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A Social Media Scorecard – 2010 US Senate Special Election in MA

posted by Ty Velde @ Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 1:03 PM
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Click above image to enlarge

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.

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Google to Offer Captioned YouTube Videos

posted by David @ Thursday, November 19, 2009 - 1:10 PM
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Translation for online video is about to get a whole lot easier. Google just announced that they are going to start offering an automatic caption service for YouTube videos:


Offering a service like this, provided it works as described, is nothing short of amazing. Subtitling videos or offering an alternative translated soundtrack is a time-consuming and often costly process that prevents content creators from optimizing the reach of their videos. Being able to post a video to a corporate YouTube channel and then having a captioned translation available in 51 different languages is going to make it a lot easier to get that content embedded in multiple blogs and partner sites.

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Facebook Now Rated the No. 3 Video Site

posted by Nick Cifuentes @ - 12:15 AM
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When it comes to online video, Facebook always seemed to be one step behind the usual online video giants...not anymore! According to Nielsen's latest VideoCensus numbers, Facebook has rose to No. 3 behind online video giants Hulu and YouTube in terms of total streams.

Facebook jumped from No. 10 last month - leap-frogging the likes of MSN, ABC Television, Fox Interactive Media, and Yahoo! The report said Facebook generated more than 217 million streams in October to more than 31.5 million unique viewers - this is up from 110 million streams to 23 million viewers in September.


As fast as Facebook has grown in the past year, the online video viewing aspect was never something brands, nor advertisers really drove too much interest to. However, this could open up a door to change. Facebook actually had more than double the number of unique viewers Hulu had for October - but do remember, Facebook caters to the shorter and more personal videos, as compared to TV show length videos that flood Hulu.

Facebook began their venture into large-scale video streaming when they partnered with CNN to present the President Inauguration in January, then opened up another live streaming event with the NBA All-Star Game in February - both events drew a high level of engagement across Facebook.

More recently, the Foo Fighters in October, held a live concert that was streamed across Facebook, Livestream and the iPhone, and delivered 2 hours and 45 minutes of their greatest hits to more than 150,000 viewers around the world. The video drew 440,000 total live streams, with a max of 20,000 at any one time.

Watch live streaming video from foofighters at livestream.com


Clearly Facebook is making their platform more friendly from a video streaming perspective, think what could of been from an advertisers' standpoint if the Foo Fighters' record label was to try and monetize that almost 3 hour long show...exactly. On top of that, the concert trended on Twitter at #2, (#1 was Halloween) and it was also #1 on Digg.

Music has not been the only source of featured video for Facebook, the early premier of the NBC (and Hulu owner) show Community was debuted through Facebook on the NBC Fan Page.

Overall, the number of total U.S. video watchers dipped to 138.6 million unique viewers from 139.3 million in September. However, the number of total streams rose to 11.2 billion in October vs. 11.02 billion in September. And the number of streams per person was up to 81 in October, compared to 79.1 in September, and the time spent per viewer was up to 212.5 minutes in October, compared to 195.2 in September.

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Uses Social Media to Spread Awareness of H1N1 Virus

posted by Lauren @ Monday, October 26, 2009 - 5:33 PM
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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.

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Social Media Strategy & the Importance of Listening to the Conversation

posted by Ty Velde @ Saturday, September 12, 2009 - 12:48 PM
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So, 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.

But is this really the right approach? As we all know, what makes social media unique is the ability able to socialize with your target. To simply just look at social media as an extension of what you are already doing elsewhere online is not necessarily a sound strategy, as most online strategies are based on a one way exchange…speaking to your customers, while social media strategy is about socializing with your constituents. However, can you really socialize with people if you don’t know what they are actually talking about and what’s important to them? Now, you may think you know what’s important to them and in doing so try to barge in on the conversation, but is that really the proper way to engage someone in a social conversation?

While establishing a presence on major networks is by no doubt important to any social strategy, I’d like to argue that its not necessarily the first thing you want to do if you truly want to socialize with your constituents. In order to truly socialize with your audience, you need to first listen and understand the conversation that’s already taking place. This approach will in turn enable you to form the foundation of a social media strategy that is truly based on socializing with your audience, versus just speaking to them.

A Four Step Approach
With this being said, I would like to propose a different approach towards social media strategy development that is first about understanding your audience and the conversation taking place, versus building out a physical presence on major social networks. In the case where you might be inheriting an existing social media infrastructure, which as a result needs to be managed, I would like to argue that this approach still applies, as understanding the conversation that’s taking place will enable you to more effectively evolve the channel you've inherited.

With this being said, I would like to outline an approach to social media strategy that is based on the following four sequential steps.

1) Listen
2) Learn
3) Build
4) Engage

1. Listen to the Conversation
As any company knows, based on today’s environment there’s a conversation going on. And knowing there is a conversation, but not knowing what’s being said, scares the heck out of them. From blogs to Twitter to groups/forums and more, people are talking and conversing about your brand, products and company in more ways than you can imagine.

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.

Therefore, focusing first on “Listening to the Conversation” is more important than ever, as the intelligence you can gleam from it can form the bedrock of your social strategy, in terms of how you will ultimately choose to socialize with your constituents.

2. Learn from the Conversation
It’s not just enough to listen to the conversation, but you must then learn from it as well. By having your ear to the ground, you’ll be amazed by what you suddenly can learn about your brand and the people discussing it.

With this being said, following are just a few of key strategic elements that can be garnered and be used to develop your baseline strategy:

*** Topics of Conversation ***
- What are people talking about?
- Which topics are most popular?
- Which topics incite the greatest passion?

*** Sentiment ***
- Are people speaking in a positive or negative tone?
- Are there certain topics that garner positive and/or negative responses?

*** Influencers ***
- Who’s steering and guiding the conversation?
- Are there particular individuals, bloggers or Tweeters, that have a large following and are seemingly influencing how others perceive your brand in the social landscape?

3. Build Your Presence
Now that you’ve listened to the conversation and learned about what’s actually happening on the social front, you’re now ready to begin building your actual channel. The key thing here, is that unlike most strategies where this is often the first idea that is put forth, we’ve only come to this point after listening to what’s being said, and then garnering strategic learnings from it. This will ultimately enable you to develop a much more sound social media strategy, as it will be based on what people are actually conversing and socializing about, versus your assumptions, or worse, what you think they should be conversing and socializing about.

With this being said, building your social presence is composed of a few key components:

*** The Plan ***
Once you’ve decided to build your presence you must then develop a plan of action. Specifically, what’s the timeline, how and where is your channel going to be constructed and what kind of content are you going to populate it with.

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.

*** The Platform ***
This is the point where you put your plan into action and start building your actual social media platform…Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

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.

4. Engage Your Base
One, if not the most important, component of your social media strategy, is your Engagement Plan. The reason I say this is that engagement is really just another word for socialization and this is this is what truly makes Social Media a unique marketing medium.

While anyone can listen, learn and build, what will ultimately determine the success of your social media strategy is its ability to engage your base. In short, if you want to build your friend/fan/follower base, you need to be consistently updating your channel, responding to inquiries and developing new content.

However, it’s important to realize that engagement is a two way street. It’s about how you choose to engage with your users and also knowing how they want to engage with you. Therefore by first and foremost Listening and Learning it will enable you to formulate a 360 degree approach towards your engagement strategy, as you’ll have a solid handle on what people want from you and also what you can expect with them.

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.

*** Building Your Fan/Friend/Follower Base ***
For many social media programs, this is what success is often measured against…the ability to build your social community. This of course is very important and therefore, warrants very specific attention.

Understanding why someone would want to engage and become a friend/fan/follower is very important. Therefore incorporating elements of the conversation within your branded social environment in the form of content, updates and more will help you to readily build your Fan/Friend/Follower base as they will see you as understanding their needs and most importantly relevant.

*** Outreach ***
Social media also affords you with the opportunity to reach out to particular “influencers” as a means to extend the reach of your social media communications. This is particularly true in the case of Blogs, as identifying bloggers who focus on particular topics and have a decent following is a great way to further extend your message and get others, besides yourself ,to talk about your offerings.

Therefore having an understanding of what’s being discussed in the Blogosphere, can help you to offer and put forth content that will garner interest from them. This can in turn lead to long term and important relationships with a very influential circle of tastemakers and evangelists.

*** Integration ***
Engaging your audience via social media does not only have to happen within your social media properties, but it can also happen on your branded web properties as well. The act of installing chiclets throughout your site or by integrating Facebook Connect makes it possible for users on your site to engage in a way that enables your website content to be propagated as social content.

Therefore, listening to the conversation can provide insight in how and where you should place chiclets and what kind of content might likely get propagated into the social environment. This is particularly important as your website is where many of your key evangelists are residing and giving them the ability to propagate content into the social networks can play a huge role in helping your overall channel to grow.

*** Applications ***
While there have been far more misses than hits with applications, what they do afford is an opportunity to create a branded social engagement within a user’s personal social environment. Therefore, applications make it so a user does not have to come to you to socially engage; rather they are able to incorporate your brand into their environment.

Additionally, I personally believe that also by deploying a “Listen & Learn” strategy as it applies to application development can fundamentally change how they are perceived and adopted. The reason I say this is that by basing your application development decisions on the conversation that's happening within the broader social media environment ensures that you are fulfilling a definitive, versus a perceived, need with what is built and deployed.

Conclusion
I believe that the four steps outlined in the proceeding paragraphs provide a solid road map to success in this new and evolving medium. The key takeaway here is that by deploying a Listen >> Learn >> Build >> Engage strategy is that it’s based first and foremost on understanding the environment and who’s participating within it.

The fact is, social media can not be approached with a “Build It and They Will Come” mentality; rather success lies first and foremost in an “Understand and They Will Engage” approach. For its only you are able understand who you are talking to and what’s being said, will users then socialize with what has been built and success ultimately realized.

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Social Media Weekly Buzz

posted by Matt Sidman @ Friday, September 11, 2009 - 5:05 PM
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Facebook continues to make headlines this week with the release of their application for Google Android users, their integration into the just released iTunes 9, the implementation of @Mentions in status updates, and the launch of Facebook Lite. Twitter again went down, though this time it was thanks to Apple and Steve Jobs’ keynote speech. The service also made some significant changes to its Terms Of Service, which opens the door for advertisements, and along with Facebook, was also integrated into the new iTunes release. In addition, a pair of teenage girls in Australia opt to call for help on Facebook instead of dialing 000, the country’s equivalent of 911.

The rest of the top stories for this week follow in Overdrive Interactive’s 3rd edition of the Social Media Weekly Buzz:


• Facebook Google Android Application – Facebook has managed to maintain a solid mobile phone presence through its development of applications for such popular devices as the Blackberry Smartphone and the iPhone. A mobile version of the Facebook website is also available for phones with internet capabilities. Now Android users as well can join in on the fun, as Facebook on Tuesday launched a compatible app for the OS. Though not as full-featured as the other apps, it does have some Android specific features, such as integration into Android’s Live Folders.

• Girls Update Facebook Status While Trapped – The next time you find yourself in danger, forget dialing 911, and just update your Facebook status. That’s what two girls in Australia opted to do when they found themselves trapped in a storm drain.

• Wordpress Now Functioning at Real-Time Speed – Nowadays, many people turn to real-time services such as Twitter to discover the latest news and updates from their favorite sources. The only way to keep track of your favorite blogs up until this point, however, has been through RSS, which can take up to hours to update. Wordpress has recently altered this medium by supporting something called RSS Cloud, which pushes notifications to followers that your feed has updated, and brings blog updates to real-time.

• Steve Jobs Brings Down Twitter – Twitter again went down this week, but this time the source of the problem wasn’t malicious, or a malfunction. Really it was Apple’s claim to fame, as Steve Jobs made the keynote speech at their 9/9/09 event. The result? Mass tweets on Mr. Jobs’ return and lots of 503 errors.

• Find Friends on YouTube – Soon YouTube, just like Facebook, will make it easier to find your friends by recommending users that it believes you may have a connection with. You will then be able to easily connect and subscribe with your acquaintances. YouTube will use Gmail account information and your video sending habits to determine the most appropriate matches and suggestions.

• iTunes Implements Social Media Support – This latest release was a big one, and among the many changes of Apple’s popular music player was the integration of Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm support. For Facebook, the album art, artist and album name, and a link to the iTunes store will be posted to your wall. For Twitter, the only difference will be the lack of album art and the addition of the #iTunes hashtag. The Last.fm integration is a bit more in depth, such as giving you the ability to share your playlist with others.

• Tag Your Friends in Facebook Status Updates – Facebook has long allowed users to tag their friends in photos, videos, and notes. This week however, the service took it a step further by allowing users to tag their friends in Facebook status updates, which is very similar to Twitter’s @Mentions. Just include the “@” symbol before typing your friend’s name, and a drop-down box will allow you to select the correct person. Apparently this feature will soon be pushed out to applications as well.

• Facebook Lite Launches – Facebook has officially given the green light to the Lite version of its service which has been under testing for a while now. The experience is very bare-bones and Twitter-esque in simplicity. For now, only U.S. users are able to access this new experience.

• Twitter Updates their TOS – Twitter overhauled their TOS this week now that they have a better understanding of how individuals use their service. Among the many changes implemented, the more important modifications include rules for advertising, spam, ownership, and APIs.


The integration of social media into iTunes was a huge step forward for Apple. Though at the moment quite basic in function, Apple has the opportunity, after further experimentation, to leverage Facebook and Twitter updates as a marketing tool for their already popular music program. One of the core features of Apple products is the way they hold you to within the Apple environment. Apple’s products work the best with other Apple products. By expanding their reach to Twitter, Facebook, and Last.fm, they further solidify their hold on their current customers.

It’s quite scary, however, to see that as social media, and social networking in particular, become more widespread, individuals are turning to it as their main source of communication when not the most appropriate for the situation. The fact that two girls trapped in a storm drain would think of Facebook status updates before dialing 000, Australia’s equivalent of 911, is mind-boggling. However, it shows that as the younger generation grows up around all of this technology, these new forms of communication may naturally take precedence over more traditional methods.

Facebook, it seems, is quickly emulating some of the more popular features of Twitter. The introduction of Facebook Lite gives a more stripped-down feel to the service, and limits it to only the core functions, giving it a simplicity that Twitter has been so revered for. In addition, the introduction of @Mentions in status updates is a direct stab at one of the most popular features of Twitter updates. However, Facebook isn’t the only one stealing ideas from other services. YouTube will soon be implementing a feature that is almost a carbon copy of Facebook’s suggestion box, and will allow users to find and connect with potential acquaintances.

One of the most interesting developments this week for internet marketers is the new Twitter Terms Of Service. According to Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, the door has basically been left open in terms of particular advertising options. This provides a great deal of revenue opportunities for marketers and Twitter alike. The company has recently been struggling to find a model that can result in a positive ROI. Could we soon be seeing ads on Twitter that correspond to tweets of the people we follow? Relevance will definitely be king in determining which marketing strategies will be met with success.

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Social Media Weekly Buzz

posted by Matt Sidman @ Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 4:38 PM
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Welcome to the second edition of Social Media Weekly Buzz.

This week, both Google and Facebook managed to steal the majority of the headlines. Gmail’s outage on Tuesday sparked widespread panic and led most people, ironically, to use Google search to investigate the incident. In addition, the oh-so familiar, yet quite stark, Google search landing page has finally been patented, five years after being submitted to the USPTO. Facebook tested out a new ad scheme with direct offer engagement ads, and is being accused of leading a Welsh citizen to murder their partner. Also, have you checked out Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on YouTube yet?

All this and more follows below:



• Gmail Outage – At 12:30pm PST, a small fraction of Gmail’s servers were taken offline for routine maintenance. Unfortunately, Google underestimated the load recent changes placed on the request routers… The result? Gmail went down for 100 minutes, and online chaos quickly ensued.

• Google’s Search Landing Page Now Patented – After 5 years of fierce debate with federal bureaucrats, Google has finally won the right to patent their unmistakable home page. Google now owns the concept of having a large search box in the middle of the page, on top of two big buttons, with several links scattered here and there. Does this spell trouble for sites which possess similar layouts, such as Yahoo search?


• Facebook Tests Direct Response Ads – Craving a Chick-fil-A Chicken Biscuit? How about if it’s free? Soon you might be seeing more ad offers like this on Facebook if their testing of direct offer engagement ads goes well. Facebook has recently been exploring different advertising options as it gradually shifts away from its traditional sales funnel.

• Facebook Regional Networks No More – Regional networks on Facebook are now officially gone. This move comes as Facebook attempts to expand beyond its college roots to a worldwide communication platform, not unlike Twitter. But is that really what users want?

• Facebook Jealousy Blamed on Murder – A murder trial in South Wales has taken an interesting twist, with a UK prosecutor arguing that Facebook-related jealousy pre-empted the tragic event. Apparently the whole thing got started when Mrs. Jones started to “expand her social horizons” online. The last straw? When she changed her Facebook status to “single”.

• Kremlin Launches YouTube Channel – Russian President Dmitri Medvedev launched his very own YouTube channel, located at www.youtube.com/kremlin. The main purpose of the channel will be to reach out to and connect with the youth of Russia. So far he has covered topics from good neighborhood ties between schoolchildren, to the outcome of the Second World War.

• eBay Sells Skype – On Tuesday, eBay officially announced that it would be selling the VoIP and chat service Skype to a group of private investors for $2.75 billion. eBay will still retain a 35 percent equity stake in the service however, which they hope will increase in value under the new management. The decision to sell was provoked by a lack of synergy between Skype and eBay’s e-commerce and payments services.


The Gmail downtime serves as a reminder of how much of our lives are becoming dependent on the Internet. As more and more services become cloud-based in nature, it is imperative that network interruption be minimized at all costs. Fortunately the Gmail downtime occurred during the night, which helped save what could have been a large-scale interruption in productivity for the US. Twitter experienced a similar issue not too long ago, though that issue was more malicious in nature, and not just a big mistake.

Facebook continues to modify its services in order to improve both the experience of both consumers and advertisers. The direct offer engagement ads are a great source of lead generation for businesses, however it will be interesting to see how many people are willing to enter their address and other personal info for discounts and promotions. This is definitely a jump in the right direction for Facebook as it tries to shift away from its traditional sales funnel. The major step in this development is that companies will now receive instant results from the advertisements they publish on the service.

The Facebook alteration that might not be met with open arms is the decision to completely remove regional network categories. As Facebook attempts to take a more worldly approach to its communications platform, it has the potential of upsetting long time users of its service. For them, Facebook served as a tool to better connect with friends, not strangers. In addition, many users prefer Facebook over Twitter for the very fact that it isn’t… Twitter. Any step closer to the other service could be taken very negatively among its fan base.

The sale of Skype was definitely a smart move for eBay, whose e-commerce and online payments businesses really have nothing in common with the VoIP service. The real question is what prompted eBay to make the acquisition in the first place? Earlier in April StumbleUpon was also sold off to a group of investors after a failed attempt to synergize operations. Fortunately now the company can turn to focusing on its core eBay and PayPal businesses.

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Social Media Weekly Buzz

posted by Matt Sidman @ Thursday, August 27, 2009 - 4:27 PM
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Welcome to the first of many social media recaps that will be featured right here on our eMarketing blog. We will be gathering a weekly digest of the top stories and latest happenings within the social media sphere, and from these headlines offer our suggestions and conclusions on what the overall impact might be for marketers and casual users alike.

This week, not unlike any other, threw us some interesting developments in the social media world. Most of the buzz was focused on new Twitter and Facebook developments, both good and bad. YouTube also managed to make news with a new revenue sharing platform, in addition to lending a helping hand to Lindsay Lohan.

Without further delay, here are the top social media headlines for the past week:


• Facebook Privacy Changes – Facebook has been falling into trouble lately with Canadian authorities due to being in violation of the country’s privacy laws. In particular, the privacy issues which surround the retention of customer data after a user cancels his or her account. This could cause wider implications for other social networks concerning the way user data is currently being handled.

• Should Twitter Sell? – With strong competition coming from Facebook’s end, especially after the recent FriendFeed acquisition, many individuals have suggested that it might be time for the popular micro-blogging service to sell out to a larger and stronger partner. However, while it might be profitable prospect, there is still a debate over how much growth the service still has left in it, and therefore this decision should not be taken lightly.

• Woofer – 140 characters holding you back from what you really want to say? Why not use 1400? Enter Woofer, a carbon-copy of Twitter that alters the service from a micro to a macro-blogging atmosphere. Just sign in with your Twitter name and Woof away!

• Bit.ly and Yfrog Partnership – One of the most popular URL shorteners available on the web partners with Yfrog, a current underdog in the Twitter picture-sharing landscape. The result? Much trouble for TwitPic, currently the leader in this segment.

• YouTube lends a helping hand to Ms. Lohan – The LAPD released video footage of an apparent break-in of Lindsay Lohan’s home with the hope of catching the three suspects. Even police departments these days are realizing the true potential of social media.

• YouTube Videos a Source of Revenue? – YouTube announced that it may soon be offering money to individuals whose videos have a specific number of views and the potential to go viral. The source of the income? Advertisements that the service will sell against the video.

• Social Media Use in Companies Continues to Rise – In a recent report by eMarketer, it was found that currently 59% of brand marketers are now using social media. What’s really interesting is that within 12 months this number is predicted to jump to 82%. The most popular social media channels? Facebook, Twitter, online videos, and blogs.


Canada continues the trend of cracking down on privacy issues that have been surfacing recently due to increased usage of social media outlets. The result could be stricter laws and regulations across the board, with increased security for users, but also a decline in the ability for companies and other services to gather important statistics on potential clients.

Twitter is again in the news thanks to Facebook and bit.ly. Certainly the partnership of bit.ly and Yfrog will mean TwitPic must scramble in order to retain its dominating market share, that is if Twitter is still around in its current form. Though Twitter adamantly denies it is for sale, the prospect is that there is a lot of money to be made. The key in this situation is determining whether the service has any significant additional growth, as selling out too soon could result in lost profits for founder Biz Stone.

Speaking of profits, the fact that popular videos on YouTube, which meet the correct guidelines the service has laid out, can soon be making an income from ad revenue is a pivotal move forward, and might even serve as an incentive for posters to submit higher quality material. It is interesting to see that as the service continues to grow and transform, even police departments are jumping on the social media bandwagon, with the LAPD revolutionizing the way we will search for suspected criminals. Could this be the beginning of social media law enforcement?

The fact of the matter is, social media is here to stay. The eMarketer report only solidifies this position, as 82% of companies within the next 12 months will have integrated some sort of social media platform into their marketing programs. Only 13% have said outright that they do not use, or are not planning to use, social media any time soon. The main reason? They just don’t know where to begin. This is why it’s important to find a social media marketing company who has a clear strategy for this revolution. They can provide insight as to why social media marketing must be a pivotal aspect of any successful company’s overall business plan.

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Social Media: Passing Fad or New Reality?

posted by Matt Sidman @ Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - 4:27 PM
1 comments. Click here to post comments.

With all the hype surrounding social media these days, it’s hard not to draw parallels to the dot-com boom that took place in the not-too-distant past. The shear growth which has occurred in the past few years on well-known social media websites such as Facebook, YouTube, Myspace, Twitter, and Wikipedia, to name a few, is at the very least mind-boggling. However, social media has in fact been around for longer than most people tend to believe.

One of the earliest forms of social media is the bulletin board. Here, information was exchanged freely within a network of individuals for (usually) the betterment of the organization. Anything “posted” to that board was easily accessible by one’s peers. Much the way weblogs today allow individuals to openly express their thoughts and ideas, so did the bulletin board.

Social media, in today’s definition, is significantly intertwined in the processes and technologies which make these types of interactions a reality. The World Wide Web has done wonders for the exchange of information, thoughts, and ideas on a global scale. So can the recent surge in social media be considered a fad, like bell-bottom jeans? Or is this really the wave of the future, a social revolution that might someday be compared to the Industrial Revolution as a critical time of change?

Here are some fascinating statistics, compiled by Socialnomics.com, which uncover how much an effect Social Media is having on our generation:



  • Social Media has recently become the #1 activity on the Web

  • 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via Social Media

  • Years to reach 50 million users: Radio (38 years), TV (13 years), Internet (4 years), iPod (3 years), Facebook (100 million users in less than 9 months), iPod app downloads (1 billion in 9 months)

  • By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers, with 96% of them having joined a social network

  • More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, new stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook daily

  • Companies care more now about how their social graph ranks their products and services than how Google ranks them

  • 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content

  • If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 4th largest

  • 80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees


See the stats displayed visually in this video on YouTube:




However, as social media continues to evolve, individual users and companies alike must discover best practices in order to take advantage of this new technology to its fullest, or else face serious repercussions. For example, lately Twitter has come under fire due to a recent study by Pear Analytics, which found that 40.55% of total tweets captured could be found to be pointless babble. The graph below also takes a stab at Twitter, condensing its community down to 100 users and classifying them on usage patterns.






In this simplified breakdown of the Twitter user base, it is easy to see that currently, very few accounts utilize Twitter in an efficient way. The majority of users seem to lack frequent updates, a pivotal part to the successful functioning of Twitter. The second largest category is “dead” accounts, where somebody had created a profile yet for one reason or another has not yet used the service. What is interesting to note is that most of the noise found on Twitter is created by a very small portion of the entire user base, yet makes up 75% of the tweets found on the service.


These two sources bring to light that, while social media can be extremely useful, it can also be abused, and extremely inefficient when not correctly utilized.


So is social media just a fad? Some naysayers definitely think so. If anything, this revolution that we are currently in will drastically alter the way individuals interact and the way companies must market themselves to consumers. No longer will direct marketing generate a positive ROI on its own. Socialnomics.com notes that 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations, while only 14% trust advertisements. Companies instead must engage consumers in conversation, spark interest in relevant communities, and not instruct consumers on what their wants and needs should be, but instead listen to them. This, in turn, will lead to a positive buzz surrounding a brand and ultimately create those valuable personal recommendations all companies strive for.

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Recent YouTube Changes

posted by Bianca Garcia @ Friday, August 14, 2009 - 2:17 PM
0 comments. Click here to post comments.

A few days ago, YouTube quietly launched its homepage redesign (see Mashable article and YouTube blog post). The changes are pretty subtle, but are aimed at streamlining and simplifying the YouTube experience. According to the YouTube Blog, the left side is dedicated to exploration: finding videos to watch through search and browse. The right side is all about organization of the videos that matter most to you: your subscriptions, your recent viewing history, and your own uploads.

Apparently, YouTube ran a large landing page testing experiment before implementing the changes and launching the new page, but personally it doesn't feel like much of a redesign for me. Being a regular YouTube user, when I saw the homepage, I thought it looked different but couldn't quite pinpoint it. After chatting quickly with YouTube account executive extraordinaire Ryan Stonehouse, he confirmed that the changes were indeed small (for instance, the Search box now has a separate area with a gray box around it) but all aimed to improving the user experience.

I am glad to see YouTube constantly trying to improve and as an advertiser, I'm impressed with the expanding array of opportunitiess not just for branding but also for user engagement and entertainment. I am a big fan of the interactive masthead units, such as today's Madden 10 video. It starts out as a regular homepage video unit on the usual upper right hand side, but one of the players busts out of the frame, it expands into a full masthead unit, and the player pushes out the content on the left like he's breaking a tackle. Very fun to watch (although I thought there was still a lot of room for more interactivity/user engagement - maybe some games? video within the video?). Check out some screen grabs below.





Also another YouTube change, but this time WAY BIGGER and not so subtle: YouTube is now doing pre-rolls!! Only on select partner channels for now, but this means that advertisers can now have more opportunities to be in front of more consumer eyeballs. More on this later, but here's a quick screenshot of a 15-second Chevy pre-roll on a video for the one of the TravelChannelTV shows (Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations):

There is usually a companion 300x250 ad on the right - that's another avenue for branding, obviously... It becomes something like a page take-over, with all possible units promoting one brand (in this case, Chevy). And let's not forget that YouTube also offers those flash lay-overs, video within a video, and even call-to-action opportunities.

We'll keep you posted on other YouTube and social media news so keep reading our blog!

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Social Media & Narcissism – Individuals and Brands: Remember to Love Yourself

posted by Nick Cifuentes @ Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 8:10 PM
0 comments. Click here to post comments.

Becoming 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.

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YouTube's New Social Sharing Mechanism

posted by Bianca Garcia @ Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 9:46 AM
0 comments. Click here to post comments.

The power of social sharing just got bigger. And in this case, easier.

Last week, YouTube launched its new Auto-Share Your Uploads feature. According to YouTube account executive Ryan Stonehouse, "users can now easily send their YouTube uploads to Facebook, Twitter, or Google Reader. Once you link your accounts together, all of your uploads (whether they're uploaded on the web, via a phone, via the API, etc) are automatically posted as tweets, Facebook stories, or Reader shared items."

With a single log-in, users can automatically share their YouTube videos with two of the most popular social media sites, Facebook and Twitter:
YouTube is just the latest site to integrate with Facebook Connect. This makes social sharing infinitely easier (and less manual and time-consuming) for Facebook users. According to the Facebook Developer Blog, as more sites and applications implement Facebook Connect, the power of the social graph is extending across the Web, to the iPhone, gaming consoles, and TV, changing the way we view gaming, videos, concerts, and even church. Many of these sites are benefiting from increased distribution and engagement, as they enhance the user experience by making it easy to share and connect with real world friends.

And as for Twitter? No need anymore to manually feed video-related tweets to individual Twitter accounts (since admit it, most video uploads are from YouTube anyway; it's not the most popular video site for nothing). As MarketingVOX recently pointed out, YouTube users can directly syndicate recently-uploaded videos across social networks (or at least for now, across two of the biggest ones).

This new social sharing mechanism benefits the users and makes the social web one smooth, easy, integrated piece. Consumers and businesses can now easily automate video-seeding across social networks, and this equates to having the ability to disseminate information (aka new videos) more quickly. All with one click of a button. Not only is that easy, it's great.

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YouTube Masthead Goes UG

posted by Barb @ Monday, May 11, 2009 - 12:53 PM
0 comments. Click here to post comments.

There have been a lot of buzz recently about Sprint’s user-generated “Human Clock” which will launch this week on YouTube. The ad, which supports Sprint’s “Now Network,” will feature videos of people holding up one number that will be strung together similar to a clock. “For example, at 12:09 the ad would display four people, each holding up one number to represent 1, 2, 0 and 9,” MediaPost writes. The images will change as the minutes and hours tick by.



The ad will utilize YouTube’s masthead ad unit which works with other ad units on the homepage. This placement is great for advertisers who want to make a big splash. Zal Bilimoria, product manager for homepage at YouTube states, “On average, these rich media masthead units have 14% interaction rates, compared to the industry average noted by DoubleClick for similar-size units of just under 5%.”

The ad unit will also be available as a widget at Sprint’s Now Network micro-site. The site also features interesting facts of things happening “Now,” such as the number of bicycles being produced worldwide, traffic updates in major cities, and even the number of people stuck in elevators. Overwhelming at first, the montage of stats is artfully displayed as a series of interesting stats happening around the world. I admit, I have been on the site for over 42 minutes and I haven’t even clicked on half of the stats. To find out more about the number of coffee cups being produced or the next bus arriving in Portland, visit the site at http://www.sprint.com/network

For more information about this post please visit MediaPost's article, "Sprint Takes Over YouTube Home Page With UG Human Clock"

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YouTube Dominates Video

posted by Bianca Garcia @ Friday, November 7, 2008 - 11:59 AM
0 comments. Click here to post comments.

Barack Obama's YouTube video proves that when whether we're planning and buying for a viral video campaign, a social media campaign, or a regular online media campaign, we have to remember that MAJORITY of consumers immediately think of YouTube
YouTube once again proves how it's almost synonymous with video. According to AdAge, President-elect Barack Obama's victory speech has been uploaded more than 500 times and viewed more than 7 million times on the web in the last 48 hours after election night. And where did those eyeballs come from? 98% came from YouTube. Imagine that, out of the hundreds of video-sharing sites online, YouTube captured 98% of the video views.

We're already big fans of YouTube so this comes as no surprise. According to Mediapost, YouTube delivers over 10 times the number of video views of its nearest competitor.

What does this say to us media planners? It says that when whether we're planning and buying for a viral video campaign, a social media campaign, or a regular online media campaign, we have to remember that MAJORITY of consumers immediately think of YouTube. Of course, we also have to remember that YouTube is not the end-all and be-all of all video; other sites (MySpace/Fox interactive, Microsoft sites, Yahoo!, Hulu, etc) all have their own strengths as well. But for now, YouTube is the video giant.

Happy weekend everyone!

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