This stream of thought reminded me of a quote from the movie Inception that has stuck with me. It is when Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) makes the following statement:

“An idea is like a virus, resilient, highly contagious.“

Applying context to marketing, a good idea can be highly contagious. You begin to immediately see the “legs” of the idea and how it can potentially extend out. Whether it is tied to a larger brand campaign, branded content or even an activation, a good idea change the game for a brand.

I had an “Inception” moment when members of my team Brandon Stuart, Creative Director & Mike Chiavetta, Director of Social Strategy @ Fanscape/TMA, began discussing the concept & strategy associated with the Callaway activation that is outlined below. There are moments when the consumer + idea + channel + message = compelling consumer engagement program.

The Callaway Hit The Links activation was the result of a close partnership between Callaway and Linkedin to leverage their API’s and create a relevant connection with the target consumer and overlay a fun concept that is built to be shared.

When it came to developing the creative concept I asked Brandon Stuart, Creative Director at Fanscape to share his thoughts on the program.

“Hit the Links is an example of the potency a concept can have when it is derived at the intersection of creative and strategic thinking.  We set out to create a consumer engagement experience that is truly first of its kind, yet still effective and personable in nature.  Since golf is often an organic dialogue between professionals, Hit the Links positions Callaway as a catalyst that sparks conversations on the biggest professional network in the world.  We are fishing not only where the fish are, but also where no other golf brand has fished.“

When it came to the strategy I asked Mike Chiavetta, Director of Social Strategy at Fanscape to discuss how strategy impacted activation.

“Hit The Links is the result of rigorous immersion with the brand and business. Our mission going into this was to know everything about Callaway so all of our work will result in moving their business forward and create stronger connections with their consumers. The insights we uncovered from recent trends in the category, research planning, social data and consumer behavior gave us the end result of what core golfers desired. Creating an experience that fulfilled those desires was the fun part. Theres nothing like watching all of the pieces fall into place and know coming out that you have something special.”

Here is an overview of the program:

It all starts with a simple invite that comes from the native Linkedin messages feature. By connecting the message from a direct Linkedin connection, we are creating contextual relevance for the recipient, increasing the probability of taking action.

Next you are sent to a visually appealing landing page that outlines the value proposition & call to action. This is the “why” you should engage.

Next is the authentication to connect your network with the program. This is a key point of enablement for the experience. By leveraging the authentication directly and by connecting the user to their network across both mobile & desktop allows us to provide as seamless an experience as possible.

Once connected, you then have the option to begin selecting your golf foursome. The benefit to the consumer is the opportunity to create the “ultimate golf business trip” for you and three of your connections. You pick your ideal foursome and sign up for a chance to win an advanced fitting experience and get a custom built set of clubs, a round of golf & test the new HEX Chrome+ all at Callaway’s headquarters.

The system will auto-generate a golf foursome, or allow you to pick your group from your network. At this point there is also an opportunity to opt-in and view the rules of the promotion.

Once you finalize your group, you are ready to finalize your entry for the day. It is possible to gain additional entries daily with different foursome combinations.

Once your group is finalized, you have the opportunity to let the members you selected know they have been selected and they have the opportunity to create their own entry as well. All messaging is delivered via the Linkedin native message functionality.

Also, there is a sampling initiative tied to the program as well. The first 1,000 participants can claim a box of HEX CHROME+ golf balls courtesy of Callaway to further drive a direct connection of product to the consumer.

I am incredibly proud of the team for this concept & strategy. Key members of the creative team were:

• Brandon Stuart, Creative Director @ Fanscape
• Mike Chiavetta, Director of Social Media Strategy @ Fanscape

Special thanks to Brad Alesi, Director, Digital Engagement @ The Marketing Arm for contributions to the Fanscape Callaway Team.

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The explosion of fitness related wearable technology with the Fit Bit, Nike Fuel Band & the recently launched Jawbone fitness band have led to a rise in mass appeal for wearable technology. The trend has been if the wearable technology provides relevance & utility as a natural extension of our daily lives we are willing to put our time & dollars towards supporting this type of product. For Google Glass, the goal is to further integrate the real world into the Google ecosystem thus creating a natural extension into your daily life, even if you look a bit like Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Google Glass has been the subject of a lot of hype over the past few months. From influencers wearing them at SXSW to recent sightings throughout NYC. What started as a project from Google X Labs is now on the verge of becoming a mainstream device. Whether this will go from Uber nerd category to mainstream essential is yet to be seen, but this will fundamentally impact the intersection of physical & digital moving forward.

Google Glass, What are the specs and what should I expect from the UX?

The recent release of the Google Glass tech specs outline Google’s commitment to bring the product to market and attempt to redefine how we interact with the physical world. The specs include:

• a high resolution display which is equivalent to a 25 inch HD TV from 8 feet away
• 5 MP camera and 720P video
• Bone condution audio transducer
• Wi-fi & Bluetooth enabled
• 12 GB of useable memory synced with Google cloud storage (16 GB total)
• 1 full day of typical use

Outside of the tech specs, I was really interested in diving into the Google Mirror developer API’s. This is where you can really begin to see how Google plans on allowing the developer ecosystem to support the product & experiences moving forward.

One of the core elements of the user experience is tied to the concept of Timeline Cards.  These cards display the top level content that users will see. There are essentially two levels of navigation, with a top level primary and a sub-timeline for easy organization. Timeline cards support text, rich HTML, images or video content. From a brand perspective, understanding the relationship between relevant content & how information is presented & consumed via Timeline cards will be a key area to focus on as launch approaches.

Similar to how Facebook allows the usage of “action objects” to further drive content acceleration and discoverability through the social graph, the Google Mirror API allows the addition of action based interactivity into the app experience. For now commands such as “read aloud”, “reply by voice” and “navigate to” are inherent to the navigation, but this can extend “discover” or other action verbs. More importantly, it will be interesting to track how user actions are then reported back, or ultimately mapped to contextual or location based search. It is easy to see how actions could then be turned into opportunities to share both within the construct of Google & possibly overlays to the physical world via augmented reality tagging or proximity based recommendations.

Subscriptions seem to be a key element to the Google Glass experience. Both from an engagement & tracking standpoint. Subscriptions tell you when users choose specific menu items or when they share to a contact. Once an action is taken, it will be possible to take a specific action, such as share a photo. This will allow branded experiences to see what is truly engaging to the end user.

Location is going to be a key element of Google Glass. If the user opt’s-in and grants access it is possible to use the Google Mirror API to observe the user’s location in timeline items, request their last known location directly, and subscribe to periodic location updates. You can also deliver pre-rendered map images in timeline cards by giving the Mirror API the coordinates to draw. Basically, location is the key attribute to connect the user to their environment that can then be overlaid map data or even with augmented reality interfaces.

The biggest brand opportunities will be tied to mapping users locations with digital overlays to take real-world actions. This is already coming to life through Google’s augmented reality massively multiplayer online game for Android Ingress. Ingress seems to be designed with Google Glass in mind. I will be going into deeper detail around the impact of Ingress and the potential for brands in a future post but brands such as Zipcar & Jamba Juice are already testing the impact that this type of engagement can provide.

What is the potential for Google Glass over the next 3-5 years?

Interconnectivity – The intersection of technology and utility is going to be a key area of focus over the next 5 years. Interconnection between smart grid technology in our homes that intersect with mobile devices such as Google Glass will continue to gain traction. When it comes to wearable technology, the overlay of digital into our everyday lives via products such as Google Glass are just the tip of the iceberg on a new landscape of interaction both physically and socially. Changing the view of real world with digital overlays will continue to develop into a new form of communication and interaction.

Contextual Data – The trend digitally is a movement from mass social interaction towards contextual networks. This same concept will push through wearable technology. You look at the rise of the Nike Fuel band and the gamification and sharability of personal information. This trend will continue to expand beyond fitness into other facets of our lives. Data tied to fitness, work habits, leisure etc… will all begin to create different sets of data that can then be visualized, gamified and used to help us lead more efficient, effective lives.

This also maps to Google’s larger strategy tied to contextual & personalized search. If you watch what is happening from a search standpoint, one of the bigger trends is the move towards personalized & socially enabled search where results will differ by individual, and social weighting of content will be a key driver to determine what search results you see. This coincides with Google Glass, as the intersection of location, search & social are evident based on how the UX is being defined.

Content anywhere – How we consume content has changed significantly over the last decade. Content ubiquity will become accelerated with Google Glass and similar products that provide HD display’s and voice activated controls allowing for access to streaming content on demand. This is just the beginning as paper thin displays and wearable technology continues to evolve. What was once thought to be science fiction is quickly becoming reality.

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Having a streamlined user experience across both desktop and mobile are absolutely critical with today’s users. Just as visual storytelling has taken over how brands leverage social platforms, having a clean, clear and concise mobile entry point into a branded experience is key to driving engagement & action by the user.

Whether it’s driving brand awareness, showcasing products or benefits, or simply trying to drive leads, having a mobile landing experience that focuses on a very clear call to action, with clear and concise copy along with imagery or video that is core to driving the user through a pre-determined path is the key to maximizing the initial mobile experience.

Another core element to consider is the impact that responsive design can have for a brand vs. having a separate desktop and mobile experience, by leveraging responsive design during the build out of both desktop and mobile, you can maximize the user experience across platforms.

Here is a breakdown of simple Do’s & Dont’s to consider.

Do’s:

• Incorporate visual elements while maximizing opportunities for engagement
• Keep copy clear and concise
• Be very specific as to the call to action and make sure that the it is incorporated into the design and kept above the fold
• Do consider optimizing the content for load time
• Do consider responsive design for both web & mobile to keep the experience consistent yet relevant across both desktop and mobile

Dont’s:

• Do not just have your website as the default without mobile consideration (bad ux, too much content, difficult to navigate)
• Avoid too much content
• Avoid too many fields
• Don’t just have a list of categories as the primary experience
• Don’t overload the mobile experience to weigh down load times

Examples:

Good: Crowdsworth | Responsive Design

Here is the mobile version highlighting the sites responsive design

Good: Nike | Clean UX & Clear Call to Action

Good: Red Bull | Strong use of visual and call to action that leads to deeper engagement as you scroll

Bad: Chivas Whiskey | There is no mobile optimization present, essentially the site is the mobile landing page. At a minimum create a unique entry experience for the mobile user

Some of my commentary was included in the article that recently posted.

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Here is the commentary on page 30.

Commentary continued

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Twitter launched Vine on January 24th, 2013 and it has not left the top 20 in the app store since launch. Vine’s six second video loops are quick, lightweight pieces of content that are ideal for social sharing. Initially launched via a mobile app for iOS  (Android app in development) this high-level version of an animated gif is quick & easy to capture. Just point your device, touch the screen and the app records up to 6 seconds allowing for starts & stops.

According to Tech Crunch, Vine (2.8% penetration) has taken an early lead over the likes of Viddy (0.5) & Socialcam (0.2).  There is significant opportunity tied to short form video assets & social sharing as the same article referenced that 98% of overly active users shared photos whereas only 4% shared video.

With the recent changes announced by Facebook and the importance of visual content that drives engagement, having the opportunity to create short-form content may be a powerful tool for brands to consider.

Vines can be a powerful addition to a solid content strategy. Whether it’s showcasing supplementary branded content or simply finding a relevant extension of your brand to highlight, Vine can provide yet another option to keep users attention.

Here are 12 examples of Vine in Action:

1) Drive awareness to an experiential event
BeatsByDre teased the opening of it’s SXSW Pill Clinic with this Vine.

2) Share Unique Branded Experiences
Urban Outfitter’s SXSW alien teased via Vine

3) Highlight Brand Advocates
Kid Robot highlighted a user’s Vine

4) Pop-Culture Co-Creation in Action
Houston Texans merge their fans & brand with pop culture relevance

5) Preview Products
Intel is leveraging Vine to preview technology

6) Highlight a Cause
OKC Thunder highlighting a social cause via Vine

7) Extend the Brand Persona
Trident is using Vine to extend the core attributes of their brand

8) Preview with visual context
Warner Bros. promoting a movie with relevant context

9) Share Important News
Kickstarter announces a record

10) Drive promotional awareness
Sacramento Kings showcasing promotional items

11) Leverage Vine for promotion
Regal Cinemas leveraged Vine as part of a promotional announcement

12) Fan Appreciation
Chick-Fil-A show fans appreciation via Vine

Be aware when leveraging Vine that there are issues with quality control, as the current version does not allow moderation. The focus should be less on community building & aggregation and more focused on creating content that is then distributed through owned channels.

Also note that it is important to determine the message that is to be conveyed and ensure that it ladders back to the core attributes and persona of the brand prior to just filming.

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Always looking for any reason to post about Darth Vader

Dark posts sound more ominous than they actually are. No, these are not posts by some secret society or the underbelly of Facebook. Dark posts are a type of ad unit that does not get organic distribution via a brands owned presence.

Basically, the unit would look like a Facebook page post ad unit, only the post does not actually exist on the brands timeline. The post is created for the sole purpose of targeting a very specific and relevant message to it’s intended target. This opens up a number of possibilities to segment messaging to a specific audience (male vs. female, different age demo’s, etc..) with the benefit of the rich creative of page post ads vs. standard marketplace units without compromising the brands publishing cadence.

Today, Facebook announced that dark posting is now supported directly in the News Feed. This is most likely tied to the upcoming changes to the newsfeed to further extend the targeting and segmentation for brands without overposting across feed types.

According to Facebook… “This functionality will allow you to access our most engaging placement on the site while still preserving the tone of your Page. Therefore, you can optimize your ads by creating different versions of the same message to see which one performs best. All advertisers will see this change in the placements section when they create an ad or sponsored story using the dark post via the create flow, Power Editor or API.”

Twitter has also enabled Dark posting options as part of their paid suite of ad tools. If you are looking to further segment or target a specific activation or promotion, Dark Post types are an option that will provide additional context to the target without compromising the communication to the whole.

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“From the beginning, our goal with News Feed was different from any other social service was trying to provide… You should be able to share any content that you want. Status updates, links, photos, etc… You should be able to share with any audience that you want, publicly, with the world, with just friends, or privately” – Mark Zuckerberg

Here are feature highlights from today’s announcement:

The newly designed newsfeed will start rolling out in limited rollouts today with a focus on a “mobile first” design.

The new design is heavily reliant on the ability to segment content by feed type allowing for more control:

• All Friends will showcase everything your friends are sharing. This feed will highlight friend content and add a “facepile” type of overlay to the side of the story to show who has shared the content. Social connectivity is highlighted as the intersection of timeline & the newsfeed becomes more pervasive with the inclusion of friends “add a friend” which allows you to see more about that person directly in the news feed.

• Photos will provide a feed with nothing but photos from your friends and Brand Pages you like.

• Music a feed with posts about the music users listen to.

• Following, a feed with the latest news from the Pages you like and the people you follow, think of this as a Facebook “newspaper” feature.

Within the News Feed design, photos are getting larger in the new design and attachments from links will also get more space. This will include a much larger image, a more prominent title, and a longer summary to accompany a linked story.

This is great, but what does this mean as a brand? 

Visual Enablement: Further enabling visual storytelling and cross platform consistency are at the heart of the change. One of the forgotten elements previously is the brands cover photo. Yes, it will pop in the newsfeed when the image changes, but with the refresh the cover photo will be pulled into page “Like” stories in the news feed for both organic & paid. This will provide more context about the page, but also provides another opportunity for the brand to be relevant and engaging with their cover photo & profile photo combination. More frequent updates may be required to ensure that brands are maximizing their opportunities.

Also note that when people and pages post photos, Facebook will try to display the caption on top of the image if the caption is legible and the image does not contain text and when the image is of sufficient size (at least 425x157px). This puts additional emphasis on either minimal or extremely engaging copy.

Engagement: The core motivation of this revamp is focused solely on keeping users engaged by allowing more freedom and control over the platform and the information that is relevant for them. Facebook is positioning this change as a more engaging place for brand messages. The goal is to get more people spending time reading and interacting with the news feeds and this should beget more opportunities for us a marketers to reach & engage with our audience.

In my opinion it is too early to tell whether this is good or bad news for brands. The fear from a brand perspective is to lose engagement opportunities by being relegated to a lower visibility feed such as the “following” feed, which currently will not support paid at the initial rollout, but Facebook left it open for opportunities later this year.

Also, one key point to consider, the affinity & engagement of content is key in this new structure, as the more individuals engage with content, the higher the position within the feeds. Obviously this is a key attribute of EdgeRank, but engagement on a post level is still as important as ever. Facebook did confirm that as of now the change is mainly aesthetic for desktop and there will not be a change to Edgerank as it stands today, however this is something that continues to evolve and I would not be surprised if there are changes when the change is fully rolled out to the public.

Paid: The initial rollout will focus on better utilizing paid assets via incremental value adds vs. new streams tied to feeds . but Facebook did leave the door open for injected paid units into subsequent feeds such as “following”. Let’s fast forward for a moment, the new feeds will offer more opportunities to append paid for both small & large advertisers as a whole. The new model also reinforces spend on the post level to further drive visibility of content across feeds. It will be interesting to test media against feed types as units become available as the new design looks to further enhance existing units and offer more opportunities for engagement.

Example of new Page Post Ads

Example of new Sponsored Ads

Brand Reach & Visibility:  More real-estate should theoretically increase the throughput of branded content if it is optimized for EdgeRank. This also reinforces the importance of having a relevant content strategy that can maximize content distribution across the various feeds. The thought is that this change will net more visibility for brands moving forward. The key to increasing reach and visibility is to combine organic engagement and then amplify the content via paid that is driving engagement naturally. This Pwned Media approach will optimize paid while leveraging the best of organic engagement to propel content and further drive impactful brand reach & visibility.

The assumption on increased engagement through segmentation/multiple feeds may have an initial lag. The native user behavior of the primary newsfeed as the consumer catch-all and primary point of engagement will remain for awhile until users are reconditioned to filter feeds. One of the inherent benefits of the news feed over the last six years has been tied to the simplicity and minimal effort on behalf of the user to engage with content. It remains to be seen how much usage the secondary feed options will see in terms of interaction type.

Analytics:  From an analytics perspective, my hope is to also append feed distribution as an option to track content performance. This would then inform content decisions in addition to social interactions to further optimize content for optimal impact. As it stands today, Facebook has stated there will be no immediate impact on performance, and they will continue to monitor various performance metrics, including performance of Page posts and paid media.

Here is a link to Join the waiting list for the new News Feed.

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I have recently written a number of posts on the subject of Facebook publishing from the intersection of Paid & Owned, the importance of visual storytelling and best practices for optimizing content. All of these topics are relevant to this conversation and further frame the importance of the following statement:

“Everything happens in the newsfeed vs brand pages“

This was an incredibly simple statement that all of us who publish on behalf of brands sometimes take for granted. The numbers definitely back up the statement with 115 billion impressions served daily via desktop and 65 billion newsfeed impressions served daily via mobile.

Think about your own behavior when it comes to interacting with brand related content on Facebook. How often are you clicking through to a brands page to consume their content? This divide is even better visualized when it comes to users mobile interactions?

Where do you consume brand messages on the desktop?

This becomes even more apparent via mobile!

The reality is most social interaction happens via the newsfeed. Interactions being likes, comments and shares. Most brands approach content publishing from the perspective that users come to the brands page and consume their content in a linear manner. The reality is brands need to create a publishing strategy that is optimized for Edgerank and based on deliberate content buckets that are relevant & engaging for the brands audience that can be consumed in a non-linear manner but still represent the core social persona of the brand. This requires a detailed strategy that is grounded in the core attributes of the brand that then leads to content pillars that are designed to maximize engagement.

The following graphic represents the % breakdown across interaction types.

With so much consumption happening via the newsfeed, shouldn’t the in-stream experience/opportunities be as relevant and compelling as possible? This leads me to what I see as the next step in the evolution of brand publishing and that is going a step beyond visual storytelling and incorporating compelling interactive experiences to enhance the publishing strategy.

The recent announcement and coverage of Stipple’s Facebook support and subsequent usage by Justin Timberlake to provide interactive cover art is a glimpse into the future of newsfeed publishing.

Interactive posting is not a new concept. I remember first seeing this executed by Vitrue’s platform back in 2011 via the Buffalo Wild Wings example below. Leveraging this type of interactive content publishing was one of the enabling factors that has driven Buffalo Wild Wings to acquire over 9 million fans. Their content strategy has led to an engagement rate of 4.8% over the last 30 days with over 477,000 interactions. Having a point of differentiation in-stream has led to positive results for the brand.

The number of vendors supporting interactive posting in-stream has grown since 2011 with shops such as Shop Igniter providing solutions that are optimized to support rich interactive in-stream campaigns to drive lead generation, giveaways, promotions, etc…

The real key point of differentiation now vs. then is the ability to create immersive newsfeed experiences for both desktop & mobile by leveraging responsive design. Now it becomes easier to publish across both desktop & mobile to drive in-stream & even in-app (Facebook’s app) interaction.

The example below shows an example from Shop Igniter’s platform that enables in-stream video that then drives to a mobile optimized experience based on responsive design that allows the flexibility of staying within the application, but also allows the addition of an action object in the experience that extends the reach of a users action beyond the newsfeed into the activity ticker. This is a key element to further drive distribution and discoverability of content as well as the fact that the newsfeed does not support action objects directly.

The GoPro example is a great example of a light weight execution that does not rely on driving to an end destination to generate engagement & story creation. This in my mind is the next evolution of content publishing in-stream.

Similar to the evolution of static banners to rich media, creating compelling content that is optimized for EdgeRank, light weight in design and contains the experience within the existing stream and Facebook application across both desktop and mobile that also taps into the social graph to append actions is an ideal addition to an owned content strategy.

This also maximizes the principles of real-time paid amplification that I have discussed in the past because these are actual posts being created on Facebook’s platform that can fit seamlessly into a paid media strategy.

The other benefit to this type of publishing is the engagement data on the content level that can drive further optimization of content moving forward. By tracking impressions, engagement rate and social actions, we can directly map to our core KPI’s.

When it comes to Facebook, it is not enough to just have a content calendar. It is incredibly important to have a true strategic framework that outlines the brands publishing strategy and how the content will be optimized to drive targeted reach, but it is also important to leverage interactive assets to drive tangible results and activation where appropriate.

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Now it is possible to add a data driven overlay to an image that can create connections directly from the newsfeed that allow users to take action. Whether it is to drive to a branded destination such as the brands Facebook brand page or .com, create a quick path to purchase opportunity by linking the image to an e-commerce based product, embed a link to videos that relate to the image, or create additional connections as outlined below.

Today’s announcement is a huge addition for those of us who manage Facebook brand properties. Combine this with my recent discussions associated with visual storytelling to drive engagement and you can create a rich experience that can immediately extend the reach of a static image.

With a majority of engagement happening directly from the newsfeed, adding a rich content overlay to images can optimize associations related to the content. The combinations and support possibilities are endless. Whether it’s supporting branded content, promotion, acquisition, etc… the flexibility to tag and append content to an image is a great way to maximize story creation and connection throughout an integrated approach across channels.

In November of 2012, Stipple rolled out the ability to support Twitter publishing. From a single Tweet you can surface videos, photos, etc.. in-stream vs pushing to another destination. Adding a rich content overlay through this media is a great way to extend static images, or link to terms & conditions for a Twitter driven promotion, etc…

I first noticed a Stipple execution by IKEA and I immediately saw the potential. The ability to claim attribution, but also create a centralized experience with various access points is something that create additional value for online retailers. I immediately started to tout the benefits to this approach, but there were limitations to social sharing until today. Now with the additional support for Facebook & Twitter, the value of this platform increases exponentially for those who drive owned asset creation & publication.

It’s one thing to publish and push content out, but having the ability to measure the engagement and reach of each individual image and the interactions that Stipple creates is another advantage to leveraging this platform. As you can see below, Stipple allows the tracking of engagement and reach so image interactions can be applied into the current KPI’s associated with your publishing strategy.

I would definitely recommend evaluating Stipple and the potential impact to your publishing strategy.

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