Posts from the ‘Twitter’ Category
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
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
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
With the advent of social media channels, customer service has forever changed. Consumers are no longer willing to sit and listen to classical music on hold. In today’s age of hyper-responsiveness, customers expect instant responses from support reps on very public online platforms.
Instead of shying away from social media, smart businesses will leverage their social channels to spread a positive brand reputation, to connect happy customers and to step up their customer support efforts.
Consumers aren’t eager to blast negative messages about your company – unless your brand is unresponsive. I recently learned at an IBM conference that customers are five times more likely to post something positive than negative, and that companies usually have at least 10 warnings before someone posts a negative comment.
Happy customers who get their issues resolved tell an average of four to six people about their positive experiences, according to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs. It pays to treat your customers well, not only for the repeat business, but also to gain the positive word-of-mouth consumers now broadcast across social media. Satisfied customers can become your most influential brand ambassadors. They’ll help to answer customer service questions posted online and also tout their own positive experiences with your business.
Here are the five best ways to turn customers into brand ambassadors through customer service.
1. Be Fast
When a customer turns to social media for a support issue, he expects a brand to generate the fastest response possible. According to a recent UK study, 25% of social media users expect a response within one hour, and 6% expect a response within 10 minutes. If you allow a support issue to dangle for too long, you risk being perceived as a company that either doesn’t know the answer or doesn’t care enough to reply promptly.
Remember, most people on social networks aren’t itching to post negative comments. They only do so after a bad experience. Therefore, don’t give them enough time to have a bad experience.
2. Be Visible
Private and direct messaging on Facebook and Twitter is all well and good, but when it comes to customer service, it’s best to be totally transparent and visible. The answer you give to one customer could, in turn, help thousands more. Think of each post and interaction as a resource that future customers can reference. Not to mention, customers will be more apt to direct friends to your page with their own questions.
Social media sites foster an online community around your brand. Watch how customers discuss and respond to your products so you can join the conversation and better understand the community that supports your brand.
3. Be Consistent
It’s vital that you ensure all customer support answers remain consistent across the web and across all social channels. If a common question is posted on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, then each response should communicate the same solution. Conflicting answers create confused, unhappy customers. Just as people expect consistent experiences with your products, they also expect consistent service across all of your channels. Brand accuracy drives confidence and credibility, and helps build brand loyalty among your customers.
4. Be Organized
If consistency creates brand ambassadors, then being organized is equally paramount. Admittedly, the cross-company integration and management of social media continues to be challenging. Maintaining a successful social media presence on just one network is a full-time job. Trying to do it over multiple networks is impossible if your support staff isn’t properly organized.
Customers can spot disorganization a mile away, especially online. However, if you demonstrate that your company support knows what it’s doing, you’ll earn the respect and trust of brand loyalists. Organization goes beyond knowing who does what on the support team; it’s also vital that everyone on the team is on the same page. Each team member must know where to seek reliable answers, and each must source information from the same place.
5. Be Human
As cool as Siri is, she still hasn’t crossed from digital assistant to human entity. Until then, your social media customer support should remain as human as possible. On the bright side, social networks already take the formalities out of conversation. It’s one of their biggest draws.
Therefore, a customer’s name isn’t “Inquiry #83kd4z.” She’s Christie from Denver. People respond best when they feel like they’re talking to other people. Your customer support should make customers feel as if they’re posting a normal question on a friend’s wall. Creating that kind of relationship with your customer should be the priority of any company.
Using customer service to create brand ambassadors isn’t the Herculean task it once was. Social media is presenting countless opportunities to turn your company’s support system into an open, interactive community, where customers can share their positive experiences with one another and spread the good word about your products and services – all on your behalf.
By: Duke Chung, via Mashable
There are an estimated 27 million plus small businesses in the U.S. alone. If you’re one of those startups, you know how tough it is to get your message out about the innovative work you’re doing and the products, services or technology you’re producing. Your very success depends on getting the word out to the right target audience who need your solution and making sure you stand out from the crowd.
The trouble is with that many other brands, businesses and public figures vying for peoples’ attention it can be hard to do that in a way that is actually meaningful. You have to compete with the best of the best in order to get noticed.
While no startup should be afraid of competition, what about when you’re faced with a competition where startups are pitted against other startups? Great things, according to Dealmaker Media, who did just that during the summer of 2011.
Competing For Glory
Dealmaker Media wanted to identify the most promising start-up companies in Canada and provide them with an opportunity to pitch at the GROW Conference in Vancouver, so they used the Strutta platform to make that possible.
Entrepreneurs were asked to nominate their companies with a video submission and company description on the competition microsite. Entrants encouraged friends and fans of their company to vote during an initial round of public voting that determined 25 semi-finalists. A panel of prominent investors and entrepreneurs from the U.S. and Canada then selected the finalists to present their business at the GROW Conference.
The Winning Result
The contest received 70 high quality entries, which generated more than 2500 votes. Content was shared more than 1000 times, with the top “viral” entries generating nearly 500 clicks apiece. Nearly 80% of the people who registered to vote in the competition opted in to receive emails from the conference organizers.
Not only did the Startups get a lot of buzz and recognition, but the conference was a big success and now has a healthy base from which to grow. Mircea Pasoi, cofounder of Summify, a service that summarizes your social news feeds, and one of only four companies who won the opportunity to pitch investors, summed it up this way:
“The online voting competition for Grow generated a lot of excitement, we were checking the rankings in the office every day! It was extremely easy to submit our entry with the Strutta platform and we knew we could trust the votes as being real, which made the competition both fair and fun.
To generate votes we shared our entry on Twitter and Facebook from the company account and our personal accounts. We also promoted the content in our daily email summaries, so that people that actively use our service could vote for us. It was actually great to see how various stories about the GROW competition began to trend amongst our users and helped spread awareness about Summify.
Being part of the competition turned into great exposure for us because we ended up in the top finalists and had an opportunity to present to a huge audience, including prominent investors.”
Video is a great medium to get your story out in a succinct yet compelling way. With YouTube being the second largest source of search, it’s no wonder that almost every startup now has a demo video on their homepage to introduce their visitors to why they should start using their product or service.
Taking that one step further, and producing a video that speaks not only to your customer but to the potential investor, as this competition did, actually forces startups to do the ground work on their entire unique selling proposition and their long term viability.
Couple that with the sharing medium of social networks and encouraging startups to ask their user base, fans and prospective customers to vote on their solution, is a great way of creating goodwill and a unique learning environment for those watching the videos.
Oli Gardner, Co-founder and Director of Marketing at Unbounce, landing page optimization, who won the most popular vote said that:
Having the opportunity to compete in a contest with startups from all across Canada was an inspiring challenge for Unbounce (we’re pretty competitive). The Strutta contest platform made it fun for everyone involved; for marketers in our company this meant constantly hitting the refresh button to see if more votes were coming in (in real-time), and for our customers (existing and some new ones that came from the promotion) they got to see a more personal side of us through our video presentation.
We took a multi-channel approach to promoting our entry, including: emailing our customers, adding a message inside our app, social media updates (Twitter, Facebook) and personal emails to contacts in LinkedIn. We did it in stages as needed to gain and then maintain the lead position in the contest, “unleashing” a new technique or leveraging the contacts of another team member as the contest progressed.
Seeing our customers rally behind us in support (along with hundreds of well wishes), and become invested in our success was amazing. We had people keeping in touch throughout the whole event asking where we were in the standings, and asking if there was anything else they could do to help! We’re tremendously lucky to have such loyal fans in our customer base – and the simple process of asking for a vote helped build stronger relationships with those customers. On a different note, having to create a compelling video made us refocus our messaging – which is always a great exercise.
The Next Steps
Taking this competition idea even further, one would think it’s a wise idea for these startup companies to run their own competition, using an application like Strutta – which can be used as a microsite, or a Facebook application, or Wildfire, another Facebook application that allows you run competitions via a landing page. The power of competition lies in peoples’ abilities to be motivated to take positive action to engage with your brand.
There’s nothing like the present to make that happen. Whoever is willing to take advantages of these tools and technologies within the social media sphere will create an impressive platform from which to leap from startup to established business success story.
by: Natalie Sisson, via Forbes
The Current State Of Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & Google+ [INFOGRAPHIC]
October 11, 2011
bridgenine
The social media adoption rate continues to grow at a staggering pace as the big four networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ – gobble up the attention and man-hours of brands and users alike.
Facebook recently announced they had passed 800 million active users. Twitter has at least 200 million registered profiles (more than 254 million, by my count). LinkedIn has 64 million users in North America alone. And still wet-behind-the-ears Google+ picked up 10 million users in about two weeks.
This infographic from creative agency One Lily looks at the state of social media today.
for larger image, click twice
By Shea Bennett
For social media marketers it must be about monetizing their social media activities. Part of the inspiration for this approach comes from Wilson Kerr of Unbound Commerce. David Carter of Awareness and their Social Funnel ebook laid the groundwork.
I watch social media marketers in all markets struggle with this issue. So I decided to pick one case study each from B2B and B2C. I’ve intentionally chosen small, not terribly well known companies. It may sound easy for Dell to make sales with its Twitter program and Taco Bell to sell chalupas and burritos with coupons distributed on its Facebook page, although it’s less easy than it sounds. But my point is that small companies, even individuals, can do important things in social media if they keep their eyes on the prize—monetizing their activities.
The biggest monetization opportunity in B2B is far and away the generation of qualified leads. Breaking Point is a cyber security firm who says its products “harden the resiliency of vulnerable converged networks and train cyber warriors” to prevent and deter cyber attacks. Are your eyes glazing over already? It’s incredibly important but at first glance it may not seem to be a candidate for social media marketing. Using a corporate blog, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and a revamped PR strategy, they joined in the online conversation, staking out a position as a respected industry source. After 6 months, 75% of their leads were coming from the inbound traffic generated by these social media activities. Their blog is well organized—a video, a list of topics, the appropriate social media chicklets, and posts that only an IT security professional could love. That is their target audience, after all! Read the details and 5 other excellent B2B case studies in the HubSpot/Marketing Sherpa presentation.
Depending on your age and gender, you may be equally unmoved by the funky shoes that Canadian B2C entrepreneur John Fluevog sells online and from a growing number of retail stores in Canada and the US. According to Australian marketer Ginger, whose blog is credited with this captivating image, Fluevog reported that sales increased 40% in 2009, the year of their entry into social media marketing. If you search the corporate name, John Fluevog Boots & Shoes Ltd., you’ll find an array of social media activities including reviews and a lot of local marketing using Google’s Places. If you look at their Facebook wall, you see a few administrator posts but mostly customers showing off their shoes and loving them. On their Twitter page they cross promote offers seen on the Facebook page and actively respond to customer questions and issues. This nicely integrated social media program takes time, but not a lot of money. It’s within reach of any small business.
by: Mary Lou Roberts, via Technorati
Adding a few visual game elements to a brand’s site in order to “gamify” a marketing strategy and increase engagement just isn’t enough. To be done right, gamification must take a behavior-focused approach.
For instance, by offering rewards for user actions, consumers are more likely to engage with a brand — that is, visit the site more often, register, linger and invite friends. But while gamification is a major buzzword among interactive marketers today, game use isn’t new.
So what’s making gamification so popular today? Consider these four factors.
1. Consumers Want It
In general, consumers are looking for new ways to entertain themselves — 40% of U.S. online adults have expressed this interest in a recent survey. What’s more, consumers want game elements everywhere. 60% of consumers play a video game online in a typical week. Consumers (especially Gen Yers) are increasingly accessing games online and on mobile devices.
2. Social Media Enhances It
When consumers can share achievements like badges and trophies with their social networks, it enhances the innate human motivations that games have used for generations to keep people engaged (i.e. the desire for status, access, power, etc.) And, along with increasing user status, sharing creates a low-cost marketing campaign to lure in other participants.
3. Gamification Vendors Enable It
Badgeville, BigDoor and Bunchball all offer SaaS platforms with mechanics, accessible consumer tracking and data, and the ability to easily iterate a gamification strategy as needed. These vendors are helping the process along by offering the right tools for specific goals.
4. Early Starters Have Proven It
Recent gamification efforts from brands like Chiquita, HP and Sephora have succeeded, increasing confidence that, if applied correctly, the right gamification strategy can work.
The biggest perk to incorporating gamification into a marketing strategy is its ability to boost brand engagement. So for marketers, the questions remains: How exactly does gamification help increase engagement?
- Involvement: Gamification can foster participation by increasing site returns, new visitors and registrations through reward systems and incentivized word-of-mouth efforts. For example, when Chiquita sponsored the movie Rio, it worked with Bunchball to create a microsite where consumers could win badges by watching Rio movie clips. The company indicated it received 8,000 unique visitors after launch, dwarfing the success of past promotions.
- Interaction: Marketers need visitors to spend time with their content and brand in order to foster engagement. Using gamification, marketers can set up the action-reward dynamic for specific engagement they want to increase. For instance, a leading computer manufacturer launched a gamified Facebook app for college students with the goal of promoting its educational computer site — and six weeks after launch saw program participation increase 10 times, with one-in-six users submitting essays and one-in-three visiting the educational computing site.
- Intimacy: Consumers are able to connect with a brand more intimately when they’re interacting in real-time versus visiting a static brand website. And more importantly, gamification provides a fun and rewarding environment for consumers, which often increases brand affinity. For example, Allkpop, the Korean pop celebrity gossip and news site, worked with Badgeville to motivate behaviors such as commenting, sharing links and following Allkpop social sites. The result: All behaviors saw an uptick, as did consumer sentiment and excitement for the site.
- Influence: Word-of-mouth marketing has taken off recently, and companies have realized it can have a significant effect on brand visibility. Gamification taps into WOM by giving users incentives to include their friends. SCVNGR, the location-based mobile gaming platform, says that 42% of players broadcast their play to social networks. And with the metrics available, marketers can track not only the users who shared content on social networks, but also the percentage of their friends who click back to the brand.
There is a plethora of game mechanics available that marketers can use to increase consumer engagement. However, no matter what game mechanics are implemented into a marketing strategy, it’s important to remember that gamification will only deliver results if implemented correctly. This means ensuring that gamification complements the current strategy, and can be maintained in the long term. Founder of Bunchball Rajat Paharias says, “The core content experience needs to be good, compelling and meaningful. And as long as that is there, these tools drive actions around the content.”
by: Elizabeth Shaw via Mashable
