Social media ROI: What’s next?

by Mark Cameron ON 16 May 2013

Over the course of this social media ROI series, we have moved from theory and strategy to the practical implementation of a social media plan. We looked at metrics and measurements in Part One, discussed the art of growing your community in Part Two and developed real world guidelines for the different social media platforms in Part Three. The fourth and most recent article in the series examined the utilisation of social media data for lead nurturing and conversion. In this final article, we will look at where social media marketing is heading and discuss why your company should be prepared to capitalise on this rapidly- evolving space.

Before gazing too far ahead, one needs to understand that social media has forever changed the market and, as a result, the advertising industry is in the middle of major disruption. The thematic trend in these types of articles is backed up by an Econsultancy report, which shows that 71% of businesses worldwide are planning on increasing their spend on digital marketing this year.

What’s going on? Why is the marketing industry increasingly going digital? In Part One of this series, I referred to an article titled ‘Marketing is dead’, published on the Harvard Business Review website in August 2012, which can again provide further insight. It cited research showing that 73% of CEOs think that, “CMOs lack business credibility and the ability to generate sufficient business growth,” and 77% of the same CEOs have, “had it with all the talk about brand equity that can’t be linked to actual firm equity or any other recognised financial metric”.

These damning statistics suggest that in the current post-GFC world, the traditional ‘soft’ metrics so often used to justify marketing spend are failing to deliver. Business leaders want each dollar spent on marketing linked directly back to sales figures. The need for accountability is part of the attraction of digital marketing. Every activity can be measured, in real time, down to a single click.

A far more important factor is consumers driving real change in the market, forcing brands to interact in new ways. Social media and the consumption of content through digital channels has now reached near ubiquity. While this will not spell the end of TV, radio and newspapers, digital is capturing an increasingly larger proportion of market share. Today’s consumer is sophisticated. When she wants something, she wants it personalised and she wants it right away.Only the online environment can meet these kinds of demands.

Additionally, businesses are looking to invest in new talents and people experienced in the digital field. The majority of businesses do not have the skills required to keep up with the pace of change. An IBM study, ‘Fast Track to the Future: the 2012 IBM Tech Trends Report’, found that across four technology areas – mobile, business analytics, cloud and social business – only one in 10 organisations had all the skills it needed.

Within each area, roughly one-quarter reported major skill gaps and 60% or more reported moderate to major shortfalls. An integrated approach to digital marketing would address all of these areas, so it makes sense to invest wisely.

With all of this budget upheaval, the one thing we can be sure of is that the marketing industry is undergoing a transformation. When it emerges from this phase it will be permanently altered – and this is a really big deal.

As the famous management author Peter Drucker once said, “Business has only two basic functions: marketing and innovation.” Digital communication gives the brands of today the ability to address both of these functions at once. But it is going to take a drastically different approach to digital marketing to do this effectively. Banner ads and landing pages are no longer enough. The future of digital marketing needs to have social media, and the data it generates, at its core.

BUSINESSES ARE LOOKING TO INVEST IN NEW TALENTS AND PEOPLE EXPERIENCED IN THE DIGITAL FIELD. A 2012 IBM STUDY FOUND THAT ACROSS FOUR TECHNOLOGY AREAS, ONLY ONE IN 10 ORGANISATIONS HAD ALL THE SKILLS IT NEEDED.

What will be happening in the next few months? What are the trends that brands need to be aware of? How can we see beyond the complexity of technology and find the opportunity that really exists? You can be sure that any strategy that is not focused on data-utilisation won’t get off the ground. As The New York Times stated in an article titled ‘Marketers celebrate glimmers of recovery’ in 2011: “Data rules… content may be king in media, but, in advertising, it is data.”

While I don’t have a crystal ball, providing commentary on the digital space in publications across the world allows me to take a step back and see how things are evolving. Below is what I see coming.

CONTENT WILL START TO TAKE CENTRE STAGE

Marketing professionals are quickly moving beyond understanding digital and social platforms and are now focusing on how to make their chosen digital communications channels come alive. A recent study by Econsultancy found that only 38% of companies surveyed had a developed content strategy in place, but 90% believed it would come into focus over the next 12 months. In the TV-centric advertising world, the creative firepower of the storyteller for the 30-second spot became the hero. Similarly, the skilful weaver of the digital narrative will be what every brand is looking for.

AGENCIES THAT CAN DEMONSTRATE ROI WILL LEAD THE WAY

The advertising industry is currently going through disruption. One of the major factors driving this change is the huge volumes of unstructured data available. Unlike having a set of predefined fields that fill a database, such as old style CRMs or competition entry forms, unstructured data is conversations, interactions and preferences such as Facebook ‘Likes’ that will be different for each customer.

The forward thinking companies are now firmly focused on generating conversion-focused insights out of unstructured social media data.

BRAND DATA PLATFORMS WILL COME INTO FOCUS

In mid-January, Nike quietly released a framework for developers to connect to its Nike+ platform. For those of you who don’t know, Nike+ lets you put sensors in your shoes and track how you are using your trainers.

In doing this, Nike has managed to build a data platform that extends its connection with its customers for the whole life of the trainers, creating much deeper relationships and new opportunities to sell product. With the release of the new developer framework, Nike is making a transition from active clothing product brand to active technology brand. It wants to effectively own the active lifestyle data space.

COMPANY INTERNAL INVESTMENT WILL INCREASE SIGNIFICANTLY

Not so long ago the terms ‘community manager’ and ‘social data analyst’ didn’t exist. Now every major brand is investing in resources with titles like these. Companies have learned, some the hard way, that community building is not only important, but requires well-developed skills.

BRANDS WILL WORK OUT HOW TO USE FACEBOOK

Most businesses have been lost when it comes to Facebook. There has been a lot of hype, many mistakes and the occasional spectacular success. The lessons from this experimentation have been learned and brands are looking to drive real business results from the communities they have invested in. There is no one ‘Facebook formula’, but there is a right way for each brand.

It is not only the brands who have been learning. Facebook itself has been trying to get its offering to businesses right. This year, we’ll see the social media giant step up its game and offer a range of enterprise- oriented tools and training to help brands realise the potential of the platform.

MARKETERS WILL BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT ‘CLOSING THE LOOP’

It’s interesting to look at the spectrum of data available from a marketing perspective. Facebook knows what people are doing, Google knows what people want, companies like Amazon know what people are buying and brand platforms like Nike+ will make it possible to know how product is used. Pulling all of that information together will be extremely powerful for marketers. Better products and services, combined with more relevant communications, equals happier customers who spend more.

Each of these developments illustrates the importance of making social media marketing techniques more accessible to the business community. It is far too easy to get lost in conversations about the technology in an industry that is moving at breakneck speed.

The technology is important, but it will only ever be a method for delivering a brand story. Storytelling is in our cultural DNA. Great stories capture the imagination and help us relate to the underlying message. For your business, compelling storytelling is essential for one simple reason – people do not really care about brands. It’s easy to forget that the business you live and breathe is not as interesting to your market as it is to you. And real customer loyalty is difficult to maintain. Developing a good story helps to make your brand interesting and attractive. The story about the business’ origins, for example, can help to put a human face on your brand.

Social media gives you the ability to tell stories in a new way. While no technology can help you construct a narrative, knowing how to use each platform correctly helps you be more effective in its telling. Finding out what sort of content your audience will engage with can be tested, and refined, quickly through social media. It’s then a matter of utilising social media data to refine and personalise your story.

There is no magic bullet when it comes to social media ROI. Of course you need to know how to use the tools, but what is more important is how you use them to engage your market. Invest in engaging your audience, and they will return the favour.

Nestlé is most socially and environmentally-friendly food corporation: Oxfam

by Marketing ON 28 February 2013

As part of its ‘Behind the Brands’ campaign, charity group Oxfam rated the top ten corporations in the food and beverage market on seven issues.

These included: ensuring the rights of the workers and farmers growing their ingredients, how they protect women’s rights, management of land and water use, climate change, and the transparency of their supply chains, policies and operations.

The Swiss-packaged food group Nestlé registered an overall score of 54%, ahead of Unilever on 49% and Coca-Cola on 41%.

Yet, according to Oxfam’s report sheet, the following companies failed the test: PepsiCo on 31%, Mars on 30%, Danone on 29%, Mondelez on 29%, General Mills on 23%, Kellogg on 23% and Associated British Foods (ABF) on 19%.

“Some companies recognise the business case for sustainability and have made important commitments that deserve praise,” says Jeremy Hobbs, executive director for Oxfam International.

While Nestlé celebrates for now, Hobbs admits that all they still have much to do to overturn “a 100-year legacy of relying on cheap land and labour”, and that all ten corporations needed to do so much more.

Secrets also emerged during the polling with some enterprises reticent to disclose information about their agricultural supply chains, although Nestlé and Unilever were most open about the countries they sourced from.

In another damning finding, Oxfam also noted that not one of the ten companies had adequate policies in place to protect local communities from land and water grabs, in light of them obtaining commodities (palm oil, soy, sugar) which have been linked to land rights violations.

ABF’s Patak and Amoy brands performed worst, mainly for their lack of a public policy on fair business arrangements with suppliers, yet applauded the company’s Twinings tea brand for commitments to a living wage for workers.

“No brand is too big to listen to its customers,” says Hobbs. “If enough people urge the big food companies to do what is right, they have no choice but to listen.”

IAB Awards 2012 winner – Fanta Playzone

by Marketing ON 12 September 2012

Winner: Mobile Platform or App

Campaign: Fanta Playzone

Client: Coca-Cola

Agency: Ikon Communications, with Webling, Ogilvy and Naked Communications

Background

Fanta had experienced a decline in the number of teens purchasing the product as its marketing activities had not directly engaged them in recent years. Teens are constantly on the lookout for new and different things to talk about within their social circle and their choice of brand tells their peers a lot about them. A brand that isn’t perceived to do cool things is consequently not top of mind and a decline in the number of teens purchasing their product had occurred. Instead new, innovative and ‘faddy’ drinks had encroached on its market share and Fanta was perceived to have lost relevance and a connection with its target demographic.

Objectives

The brand needed to reconnect with its teenage audience, positioning Fanta as cool, exciting and a brand to be revered among their peer groups. All communication needed to be fun, participatory and interactive, and ultimately drive purchase of Fanta among its core demographic while creating a word of mouth buzz that would elevate both the credibility and desirability of the brand.

Strategy

Ikon Communications’ approach began with the concept that it needed to build relevance for Fanta by creating ‘play’ in teenagers’ lives. Ikon felt that lives began to become that little bit more serious during the teenage years with the introduction of exams, homework and other pressures. It, therefore, sought to give teens something to take them away from the ‘boring and serious’ moments in their day-to-day world and give them the tools for a fun, playful and participatory experience.

Mobile phones are the most ubiquitous channel for teens, with smartphone penetration in this target group increasing month on month. It was therefore the natural channel to use to engage the target audience. The average age for ownership of a first phone is 13 (Mobile Youth Survey 2011) with smartphones accounting for 46% of all phones in Australia and 57% of all new phones sold (Australia’s Smartphone Index 2011). Further, Apple has made the smartphone the must-have accessory for every image-conscious teen, where they are seen as a digital version of who they are, from the apps they have to the games they play. The universal access to a mobile screen and the rise of mobile gaming was therefore a perfect platform for Fanta to deliver a resonant and playful experience to bring back its lapsed teenage audience to its brand.

Execution

A mobile gaming-based campaign with custom-built games (iPhone and Android) was developed to engage teenagers, with integrated Facebook and outdoor activity, inviting them to play when they were at their most receptive: during their commute or when just hanging around with friends. Three custom-built games were developed using both touch screen and tilt centres, fully leveraging the smartphone’s user interface. The games featured different members of the Fanta ‘crew’ and weekly prizes and a real time leader board were built-in to drive repeat participation. User’s interactions were synced to Facebook, where scores were published on their wall, which helped spread the word about Fanta PlayZone within their network, and provided social amplification of each engagement to help with peer-to-peer word of mouth buzz.

To raise awareness of the app and drive downloads, online display, Facebook, mobile and out-of-home media invited teens to ‘play’ with Fanta. Outdoor media was used in a highly innovative way to deepen engagement and maximise participation. Players could boost their scores by using the app to interact with outdoor media billboards that were situated in the places that teens hang out and seek entertainment in.

Using location-based information within the app, users were able to locate these outdoor panels and using their smartphone cameras could ‘catch the crew’. When caught on camera, the crew member magically jumped out of the billboard and into the user’s phone via augmented reality to provide a ‘power-up’ in their gaming experience. In addition, users had the opportunity to rule their local Fanta ‘zone’ by gaining the highest score in real-world locations with the use of GPS software to score bonus points and earn local kudos.

Results

Fanta PlayZone was a truly integrated mobile campaign that engaged its target audience by delivering an experience true to Fanta and adding more fun and playfulness to the world of a teenager.

Over 36,000 people downloaded the app, which resulted in over 102,000 visits. To put this into context, at 2.6 minutes per visit, with an average of six visits per user, each user was spending an average of 11 minutes playing and engaging with the brand.

The judges felt the social connectivity, with all mobile interaction feeding into Facebook, encouraged healthy competitiveness and helped extend the engagement the audience had with Fanta. This was proven, with 65% of visitors to the app returning to play.

Most importantly, the campaign had the desired impact on the bottom line with sales of Fanta increasing by 12.3% year on year.

The campaign’s innovation in linking outdoor media with mobile gaming via augmented reality was a world first for Fanta and an element of the creative execution that most impressed the judges. They noted that this smart use of advanced technology maximised the value and impact of the media spend and ensured “all touch points drove interaction and participation” with the campaign.

The ‘slick user-experience’ was also highlighted as a key driver in the campaign’s ability to drive relevance, re-engage lapsed Fanta fans and ultimately encourage a purchase. The bespoke games with their imaginative characters encouraging teens to be ‘more fun, less serious’ and by linking the creative to all other media, consistency and extension of brand messaging was guaranteed.

In summarising the campaign, the panel asserted that it was a clever case study in how mobile is now being used as a tool to both brand build and drive a response. It reveals how a core mobile campaign can be augmented by sophisticated interaction with other media and a great example of an initiative with no static brand messaging thanks to intelligent cross-platform integration.

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IAB Awards 2012 winner – Pedigree Adoption Drive

by Marketing ON 21 August 2012

Winner: Brand Loyalty & Retention

Campaign: Pedigree Adoption Drive

Client: Mars Petcare

Agency: Whybin\TBWA\Tequila

Background

In keeping with Pedigree’s stated belief that every dog deserves a loving home, it partnered with a not-for-profit organisation PetRescue to try and improve the plight of the 100,000 dogs in shelters across Australia that are euthanised each year because they are unable to find new owners.

The Pedigree Adoption Drive initiative needed a fresh campaign to raise awareness for the plight of these dogs and to try and change the misperception that shelter dogs are damaged in some way. It also needed to address the reality that fewer and fewer people are visiting dog shelters year on year due to geographic and time constraints.

Objectives

The client’s brief was simple. It wanted to reach the widest possible audience in order to first raise awareness of the fact that over 100,000 dogs a year were euthanised, and second to change people’s perceptions of the nature and character of shelter dogs and ultimately to drive and increase the number of adoptions taking place across Australia.

Strategy

The key stumbling block to increasing the number of shelter dog adoptions was the fact that the volume of people visiting shelters was in decline. The agency therefore needed to find a way to bring people face to face with the dogs to see for themselves that they were healthy and to create an immediate bond to encourage adoption.

The first step was to create a unique canine search engine that centralised every single dog in Australia’s 716 shelters into one single database. This provided the technology to help make searching for a dog as simple, accessible and much fun as possible.

A series of online and offline activities were designed to facilitate the matching of dogs and potential owners with a mobile app (for iOS and Android) and Facebook application called Dog-A-Like at its core. The app brought shelter dogs face-to-face with potential owners to enable people to find their perfect match from the newly created PetRescue database.

This was supported by experiential and video activity to help create an emotional bond with the target audience to maximise the chances for adoption.

Execution

The campaign was launched with an experiential ‘Underdog Day’ at Bondi Beach in Sydney where yellow branded dog leads were tied to 1.5 kilometres of the beachfront each with the profile of an available adoptee dog. Through a unique online code attached to the profile, people could enter the code into the PetRescue search engine to find out more and adopt. The widespread publicity created from this event drove the target audience to the online activity at the centre of the campaign. The Dog-A-Like mobile app and Facebook app used facial recognition software to create an instantaneous emotional connection between potential owner and dog. Playing with the popular notion that dogs often look like their owners, it was designed to match the features of people with those of every single available shelter dog in Australia until a perfect match was found. Users were then given the option to adopt a pet when otherwise it would be put down.

The app was loaded with clever touches, such as the built-in ‘whistle’ feature that takes the user straight to the Dog-A-Like’s adoption page when they whistle into the phone, and a ‘shake’ functionality that allowed users to either make a donation or give their perfect match a bowl of Pedigree dog food.

The emotional connection between the dogs and the target audience was also deepened by the creation of an eight-part online documentary, Underdogs, which followed the affecting stories of how five shelter dogs found a new adoptive home. This served to address the perception that shelter dogs were damaged in some way by taking the audience on their journey from being homeless to finding a loving home.

Results

Dog-A-Like became the number one app in the Australian iTunes store for two weeks – and, over a few months of the campaign, more than 3500 dogs were adopted. It became Australia’s most successful rehoming campaign with more than 26 million media impressions. The campaign reached 5.8 million Facebook users and the 200,000 bowls of dog food pledged via Facebook ‘Likes’ ran out in the first month. As a result, it made Facebook’s Top 50 Apps worldwide in 2012.

Impressively, the Underdogs documentary garnered such an unprecedented online audience that it inspired a national TV series with a second series due to air in 2013. That an element of the creative content of the campaign has taken on a life of its own is an impressive feat and one of the holy grails of a successful marketing campaign. As one judge noted, “The agency clearly tapped into a resonant creative execution, which more than fulfilled the client’s brief to change perceptions.”

Most importantly, a 36 percent increase in the number of dogs re-homed has been achieved since the program was launched, amounting to 2200 dogs each month: Pedigree’s most successful rehoming initiative to date. A key driver of this was the way in which the agency developed an innovative and effective mechanism to bring the shelter dogs to the target audience.

The judges also highlighted the imaginative use of technology to create the unique shelter dog database and facial recognition app noting that the “effective use of back-end technology to create a fun, accessible and entertaining application that built brand affection and loyalty was world-class”.

Watch the first two instalments of the online series below, and visit the campaign’s YouTube channel for more.

Social and mobile go for gold at London 2012 Olympic Games

by Simon van Wyk ON 19 June 2012

Every four years the biggest consumer brands on the planet invest vast sums of money to connect their brand to the marketing juggernaut that is the Olympic Games. This time there’s no surprise to see brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Visa and Procter and Gamble all shelling out billions collectively on sponsorships and ads during the Games. What is different this time around is that a significant part of this spend is being focussed on social and mobile marketing activities.

That’s not to say that TV isn’t playing an important role, but you can see a dynamic shift in the whole raison d’être of a TV ad. No longer about simply building brand recall and awareness, TV ads are beginning to be put to use as teasers or trailers for the main event which is now deep digital experiences and engagement.

‘Move to the Beat’

Take a look at Coca-Cola. They are running their largest digital campaign ever with mobile playing a key role in more than 50 countries around the globe. Their ‘Move to the Beat’ campaign targets teens with a Mark Ronson/Katy B concoction ‘Anywhere in the World’ which will serve as an anthem for Coca-Cola’s Olympic sponsorship efforts.

Online, teens across the world are invited to create individualized beats by mixing their personal musical preference and their sporting interest with their online social media footprint. Once created, the personalised experience can be uploaded to the website to create an evolving music collaboration.

The mobile experience showcase centrepiece is the free My Beatmaker app for smartphones. This app uses technology and lets you create your beat through the motion of your phone. I’m not quite sure how it works but the technology detects the movements of the phone and transforms them into unique sounds. It’s a really innovative idea though I have heard more than one or two grumbles that it doesn’t work quite as well as planned.

There are also SMS alerts about the campaign that include facts about the athletes and artists and Games related quizzes, QR codes, and links within the brand’s desktop and mobile experience for the Olympics.

Visa Go World

Meanwhile, Visa’s campaign for the Games of the XXX Olympiad will be the largest in the company’s 25 years’ association with the Games. For Visa social media is playing a much bigger role than ever before with its cheer platform. The Visa campaign kicked off in May and will run in 70 countries. The idea here is that fans can lead the cheer squad and send best wishes to their favourite Olympians by posting a text messages, comments, photographs and video clips on the Visa Facebook page. Fans can also submit ‘one-click cheers’ online or via mobile on social media including the Visa YouTube channel. Plus there’s @teamvisa on Twitter, using the hashtag #VisaGoWorld for brief messages.

The online cheers, submitted by fans, will be used for at least one congratulatory ad that will run during the Games in July and August.

Visa and Samsung pair up

In terms of being a truly mobile Games, Visa and Samsung are pairing up in their quest for team gold. While Samsung’s new Galaxy S III has been anointed as the official London 2012 Olympic Games smartphone, they’ve joined forces with Visa to bundle their payWave Android application in partnership with Lloyds TSB to offer near-field communication (NFC) payments to athletes while they are competing in the city. While the contactless payment mechanism won’t be universally acceptable, there’ll be approximately 140,000 contactless terminals in the UK for this Olympic trial, so there will be enough retailers and service providers set up in the city to accept the mobile payments to make a great test case. Payments under £20 (approximately AUS$32) won’t need a passcode, and users will also be able to check their balance and purchase history from the app. While NFC mobile payments have been popular for years in places such as Japan and South Korea, the technology has been slower to take off in the US and Europe, so the whole aim of this test is, of course, to drive awareness of and demand for contactless payments in both the UK and the world stage.

Let the Games begin

While more than four billion people are expected to watch the 2012 Olympic Games in London, athletes and fans will use social media to post, blog and tweet their experiences like never before. More data, more coverage and more devices mean those attending in person will have access a whole new experience and one that’s readily available to share with those who can’t be there to see the live action.

Finding location, losing privacy

by David Iwanow ON 25 June 2010

The latest, growing social media trend is location based services like FourSquare, but are consumers ready for the privacy issues that location data brings?

The Apple iPhone is one of the leading smartphone platforms, but has the recent iOS4 Software update enabling iAd gone too far? It seems Apple has created a catch 22 situation: users can opt out of being served targeted ads by visiting oo.apple.com, but then miss out on many iPhone benefits.

If you don’t want to share your exact location details with Apple then you may not have access to future apps from iTunes. So as a consumer you have to decide to provide Apple with your real-time geographic locations or not have access to its iPhone applications.

Apple highlights that your detailed user location information is only available to all its partners and licensees… which only appears to leave out those not using its platform? This change is a move designed to protect iAd advertisers and potentially iPhone app developers, but at what cost to privacy?

Apple’s changes to its user agreement seems similar to Facebook’s recent privacy changes, which gave great benefit to advertisers but not users. The Facebook change to ‘Like’ pages combined with the recent Wikipedia-style pages made the users profile data more easily targeted by advertisers.

Not wanting to be left out of the location game, Facebook appears to be on the verge of launching its own location-based features, but will privacy be again compromised by forced opt-in? The Facebook feature is likely to be similar to the recent Twitter Places update where users can opt to tag the tweet with their current location.

The new Twitter update allows users to “Add your location” with every individual tweet, but was already available by external platforms such as UberTwitter.

The interesting aspect for advertisers using FourSquare as a platform is they can begin to better target those who are visiting their venues or in the nearby area. The benefit is that a local Las Vegas tour company can now target those who are just visiting Las Vegas and not waste marketing dollars on local residents by offering them visitor promotions*.

But on a different campaign Hard Rock Casino, Las Vegas can provide a special birthday offer for Las Vegas residents who have checked in with FourSquare at nearby venues. The potential benefit of geo-targeting is a more relevant audience with localised ads allows advertisers to deliver better ROI on their local marketing campaigns.

The potential concern for consumers sharing so much information is that companies like Apple and Google may not be able to quell privacy fears about their behaviour data gathered on iPhone and Android. For marketers will applications like FourSquare increase their importance for local marketing while still enabling enough granular settings to protect the user privacy?

*Disclaimer: The Lost Agency is working with this client.

Facebooks ups user safety in the UK

by Marketing ON 14 April 2010

Due to rising concerns regarding user safety in the UK, Facebook has agreed to offer eight children protection bodies up to one billion free ad slots on its site.

In addition to the ad spots, the social networker is allowing users to report potential criminal activity directly to police. It has also promised to staff a 24-hour hotline which police can contact for emergencies and investigations.

However, Facebook has stopped short of having a ‘panic button’ prominent on other user pages, saying it would initially display a button in its Safety and Help centres and during the ‘report user’ process.

“The investments and partnerships we’ve announced today…
represent the most comprehensive public/private safety initiative since social
networking began in the UK almost a decade ago,” Elliot Schrage,
vice-president of global communications and public policy at Facebook, told Brand Republic.

Facebook has yet to indicate if the concessions would be made on its international websites.

Twitter great buzz for tech brands

by Marketing ON 20 January 2010

An online branding report has found that not only is Twitter increasing in popularity, but that tech brands are benefiting most when it comes to being mentioned on the platform.

The report also found that mid-week is the most popular time for Australians to mention tech brands through social media, with Twitter peaking mid-week with on average 500 to 1,000 more posts per day than the average.

The ‘Digital Brand Index (DBI 2.0)’ is conducted by PR firm Edelman in partnership with Brandtology.

Twitter continues to grow in popularity with 57% of online mentions occurring on the tool (123,696 mentions); nearly double the total number of brand mentions of all the other top 10 channels added together.

Despite significant product releases from Microsoft (18,897) with Windows 7 and Windows Mobile 6.5, Google (29,941) continues to dominate in terms of online mentions, with 20,528 of those mentions being made by ‘netizens’ through Twitter.

“With more and more Australians ‘tweeting’ every day, there is a real opportunity for technology brands in Australia to raise awareness and understanding, and to engage with potential and existing customers,” said Amanda Little, managing director, Edelman Australia.

Social not-working, surely not?

by Marketing ON 9 January 2009

Social networking is a just a phase – the headline jumped out at me, the shock, the horror, surely not? I had just read this quickly on a newswire while my computer was supposed to be absolutely turned off/dead over Christmas and New Year.

It got me thinking, is it a phase? Social networking is a long-known art, as social networking was going on long before a computer even existed. So will our entire social media careers be dead now? Just down to a fad, a phase, a thing we liked at the time?

So I considered some of the issues that we may be facing with this new found channel.

Issue one: Its all about money: isn’t it always? Social networking, it seems, is difficult to monetise. Google has begun to make less than optimistic noises about it. Google CFO George Reyes has said: We have found that social-networking inventory is not monetising as well as expected”. Is this plain speaking for oh shit?

Issue two: Are there too many players flooding the market? Particularly white labelled channels (i.e. a site full of pre-made functions, which can be branded so that people can create their own versions of Facebook for instance). The more this happens, the more dispersed and fractured the user base becomes.

Issue three: Corporate intervention in social media, with over commercialisation with what started out as a one to many tool, soon becomes a corporation to consumer tool and all the people get fed up with being sold to and may go somewhere else.

Issue four: Inaccurate member data on sites. This is less important to socialisation so users don’t care. With identity fraud, users purposely load inaccurate data. From a commercial perspective, this can create problems: CRM is only as good as the data validity. All that effort aimed at the wrong people. Some say as many as 33% of users load duff info into their profile.

Data privacy has the potential to unravel the network. You may think that this couldt happen, what with all the regulatory concern and cautionary tales. But then again, Facebook had already been caught tracking and releasing user habits back to developers and others involved in advertising initiatives. And what if your average Joe wants to leave? Well have you noticed that no matter how often you opt-out or don’t opt-in, the level of spam keeps going up? You have to think that the data options are being somehow abused. Surely not? Well think again, it’s a bit like a religious cult. Once you’re in, they don’t let you leave. These are the very things that may eventually dissuaded users from enjoying social media sites and lead to their abandonment followed by collapse of the network platforms.

Issue five: Social network fatigue, with people getting fed up with maintaining multiple spaces on multiple platforms. Its further manifested itself with people just falling out of love with the whole thing because it just isnt’t what it used to be. It might not sound like we have that problem at the moment, but on closer inspection, there are people writing PhD theses about it. After this peak, will we see a decline? Perhaps because of the tedium of the operation, or something else happens, it stops being the next best thing.

So how do we make sure this doesn’t happen.

We keep it all together, increased the marketing value to business, re-enfranchise the users and make some dollars on the way.

In the spirit of Rohit Bhargava with his SMO (Social Media Optimisation) rules, and in light of the above issues, here are some of the SMM (Social Media Marketing) rules or maybe New Marketing Rules – NMR – a new acronym! How exciting!

Our Grandfathers and Great Grandfathers knew the social before we did – don’t forget what they told you about honest communication, it still works today online or offline.
Social media is social – the best who know social, know how it works. Listen, say less, and use two ears and one mouth, in that proportion!
Emotion stirs us all up – a relevant message to the right audience in the right place works; we want to hear, what we want to hear, when we want to hear it – don’t bug us otherwise.
Its not always about money and conversion and transaction – it is about relationships. Think of the value return of the relationship, as opposed to quick wins and quick bucks.
Social media marketing is about listening. Do your research before jumping in.
It is about you as an individual and your personal brand as much as your brand’s personality,

Please continue the list on in the comment box below. There are many more thing at the heart of this!

In the spotlight: Bebo

by Marketing ON 16 March 2008

“Within six months we’ll be the largest social networking site in Australia.” That was the bold claim of Bebo’s Jim Scheinman at the ad:tech conference in February this year.

You certainly couldn’t accuse the man of lacking vision. But whether or not Scheinman’s vision is impaired by blind optimism will be laid bare by August.

In the meantime, the vice president of business development and sales for the ‘new kid’ on the social networking block is steadfastly on a mission to bring his prediction into fruition. And he has a number of notable achievements to fuel his conviction.

Last year, Bebo topped Google’s Zeitgeist list, coming in as the number one search term for 2006, ahead of rival MySpace. According to Scheinman, since its launch in July 2005, it has also become the largest social networking site in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand, with more than 30 million registered members worldwide. And in March this year, web traffic analyst Alexa Internet reported that it had edged out Google and Yahoo! to become Ireland’s top-ranking website. Further adding to its list of accolades, Bebo was recently named ‘Hottest Overseas Technology Prospect’ at the UK Technology Innovation and Growth Forum.

Here in Australia, Scheinman claims that the site has 2.5 million registered users with up to 450 million page views per month. According to Hitwise figures, from September 2006 to March 2007 the site experienced growth of 49 percent.

It’s an impressive trajectory, but will it continue? Scheinman certainly believes so. “I wouldn’t have said this had it not happened in the other markets, but I’m pretty confident that it’s going to happen here,” he asserts. “When you look back about a year ago to where we were in the UK versus where MySpace was, it’s about where we are in Australia now. Today we’re larger than MySpace in the UK. MySpace has a three-year lead on us so we have to play catch-up.”

And if Bebo does actually catch up to MySpace, Scheinman’s not too concerned about the fickleness of the playing space. “It’s really not that fickle,” he argues. “MySpace hasn’t just dropped off in the UK; they’re still competitive, they still have lots of people and we share a lot of users. When you have two dominant players in the market, many Beboers will have a MySpace account and vice versa; it’s just a matter of how much time they spend where.” On that point, Hitwise in the US reported last year that the average session duration on Bebo is 28.58 minutes, compared with 26.26 minutes for MySpace.

As to how the market will ultimately be carved up, Scheinman sees Bebo’s strength in the 13- to 19-year-old demographic. “MySpace’s core demographic is a bit older, so they’ll be stronger at 35-plus and then there’ll be overlap between the 19- to 35-year-old demographic,” he says.

The younger age skew on Bebo may, in part, be a result of its relative simplicity. The general consensus among social networkers in the blogosphere seems to be that Bebo offers users a lower technical barrier to entry than sites such as MySpace, with the trade-off being slightly less creative freedom in terms of programming. As the site’s founder and CEO, Michael Birch, remarks, “To differentiate, we focus primarily on keeping the site easy to use.”

Birch’s first foray into social networking was through a site he created in 2003 to keep in touch with his wife, Xochi, while she was studying abroad. The site, called Mingo.com, was sold after six months, but Birch had seller’s remorse, so he and Xochi decided to create a new site. “We started Bebo as a way to bridge the gap between students like us who shared friends and family ties in both the UK and US,” he says.

Meanwhile, Scheinman was employed by social networking site Friendster to look for companies to merge with or buy out because the site wasn’t growing organically. “I found three companies,” recalls Scheinman. “The first was MySpace – that deal didn’t work out for Friendster. The second one was a small company that no one knew about called Facebook. Unfortunately that didn’t work out either and the third company I found was Bebo.” In March 2005, Scheinman jumped ship from the flagging Friendster and joined forces with Michael and Xochi to officially launch Bebo in July of that year.

In broad terms, Bebo has all the essential ingredients of a social networking site; its foundation being user profile pages containing personalised components such as photos, blogs, video content and a range of other multimedia ‘add-ons’. Users can also borrow content for their own profile pages from other parts of the site, including Bebo Skins (covering everything from colours and hearts to rock bands and footy teams), Bebo Bands (where bands and solo artists are able to create a profile showcasing their music), Bebo Authors (similar to the Bands feature, for authors to showcase their work) and Bebo TV (which is predominantly made up of user-generated video content).

The real point of difference, however, appears to come back to its ease of use. With the combined learnings of Mingo and Friendster behind them, the Bebo trio deliberately set out to create a site that was straightforward to use. “When we launched it we had a core mission – to build a great social networking site,” proclaims Scheinman. “Friendster was designed by an engineer in a weekend; and it showed. It was a great idea, but it wasn’t a great product. MySpace copied Friendster. Again, it was not a great product but it was a great idea and it worked. And to MySpace’s credit they got their site to work when Friendster couldn’t. Facebook copied MySpace – it was all the same paradigm and we thought ‘we’re going to whiteboard this right from the beginning’. Bebo was not built to be a copy of a dating site that morphed into a social network. It’s much more intuitive to use. We have created an environment where you don’t have to spend weeks learning how to code to make the page look like something you’re proud of.”

Advertising on Bebo

Another way Bebo claims to differentiate itself is by offering a less cluttered environment for advertisers. In particular, Bebo has a policy of not running ads on user profile pages. “Almost every page has an ad except the profiles because that’s the Beboers’ personal space,” says Scheinman. “On MySpace they have ads on profiles – we think it’s not really the way to go for brands. It’s one of those things where we’re losing some ad revenue, but we think it’s a much better product experience. What we hear from a lot of agencies is that MySpace is too cluttered with the type of ads that they have and with too many ads on the page.”

Bebo also endeavours to give users more say in the advertising they receive. Beboers have the option of filling out an ad profile when registering or they can click on a ‘choose ads’ link at the bottom of banner ads on the site. “On all of the pages that have an ad unit, they’ll say choose your ad and you can click on that link and it goes to a drop-down menu of about 15 types of ads – entertainment, arts, automobile, health, travel, uni, sport… It’s a model where Beboers can tell us what sort of advertising they want to see because we don’t want to show them irrelevant stuff,” says Scheinman. Apparently there are 500,000 users who have taken up this option, with the incentive being solely to cut out irrelevant ads. “They understand that we don’t charge for Bebo so we have to make our revenues on advertising,” adds Scheinman. “They don’t complain about having advertising on the site. They understand we’re going to be showing them ads, that’s not an issue. The question is whether we can get more relevant ads.”

While display ads are still a popular option, Scheinman argues that the most powerful opportunities for brands is in what he calls ‘engagement marketing’. “Web 1.0 advertising – flashy banner advertising – is gone, that era is gone. We’re talking about engagement marketing, especially for this demographic,” he says.

At the heart of engagement marketing on Bebo is the sponsored profile. Just as users create their own profile pages, brands can also create profiles using any of the multimedia components available on the site. For example, a sponsored profile for a movie may use the video component to run a movie trailer or outtakes from the movie. Brands can also invite users to submit their own videos such as in the form of a sponsored video contest. In addition, the sponsored profile can incorporate games, quizzes, blogs and podcasts as well as featured bands and ‘widgets’. A widget is a Flash-based web application, such as an interactive game. Another component that can be used as part of a sponsored profile is the whiteboard, a rudimentary drawing tool that Beboers can use to draw pictures and send them to friends.

Each of the components on a sponsored profile can be added to a user profile with a couple of mouse clicks, allowing the brand to take advantage of the viral nature of social networking and gain exposure to a wider audience. And if a Bebo user particularly likes a sponsored profile, they can join as a ‘friend’. This means that visitors to their profile will be able to see that they are a friend of the brand’s site. It can also act as a powerful database-building tool, creating a one-to-one marketing relationship between the friend and the brand. “Often 10,000 Beboers will join as friends,” says Scheinman. “That’s incredible data for a marketing manager because you can learn about the demographics, their age, gender, where they live and their email addresses.” According to Scheinman, the sites that get the most friends are predominantly movies. Although, a clever competition can also draw in the crowds. Scheinman cites an example from late last year by Coke in Ireland. The company ran a ‘Shadow Man’ contest, asking Beboers to send in photos of their shadows while they were holding Coke cans, with the prize going to the most creative entry.

Another option for advertisers on Bebo is to sponsor a section of the site. For example, on Bebo TV there are thousands of user-created videos broken up by categories such as sport, music and comedy, but above these are featured sponsor videos. As an extension of a sponsored profile, an advertiser may also choose to have a sponsored skin on the Bebo Skins section. As well as raising awareness of the brand, these options can help to drive traffic to the sponsored profile.

For brands that are really out to make a splash, there is the option of a ‘takeover’ of the Bebo homepage. This strategy was used to promote the recent launch of the Ben Stiller movie Night at the Museum. For one whole day, Bebo’s homepage was completely branded in line with the movie’s sponsored profile.

Globally, Bebo is attracting some big name advertisers; among them Nintendo, Coca-Cola, Nokia, Pepsi, 20th Century Fox, NBC, Pixar, AOL and Hasbro. The multimedia functions of sponsored content sites have proven particularly effective for entertainment brands. “The biggest part of our business is working with movie studios, launching new movies and launching DVDs,” says Scheinman. “We also work a lot with the TV stations launching TV shows, music, clothing, acne medicine and brands that are critical to the lives of 13- to 24-year-olds.” Even automotive brands have dipped a toe in the water, says Scheinman, although he concedes that this is more in the UK and US markets.

In the end, the success of advertiser content on Bebo – and any Web 2.0 site for that matter – comes down to how enticing it is to the users. “Web 2.0 is about getting relevant, funny and engaging content that encourages the Beboer to become a brand advocate and spread that message virally to all their friends,” says Scheinman. “That really is the core of what Bebo engagement marketing is all about.”

The seven deadly sins of networking

by Marketing ON 1 March 2008

When you work in marketing you know the value of networking to advance your business. You probably live and breathe it, spend a lot of time convincing clients to do it and helping them to do it well. Networking can, however, mean different things to different people and as a consequence there’s a world of difference between those who’ve got the networking nous and those who don’t.

If any of these networking sinners sounds like you, your business card is probably being disposed of along with the cocktail napkins…

1. The salesperson

It amazes me how many people believe they should be selling when they are networking. They launch into a well-rehearsed sales pitch about their business, the services they perform and how day after day they transform other people’s businesses. If they come up for air, they might ask you about what you do, and then straightaway talk about how their business complements yours.
Fortunately for the rest of us, these people make it easy to be a good networker. No one wants to be pitched to when they are networking, and if you focus on relationship building and finding ways to genuinely help others, you will stand out from the crowd and be remembered. A giveaway of the salesperson is that as they leave you (after you’ve only said 10 words in the 10 minutes they’ve been talking to you and are feeling a little ambushed) they have to look at your business card to remember your name. The golden rule: networking is about relationship building, not selling.

2. The business card spammer

These guys are nearly as bad as the salesperson (and often the two are interchangeable). How often do you come across the inept networker thrusting their business card at you and everyone else within reach, or talking ad nauseam about how fantastic they are and how successful their business is, then moving on to the next group of spamming victims? These people give networking a bad name, and turn people off being involved – their idea of a successful evening is clearing their business card holder.

At a lunch I attended recently, one guest handed out her business cards to everyone at our table then moved onto the next table – she didn’t speak to anyone, just squeezed in between guests, did a card drop and moved on. No one at the table knew her name, what she did or why she was even at the lunch – her impact? Nothing more than a waste of money printing the cards she dropped on every table.

3. The wallflower

Coming to a networking function, but standing on your own in a room full of people is not networking. It may be disappointing to some, but networking involves introducing yourself to new people – people you haven’t met before – and this can be quite difficult for most of us to do. The key here is to be prepared and take your time, choose your group carefully (some groups look open to invasion and others don’t), and position yourself to make eye contact with the friendliest looking person in the group. You will be amazed at how the group responds when they see you want to join in. Be prepared to do a self-introduction and get the conversation going again, perhaps ask a question or make an observation. Be prepared to answer questions about what you do in a way that opens up the conversation, but is not a pitch. Regardless of what you’ve heard “Do you come here often?” is not a great way to start the conversational ball rolling.

4. The introvert

Often the best networkers are those who have more introverted personalities. This is due to their relaxed approach – they focus on individuals, develop one-on-one relationships and are often better at keeping in touch with people. People can, however, be intimidated by two people engaging in conversation and may be hesitant to join. This can limit your networking experience if you want to get out and meet new people. In a social setting, seeing two people engaging in conversation emits an impression of intimacy, so it’s difficult to know whether it is appropriate to enter the conversation. Often the way they are standing says a lot about how open they will be to you joining in – although beware, as there are some gender differences here. Interestingly, women tend to stand more square on when conversing, and men prefer to converse standing more side on. Female pairs therefore are harder to ‘break into’ than male pairs.

5. The short-term gain seeker

It’s in our nature to be inherently impatient and want immediate results. Some people go to a function and assume they will charm everyone with their good looks and wit and walk away with a massive contract, but it seldom happens that way. The key is to be patient and persistent. Networking is a long-term game, and you need to treat it with respect. Many people hear the word ‘networking’ and assume that it is all about going to functions or events. This is only a small part of the bigger picture of being an effective networker. The skilled networkers know that networking is really about how you keep in touch with people, and focus on helping them. It can be fun maintaining contact with people and typically the pay-offs are far more valuable than if you take a shorter-term approach. Never underestimate the networking value of people you meet, you will be amazed by who they know and how they could potentially help you. Impatient networking types are quickly identified by the interrogation-style approach to meeting new people with a succession of quick-fire questions: Who are you? Who do you work for? What do you do? As soon as you respond with answers that don’t interest them, they either appear to lose interest (the darting eyes tell all) or they move on to the next suspect.

6. The comfort zoner

Too many of us are guilty of attending networking events with work colleagues and standing in a close-knit circle talking to the same group of people that we see every single working day. Naturally, we all feel more comfortable walking into events and chatting to people we know. It can often be a better idea to go with one or two people from work, however, and branch out to make new contacts – divide and conquer. If you are hesitant to attend an event alone, take a wingman (or woman) for support. It can be much easier to approach other small groups together and then branch out into your own conversations within that group.

7. The fluffer

We have all met these people and may be guilty of being this person from time to time. These people can be heard when you walk into a room; they dominate conversation and can be accused of being fake. These people will normally engage in conversation, but will not really be listening to what you have to say and are thinking of what they are going to say next. These people are friendly in nature, but commit a very important networking sin – not being committed to establishing genuine relationships and not really being interested in helping others.

We individually need to deal with our own personal networking demons in order to experience greater comfort and success when networking. Many people say they find networking uncomfortable, fake and lacking in any real tangible benefits. Typically, we have these thoughts about networking because we aren’t giving ourselves the best chance to make it successful. Networking is about helping others, regardless of the situation. Avoid these networking sins and wait for the magic to happen.