Pop 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.
I know where you are, I know where you could be, I know pretty much everything about you.
And I’m not even your friend – at least (REAL) friend. It’s no surprise that social networking allows me to know this about you. I can see what you just ate, because you tweeted it, what you just got for Christmas, because you put it on Facebook. And now I can even see where you are all the time, because you went ahead and checked-in on Foursquare, or you Google Buzz-ed a random thought, and oh yea, you forgot to shut off that geo-location feature that is set to be on automatically when you activate your Google Buzz account…doh!
Sure, these publicly announced check-ins, random personal thoughts, and location-sharing networks might get you a cool new pseudo badge and allow you to become the Mayor of your workplace or the supermarket next door, maybe even the Target down the street – but one key thought that revolves around all of this – I know what you are doing, I know where you are, I know pretty much everything about you.
Social Networks & Privacy?
Privacy seems to be the 800-pound gorilla in the room that everyone notices is a big problem, large enough to be spoken about daily, but we more or less undermine it and sweep it under the rug and think it will clean itself up later somehow – aka….someone else will deal with it… or even worse – maybe nobody cares?
In the past, we’ve gone through the trials and tribulations of privacy wars on Facebook, and after that battle, their new policy now allows for more individual control and openness at the same time. That battle has slowed, and has now turned into the discussions around the new dangers of location-sharing networks such as Foursquare, Google Buzz, Loopt, even Yelp’s new check-in feature, maybe even clever Twitter or Facebook searches will yield some good results as to where you might be. As each of us get caught up in the novelty and bonuses associated with our behavior – what dangerous doors are we opening by taking part in this?
This leads into a larger discussion around the privacy associated with social networks, but to be honest, if we are taking part in this phenomenon daily – do we care about privacy? Sure there are certain Facebook pictures you want to keep targeted to just a select group of friends, and on Twitter you want to grant permission to a select group of people to see your tweets; privacy exists – but what is privacy if we are taking part in social reality anyways?
The 24/7 personal openness we display as social media users ties to our inherent behavior to play to our strengths. Social media has changed the way we live on and offline and has us living in much more “open” environments, compared to our parents and other Generation X’ers who lived in “closed” worlds and had “separate” behaviors. Social reality now combines all of that for us!
All of this sharing allows people to play to their virtues, even more in a social media world. People find their triumphs in social media accomplishing and well deserved from a societal standpoint, as well as a boost in their own individual behavior (aka EGO). If I tweeted from the top of mountain and said “About to hang-glide from 4,000 feet in Peru, what a life!”, compared to “Watching ‘Charles in Charge’ reruns on Mondayz…”; clearly it’s cooler I am doing the first rather than latter, but social media, despite its privacy concerns, allows us to live that behavior and feel accomplished for letting the world know what WE are doing. Does it matter that it related to hang-gliding or watching mundane television – no… I am letting the world know because I feel that I need to, to maybe feel that accomplishment in society.
I am not going to break this down from a psychological level, but I am sure there is some reality to this opinion in how people perceive themselves and why they take part – not caring about the privacy concerns we always feel so bullied with. In a recent study from the Future of Privacy Forum, 42% of Internet users are concerned that websites are collecting too much information about them, but then again with Facebook recently overtaking Yahoo! for the #2 top spot on the entire Internet - I don't know if that reflects privacy as much of a concern anymore?
And as we go forward into the future, there is no doubt that Privacy will become more of an issue, especially as more and more individuals begin to feel violated, whether in an emotional online attack or a physical attacks, such as when video podcaster Israel Hyman was robbed after we tweeted that he was out of town, and the fact that studies have already been done to show how social networks are being used as tools to further provoke attacks on a person – in the next two years, privacy and further security will certainly come to a boiling point, it will be interesting to see what happens at that point.
What are your thoughts around privacy and social networking – does it really matter and is there anything we can do about it?
According to statistics just released by Nielsen, we are spending more time than ever on social media sites.
The average social-networking user increased their time on sites like Twitter and Facebook to five and half hours per month this past December. One year ago, the average time spent on social media sites was around three hours per month.
To no one's surprise, Facebook was the top social networking site with 67% of the social networking users throughout the world. Time spent on Facebook in the US increased by 200% over the same month in 2008 while Twitter posted a 368% increase for the same time period. But we weren't the only ones spending lots of time on social-networking sites - the Australians spent nearly seven hours per month on Twitter and Facebook during the same time period.
Many companies are replacing traditional methods of direct marketing with social media. The companies with successful social media campaigns thus far have focused on designing the channels, monitoring the conversation, developing content, and measuring ROI. However, engagement with the audience is one of the most overlooked components of a social media strategy.
One key benefit of social media is the two-way conversation brands can have with their audiences. They mistake their “content strategy” as an “engagement strategy.” But developing content without an engagement strategy is like talking to your audience and completely ignoring what they say back to you.
What is an engagement strategy?
Simply stated an engagement strategy is all about communication and interaction. While a content strategy is based on what you’re going to say, an engagement strategy is based on how you’re going to say it, and how you respond to what your fans say. You company will need to develop a plan for actually interacting with your audience, not just throwing content at them and hoping they catch. This is the most challenging part of developing a social media campaign, and as such many companies of shied away from developing a concrete engagement strategy. Through this article, I will outline the following engagement fundamentals that you can in turn use do develop your own strategy:
Tone
Level of engagement
Voice
Posting frequency
What to post
Dealing with negativity
Every company will approach social media engagement differently based on the nature of the company. But there are some best practices that could be applied to the social media landscape, and then customized to your company’s goals.
Tone
Most people will come back to your fan page if they feel a sense of community, so it’s important to be open, friendly, inviting, and personable.
Have a conversational tone: Social media is casual by nature. Sites like Facebook and Twitter were developed so that people could connect with their friends. Although companies should maintain a professional presence online, it’s important to exude a personal, conversational tone on these sites.
Be open and friendly: Be fun, friendly, and enthusiastic about your product or service without being overly promotional or corporate-sounding.
Be unique: Avoid imitating the tone of your fans. Although you want to cater to your target audience, you do not need to force your tone to sound like your community. Be unique, so that your fans are interested enough to follow your presence online.
Level of Engagement
Encourage fan participation: The role of your company’s updates should be to encourage fan participation. Avoid posting only about what you want to promote, and take an interest in your audience’s opinion. Ask questions at the end of your status updates, or ask fans to upload their own content.
Maintain a dialogue: Don’t let your status updates be a monologue of self-promotion. Spark conversation by posing questions to the community and posting content that will encourage participation.
Share fan content: Share content that your fans have posted to your social channels by re-Sharing on Facebook or re-tweeting on Twitter; they’ll feel even more connected to your brand.
Voice
As a company, there are several options for what the voice of the brand should be. Remember, on Facebook all updates will be prefaced by the name of the fan page (in the examples below, “The Candy Company”):
First person singular – This POV provides fans a connection with an individual at the company. Example: “The Candy Company I love the new Tropical Sunshine lollipops.”
First person plural – This POV allows for a personal connection, while still hearing from the brand instead of just one individual controlling the social channels. Example: “The Candy Company We love the new Tropical Sunshine lollipops.”
Third person – This POV allows a feeling of direct communication with the brand itself. This is the more conservative, traditional approach for brands on Facebook. Example: “The Candy Company loves the new Tropical Sunshine lollipops.”
It’s generally a best practice to choose between first person plural (we love) and the third person (The Candy Company loves). Avoid the first person singular (I love) approach. Fans want to think that they are interacting with the brand, not just a single employee or representative. Also, the individual behind these updates would be vulnerable to liability or even personal attacks. The top brand pages on product do not use the first person singular approach.
Posting Frequency
There is a correlation between the frequency of posts and the number of fans or followers a brand has. There’s a fine balance though; you don’t want to overwhelm your fans. According to a recent study by Sysomos, 77% of Facebook fan pages have fewer than 1,000 fans, and fan pages tend to be updated only once every 16 days.
It’s a good practice to update your fan page at least once every day, at least Monday through Friday. This should yield comments and engagement with your brand each day, which will in turn lead to friends of your fans also discovering your page and becoming fans.
What to Post
Many brands on the social channels are purely self-promotional, only updating their social sites with updates on their own products, deals, discounts, or news. While it’s important to stay relevant to your brand, mix it up with different types of content. There are several different ways to post content on Facebook, including:
Status updates
Shared links
Photo updates
Video updates
Event updates
Here are some ideas for what you can post besides self-promotional updates, which can all be tweaked to fit the character limits on the various social channels:
Industry and related-industry news
Blog posts written by fans about your industry
Questions to fans asking for their opinions or favorites. This can be a standalone update, or you can pose questions to fans at the end of any other status update.
Interesting or funny photos relating to your brand or industry
YouTube videos relating to your brand or industry
Happy holiday/weekend/first day of spring/etc. updates
Encourage fans to upload content as photos or videos
Share or retweet fans’ content
Sharing or retweeting fan’s content is a great strategy to make your page feel like a real community. The Coca-Cola Facebook fan page is an excellent example of this. They often share photos their fans post to their walls using the Share button.
Dealing with Negativity
Although most people seeking out brands in social media are fans of the brand and are coming to show support, there will be individuals who come to complain. Comcast is a great example of a company who uses their social media presence primarily for customer support. But if this isn’t your company’s goal, how should you deal with the negative feedback?
Multiple Complaints: If many people are coming to your page to comment or complain about the same issue, it’s probably a larger issue that your company does need to address. A good strategy would be to post a video or comment from management with an explanation or solution. Be candid and open to feedback. This will show that your company really does value the opinions of its customers, and will make fans feel like valued members of your brand’s community.
Individual Solution-Seekers: If individuals are coming to your page to give feedback about issues that are unique to them, it could be difficult to reply to each and every one of them. If you can, that’s great. But if not, have a spreadsheet of appropriate responses ready for general situations. These messages should direct the fans to a customer service site, email address, or phone number, be apologetic, and always friendly. Try to mix up the responses in your spreadsheet so that it doesn’t sound like you’re literally copy/pasting you’re responses to each individual.
Complainers: There are some individuals who may come to your page just to complain, who aren’t seeking much of a solution but just want to get something off their chest. Your approach will vary by company and legal department. But a good rule of thumb is not to delete a comment unless the fan is exhibiting troll-like behavior (see the next section). Fans will notice when they are being unnecessarily censored, and this will make them angrier at the brand. It’s best to just ignore the comment, and leave it to the other fans to respond. Loyalists to your brand will likely jump in to offer advice.
Trolls: Internet trolls are individuals whose comments include inappropriate all-caps rants, profanity, and repetitive bashing of the brand. You’ll be able to tell when someone is being a troll on your page. In this case, it is best to delete their comments and block them from the page. On certain sites like Twitter, you cannot block someone from @replying to you, so just flag their accounts and then ignore them.
Solicitors: Delete comments that are promoting anything unrelated to your brand. This could include unrelated events, links to products on ebay or craigslist, invitations to join a 3rd party application game, spam links, and more.
Fan to fan interaction: If fans on your page are having a debate, there’s no reason to get involved unless you feel that someone is arguing over a blatantly inaccurate fact. Then it’s fine to jump in and clarify, then remove the brand from the discussion. Otherwise, it’s best to stay out of it. If fans start posting derogatory messages, you can delete the offensive messages and block fans when necessary.
Social Media Gives Your Brand Visibility
Compelling and active social channels should be an integral part of your online marketing campaign. These channels provide an exceptional opportunity for brand visibility, but you need to make sure that your fans will have content to comment on and engage with. The more comments you have, the more viral your campaign will become!
In the end, an engagement strategy will make your social media campaign a much more compelling and high-impact aspect of your overall marketing efforts and truly enable you to harness all that it has to offer. When you think about it, social media is all about socializing, and an engagement strategy will ensure that how you socialize with your fan base is not only strategically sound, but effective. Not only will this help you to leverage social media to build stronger customer relations, it will enable your organization to guide and actively participate in the growth of what is only going to be a more important marketing channel for years to come.
Twitter recently unveiled a new feature that allows users to view trending topics according to city or country.
Prior to the update, Twitter users were only able to see major topics of discussion worldwide on Twitter. With more localized trending topics, users can track trends more relevant to themselves (for example, the Celtics, for Boston residents) as well as note the differences in how various areas of the world perceive a major event.
Currently, the feature is only available for major cities and countries, but Twitter is working on adding more locations.
Recently released data from Forrester Research has coined the term "The Conversationalists" for people that post a status update on a social networking or microblogging website at least once a week. The Forrester data was analyzed and published in this article from ReadWriteWeb.
So, who are the Conversationalists? More than half of The Conversationalists are female, and more than 70% are 30 years and older. This group of people contributes mainly to online discussions with their friends on social networking sites. This group of internet users is the fastest growing group of adults online, and based on their usage patterns, may be more focused on maintaining current relationships rather than developing new ones.
Although The Conversationalists are rapidly increasing, the number of Creators (those who publish their own content) has remained quite steady. As the aforementioned ReadWriteWeb article proposed, this is most likely due to the fact that it is relatively easy to join a social network, but much more difficult to consistently create and maintain internet content.
The recent special election to fill the vacated US Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts was certainly one of the most highly charged and closely followed statewide elections in recent history, both on state and national level. Not only was the Democrats filibuster-proof 60 vote majority at stake, the fact that a Republican was threatening to take the seat, in what many consider the bluest of blue states, made this an election for the ages.
In the end, it was Scott Brown, a Republican, who won the seat with a convincing 51.9% of the vote over Maratha Coakley’s 47.1%. Independent Joseph L. Kennedy (no relation) received 1%.
While there were many factors that contributed to Brown’s victory and Coakley’s surprising defeat, one area I decided to look at was how effectively the candidates used social media to get their message out and rally their base. In doing so, I looked at the following:
Facebook Here I not only looked at how many fans each campaign garnered, but also how they each leveraged specific elements and available functionality on their Fan Pages. As you can see via the above Social Media Score Card, Scott Brown’s campaign and base were clearly more engaged than that of Martha Coakley.
Twitter Here I looked at baseline metrics in terms of how many Followers, Tweets and times Listed. As you can see via the above Social Media Score Card, Scott Brown’s campaign and base were once again clearly more engaged, as there Total Score for Twitter was 228% higher than that of the Coakley campaign.
YouTube With YouTube, I analyzed the volume of content posted as well as level of user engagement. While you will see that Martha Coakley had one more video than Scott Brown, his base was clearly more engaged as indicated by the number of channel views, video views and channel subscribers.
Website Integration While this is not something you can necessarily quantify, looking at how each campaign integrated social technologies into their websites, is a sign of how well they understand the medium and how they looked to leverage it.
Again, Scott Brown is clearly the winner as his campaign integrated a Twitter feed right on the home page, and integrated Chiclet sharing technology throughout the site. So not only did users who made it to the “mother ship” see what was being communicated in the social sphere, Chiclets ensured that they also had the opportunity to share content from the site directly within their own personal social networks. This last point is very important as chiclets enable users to advocate directly to their base of friends/followers, and since the message is coming from a third party, not necessary the source itself, it adds additional credibility. Conversely, Martha Coakely did not have any of this kind of integration or technology within her site, which was a huge missed opportunity.
Additionally, one thing neither candidate did was incorporate the Facebook Fan Widget into their site, which could have made for much more effective Facebook integration for both campaigns.
The Winner – Scott Brown!
Total Social Score: - Brown: 946,109 - Coakley: 135,053 - Margin of Victory: 601%
While Scott Brown won the election, he also clearly won the race when it comes to Social Media. As you can see via the Total Social Score outlined above, Brown’s presence was 600% greater than that of Coakley’s.
With the impact and influence that Social Media is having on today’s cultural landscape, its more important than ever to leverage this channel as it provides a huge opportunity to connect with your base, be they constituents or customers. Having a well defined social media strategy and presence will enable you more effectively reach, connect and market to your base and also give you a leg up on the competition.
This was certainly the case with this election, as while both candidates were all over the airwaves in terms of traditional media, when it came to Social Media, the Brown campaign clearly won the election, and in the end, made what seemed improbable, probable.
No sooner had we gotten used to the idea of “Universal Search” and every detail needed to understand what would go into dominating the search engine results pages with images, videos and text, than Google releases “Real-time Search”.
The question is how real time is the returns and how flawed are the results. The lack of Google’s ability to show real-time results was a weakness that many people felt hurt them in development. With the release of Universal Search so many interesting features were added to Google Suggest and Google Quick Scroll enabling Google’s search capabilities to save users time and enhance the user experience.
Real-time Google Search is available in English only for some people, but Google believes that by the first quarter of 2010 could be implemented in other languages. Some of the pages that will work with this new system will be Facebook, Twitter and MySpace sites that are updated every minute. For now if you want to see Real Time in action, I recommend choosing any of the terms found in Google Trends. Only for some specific terms will you see results, massive searches at a given time, so if you want to see it in action, I recommend choosing any of the terms in Google Trends.
Not Just Google but Bing too: Both Bing and Google have agreements with Twitter to take every tweet (post or message) and analyze each with its own technology to deliver relevant results to searchers. There were already some partial solutions like Twitter Search Results for Google via GreaseMonkey, but this new real-time is certainly a step beyond.
We see that Bing has completely separated search Twitter, trying not to affect results pages (SERPs) for your main browser. While search engines can be added to Twitter as an input to the characterization of the sites that are part of their index, they do not plan to add sound to your results pages with tweets. Therefore we must see real-time searching as a new type of search, and existing (News, Blogs, images, etc), which is sorted by relevancy.
Social information is important and needed for business and individuals alike. Google’s new interest in blended results beyond Universal search is problematic on several dimensions. The sleek and streamlined results, Google used to serve, now look like a hodge podge of information. Gone are their austere results views, no longer conforming to the most relevant and best results credo. Add sponsored results which are now even more wonky given the addition of images in paid search and the results pages looks terrible.
My concern stems from sources of information used and information available for use. So much of what happens in this world takes place in extranets and behind forum walls that truly influence our everyday lives that search engines have no access or insight into. So how real is real time search?
“Your Brand is what identifies your business to consumers. It resides in the hearts and minds of your customers and prospects as the sum total of their experiences with and perceptions of your company.”
- SEMPO Branding With Search Marketing
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.
As we all know, companies spend untold amounts of money to develop a brand that connects with the hearts and minds of consumers, so as to ensure that they understand who, not just what, they’re all about. Therefore, if a company can form an emotional bond with consumer, it will lead to a much more long term and profitable relationship, as it’s more about the connection, than just about the product. However, while many brand marketers will speak of the effectiveness of a brand in terms of “awareness”, success is ultimately tied to and measured by units sold or profitably. What I mean here is that if people are aware but no one actually buys, are you really being successful?
Transactional Branding I like to call this approach “Transactional Branding”, due to the fact that at the end of the day, while you are looking to emotionally connect with the hearts and minds of your consumers, it’s really about promoting products and services. Now, I will say that Transactional Branding makes complete sense due to the fact that it's rooted in common business strategy, which is to grow revenue and improve profitability. It also makes complete sense when used in the context of traditional media…broadcast, print, display and even search. The reason being is that in most cases you are using these forms of media to push a message out to consumers with the hope of connecting with them and pulling them back to purchase your product or service. While this type of brand connection does have the opportunity to facilitate a dialogue and customer relationship, it's ultimately based on the sale and/or product/service experience.
However, when it comes to Social Media, the paradigm is changing and many companies are trying to figure out what to do. The reason being is that the “Transactional Brand model” just does not seem to fit. Companies want to speak, but not be spoken to. They want to hear, but are afraid what might happen if they actually start to listen. The challenge for many companies is that when it comes to branding, they have built and developed their brand as a means to sell to, not socialize with, their target audience. However, for companies to leverage social media effectively, they need to be willing to socialize their brand, because that is what social media is all about…Socializing!
Now for companies that have the good fortune of a having a transactional brand, with a social angle, jumping into social media is not that big a stretch. The reason being is that these kinds of companies, such as Harley-Davidson, already have a very strong social relationship with their user and customer base. The reason why these types of companies are successful when it comes to social media is that they have figured out a way to “socialize” the “Transactional Branding relationship”. Therefore, when it comes to socializing with their customer base via social media, they are ready, prepared and willing to do so, because it’s been part of their core business and brand strategy all along.
However, there are many companies, such as those in highly regulated industries such as financial services that don’t have the luxury of being able to readily socialize with their audience. While many have very strong and trusted brands, they have been built from the top down and are not readily structured to be dissected via social media. The fact is, many companies in this arena have very carefully crafted brands and images and the thought of being exposed to the world of social media, scares the heck out of them. At the same time, they realize that there is an audience to be had and that they need to figure out a way to communicate with them via social media and establish a presence.
In my opinion, the mistake that these types of companies are making is that they are rooted in one size fits all model when it comes to branding and are flustered by the fact that they can not seem to fit their Transaction-based Brand model into a social environment. The lack of control scares them, and as a result instead of jumping into the social media space they have opted to just sit on the sidelines.
The Social Brand This is where the notion of the “Social Brand” comes into play. While a brand should always be rooted in a company’s core values, how it’s developed, presented and executed within different forms of media, can enable a company to enter new and uncharted waters much more readily. Hence, while your Transactional Brand is aimed a facilitating sales, your Social Brand is aimed at facilitating socialization. Of course both are rooted in the same values and at the core express the same ideas, the content you put forth with your Social Brand, does not have to exactly mirror what you are doing with your Transactional Brand.
For starters, in developing your Social Brand you need to look at your company and what it does from a “Social Perspective”. This will enable you understand how and where people might want to socialize with your brand and what components are ripe for socialization. Therefore, while you may be in a regulated industry where you can not openly endorse or make claims about a product, you need to take a step outside of these parameters and look at other components of your business. For example, does your organization sponsor sporting events, support particular philanthropic endeavors or back particular social initiatives? While these items might not be tied directly to your products and services they are tied to your company. They are a brand component and most importantly convey its value system. These are also aspects of your business/brand that people can also readily connect and socialize with.
Now, I’m not endorsing the fact that when it comes to social media you should deny what your business is rooted in. What I am saying is that when it comes to social media, you need to think differently about your brand and how it can be leveraged to socialize with your audience.
By identifying and developing your Social Brand, you also have the opportunity to steer and guide the social conversation. Of course there’s always the potential that someone will address and bring-up product or service related issues, but by focusing on your Social Brand, you can help to guide the conversation around particular topics. Additionally, by focusing on and developing your Social Brand, you have the opportunity introduce your audience to a completely new side of your organization. Simultaneously, you will be likely grow your base, as you will bring people into the fold, who would not have previously engaged with your company, as you are now tapping a whole new set of interests.
How To Develop Your Social Brand So, how does a company go about developing a Social Brand? The following are a few key points:
Alignment For your Social Brand to be effective, it needs to be aligned with your core values and business plan. Therefore, it can’t just come out of left-field, rather people need to see how it relates and applies to your overall business positioning.
Social Segmentation Take a look at your organization from a “social perspective” and identify which aspects and segment are ripe for socialization. Taking this approach will enable you to see what opportunities exist and the different ways you could socialize with your audience.
Content After identifying how you can socialize with your audience, what are you going to say and communicate? This sounds more daunting than really is, as you are most likely doing this, but it's just not being surfaced within the context of outbound media channels. Rather the conent is being tied to the "social" initiative itself. For example, if your company sponsors a sporting event or is involved with a particular charity or social issue, focus on content that pertains and gets created in relation to these endeavors. Before you know it, you may find yourself becoming a hub for people passionate or connected to these issues, causes or events.
Socialization Now comes the big leap, you need to be ready to socialize. Do you set-up a MySpace profile, YouTube Channel, Facebook Page, Twitter Account…all of the above or just some? The key here is that you don’t need to jump into everything all at once, focus on those areas that make the most sense and that best complement your Social Branding strategy.
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.
Developing a Social Brand, will help you provide a vision for your organization to approach the social media space and be comfortable with doing so. Yes, it will require you to think differently, but the development of a Social Branding strategy will also provide the vision and clarity needed to enter the social media space in a manner that compliments your overall business strategy and enables you to harness all the power that social media has to offer.
Twitter has become the water cooler of the Internet, and is a valuable tool to determine what is being discussed around the world at any moment. It also serves as a unique time capsule. Twitter recently released the Top Twitter Trends of 2009, which provides interesting insight into what mattered to our culture in 2009.
Some of the rankings aren't a surprise, such as Michael Jackson as the most discussed person, and the Iran Election and Swine Flu being the top news stories. Yet the claimed "social media phenomenons" like New Moon and Paranormal Activity were still trumped by Harry Potter. And there are some notable trends missing from the list, including our new president Barack Obama in the People category and #followfriday in the Hashtags category.
People 1. Michael Jackson 2. Susan Boyle 3. Adam Lambert 4. Kobe (Bryant) 5. Chris Brown 6. Chuck Norris 7. Joe Wilson 8. Tiger Woods 9. Christian Bale 10. A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez)
Movies 1. Harry Potter 2. New Moon 3. District 9 4. Paranormal Activity 5. Star Trek 6. True Blood 7. Transformers 2 8. Watchmen 9. Slumdog Millionaire 10. G.I. Joe
TV Shows 1. American Idol 2. Glee 3. Teen Choice Awards 4. SNL (Saturday Night Live) 5. Dollhouse 6. Grey’s Anatomy 7. VMAS (Video Music Awards) 8. #bsg (Battlestar Galatica) 9. BET Awards 10. Lost Sports (Teams, Events, Leagues) 1. Super Bowl 2. Lakers 3. Wimbledon 4. Cavs (Cleveland Cavaliers) 5. Superbowl 6. Chelsea 7. NFL 8. UFC 100 9. Yankees 10. Liverpool
Technology 1. Google Wave 2. Snow Leopard 3. Tweetdeck 4. Windows 7 5. CES 6. Palm Pre 7. Google Latitude 8. #E3 9. #amazonfail 10. Macworld
Hash Tags 1. #musicmonday 2. #iranelection 3. #sxsw 4. #swineflu 5. #nevertrust 6. #mm 7. #rememberwhen 8. #3drunkwords 9. #unacceptable 10. #iwish What did you expect to be a top trend for 2009 that didn't make the list?
The ageless metal-rap rockers, Rage Against the Machine, are making noise again, and this time it's by pure accident. The political-driven rock group hasn't released an album since retiring back in 2000, however, they surfaced last week on the UK's biggest radio station, BBC Radio One, to talk about how they suddenly emerged on the UK pop music charts for the much fought over "Christmas Number One" title for 2009.
The UK "Christmas Number One" title has normally been held by the UK series, X Factor, winner - a version of American Idol produced in the UK. For four straight years, the "Christmas Number One" winner has been held by the X Factor winner, and this year it was Joe Mcelderry, who was expected to win the title for singing the Miley Cyrus song "The Climb."
However, a Facebook inspired campaign that was launched by UK resident Jon Morter as an entertaining (joke) protest against the mainstream pop that in most ways does dominate music charts across the globe these days. Morter's Facebook group "Rage Against the Machine for Christmas Number 1" quickly grew to 800,000 fans, and was overspread with users who pledged to buy the track to help push the band to the top of the charts. The Facebook Group currently has more than 970,000 members as of Dec. 20.
The mainstream news picked up the story after the first two weeks of December when the Facebook group, which launched in the beginning of December began to grow quickly, and while going offline many times during the beginning days of December, prompted some to make several claims of foul play - however it didn't slow the Rage Against the Machine victory.
And once Joe McElderry's track was released in a hard copy on CD, unlike Rage Against the Machine, the X Factor winner from the UK began to close the gap on the suddenly popular American rock band and their 1992 produced single "Killing in the Name Of."
On December 20, BBC Radio One announced the final winner, and thanks to a surge of downloads via blog posts, Facebook comments, and Twitter tweets - the infectious campaign influenced social media channels and led to a Rage Against the Machine victory.
As announced in an interview with BBC Radio One before being announced winners, the band said if they did end up winning, they would play a free concert in the UK in early 2010.
Analysis Breakdown
Starting in the beginning of December, from Dec. 1 - Dec. 11; while the Facebook Group was going on and offline sporadically, the number of social media mentions among Twitter, Blogs and Facebook were small in numbers of original posts to users' profiles. However, after December 11 when the group went back up live, it kicked over dominoes that sent tweets, blog posts and Facebook updates soaring in numbers.
The mainstream news did not pick up the story until December 14; with social media leading the majority of the charge based on the following data:
(In the following charts, only the keywords "RATM" & "Rage Against the Machine" & "Christmas Number One" & "Joe McElderry" were used in this analysis. All data was taken from the social media monitoring tool Radian6. The dates of Dec. 1 - Dec. 20 were used in this analysis.)
Twitter, Blogs, & Facebook (46,337 posts):
Mainstream News Posts (3,565 Posts):
Twitter Posts (26,664 Posts):
Blog Posts (18,129 Posts):
**The charts above include only a limited set of data, due to a number of other keywords that could have been used in Twitter, Facebook Updates and Blogs; keywords like "Rage"; which were too broad to analyze more specifically at the time of this posting. The above posts do however represent the trending to their exact details.
Social Media Extras:
The campaign also led to the creation of a separate mini-site that housed the interview with RATM and BBC last week, a separate Twitter account and an already established YouTube channel that held the video seen above where the band performed their smash hit, "Killing in the Name Of" live Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009 on BBC Radio One.
YouTube Channel: A user-created channel that garnered two YouTube awards during the week of Dec. 14 -20; #61 Most Viewed Channel in the UK & #14 Most Viewed Directors Channel in the UK
Conclusion
It is really nice to see the effect a viral marketing campaign that had no direction, but was more led by a crowdsourcing effort to push a final result -putting RATM at the top of the charts. It normally takes many dollars to create such a buzz in the matter of a few weeks, and this was done with nothing but spirit and passion for the push to the top - led by users with little outside influence, and all with the help of social media!
When it comes to social media, many have looked to music and entertainment as key forces that have helped to shape and evolve this medium.
The below article is from a newsletter that I subscribe to called, The Lefsetz Letter , which I felt provided a pretty interesting view of how social media is being used (or not) and its impact on two of today's most well known artists - John Mayer and Bon Jovi.
What I like about this article is how it compares how both artists are leveraging social media and using it to navigate today's cultural landscape. Its a clear demonstration of the fact that when it comes to social media, its not necessarily a question of whether or not to get involved, that's basically a given, but how well and effectively its being used to build and connect with your base. In short, as more and more organizations get involved with social media, its clear that some know what they are doing, while others don't have a clue, but feel that they need to be there, simply because everyone else is.
While the below article focuses on a number of different topics, the key theme that runs through it, is that we live in a connected world, where people expect to be able to connect with you and each other, on a personal level. To not acknowledge this, is to not understand the world we live in and how your audience wants to be reached.
Just look at what Bob has to say about John & Jon, and you'll get my point.
In short, we can't ignore that Social Media has truly changed the rules of engagement, and if you are going to be successful in today's environment, you can't soley rely on what's worked in the past. Because if you want remain relevant, you need to chart a course for the future by leveraging the technologies of today, which means being open, honest and not afraid to connect directly with your audience.
Enjoy!
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If older folk still buy music and younger people steal it, why did John Mayer sell almost twice as many albums the first week out as Bon Jovi?
Yes, according to hitsdailydouble.com, John Mayer sold 301,204 copies of his new album, "Battle Studies", this week. Whereas last week, Bon Jovi moved 165,871 copies of "The Circle".
Ready for some truly horrifying news? The following week "The Circle" fell all the way to number 19, selling 50,153 copies, a whopping drop of 70%. Whew!
What's the difference between John and Jon?
One is living in 2009 and the other is living in the last century.
Jon Bon Jovi was positively old media, tying in with NBC.
John Mayer was new media, appearing in concert on Fuse and tweeting up a storm.
It doesn't matter the total reach, it matters who actually watches and what the perception is.
Fuse would be canceled, the entire channel, if its programming was on NBC. To say the ratings are anemic would be charitable. But Fuse airs music, unlike MTV. And most people watching the shows featuring Bon Jovi on NBC don't give a shit about the man's music. In other words, Jon's shoving it down the wrong people's throats.
Jon Bon Jovi has a fawning documentary on Showtime.
John Mayer is all over Twitter.
Did you watch any of the Bon Jovi doc? Shot like it was footage for "America's Next Top Model", everyone looked beautiful and spouted humble platitudes, like we were still living in the eighties and rock stars were established on MTV and made a fucking fortune. Whereas the truth is everybody's scrambling, giving concert tickets away in some instances. Bon Jovi reflecting is like Lloyd Blankfein saying Goldman Sachs is doing "God's work". Huh?
Wow, someone in JBJ's camp doesn't understand Twitter. It's not for selling, its for CONNECTING!
Meanwhile, the Bon Jovi merch page has 1,540 followers. Google "John Mayer Twitter" and you get the following page: http://twitter.com/jOhnCmAYer John Mayer has 2,657,425 Twitter followers. Furthermore, he's following 72 people, so you get an idea of what he's into.
Bon Jovi's old school, playing behind a wall, just like Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine, rarely coming out to play and only in circumstances they can control.
John Mayer is new school. Putting it all out there unfiltered, getting into arguments with Perez Hilton, never backing down, not afraid to look like a tool.
It's the honesty that grabs you. That's why people are following John Mayer, that's why they care about him.
Furthermore, in an era where album sales represent only a fraction of your fan base, you want to get attention where you can. Not by batting people over the head, telling them they must endure you, but being so provocative, so interesting that they want to tune in.
Nobody plays the new media game better than Mr. Mayer.
He makes a deal with BlackBerry and it looks cool. Kind of like a rapper, ripping off the man, because you know he uses a BlackBerry anyway! Whereas U2 makes a deal with BlackBerry and you see dollar signs, you see promotion, you see a deal. If you endorse a product you truly use is it a sell-out? The classic rock acts would probably say yes, you don't want to tarnish your image.
But Mr. Mayer is at the bleeding edge of a new paradigm, where the rules are being made up as we go. He's so overexposed that he's establishing a new way of doing it, you almost feel like he's a guy at your high school, that you know him. Does anybody really know Jon Bon Jovi? Who never has a bad word to say about anyone?
Old school: You're afraid of pissing anybody off, you're Justin Timberlake at the Super Bowl, apologizing. New school: Dixie Chicks. Fuck with me and I'll give you the middle finger.
In other words, it's been a long strange trip, but we're suddenly back in the sixties. It's about artistry, it's about music, it's about honesty. You don't triangulate, construct a phony identity for public consumption.
You're better off being your real self. Hell, the Internet will tease out your flaws anyway, why not admit them? Jon Bon Jovi utters irrelevant platitudes and John Mayer sings "Who says I can't get stoned?" Politicians have to lie about doing dope. But artists are supposed to speak the truth, and the public has to deal with it. Which is why we love our artists more than any political figure.
That's a question confronting everyone online. Do you make contact or let the sleeping dogs of the past lie? Bon Jovi, Mimi, all the stars of the MTV era are still living in it, oblivious to the fact that the nineties were ten years ago, and that in Internet time, a decade is equivalent to a century. It's not a three year cycle, you're on a day to day regimen. "Any tweet that takes more than 90 seconds to write is not a tweet worth sending."
Yes, we used to make records in an afternoon and get them on the radio in a week. Now, TV and movies are more topical than music. Let it out, go knee-jerk, don't massage, don't focus on the marketing plan, focus on the music.
As Facebook hits 350 million users around the globe, one of its most popular applications, FarmVille, is rivaling another popular social media site, Twitter.
In a meeting with TechRadar, Facebook revealed that its website garnered about 200 billion page views per month, with 1.6 billion messages sent daily and 2.5 billion photos uploaded per month.
FarmVille is an addicting game that allows players to develop their own farm from scratch by plowing land, harvesting crops and trees and raising cows, chickens and other various animals. Players can also decorate their farm with buildings, scarecrows, hay bales and other farm accessories. According to Facebook, the application (just one of the 90,000 available on Facebook) has 69 million users - more than Twitter's user base.
Facebook also released other statistics related its user demographics. The social networking site's average user base is getting older, as the 35+ category is the fastest growing. Furthermore, at least 53% of Facebook users visit the site on a daily basis, demonstrating how integrated the site is in the lives of its users.
Twitter has recently launched a new retweet functionality intended to solve tweet attribution confusion, the repetitive nature of retweets, and messy editing of the original tweet. Since the functionality is still in BETA, not everyone has access to this feature yet. But Twitter is gradually rolling out the feature, so you should see this soon.
How the New Retweets Work
You can now retweet with a single click; just click “retweet” below someone else’s tweet:
Twitter then makes sure that you actually want to retweet this tweet:
After clicking “yes,” you will appear below the tweet you’ve retweeted, along with whoever else has retweeted this tweet. There’s also the option to undo the retweet:
The original tweet will then appear in your own Twitter stream, attributed to the person you retweeted:
When the people you follow retweet others using this new functionality, the users they retweet will start appearing in your Twitter stream. So instead of seeing the person you follow tweeting “RT @JohnSmith blah blah blah,” you’ll see John Smith in your twitter stream with his original tweet. Under the tweet, you’ll be able to see which person you follow has retweeted his tweet:
There’s also a new "retweets" link in the right-navigation, and this leads to a new retweet section where you can sort by retweets by everyone, retweets by you, and your tweets that have been retweeted.
The Pros of the New Retweets
There are several benefits of this new retweet functionality:
Cleaner retweets – When retweeted by person A and then re-retweeted by person B, it’s no longer confusing who wrote the original tweet.
The retweet page – It’s nice to be able to see retweets alone, including which of your tweets have been retweeted, and to refer back to your old retweets.
Less confusion for newbies – Many people have been turned off by the twitter lingo: “What on earth is a RT @???”
Others can’t edit you – Ever crafted the perfect tweet, only to have it torn apart when someone else “retweets” you? Now your original tweet will survive.
The Cons of the New Retweets
However, there are also reasons you might not want to use this new feature:
Links may be cut off - Only users logged into the Twitter website can see the new retweet format. If the tweet would have exceeded 140 characters including the RT @username, this will cut off the end of the tweet for users without BETA, users with a desktop platform like Tweetdeck, and logged out Twitter users. Since URLs are usually at the end of a tweet, this will make the URL non-functional.
Lack of commentary – Even if you don’t want to modify the original tweet, now the ability to comment before the RT @whoever is gone.
You can’t edit tweets – Even the most awesome tweets can have typos, and now you won’t be able to fix them before retweeting.
Less visibility in others’ Twitter streams – Retweeting others doesn’t seem to have the same appeal now that your name and icon don’t appear as prominently.
Others can’t retweet your retweet – If one of your followers wants to retweet your retweet, now there’s no way you can get credit for finding the tweet first; your follower will be directly retweeting the original tweet.
If the cons outweigh the pros for you, you don’t have to use this new functionality at all; you can continue using retweets the way you used to (RT @). However, you won’t be able to turn off the feature where you see people you do not follow in your twitter stream.
They always said games would be more fun when you play them with friends, which is why the Xbox 360 just finalized their Xbox Live software to sync with your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Users will now be able to wrap themselves entirely in a "social-enabled" game experience and connect and play with their friends on Facebook & Twitter.
With the integration, you can now use your Facebook account through your Xbox 360, and update your status, browse updates from your friends and view photos on the big screen. You will also be able to link your Xbox Gamertag to find your Facebook friends who also play on Xbox Live and connect with them directly within your gaming experience. Facebook goes one step further and utilizes the fairly new interface of the Xbox 360 dashboard, and allows a variety of sorting and slick panel movement, all with the touch of your controller.
Your photo albums will also load pretty quickly and look impressive on a high-definition TV - much better looking then on your computer screen.
Twitter also will now sync with your account, and you will be able to tweet through your Xbox 360 anytime during your Xbox Live experience, as well as view profiles, trends and conversations - even search to see who is tweeting about your favorite game. Although it is not much different than tweeting from a computer or your phone, the Xbox 360 interface takes tweeting to an entirely new level with just the design of it alone.
And for you PS3 fans, I know you are asking - where is our update? It is coming! The company just announced on its official PlayStation blog that upcoming firmware update v3.10 will add Facebook and Twitter functionality to the PS3 interface.
And for music fans, Last.fm, a streaming music application that allows you to set a channel and listen for as long as you'd like, also will now sync with the Xbox 360. As does the new Microsoft Zune player, Microsoft's version of the iPod, where users can now watch videos in 1080p and 5.1 channel surround sound - all through their game system.
In addition to all the new social features, Xbox Live also will be debuting the "News and More" section, transforming Xbox Live into a full-on media portal that will regularly update streaming content from MSNBC, The New Yorker, and Dilbert, just to name a few.
Advertisers, 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.
If you're on Twitter (and I hope you are), you might have noticed the influx of celebrities there - movie stars, professional athletes, TV hosts, chefs, etc. Usually, they're just on Twitter to tweet about random ideas (or their rumored dates; I'm looking at you, John Mayer), but every now and then you'll find a gem who really utilizes social media to improve their "brand" or strengthen their social image, and/or actually do something useful. They're basically pulling off these viral social media campaigns that agencies and marketers can learn a thing or two from. I put together a few tips for social media campaigns that were inspired by NBA stars and TV personalities - both groups are experts at gaining, performing for, and maintaining their respective audience loyalties.
What We Can Learn from NBA Players and TV Stars on Twitter:
1) From Shaquille O'Neill: Be There First. And if you're not there first, be there BIG TIME Can anyone even discuss celebrities on Twitter without mentioning Shaquille O'Neil? Shaq jumped on the Twitter bandwagon when it was just a small toy sled. And he tweets a lot - he describes himself as "very quotatious, I perform random acts of Shaqness." Sometimes (okay, most of the time) what he says doesn't make a lot of sense but the point is he is there. And his fans know he is there. His opponents know he is there. He is there big time.
As brand marketers and advertisers, we have to make sure that we're present in the right places. Even better, we have to hustle to be there before anyone else gets there. This is where beta campaigns, innovative ideas, and risk-taking come in. And once we're there, we have to make sure our voice is heard loud and clear.
2) From Dwight Howard: Synchronize Your Campaigns Dwight Howard is flying his one millionth Twitter follower to an all expense paid trip for two to the Orlando Magic home opening game. But aside from his Twitter "campaign", he also talks about that, and is interacting with his fans, on Facebook, SuperFan, and his blog. I never thought I'd quote Dwight Howard in an online marketing blog (or ever), but he said these "are just great avenues for me to connect with people." And he's right. And another thing he's doing right is that he is synchronizing everything, mirroring the content of one channel to another.
When we launch social media, branding, promotional, or even lead generation campaigns, we have to remember that once we already have the content - all we need to do is create a cascading turn of events where we propagate all our media avenues or social channels with the same content. Remember: everything is interconnected. We can easily weave our content and synchronize our online and social placements so that our campaign message will be present throughout.
3) From Paul Pierce and Ray Allen: Do Engaging Contests and Give Away Free Things Paul Pierce would give away random clues on where he will be and post secret "passwords" on Twitter so his followers can find him and receive free Celtics tickets. And Ray Allen left random pairs of sneakers around Boston, tweeted clues about them, and whoever finds his shoes get to keep them!
Everyone likes contests and give-aways, especially if the contest is actually fun and the give-away is actually something of value. What companies can learn from these two Celtics players is that Twitter can be an avenue to host interesting contests that encourage user action and engagement - contests that encourage socializing (say it with me: social media is about socializing).
4) From Rachel Zoe: Listen to Your Customers and Reply to their Questions Almost all of Rachel Zoe's tweets (for those of you not familiar, she is a stylist to the stars and has her own show on Bravo TV) are either re-tweets and @ replies where she answers various questions from her followers. She may not answer the minute the question is posted, but she still answers them.
Most marketers and advertisers forget that the customer feedback is one of the greatest assets to any campaign. Don't just push-push-push your message. Take time to listen to your audience, take note of their complaints and compliments, and answer their questions. Sometimes the most basic things make the biggest impact.
5) From Martha Stewart: Tweet Useful Info Martha Stewart tweets quick and easy recipes and all sorts of food, home, and lifestyle tips. She also reminds her followers about important events, dates, and shows. She uses Twitter to communicate useful little nuggets to her socialsphere. She even thinks that Twitter is better than Facebook, but that's another topic all together (also, that's her opinion, not mine). The point is, she tweets useful info.
Again, this is something very basic that we should not take for granted. If your brand offers something unique, tweet about it! If you have a good promo, tweet about it! If you want to share a relevant article, tweet about it! Make your tweets helpful, interesting, worth reading - and re-tweeting.
Those are just 5 tips for successful Twitter and social media campaigns. Remember that gaining followers, fans, and friends in one thing, but growing that relationship is another. If you want to learn more about social media campaigns, please contact us!
With President Obama recently declaring the H1N1 pandemic a national emergency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is combining more traditional methods, such as e-mail blasts and websites, with social media strategies to circulate information about the virus, more popularly known as the swine flu.
The CDC has taken advantage of numerous social media tools to spread awareness about the warning signs of the H1N1 virus and the latest developments about flu activity. Social media is part of a comprehensive strategy to reach the nation of H1N1 virus warning signs and precautions.
The CDC has a Twitter account with links to press conference videos, statistics and vaccine information solely related to the H1N1 virus. Additionally, the H1N1 hashtag (#H1N1) enables multiple Twitter users to connect and discuss the H1N1 virus. Currently, the CDC's flu Twitter account has over 16,000 followers.
Web enthusiasts and bloggers can also add CDC-created widgets to their personal web pages and blogs. The widgets allow users to share information about the spread of the virus and direct visitors to websites containing more information about H1N1. Widgets are updated automatically by the CDC, enabling users to easily receive the most up-to-date news on the H1N1 virus.
CDC has also launched a YouTube channel containing health-related videos, including ones specifically related to the H1N1 virus. The channel has had over 200,000 page views and over 4,000 subscribers. Videos include informational videos from experts sharing information on H1N1 virus causes, symptoms and prevention. For example, Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC, answers questions about the H1N1 flu vaccine and prevention in a video that has garnered almost 11,000 views to date.
With the CDC using social media to get the word out about the H1N1 pandemic, the organization is actively embracing new methods of communication to reach out to the nation about the spread of the virus. Social media facilitates the process of communicating to a mass audience, as users can instantly and repeatedly share information with one another. With this continued effect, the CDC can continue to spread awareness of the H1N1 virus and quickly and efficiently reach maximum audiences.
Click here for more information about CDC's H1N1 virus social media efforts.
Two recent and upcoming movie releases have used the social media web in innovative ways to stir up interest and mystique surrounding the films. One in particular, “Paranormal Activity”, the horror film created on a reported $15,000 budget, has managed to become a run-away success this past weekend. Between October 9th and 11th, “Paranormal Activity” raked in an impressive $44,163 per screen average, totaling $7.9 million and is currently ranked #4 in the box office charts – and that’s with a limited release of only 160 theaters!
The people behind “Paranormal Activity” generated buzz surrounding the movie by creating its own Eventful page in an effort to stir up one million user generated votes for a nationwide release of the film. According to Paramount Pictures, the strategy worked, “Over 1,000,000 people from around the country demanded the film play in their city by logging on to ParanormalMovie.com. In response, Paramount Pictures will release the film nationwide beginning Friday, October 16th.” “Paranormal Activity’s” initial release was limited to late-night showings in college towns, generating an intense buzz surrounding the movie on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.
A second movie, “The Fourth Kind”, scheduled to be released in November, is just starting to generate a buzz online. The movie, centered on mysterious disappearances in the village of Nome, Alaska, portrays itself in trailers as using actual archived footage of real events as it follows Dr. Abigail Tyler’s inquiry to the strange events. “The Fourth Kind”, which derives its name from a “close encounter of the Fourth kind” with an Alien, aka an abduction experience, is using the internet and social networking sites in a unique way to stir up curiosity surrounding the release.
One Local Alaskan Newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, has done some investigative reporting into the film. The paper dug up a Twitter account, a Facebook page, and interestingly, discovered severalwebsites, authentic in appearance, with news articles and biographies relating to the film. The websites, (both of which have domains that were registered in the last month according to a quick WHOIS check), highlight information about the main character of the film, Dr. Abigail Tyler. However, some of the articles appear to have been forged, the websites are extremely new and suspicious in appearance, and Ron Adler CEO of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute and Denise Dillard, President of the Alaska Psychological Association say “they’ve never heard of the Alaska Psychiatry Journal, or of Abigail Tyler.” And, suspiciously, although “The Fourth Kind” is purported to be filmed in the small coastal village of Nome, Alaska, the film was actually shot in the lush mountains of Bulgaria:
A screen grab from "The Fourth Kind" trailer shows the "Nome" Alaska used in the movie.
A photo courtesy of Tom Busch (www.tomsnome.com) shows the true Nome, Alaska.
Have you seen “Paranormal Activity?” Do you plan to see “The Fourth Kind?” Do you believe marketing films using social media will be a trend that continues well into the future? It’s hard to argue against the success of “Paranormal Activity”, but some have criticized “The Fourth Kind” for being too vague about the movie and blurring the line between fact and fiction. Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Twitter-founder Biz Stone announced yesterday that the site plans to introduce premium features for corporate accounts, including tracking an analytics.
This is the first time Twitter has offered concrete plans for a business model that includes revenue, rather than relying on the generosity of investors. In his interview with the Chicago Tribune, Stone avoided disclosing any details about plans for launching these new services, other than the timeline that set their debut for the end of the year.
Even with the new features available, Twitter will still be free for all users, including businesses, but that the new pay-only features would help businesses keep track of followers and monitor traffic. While remaining vague, Stone said that the premium services would help businesses “become better Twitterers”.
Twitter enthusiasts are cautiously optimistic of the announcement, which comes a few months after a bbspot.com article announcing similar (but outlandish) plans was revealed to be a hoax.
From a marketing standpoint, Twitter’s upcoming features open up a range of possibilities for strengthening social media campaigns. Businesses will likely be better equipped to target and attract interested followers. They will receive constant feedback and thus be more able to maintain effective strategies for the content and schedule of their tweets. Overall, this is good news for companies aiming to maximize their social media presence.
The big news: Twitter is raising another $100 million on a valuation of $1 billion! Well I guess that seals it. Twitter is in it for the long haul, declaring its intention to remain a freestanding media company.
But as Bloomberg News reported, "Twitter has yet to report any significant revenue." So how can it justify that kind of valuation? Let's put it this way -- remember when Google had yet to report any significant revenue?
Twitter attracted 25 million users in August, compared with 2.2 million a year earlier, according to Nielsen. With that kind of groundswell and large database of registered users, the opportunities for highly targeted contextual, demographic, geographic, and behavioral advertising is huge. Twitter could monetize in ways that would be non-intrusive.
Twitter has reached a point where there aren't many alternatives to the micro-blogging platform. While it's not impossible for one to emerge, it's unlikely. People are pretty much wedded to Twitter, plus there are so many complementary applications in use on desktops and mobile devices around the globe. It would be difficult to topple Twitter off the top of the heap anytime soon.
Then there are fears about injecting advertising into a media environment that people enjoy. I always hear, "Well, people don't like advertising," or "We did a poll and people said they did not want to see ads." If you asked television viewers if they wanted to see ads during their favorite show, close to 100 percent would probably say "no." Now conversely if you asked people if they preferred to have their favorite show with ads or not having their show at all because there was no funding, close to 100 percent would probably take the show with the ads.
The same goes for Twitter. Of course, no one wants it cluttered with ads. But if there were only two choices -- Twitter with a way to stay in business or no Twitter -- the vast majority of us would choose Twitter with a way for it to stay in business.
The same thing happened with Google, YouTube, and Facebook. Even YouTube has pre-rolls running on certain premium partner channels and I haven't heard of any huge consumer backlash.
So, I started to think of the different ways I'd monetize Twitter if it were my site. And that includes programs that I'd find valuable as a media buyer.
become the Mayor of your workplace or the supermarket next door, maybe even the Target down the street – but one key thought that revolves around all of this – I know what you are doing, I know where you are, I know pretty much everything about you.
Many companies are replacing traditional methods of direct marketing with social media. The companies with successful social media campaigns thus far have focused on designing the channels, monitoring the conversation, developing content, and measuring ROI. However, engagement with the audience is one of the most overlooked components of a social media strategy.
It’s a good practice to update your fan page at least once every day, at least Monday through Friday. This should yield comments and engagement with your brand each day, which will in turn lead to friends of your fans also discovering your page and becoming fans.
Currently, the feature is only available for major cities and countries, but Twitter is working on adding more locations.
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The ageless metal-rap rockers, Rage Against the Machine, are making noise again, and this time it's by pure accident. The political-driven rock group hasn't released an album since retiring back in 2000, however, they surfaced last week on the UK's biggest radio station, BBC Radio One, to talk about how they suddenly emerged on the UK pop music charts for the much fought over "Christmas Number One" title for 2009.
**The charts above include only a limited set of data, due to a number of other keywords that could have been used in Twitter, Facebook Updates and Blogs; keywords like "Rage"; which were too broad to analyze more specifically at the time of this posting. The above posts do however represent the trending to their exact details.
