On February 5, hundreds of thousands of fans will pack Indianapolis and more than 100 million eyeballs will be glued to Super Bowl XLVI on television. The Super Bowl isn’t just big business for professional sports; it’s a make-or-break day for advertisers, restaurants, bars, and broadcasters. This year, the Super Bowl will also be big business for social media and mobile app developers.
Chevrolet/General Motors is taking advantage of the Super Bowl to launch an ambitious smartphone and social media crossover app. The Chevy Game Time app, which launched yesterday, allows users to win new cars and other prizes by answering trivia questions in a process that is fully integrated with Facebook and Twitter. During yesterday’s playoff games, a 30-second Chevy spot featuring Tim Allen promoted the newly launched app. Apart from new cars–a total of 20 cars will be given away–more than 6,000 other prizes will be offered, ranging from free pizzas to $50 NFL gift certificates to Droid Razr phones.
For Chevy, the big challenge is guaranteeing that users will be glued to their iPhones during commercial breaks and gaps in play. Viewers, after all, are (one would think) more interested in watching the game, talking to their friends and family, and checking out commercials than fiddling with their phones. But then, the two-screen era is upon us. Chevy’s hope is that the application will help build relationships with their users and help enhance demographic information. This is believed to be the first time any advertiser has tried a smartphone/social media hybrid project for a sporting event.
Chevy is also sponsoring an official collaborative project between the NFL and Twitter calledRoad to the #Superbowl. “Road,” which is currently in soft launch, lets users browse tweets from players on playoff teams and allows users to browse through tweets with a #superbowl hashtag. The exponential growth of Twitter means that sports events are huge traffic generators news for the microblogging site; according to Twitter, more than 1.5 million users mentioned Bronco quarterback Tim Tebow’s famous pass during this year’s playoff game against the Steelers.
Meanwhile, the NFL has been quietly using a fantasy football, social media hybrid to interact with fans. The NFL’s Fantasy Playoff Challenge, launched several weeks ago, invited users to play in a fantasy football league for prizes including a trip to Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans. The interactive game integrated many elements of social media to attract users.
The NFL Players’ Association, which represents individual pro football players in the media, has a separate social media presence from the NFL. Conduit, an Israeli firm with several prominent sports clients including soccer teams Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Chelsea, launched a series of player-branded apps and toolbars. The apps were announced shortly before the new year by developer Target Entertainment; each app will be dedicated to an individual player. Veterans Takeo Spikes and LeSean McCoy were first up to have custom apps developed for them. The most interesting aspect of the smartphone apps is that they rely heavily on social picture-sharing functionality; a “LiveAlbum” feature allows users to share pictures of themselves watching games or other sports events.
The Super Bowl host city, Indianapolis, is relying on social media and apps to retain football-hungry tourists even after February 5. The Super Bowl Host Committee will be releasing an iPhone and Android-ready travel guide app in the coming days, while Mashable reports that the Host Committee opened a 2800-square-foot “social media command center” staffed by a team who will assist users on Twitter and Facebook. Beyond standard analytics and PR work, the Host Committee will be using social media to help users find parking spots and tourist info in real time.
BY NEAL UNGERLEIDER, via Fast Company
2011 was an exciting year for the team at Bridge Nine. We were fortunate to have spent 2011 working with friends we respect and colleagues we admire. We worked with clients whom inspire us and we worked on projects that pushed us to grow — these are the best kind of growing pains. As we take on the new year, we hope 2012 will prove to be as exciting, trying and, yes, even more rewarding, than 2011.
Looking back on the year that was, though, we wanted to give you a quick snapshot of our website’s visitors in 2011. We found it interesting that two of the four BRIC countries sent us much of our traffic. Who knows? Maybe the next bridge we build will be to Brazil?
North America
- 95.7% The United States
- 4.1% Canada
- .2% El Salvador
South America
- 66.7% Brazil
- 20.0% Argentina
- 6.7% Peru
Europe
- 37.8 The United Kingdom
- 15.7 Netherlands
- 9.4% Germany
- 4.7% Spain
- 3.9% Poland
Africa
- 100% South Africa
Asia
- 42.1% India
- 12.3% Japan
- 12.3% Taiwan
- 8.8% Singapore
- 7.0% Malaysia
Having a campaign go viral is widely believed to be the Holy Grail of digital marketing. And while movies have shown that primates have the capacity to spread a virus with incredible speed, we’ve yet to meet a monkey who can single handedly make your video of a kitten-cuddling hippo an overnight success in the fabric softener industry.
So how does a digital campaign gain support and spread? Let’s treat that goal like a virus and work backwards to its origin as we look for clues.
Pandemic?
First, or in this case last, we need to understand that not all people are equally susceptible to the same virus. Do all campaigns spread to millions? No. It’s likely that even a successful campaign won’t go viral. You can’t buy the Holy Grail at Costco or find the formula in a secret manuscript. But whether your goal is to reach 100 people or 10 million, a successful campaign needs a catalyst in order to spread. And unlike diseases, viral campaigns usually start with an element of excitement that stems from brand originality.
Outbreak
The virus goes airborne. The campaign is launched to reach the client’s core audience. These loyal brand ambassadors are exposed first in the hopes they’ll spread the virus within their immediate circles of influence. Their excitement is infectious and spreads through their respective communities online. Soon, those not even familiar with the client are intrigued/infected. New consumers/patients are emerging.
Consumers, new and old, are engaging with the client online. We (the agency) are rolling out new parts of the plan. The idea is evolving based on customer feedback. Everyone involved in the campaign is excited.
Quarantine
This is the time when the idea, concocted and isolated in a lab to this point, earns its first victims. This is where the idea is pitched to the client. The pitch conveys the enthusiasm and volume of work that has been invested to this point. Like an antibody, the client may initially try to fight off parts of the idea. The plan may be more radical than their usual marketing or it may involve a new communication channel. This is where agency excitement leads to brand buy-in. Without the trust and support of a client, our plan may simply remain an idea.
Our job as the idea host is to infect the client with excitement. At this point, to stay alive, the idea goes through an adaptation process as the client’s feedback is incorporated. Now the idea is stronger. We’re excited. They’re excited.
Patient Zero
As an agency, we’re always excited about our ideas. It’s why we do what we do. When writing a client plan, we tackle the communications challenges from every angle – constantly critiquing and modifying each other’s ideas until we’re satisfied with the solution. We agonize over the wording, strategize how to deploy the message across different media, and project the anticipated audience responses. With each level of refinement, our excitement builds until the final proposal is ready.
Enter Patient Zero. Us. Bridge Nine Interactive. We’re now so excited in this idea that we can’t wait to show our client. And the process begins.
While there’s no surefire way to get your spokeshippo on the evening news, the one important factor in every campaign, viral or otherwise, is to understand that brands succeed online when original ideas lead to excitement among the core audience. Sure, we’re all primates, but we’d like to see a monkey do that.
According to new data from Benedict Evans for Enders Analysis, the number of monthly active users of Facebook’s mobile apps recently passed the 300 million mark. This is primarily due to heavy use of the iOS and Android apps, but it also takes into account apps that run on BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Phone, iPad and feature phones.
That number equates to roughly 40% of Facebook’s currently disclosed 800 million active users.
What’s interesting is that Facebook announced in September that over 350 million active users access Facebook through their mobile devices – a number that includes mobile web users as well as users of its mobile apps. Explains Evans, you can track the number of app users by going to the Facebook Page for each app then adding them up. (Alternately, one could use a service like AppData to do something similar).
At the time that Facebook announced 350 million mobile users, there were 250 million mobile app users, he says. That means that over the past few months, Facebook has seen another 50 million+ become active app users. Impressive.
Evans’ findings also back up TechCrunch writer Josh Constine’s earlier report that Android has finally surpassed iPhone in terms of daily active users. But on a weekly and monthly basis, iPhone and iPod Touch are still coming out ahead. In fact, in terms of monthly active users, over 100 million are using iPhone/iPods, says Evans. (The iPad is broken out separately).
BlackBerry devices and feature phones are still somewhat holding their own, while Symbian and the practically insignificant contributions from Windows Phone trail the number of iPad users whether you’re looking at daily, weekly or monthly active user counts.
One thing we don’t know – and can’t know, unless Facebook itself reported it – is how many usersonly access Facebook on their mobile phone, never visiting the desktop site. Evans estimates that number is high, but it’s impossible to tell using currently published data.
by Sarah Perez, via TechCrunch
In 2011, many companies knew they needed to move beyond simply creating and distributing ads for their products. They needed to create content that attracts, motivates and engages an audience, and thus inspire viral sharing for their campaigns.
This trend fueled tremendous growth for social video in 2011. While many brands were just testing the waters early in the year, we’re now seeing hundreds of companies get into the game and make increasingly large investments in media buys for their content.
We saw tremendous innovation around new types of campaigns this year to address the evolving non-linear media consumption habits of consumers. We’re even seeing new job roles crop up at agencies, such as “Earned Media Directors,” to meet the growing need for strategic, sharable content.
We believe 2012 will bring yet another set of quantum leaps in the space. Here are five social video trends that are already emerging.
1. Integration of Original Branded Content into Broader Marketing Campaigns
As brands gain more experience creating and distributing original video content online (not just repurposing television commercials), they will begin to integrate these assets more tightly with their larger marketing campaigns. Old Spice still reigns as one of the best examples of a highly memorable campaign that seamlessly merged both 30-second television spots with longer form, original online video content. Expect to see more brands weaving together TV buys and longer-form online videos in 2012.
2. More Organic Video Experiences on Sites
As publishers discover the potential in social video, many are looking for creative ways to integrate this content into their site experience. We’re already seeing an explosion of “native monetization” methods such as YouTube Promoted Videos,Twitter Promoted Tweets and Facebook Sponsored stories. The combination of well-integrated sponsored experiences with high-quality brand video content will only accelerate this trend. Expect to see “native” social video advertising experiences extend much more broadly across the web in the coming year.
3. Improved Earned Media Science
Agencies are increasingly hiring earned media directors to help improve their understanding of the value of earned media and their ability to drive results. Additionally, more services are emerging that will help companies gauge social influence online. This will allow brands to take big steps in 2012 to have more specific earned media goals and strategies.
4. Widespread Adoption of CPV Pricing
In the last 12 months, we have seen a much broader segment of the advertising industry embrace the cost-per-view (CPV) pricing model. This phenomenon has been market-driven, vetted and employed by most of the major media buying agencies in the U.S. A CPV is an intended engagement/action akin to a cost-per-click (CPC). Advertisers are increasingly finding it a more direct way to engage target audiences, compared to traditional CPM buying (which at its core, especially with regards to pre-roll, is a way to measure disruptive advertising, as opposed to choice-based advertising).
5. Dedicated Social Video Budgets
As advertisers become more well-versed in creating original video content and distributing it through social web channels, they will develop dedicated budgets and KPIs. Because they were largely experimental programs in the past, social video advertising campaigns were often lumped in with overarching digital advertising budgets that also included pre-roll or displayed advertising buys. Social video campaigns are now moving out of experimental budgets and into distinct programs with specific viewership and earned media goals.
2012 promises to be a very busy year in all things digital, but, as with any annum, there will be just a handful of big, memorable trends. Here, I’ve collected five such movements that are likely to make a big impact in our technologically-enhanced lives.
Augmented Reality
It’s now in games, location apps, business cards and coffee shops and could start showing up in cars and even eyeglasses. Augmented Reality, which puts a virtual view on top of your real world, is really just a cool way of saying, “Reality with Style.” Instead of simply viewing your apartment through your phone, you’re playing Star Wars Arcade Falcon Gunner on top of it. Instead looking up a restaurant in your neighborhood, you’re using Yelp to see its location and reviews for it and other restaurants right on top of your on-screen view of the street. 2012 will mark the beginning of exponential growth for Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR).
According to a report from Visiongain, 25% of all app downloads will feature some sort of augmented reality. Though adoption hinges on more powerful, high-speed and camera-ready mobile devices, it’s clear to me that the majority of smartphones and tablets in end-users’ hands next year will be 3G-to-4G-ready, high-def, large-screen devices with not one, but two multi-megapixel cameras. Trust me, by 2013, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who hasn’t at least tried augmented reality.
The Micro-Payment Economy
App manufacturers are not the only ones who can make money selling tiny wares and incremental upgrades. The barrier to entry for starting your own small business has been effectively knocked down by a variety of online merchants who are willing to hawk your wares for next to nothing. In truth, the merchandise isn’t entirely yours. In fact, these companies are often just selling your idea on top of their wares and you get a tiny slice for each sale, or for when the numbers of sales reaches a certain threshold.
Sites like RedBubble do everything for the artist; all they need to do is upload the content. RedBubble will, for example, make the T-Shirt with your art, sell it for you, manage the distribution and, of course, collect payment. The site lets you set the price above their fixed price. Yes, you could add as much as you want onto a $16 T-shit, but most smart sellers know this means they won’t sell a single garment. Instead, you add 1%-to-5% (maybe 10% if you’re feeling strong) and then promote the dickens out of your product on the site and through various social networks.
RedBubble is just one of many destinations popping up to help the aspiring entrepreneur. They join established platforms like Lulu (self-publish books), and YouTube. YouTube has been inviting videographers into the commerce tent for years, letting them add AdSense accounts to popular videos and then sitting back and watching the pennies roll in.
As the economy sputters along, look for more and more of the sites helping you sell almost anything you can imagine and making you a “fortune”–one micro payment at a time.
The Rise of the UltraBook
Tablets dominate the tech conversation, but that doesn’t mean the PC is dead. No, it’s alive and well, but in a form that will closely mimic some of the best features of tablets. I don’t have numbers yet, but I’m betting Desktop PCs were not big sellers this holiday season. Laptops may have done a little better, but who among you was willing to give junior an end-of-life netbook instead of a sexy, touch-screen tablet? (I’m imagining no one raising their hands).
A term coined by Intel, Ultrabooks describe exquisitely thin and light, yet pleasingly powerful laptops. Think MacBook Air and you get the idea. No, they don’t have touch screens or apps (though that’s changing, too) and Ultrabooks usually have just one HD camera. Still, with just a little more heft and girth than your garden-variety iPad, an Ultrabook adds a full-sized keyboard and far more powerful components. In other words, they’re perfectly designed for getting real work done, but no one will be embarrassed to carry one around. 2012 will witness an explosion of these devices as manufacturers pin on them their last best hopes for regaining consumer computing interest.
Social/Digital Exhaustion
Facebook will break the 1 billion user mark in 2012, but its numbers have flattened out in the U.S. Twitter is growing; it may have as many 450 million users, but no one knows how many people are really active users. Google+ is growing steadily, but is still well behind the two most established networks and much of the public is unaware of its existence. There is the now persistent, with good reason, backlash against mobile phone usage in cars and on streets.
In general, more and more people seem to be reevaluating their social and digital existence. Even the SOPA battle is revealing some unforeseen schisms. The Stop Online Piracy Act is a bad idea, not because piracy is good, but because of the plan for enforcement is wrong and dangerous. That said, no one who creates content can deny that the digital revolution hasn’t forced them to rethink how they create, sell and distribute content. There are no easy answers here and 2012 will be a year of introspection; one where we possibly rewrite the rules of content, copyrights and social interactions.
Mobile Chip Wars
The tech industry is gearing up for a rather intense battle—on a micro scale. With ARM-based CPUs in virtually all of today’s tablets and handsets, Intel, the dominant system CPU manufacturer, has no presence in the mobile space. It’s a situation the company promises to change in 2012 with Medfield—its rethinking of the Atom CPU (popular in netbooks). Meanwhile a consortium of Pacific Rim manufacturers have just banded together to produce new mobile CPUs for phones and tablets.
These efforts may not mean much, though, as Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Motorola, Marvell, Nvidia and others all license the ARM architecture and show (along with the hardware partners) little interest in switching to a new or once-established platform. Even Microsoft is developing Windows 8 to run on ARM-based CPUs in addition to traditional Wintel machines.
What do you think? Are these the right trends? Will there be other defining movements in 2012? Chose the biggest trend in our poll and then let’s talk about it in the comments.
by Lance Ulanoff, via Mashable
Most online marketers can tell you that the core of any SEO strategy is to optimize site content for search engines and build a network of high-authority backlinks. While search engines have long been the de facto method of navigating the web, that tide is beginning to shift. The sustained growth of social media feeds as a channel for content sharing has caused marketers to question how social signals influence search.
Perhaps the most persuasive evidence that Facebook and Twitter augment search rankings comes from SEOmoz. In April, they published some insightful correlation data demonstrating the degree to which links shared on social networks correspond with improved search engine rankings.
Source: SEOmoz
This analysis uses the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient to measure how strongly Google rankings are associated with quantity and types of links on social channels. The data represented in green is most germane to this topic because it controls for exogenous factors, such as the possibility that pages frequently shared on social networks rank well simply because they are good predictors of pages with lots of quality backlinks from the rest of the web.
SEOmoz found that Facebook shares are more strongly correlated with high search engine rankings than Facebook Likes or Twitter shares. While a correlation coefficient of 0.17 isn’t usually considered strong in a statistical analysis, it is noteworthy here given the number of exogenous variables at play that also influence search rankings. The data confirms that shares on Facebook likely have a positive influence on SEO, and Facebook shares are more influential than Likes or shares on Twitter.
For search marketers and social media strategists seeking to translate these findings into business strategies, consider these takeaways:
- Expect social feeds to continue to exert greater influence on search engine rankings.
As social networks become a more prominent channel for information discovery on the web, search engine algorithms will adapt to reflect the evolving ways in which people find and consume content. Google and Bing have already experimented with incorporating social feeds into search results, but their next evolution may involve significant algorithm changes to mirror rankings with trending content on social channels. - Prioritize user-generated contextual social sharing ahead of Likes.
The Like button is a valuable tool to extend your brand reach on Facebook, but user-generated social shares produce better engagement rates and correlate more strongly with high search engine rankings. To drive more backlinks to your site and increased utilization of social sharing, ensure that the option to share is strategically integrated across multiple user touch points – from comments, to purchases or published reviews, and event-based triggers such as achieving a game high score. - Make your content discoverable within social feeds as well as search.
Even if your brand boasts a large stable of fans and followers, your Facebook posts may not be achieving as many impressions as expected due to EdgeRank, Facebook’s news feed algorithm. Because consumers interact with their friends more often than with brands on Facebook, shared content from peers yields more impressions and clicks than posts from your brand page. To maximize click-through rates on shared content, ensure that your social sharing tool incorporates rich media such as thumbnail images into the activity object, and enable users to personalize the message shared to their stream.
by: Michael Olson, via Janrain
In the past twelve months we’ve seen the first generation of web video business models draw to a close, and the emergence of devices and business models that will fuel powerful continued growth in the year ahead.
Since web video began, user-generated content sites have counted on advertising revenue as their economic salvation. Despite the belief in this model, and a steady stream of venture capital, advertisers haven’t bought in. Instead, money has flowed to quality created content, and quality curated collections. Google looked at the trends and made a massive pivot in the YouTube model, effectively shifting from a neutral content aggregation and delivery platform into a ‘studio’ model that puts them in the position of funding and promoting content. This is a smart strategic shift, and one that has the potential to give conventional cable networks and other emerging distributors a powerful new competitor. At the same time, it further diminishes Google’s interest in what used to be called “the long tail.”
My prediction is that YouTube won’t go out of the UGC business; in fact, it will be the exact opposite. I think you’ll see more creative ways to monetize YouTube, including new partnerships with portal players, third-party ad units, and the emergence of important sponsorship and co-branded pages. It’s unclear if YouTube will build these offerings, buy them, or partner with others to provide them. But AdSense text ads for video aren’t alone going to fund the future of the middle market of video. Instead, you’re going to see some number of business users look to take more control over their content, their ad units, and the community around their media.
At the same time, the delivery system for video is very much under construction. The so-called “Over The Top” competitors have had a busy year–with Google TV falling flat, but version two looking promising, and Netflix’s Qwickster dying a quick death. At the same time, Boxee jumped into the business of providing digital ‘rabbit ears’ and Hulu briefly auctioned itself before returning to running the business. And now Microsoft moves to gain OTT dominance with a brand-new Xbox interface and more content deals. So, no clear winner here yet.
HERE ARE 5 PREDICTIONS YOU CAN TAKE TO THE BANK:
Prediction #1. 2012 is the year all video goes a la carte.
Remember all the promises of a new ‘a la-cart’ cable world, where consumers had choice and freedom? Well, you have to hand it to the cable guys, they’ve been able to keep that commodification of their product just out of arms’ reach for as long as anyone can remember.
But 2012 will be the year that cable breaks free of its terrible tiered chains. Anything that you can get on cable will find it’s way to an ‘on-demand’ or ‘pay per view’ service. The gap between date of broadcast and the window for PPV will narrow or disappear. Cable content will become on demand content.
Prediction #2. 2012 will be the year of the OverTheTop revolution.
While pundits, myself included, have heralded the coming herd of cable cutters. So far, they’ve been the outliers and early adopters. It’s seemed so painfully close–and so many devices had pieces of a solution. Boxee was the leader in the open world of web content. Roku had apps and file playback. Apple TV had a well-scrubbed ecosystem. Tivo had DVR functionality and off-air recording. And Google TV had a broad consumer electronics offering with Logitech. But none of them had the ‘killer app’ quotient that made them runaway winners.
That’s all about to change. Boxee is adding a tuner, Roku is connecting with more services. And offerings like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video are making the leap to multiple devices and screens. Services and boxes will merge. Flatscreens will get smarter and more easily connected. The distribution bottleneck will dissolve.
Prediction #3. YouTube and Google TV will merge (really this time).
It’s been five years since Google bought YouTube. Both companies have grown and prospered, but they’ve remained separate companies. There have been attempts by Google to monetize YouTube with various ad formats, but it hasn’t been terribly successful. Why? Because the buyers of text ads don’t want to pay a premium for video, and video is notoriously harder to target. Meanwhile, Google video closed its doors, and Google went down the road of content aggregation trying to find value in the search space around video. That too wasn’t a huge win. But now, with Google TV 1.0 a distant memory, there’s a clear path to profitability for the search giant.
Prediction #4. Yahoo will emerge as a big creator and distributor of video.
While it’s easy to let Yahoo’s corporate drama draw your eye, the company continues to make a conserted effort to build a solid video business. While AOL has dipped its toe in the content waters, Yahoo has jumped in feet first. In particular, Ross Levinsohn’s well-executed partnership with ABC News is a clue about just how seriously they take video. ”In this time of enormous economic and global challenge, the Yahoo! audience will determine the next president of the United States. We’re building Yahoo! News to be the source for political coverage, harnessing the voices, opinions and proposed solutions of Americans from across the country to deliver content and reporting focused on the issues and decisions that voters and their families must deal with daily,” Levinsohn said. Bravo.
Prediction #5. Business video will arrive as a real targetable business opportunity.
There are some basic truisms in business (and in life), and one of them is: “Nothing in this life is free.” For the past 10 years, consumers, business, and even media have gorged themselves on the wonderful access to free video. The cost of bandwidth has continued to fall, giving the large players an edge, even as ad revenues and CPMs have continued to fall.
Business has been late to the party, but in the past year more companies have begun to explore the idea of making and sharing video with their customers. Many of them are using a free UGC uploader, building in some cases large collections of video on third-party servers. But the free video party is about to come to an end, as more and more low-CPM ads and obtrusive ad formats appear. This is going to give businesses the need to find new homes, and new solutions, providing a boon to the SMB video market.
Expect big changes in how video is made, shared, and consumed in 2012. On the content side of the world, it appears there is now a consensus that everyone needs to be a publisher. This means brands, networks, and print media all are vying for a spot in your overflowing content inbox.
What is a publisher in this new world of digital overload? It used to be publishers were content creators, but increasingly publishers are taking on the role of content filters. Finding, organizing, and presenting coherent content is wrapped in to the role of curator that brands and media now embrace. Magnify.net sits squarely in the center of this revolution. As the web’s largest video-curation platform, we watch as Parenting.com, TEDx, and Patagonia all power their video experiences with our flexible toolkit.
The big surprise in the future of video delivery is that it may not be the flat screen at all. The Amazon Kindle Fire, the newest kid on the tablet block, is off to a stunningly fast start as a video and VOD platform. IHS Research projects Amazon will ship 3.9 million units in Q4, recording a 13.8 percent share of global tablets shipped, compared to Apple’s 65.6 share. While the data is still new, all indications are that Kindle Fire is going to burn up the video consumption charts, making Amazon Prime Video a powerful contender for table, OTT, and mobile video consumption.
The next twelve months are going to be transformative. Web video will become simply “video”–made everywhere and consumed everywhere. And brands and companies, who’ve contemplated using video to tell their stories or connect with consumers, will find that the train is leaving the station. It’s time to get on board the video express, or be left with an unpunched ticket in your hand.
BY STEVEN ROSENBAUM, via Fast Company
Social media continues to move forward toward business integration, a trend that I identified last year. In a joint study from Booz Allen and social platform developer Buddy Media, 57 percent of businesses surveyed plan to increase social media spending, while 38 percent of CEO’s label social as a high priority.
I was also partially accurate in predicting that Google would “strike back” in 2011. They did, with Google Plus, a formidable initiative that acts as Google’s “social layer” to the Web. Part social network and part social search, Google Plus has industry observers scratching their heads, wondering if Facebook will be given a run for their money or if the service evolves into something complimentary in a highly social Web.
I had one big swing-and-miss on Facebook’s intrusion in the location-based services war. While Facebook still supports location tracking in a number of ways, it has not put Foursquare out of business. Foursquare still enjoys a niche audience of highly active participants who enjoy telling the world where they are and post pictures to prove it. It is however worth noting that Facebook recently acquired location based network Gowalla, so continue to watch this space.
So what can we expect in 2012 in a world that seems to grow ever connected by the hour? Here are six predictions to ponder, in no particular order:
Convergence Emergence. For a glimpse into how social will further integrate with “real life,” we can look at what Coca Cola experimented with all the way back in 2010. Coke created an amusement park where participants could “swipe” their RFID-equipped wristbands at kiosks, which posted to their Facebook account what they were doing and where. Also, as part of a marketing campaign, Domino’s Pizza posted feedback — unfiltered feedback — on a large billboard in Times Square, bringing together real opinions from real people pulled from a digital source and displayed in the real world. These types of “trans-media” experiences are likely to define “social” in the year to come.
The Cult of Influence. In much the same way that Google has defined a system that rewards those who produce findable content, there is a race on to develop a system that will reward those who wield the most social influence. One particular player has emerged, Klout, determined to establish their platform as the authority of digital influence. Klout’s attempt to convert digital influence intobusiness value underscores a much bigger movement which we’ll continue to see play out in the next year. To some degree everyone now has some digital influence (not just celebrities, academics, policy makers or those who sway public opinion). But for the next year, the cult of influence becomes less about consumer plays like Klout and more about the tools and techniques professionals use to “score” digital influence and actually harness, scale and measure the results of it.
Gamification Nation. No we’re not taking about video games. Rather, game-like qualities are emerging within a number of social apps in your browser or mobile device. From levels, to leaderboards, to badges or points, rewards for participation abound. It’s likely that the trend will have to evolve given how competition for our time and attention this gaming creates. Primarily, gamification has been used in consumer settings, but look for it in other areas from HR, to government, healthcare and even business management. Perhaps negotiating your next raise will be tied to your position on the company’s digital leaderboard.
Social Sharing. Ideas, opinions, media, status updates are all part of what makes social media a powerful and often disruptive force. The media industry was one of the first to understand this, adding sharing options to content, which led to more page views and better status in search results. What comes next in social sharing is more closely aligned with e-commerce or web transactions. For example, Sears allows a user to share a product or review with their networks directly from the site. Sharing that vacation you just booked, or recommending a product, or service from any site to a social network is where sharing goes next. We probably don’t know what we are willing to share until we see the option to do it.
Social Television. For many of us, watching television is already a social act, whether it’s talking to the person next to you, or texting, tweeting, and calling friends about what you’re watching. But television is about to become a social experience in a bigger and broader sense. The X Factor nowallows voting via Twitter and highlights other social promotions, which encourages viewers to tap social networks while they watch. Another way media consumption is becoming social comes from a network called Get Glue which acts as something of a Foursquare for media. Participants can “check-in” to their favorite shows (or other forms of media) and collect stickers to tell the world what programs they love. Watch for more of this this year as ratings rise for socially integrated shows.
The Micro Economy. Lastly as we roll into 2012, watch for a more social approach to solving business problems through a sort of micro-economy. Kickstarter gives anyone with a project, the opportunity to get that initiative funded by those who choose to (and patrons receive something in return). A crowdsourcing platform for would be inventors called Quirky lets the best product ideas rise to the top and then helps them get produced and sold while the “inventor” takes a cut. Air BnB turns homes into hotels and travelers into guests, providing both parties with an opportunity to make and save money. These examples may point to a new future reality where economic value is directly negotiated and exchanged between individuals over institutions.
These are a few emerging trends which come to mind. As with anything, looking to the past often gives us clues for what may come in the future. Please weigh in with your thoughts: where do you see “social” going in 2012?
by David Armano, via Harvard Business Review
There are more than 178 million blogs on the Internet, with over 7,000 new blogs created each day. These numbers make it difficult for any blog to stand out from the crowd.We asked Derek Halpern, author of Socialtriggers.com, to share his expert advice on how to design and organize your blog for maximum results. Here’s what he had to say.
1. Differentiate your blog from your competitors’.
Halpern suggests researching your competitors’ blogs and sites to see what they are doing in terms of layout, design, and color…and then do something different.
“I wanted to make sure that my site looked drastically different,” Halpern says of his company’s site. “Most marketing blogs are running a magazine layout, so I went back to the traditional blog layout. Other marketing blogs are focused on the color red as their main color; I chose purple. Other blogs have really fancy designs; I chose a minimalist design.”
2. Choose photos that help direct your visitor’s gaze.
Research has shown that people will follow the gaze of another person, whether that is on the Internet or in person. Halpern suggests using this to direct your visitor’s attention to key parts of your blog, like an email signup box.
“I’ve done a lot of research about images on the web and how people react to them,” Halpern says. “Imagine you’re walking down the street and you see four people looking up in the sky; chances are you’re going to stop and look up in the sky too. The same applies online. When you see eyes looking towards something [on a website], you follow the gaze.”
3. Drop your categories, archives, and search box.
Halpern suggests getting rid of features that your visitors don’t use and replacing them with features that promote your best content and encourage email sign-ups.
“In all of my [blogging ] experience I never saw that many people using my search box or archive pages,” he says. “They might click on a category page, but that’s not really the best way for them to find your best content. You don’t necessarily want people to click around and only see yournew stuff first; you want people to be able to find your beststuff.
To spoon-feed visitors your best content, Halpern suggests using what he calls “Resource Pages” instead of archive pages. Resource pages are essentially category pages where you handpick articles to highlight that are not necessarily presented in a date-based format.
4. Rewrite Your “About” Page to Be About Your Visitors
Halpern says the About page is one of the most heavily visited pages on your blog and should follow a specific formula which includes strategically placed opt-in forms for your email list.
“The first few paragraphs should be all about what your site offers your visitors. Then an opt-in form,” he says.
After that, include testimonials or social proof that really shows you can satisfy these needs for your visitors. And then another opt-in form.
Finally, that’s when you can tell your personal story. But when you’re telling people all about you, you want to make sure that each thing you tell them will help reinforce the point that your site can help them solve their problems.
And then (say it with me), you put in another opt-in form.
BY RICH BROOKS, via Fast Company
