that time as well. Facebook will allow usernames in basic text forms, and you can only choose a single username for your profile and for each of the Pages that you administer. Your username must be at least five characters in length and only include alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9), or a period. Be very careful about the username you decide to choose. Once it has been selected, you won’t be able to change or transfer it. And if you signed up for a Facebook Page after May 31 or a user profile after June 8 at 3 p.m. EDT, you won’t be able to sign for a username right away because of steps Facebook takes to prevent abuse or “squatting” on names. Let the countdown begin! Labels: Brand Awareness, Facebook, Social Media Google AdWords Trademark Policy Change Goes Into Effect Next Week!If you’re an agency, you’re likely aware of the major Google AdWords trademark policy change that will be going into effect beginning June 4th-15th. This change will significantly impact the control we’re able to have over our client’s brand names within Google Paid Search. What you need to know: -Google will no longer investigate the use of trademarks as keywords in the US, UK and other countries as well. Anyone who wants to sponsor your brand name can, effective June 4th. -Previously, Google restricted the use of brand names in ad text and would take action to prevent such usage. Only authorized resellers were allowed to use you brand, which ensured that most were restricted. This policy is being lifted as of June 15th, so previously disapproved ad text may now be permitted to run in both Google and the Content Network. Google will judge whether the ads will be able to run, and the trademark owner will not be able to prevent people from using their trademark in ad text. It is likely however that Google will not allow direct competitors to include their competitor’s trademark within their ads. What you can do to protect your clients: 1. Ensure that their brand presence is strong- ensure you’re bidding on their branded terms, include their brand name within the ad copy, URL, etc. 2. Report display URL abuse to Google- if you find brand hijacking (causing traffic to be diverted to sites other than your client’s) Google will take action 3. Negotiate deals with competitors- agree to not bid on each others trademarked terms Clients frequently question the value of bidding on their branded terms, when they have natural search presence and often times are listed within first page results in Google. As search marketers we know that having our client’s brand name present in both natural search listings and paid search listings can result in a sort of ‘page domination’ and ensure that we stand out against competitors who’s ads are likely appearing under our branded terms when searched for. This recent trademark policy change stresses the importance of this ‘page domination’ now more than ever. For more on the Google AdWords Trademark policy changes, click here. Labels: Brand Awareness, Google, Paid Search, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Twitter is A-Buzz with Starbuck’s New CampaignStarbucks has launched a campaign with the hope to target a new generation of coffee drinkers. The goal? To get them to tweet about it, of course! Starbucks is putting up posters in six major cities, and has challenged people to post a picture on Twitter of one of the posters today. The first five to post are rewarded with a Starbucks Gold Card with $20 on it.  As one of the biggest marketing efforts Starbucks has had to date, the goal of this particular campaign is to tell the Starbucks story- about a company that truly values the quality of their coffee. This message is particularly important to those of the new generation who have grown up with Starbucks as a commodity. The ads themselves are a flashback to ads in the ‘60s and ‘70s, heavy on the copy- as Starbucks hopes to evoke the message that there’s a lot to say about coffee. Some worry this is not the approach to take with this generation- for which Starbucks may not be about the coffee for this generation, but rather is about the atmosphere and a place to hang out. Starbucks understands that Social Media Marketing is key for this campaign. Some of you might remember that on Election Day, Starbucks gave away free coffee to anyone who voted. What you may not know is how all the buzz about the giveaway started. Leading up to Election Day, Starbucks had a single 60-second TV commercial on SNL advertising the giveaway, and posted the video online. By the time Election Day came, this video was the 4th most viewed on YouTube- not to mention, Starbucks was being tweeted about every eight seconds. With 1.5 million fans on Facebook and 183,000 followers on Twitter, Starbucks hopes this campaign will create the buzz it’s looking for. For more on this new Starbuck's campaign, check out the NY Times Article. Labels: Advertising, Brand Awareness, Social Media Marketing, Twitter Facebook Leak: Users Can Become Fans of Facebook Pages With a Text MessageFacebook will soon be allowing you to promote your Business (Fan) Page by using text messaging to allow users to Fan your Facebook Page - all by asking people to text the name of your page (www.facebook.com/xxxxxxxxxxxx) to 32665 (which spells 'FBOOK' on your phone) to become fans.  At this time, the feature is still in a beta mode, and has not yet been enabled for every Page admin yet. And another hitch in the process for Fans to successfully 'join' your Page, is that users need to have setup their mobile phone to receive texts from Facebook, which can be done on the settings page in your account. Mobile Fan-ing Even though this is not public at the moment, and is still in a beta mode, the possibilities could be endless for brands to better connect to future fans. Imagine being at a rally, concert event, a boardroom, a ballpark, and you ask people to take their phones out and send a simple message through texting via a mobile device. Exactly. Take that scenario inside your marketing department for a moment, and you include a prompt in brochures, commercials, websites, print ads, etc. Opening up this 'quick' engagement possibility for users could create a massive influx in growing your Fan count on your Page. Going one step further, once a user is engaged with a brand through the mobile platform, users will receive a brand's status updates via text message to their phone. After receiving the update through the phone, you can then respond and comment directly through text messaging. This process is entirely conducted by phone, without touching a computer. As this feature's publicity grows, you can imagine what level of engagement you are able to produce! Even though this has not gone live for everyone just yet, it will have a huge impact on the Facebook community once it does. We'll keep you up-to-date as information becomes readily available. Labels: Brand Awareness, Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Marketing New Facebook Redesign Creates a Brilliant Marketing Platform for BrandsFacebook made a bit of noise last week when they introduced the new Business Pages layout. Then, several days later, made changes to the Home page of all user profiles, and integrated a 'Twitter' like wall stream - Facebook's strategy in building out a more real-time conversation tool. As usual, when Facebook decides to make changes, your entire office, your close friends and other random people you might see throughout the day - they all have something to say, and I am sure you've heard the complaints already. However, I am here to bring calm to the storm...rest assured, Facebook is making a very intelligent change in status here. And most importantly, businesses will be able to flourish greatly from this move. When it comes to the new business pages - it will now look and function much like personal profiles, offering stronger brand connections via the wall stream, which now takes center stage. When a fan comes to your page now, the very first page they look at is the 'wall stream'. On this page, businesses that create content often, will thrive in this new environment. As a brand, the wall stream page will gather content and post information about the page and posts by the page itself. Also, content shared by you, links, photos, videos and short text updates via the status updates, and posts by your fans left for you - all now show up in the wall. In this update, which is really the holy grail here, the wall updates you post will publish to your Fans' news feeds, and posts by your Fans will go to their friends' news feeds as well. So, think about this a second - the more content you are able to place and create in your channel, the more you engage with your fans, in turn, the more people you will be able to reach constantly. A single status update of your business profile seeds through Facebook into your fan's news streams. Now, all their friend's see this, and can 'like' or 'comment' on the update, and possibly go one step further and become a Fan of the page. The wall stream will be a large key in driving attention to your page - use it wisely! You are familiar with how Twitter works, Facebook is integrating the same concept using this wall stream - homepage stream. The more frequency of status updates on your page, the more chance you have to stand out with your fans in the Facebook stream.  When it comes to the layout of the page, Facebook rid themselves of the long 'leaderboard' layout, and moved to a tabbed layout - exactly how your user profile pages now function. And now, when a fan goes to your business page, they are defaulted to the Wall tab, so that fans can see the most recent added content to the page. And for non-Fans that visit your page, you can set a default landing page within your business profile page.  With the ability to send new potential fans to your business page, you can highlight a specific default tab to send them to that might have the most appealing or interactive elements within your page. This will allow users to better promote different portions of their page by driving ad traffic or new fans to certain sections of your profile. By driving potential fans to landing pages within Facebook, you can dramatically grow your fans and leads that ultimately improve conversion rates. If you are running a specific campaign, or have a new application, event, or interactive element on your page you want new users to connect with - now you can easily create that conversion path for the user. Some interesting analytics were also integrated into new business pages. Facebook now allows you to track video views, comments posted, news feed posts viewed, and this is all in addition to page views and unique views. And even better, all this data is exportable via CSV sheets. New Design Makes Advertising on Facebook Irresistible Facebook is clearly trying to drive more advertisers to use the platform, and it makes a lot of sense now with Facebook allowing you to drive non-fans to specific pages inside your business profile. This is going to add value and interest for users who will make their way to your Facebook page. Brands should embrace this tactic and give Facebook advertising a shot - you won't be disappointed this time around. People in the past have been reluctant to spend money on advertising within social networks. The real fact is, social network members are co-creators of content, and in turn, feel they have a sense of ownership within the site. Advertising needs to be more about participating in relevant conversation with consumers rather than simply pushing ads onto a social network user. Advertising should focus on being part of the conversation, not invading the social space. Advertising needs to be about adding value to a user's experience, as social networks are built around members adding value to each other's lives through interaction. This is why fan sites and sponsored groups are truly one of the most successful strategies when marketing within the platforms. This act touches on the principles of interactivity, and adds value to a user's experience via offers, previews, and the ability for user's to help create content. The true challenge though in creating a perfect marriage between social network advertising - marketing and that network's user, is time. There is no quick-fix in social network marketing, sure there can be exceptions, but those are few and far between. Much like a friendship, social media marketing requires effort, time and a continual investment in the platform to build and foster relationships. Remember, your messaging needs to be authentic and humble, and built on two-way conversation, not a push (one-way) model - in the end, this will add value to the consumer's decision. For more information on social media marketing, please review our services, and contact us or myself if you have any questions. Labels: Advertising, Blog Outreach, Brand Awareness, Facebook, online marketing, Online Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter Can Social Media Save the Art Industry?The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, The Louvre, the Musee D'Orsay, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Art Institute of Chicago, the list just keeps going...but what's wrong with this sequence? With a recession raining down upon us, not many individuals have the time or money to invest in a $20 museum ticket. Cultural past times, such as museums and art centers have taken a massive blow to their internal egos. Around the world, state and government municipalities have sliced budgets, cut staff, and some museums could soon be closing because of a lack of money, interest and more importantly, visitors. In an effort to revive itself, the arts industry, and most notably, museums, are turning to social media to help boost their fundraising & increase revenue. Most recently, The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, launched a new website that completely reconstructs how you take part in art online. The site now offers a variety of social media tools, such as MoMA communities on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, iTunes U, and Flickr. The MoMA is even allowing people to upload their photos they have taken to the MoMA’s Flickr group, which is then featured in a special section on the MoMA.org website, with your name attached to it! All of these community-sharing ideas allow users to take part in the art experience with their friends and more importantly, share it online.  And one of the most notable social features on the new website allows visitors to setup an account online and save or share favorite works of art with others; from paintings, exhibitions, films, and other pieces of the museum. This 'social bar', which now rests at the bottom of the page, when clicked, expands to show images and other information that users can ‘collect’ and share. A user then can take those photos and send them to their friends. The museum never had an ongoing blog, but by using this new approach to the information age by discovering ways to attract and share information with art lovers who may never get to enter the doors of the MoMA – it represents a key tactic in reviving the arts industry. Artful Thinking... In a time where social media has become more than just a second thought in many CMO's plans, social networking, blogs, photo sharing, social bookmarking, videos, and more have allowed online communities to become a much more integral part in a museum’s marketing plan. Places like the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Brooklyn Museum, all artfully utilize social media in effective and engaging ways. When it comes to representing a community online, Facebook presents a company with an opportunity to package an idea, and quickly disseminate it among the community for multiple reactions. Creating social channels within the museum’s online environment offers a new means to communicate interactively with an audience and build membership and visitors to a museum. The Museum of Modern Art's Fan Page on Facebook has over 60,000 members, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Fan Page has over 56,000 loyalists – the evidence exists. Museums can utilize their networks through email, wall posts, news feeds, and other interactive elements within the platform - in turn, allowing visitors to respond via comments and wall posts. Facebook has done the unimaginable, and broken geographical boundaries, creating relationships for people who might have not have met otherwise. The same can be said for businesses that push forth and also take part in the online phenomenon. Some even say it has come to the point where not being on Facebook is similar to being phone-less. For an artist or even a culture center, such as a museum, creating a social platform enables this connection to exist between artists, museums, critics, and fans so that they can communicate with each other directly, and increase the engagement level between the museum and the fan. Simply said, creating and marketing this platform properly could create the lasting connection the arts industry is looking to enable, and not only lead to increased engagement digitally, but also lead to something more important – another $20 in the door. Labels: Brand Awareness, online marketing, Social Media Marketing |
Blog Search
Categories
|
| Blog Home | Social Media Map | Schedule a Seminar | eMarketing Blog | Contact Bloggers | © 2002-2010 Overdrive. All Rights Reserved. |