BlackFin360 – Innovation To Reality
Tom Edwards is a professional futurist and keynote marketing technology speaker covering data, digital, artificial intelligence, marketing technology and emerging media trends
I will be a part of the 9:15 am- 10:15 am time slot discussing the power of live sports programming and how Social TV is engaging viewers and driving new revenues at home and in arenas & stadiums. Here is the full list of speakers.
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When you are part of the “idea” business you spend a lot of time thinking, curating and throwing things (figuratively & sometimes literally) against the wall. Sometimes things stick, sometimes there are dead ends, but you are always in search of the slightest germ of an idea to spark creativity.
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.”
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:
Special thanks to Brad Alesi, Director, Digital Engagement @ The Marketing Arm for contributions to the Fanscape Callaway Team.
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My commentary was recently included in a TechNewsWorld article discussing Yahoo’s new approach to weather & e-mail via mobile and how they are focused on visual storytelling and curation to create a richer experience.
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By now you have most likely heard through the grapevine (last “vine” pun I promise) about Twitter’s new Vine app and it’s many pros & cons. Many call Vine the Instagram of video as it goes beyond static images by allowing for 6 seconds of context tied to pictures, motion & sound in the form of looping videos optimized to be shared.
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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We have seen the Dark Knight Rise, we have seen Darth Vader give in to the dark side, we have seen a very dark rabbit in Donnie Darko. What do each of these film references have to do with Dark posting? Nothing unless they are deploying dark post ad units to promote themselves.
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 or as they call it “Narrow Casting” 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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Today Facebook held an event to announce the first major change to the Facebook News Feed in six years. The theme reinforced by the Facebook team was reduction of clutter by providing more choice and control over the content and stories users will see in their feeds.
“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:
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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Today I met with one of my local Facebook team members as we were partnering on a client initiative and our conversation sparked an interesting thought about the future of newsfeed publishing and how brands should be thinking about maximizing their publishing strategies as Facebook’s platform continues to evolve.
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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I have been following Stipple for a while now and with today’s big announcement tied to Facebook support launched the platform to the forefront of my mind to support social content & publishing strategies. What is Stipple? If you have not heard about the service, Stipple allows you to embed interactive hotspots into an image to create additional connections directly within the image. Today’s announcement is key for those who manage owned properties as now Stipple supports direct publishing support via Facebook a feature that has been missing to date.
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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Recently, I had the privilege to speak at the Dallas Digital Summit discussing the convergence of owned & paid media. The talk covered the importance of visual storytelling and the intersection of real-time paid amplification.
One of the outputs of the presentation is a new phrase that better defines the intersection of paid & owned media. Being a gamer of course I gravitated towards “PWNED media” as the new descriptor for this emerging trend.
There is a consistent theme coming from Facebook regarding owned content strategies. Whether it’s a Facebook conference, on-site at Menlo Park or other interactions with Facebook team members you will consistently hear the phrase “Storytelling”.
This definitely makes sense as Facebook’s platform is organized around the generation and amplification of stories.
With this in mind, one of the more powerful elements to incorporate into an owned content strategy is visual storytelling.
Think about this for a moment… when we were first learning to read, our parents most likely used picture books to begin to create associations between visual images and the context of the story.
The same thing still happens now as adults.
A picture paints a 1000 words, images are more powerful storytellers than words. Within Facebook, timeline now showcases and rewards brands that use visual imagery to help tell the brands story.
In the past I have written about the importance of Edgerank as well as recent changes to the algorithm. In order to optimize owned content, it is important to drive engagement around that content.
Creating engaging visual content is definitely the first step to maximize the platform, but there is another step to further drive the reach and impact of visual content.
This is where the paid portion of “PWNED Media” comes into play. Instead of having a separation between owned content & paid campaigns, there should be an intersection to drive a more efficient media spend.
One of the ideal methods to drive engagement both within an existing fan base and beyond is to execute real-time amplification of engaged content.
In layman’s terms take owned content that people are already engaging with and add it to the targeted paid inventory to further maximize the reach of content that people already find interesting.
This is done by setting a pre-determined virality rate based on the size of the fan base and a carefully calculated threshold based on engagement.
This ensures that content that users find compelling can be maximized on behalf of the brand and also serve as an acquisition driver for like-minded fans that align with the persona of the brand.
To my knowledge only 2 brands are actively executing a “PWNED Media” strategy and I lead the social strategy for one of them. If you are interested in hearing more about real-time amplification in action please reach out to me.
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Recently Facebook announced one of the biggest changes to their search feature to date with the limited beta release of Graph Search. Mark Zuckerberg stated Graph Search would become the third pillar of the Facebook experience in addition to the News Feed and Timeline. This post will review the features of Graph Search while also outlining what it all means.
Here is the official announcement from Facebook
The creation of Graph Search is reflective of the current direction of social which is the inevitable convergence of social and search. With so much information being created and limited alignment between traditional search and the social graph, Graph Search could be a key bridge to a new type of search behavior based on relevant and timely socially curated content.
Example of Bing Facebook integration which applied social as an additive to traditional search. Graph Search takes the inverse approach of searching inside of Facebook.
When you begin to dig into the initial information about Graph Search, it is not intended to be a true web search engine like Google or Bing, but an engine that will search out information across all of Facebook and provide personalized answers to queries about people, photos, places & interests.
Here are various examples of the types of searches that can be conducted.
Here is an example of my friends in San Francisco, as well as recommendations of individuals with similar interests in the area.
Here is an example that leverages Friends Check-In’s via social graph data to uncover Restaurants that may be of interest when in London
Here is an an example of the capability to search for specific types of photos either that you as a user have liked, or topical such as the recent Red Bull Stratos jump.
The Search Graph is a natural extension of the curation of social graph data. By creating deeper connections across interests and access to crowdsourced information, Facebook will now be enabling a cleaner connection to relevant content beyond simply searching for users, brands and apps.
This immediately jumps to questions of privacy from a users perspective. The current explanation is that the Graph Search will honor your privacy settings and only show information to your friends if your privacy is not set to public.
WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?
For starters this will eventually play into the Facebook revenue model. Initially this will be an ad free feature, but make no mistake, by further aligning interests with broader behaviors beyond a profile, it will help to further enable personalization as a search and interest overlay and will become an even more accurate tool to re-target relevant ads.
Also, by adding this as a third pillar, Facebook will eventually be able to monetize against Facebook centric search in a similar manner to how Twitter can place ads via search results with their various promoted products.
Here is an example of a Disney Twitter query that immediately ties into the upcoming Hansel & Gretel movie as a paid unit.
From a brand perspective, this will mean more avenues to differentiate via search results. If the users behaviorally adopt the new way to engage with the rich and relevant content within the social graph, then placement upon search category & interest relevance will be at a premium.
Similar to Google Adwords & promotion of Google+ accounts, brand positioning associated with search may become the new premium Facebook units if users adopt the platform.
It will be interesting to see if the existing Facebook recommendation engine will be put into service as the vehicle that enables placement associated with the results of the search. I did recently speak directly with Facebook and confirmed that the current recommendation engine is not a brand controlable asset, meaning it is not currently part of the paid options to insert a brand, it is strictly algorithm based. But with this new development, the recommendation engine may be a critical component to differentiate from the rest and that will most likely come with a cost.
Example of the Facebook Recommendation Engine for Apps
I am certain that this will have a significant impact on Facebook as a platform moving forward. The amount of objects being added to the social graph will continue to scale at an exponential rate as the introduction of action objects (verbs) into the social graph in addition to all of the various pieces of content that create via interactions with Facebook will now be applied to a system that will make connections beyond the individual more feasible and better align individuals and brands.
Building a system that can now quickly mine relevant information that is based on interests and likes vs. traffic is an interesting proposition, especially when applying the overlay of your social graph with real world use cases such as finding a restaurant recommendation in a new city through the platform you already check 20 times a day.
While there was no immediate mobile support announced, previous behavior suggests that this will also further drive the move towards mobile enablement. If you are able to extend your social graph beyond 1:1 interactions to actually leveraging the data while you are on the go, this is an incredibly important addition and one that will have a significant impact on the future of Facebook’s mobile ad platform.
It will also be interesting to see if a new algorithm, such as edgerank for the newsfeed, can be organically impacted by the amount of followers to a brand (similar to Google+ recommendations via search) or if other factors such as engagement or virality rates will impact which content types (brand content) will be served.
Example of the EdgeRank Algorithm
Facebook initially has recommended the following:
1) The name, category, vanity URL, and information you share in the “About” section should be up to date.
2) If you have a location or a local place Page, update your address to make sure you can appear as a result when someone is searching for a specific location.
There was also an ominous tease towards other factors defining search results. Some early thoughts are possibly tied to engagement & virality rates. It will be interesting to monitor the progression of Graph Search with no immediate mobile version, no Instagram integration, API’s and English only at this stage of the beta, we will monitor the evolution of Graph Search and Facebook SEO.
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Recently my commentary was featured in a DM Confidential article discussing the Top 10 Best Practices for Creating Effective Landing Pages for Lead Generation.
When it comes to platform providers, I am a big fan of the KickoffLabs product offering. I highly recommend their offerings when creating viral landing pages & beyond.
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On September 20th, 2012 Facebook rolled out a significant change to their EdgeRank algorithm. This change directly impacted the organic reach of brand pages on Facebook. According to initial reports, this change has potentially impacted organic reach for brand pages with a decrease per post upwards of 50%.
After the initial announcements, instead of simply reporting what the changes were, I wanted to see what a month’s worth of data would look like to truly gauge the impact that our brands are seeing. Prior to jumping into the results, let’s quickly recap how we got to this point.
WHY THE CHANGE?
Here is a quote from Facebook’s Q2 earnings call… “Feed quality is crucial in order to not turn off users” – Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook is laser-focused on making sure the integrity of a users newsfeed stays as relevant as possible. With billions of pieces of content being shared, and brands trying to drive organic engagement through content, Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm serves as the overarching authority of what content ultimately gets surfaced to an individual user. Here is a previous post outlining EdgeRank.
Facebook also strives to maintain an 80/20 mix with 80% of the content coming from relevant organic content and the other 20% coming from paid units. The goal is to streamline the newsfeed to reduce the impact of “spammy” messages while seamlessly integrating their paid offerings.
Now with the throttling back of organic brand reach, this may force brands into making decisions about how to proceed.
WHAT IS THE POTENTIAL IMPACT?
Early reports indicated that the new changes take into account the number of individuals who are most likely to take an action on behalf of the brand and removing impressions to users who are less likely to take action such as Like, comment or share. SocialBakers and other groups have reported average post’s reach dropped by roughly 50% since September 20th.
Working with Michael Fein, Fanscape’s Director of Research & Analytics, we took a cross section of 20 tier 1 accounts over the course of 30 days to gauge the impact before and after the September 20th date. To summarize, it appears that by Facebook tightening their formula, they are giving less reach to an individual brand, but that the reach they are eliminating is the reach that was not converting. We saw a decrease in organic reach, but a slight net increase in virality. (Virality defined as engagements / reach).
That said, we saw organic reach change by -4.3%. Industry reports noted a -6.5% shift. This means, (compared with -6.5%) our decrease was 33% less than the average decrease on Facebook. By following best practices tied to our brands content, we were able to reduce the impact but the fact remains that this change will cause fundamental changes in how we approach engagement rate KPI’s and the owned & paid mix.
HOW TO MAXIMIZE THE OPPORTUNITY
After the September 20th change, brands can earn their media or pay for it, or both. In order to drive organic reach, brands will need to continue to focus on an engaging content strategy. To truly maximize content that is driving engagement, paid amplification of content is strongly recommended. Below are recommendations to continue to maximize reach through engagement.
Primary recommendations:
Engaging Content Strategy – This is a best practice and consistently the focus of most Facebook conferences/events/briefings that I have attended. Brands should provide contextual quality/relevant content grounded in the social persona of the brand. According to Facebook, content should be as compelling as information shared by friends and family to break through the clutter.
One strategy that we have seen be very effective is to be very deliberate in the creation of a branded content calendar. This includes developing content buckets that are a direct extension of the social brand persona. Segmenting content by type makes it even easier to track the impact of each type of content and provides consistency & diversity of content. This includes following best practices tied to time of posting as well as mixing UGC with relevant branded content.
Here is an example of a brand campaign extension from Snickers. This content would fall in a “branded content bucket”. It is visually interesting and extends the new “Horseless Headsman” Halloween campaign. Other forms of content could be tied to polls/trivia, pop-culture or brand partnerships. Again, each content bucket is grounded in the core attributes of the brands social persona (voice).
Paid Amplification – We have worked with Facebook directly on a number of campaigns and our focus prior to the September 20th change has been to create relevant and engaging content that resonates with our brands fans. Prior to the change, we had also begun to experiment with creating engagement thresholds tied to content “events” that can trigger amplification of content.
An event is any piece of organic content that receives a high amount of engagement. We then work to create a virality rate that ultimately becomes a threshold for organic content. Once the threshold has been exceeded the content can become a part of the paid Facebook inventory for a brand. This strategy ensures that the content that is most likely to drive engagement is amplified to maximize reach. This also allows for acquisition beyond the core base as the paid components allow affinity targeting beyond the current user base.
Here is an example of how it can work. This is a post from the AT&T On The Way To Saturday campaign. By driving engagement levels past a certain point, for this example if the post exceeded 1000+ likes, it could then be considered for amplification in the model mentioned above with increased targeting tied to college football even more specific, University of Georgia fans.
Here is another example that shows an organic brand post that has been amplified. Note the clear call to action to share. This is another important element tied to driving sharability and engagement with content.
Secondary Recommendations:
Targeted Content – I had recently wrote about the new targeting abilities tied to posting content. A quick recap, brands now have the unique ability to target beyond language and location and focus more on demographic and interest targeting. Targeting content is going to prove to be a very valuable asset in brands content strategies moving forward. The ability to speak directly to certain audience segments on the post level can have greater impact if the content is relevant to the target. By targeting/personalizing the content to the segment can lead to greater engagement rates which leads to increased organic reach based on engaged content amplifying through a users friends.
Facebook Branded Groups – I recently wrote about the potential benefits of Facebook Branded Groups that are currently in Beta. Branded groups can provide many benefits for a brand, including the ability to further segment and target messaging, either by group topic or content within a group.
One of the key benefits to leveraging branded groups is the fact that when a brand posts to a group that user is subscribed to, the content updates show up directly in a users Facebook notifications. This is one of the only ways that branded content can show up in a users notifications outside of the brand directly interacting with the user. Note that the Facebook Brand Groups are in beta and require the assistance of your Facebook rep.
Interest Lists – One additional method to drive greater visibility of branded content is to direct users to action to see a majority of a brands posts. When a user hovers over the “Like” button on a brand page, they will see a drop-down menu. On this list they can be directed to ”ADD TO INTEREST LISTS”. The user can then create an interest list to ensure content associated with this interest is given a stronger weighting. This obviously puts the onus on the user to take action to maintain visibility of your content.
Even though organic reach has been somewhat throttled, virality rates are increasing for content that does get served. But note that more effort may be required to meet Reach KPI’s that were set prior to September 20th. Be sure to re-evaluate your KPI’s and client expectations, focus on creating engaging & contextually relevant content and strongly consider amplifying content that exceeds certain engagement thresholds.
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I was chosen as one of the speakers for the upcoming Dallas Digital Summit which will be held on December 4th-5th at Union Station here in Dallas, TX.
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This afternoon my commentary was featured in a PRWeek article discussing the social platform provider ThisMoment and their DEC publishing platform.
The interview covers many topics associated with my usage of their platform over the past few years on behalf of brands such as AT&T.
Here is a link to the full article.
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Recently a new Facebook feature rolled out of beta that can provide brands with a viable process to connect their offline CRM databases to those users on Facebook. Now, this process of custom audience list targeting has just rolled out to all brands who advertise on Facebook.
This new feature can be a significant enabler for a brand, as most have larger customer databases outside of the social sphere (after years of traditional CRM outreach) than they have engaged on their social properties.
With Facebook’s new targeting capabilities, brands can bridge the connection of their offline data through social channels. By targeting the exact individuals that the brand already has or had a relationship with, the impact of the targeted reach can be greatly enhanced.
With the new Power Editor, the brand has the ability to identify “who” they want to target beyond the general parameters that have been available. This applies to current customers, prospects, people who like specific products, lapsed users, etc… The ability to take these offline lists and create custom audiences via Facebook’s ad platform is a major step forward for the platform and allows a greater level of targeting to a base that has already established a self-selected affinity towards the brand at some point in that customers brand life cycle.
Brands can create lists based on email addresses, phone numbers, etc.. that represent the groups of people in a CRM database. These elements are then matched to Facebook’s own records to create the custom lists.
In terms of ownership of the data, Facebook does not receive the brands customer data fully. The data is protected and resides on your local computer, then the data is imported via hashes. Facebook then matches the hashes to it’s own records and deletes the data. All that remains is a custom target list. This list is then tied to the individuals Facebook ad account. No other advertisers can use the list.
My recent discussions with Facebook state that their clients have seen a higher ROI based on beta interactions. This applied to higher conversion rates, lower cost per fan, lead or reengaged users than with other campaigns.
Brands have the ability to create unlimited lists at no cost and have the ability to keep audiences up to date. One additional benefit, is that it is possible to map the custom lists to those who have and have not liked the page.
This option is not available at the page level, but only as part of the advertising platform. The ability to marry offline data with Facebook’s social graph to further amplify existing connections is a key addition to the platform.
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Linkedin has proven to be an incredible asset for B2B Social Media Strategy & execution. With Hubspot defining Linkedin (45%) as the most effective B2B source for lead generation followed by Facebook at 33%.
Linkedin rolled-out company status updates last October, and followed that release up with a revamp to company pages including the addition of the Company Follow button, Today’s announcement highlighting the new look for company pages demonstrates they are taking the next step in their follower ecosystem strategy.
A few brands have been hand selected to test drive the new look and feel. This list includes Philips, Citi, HP and Dell for company updates and American Express, Unilever & Expedia are testing the newly revamped Careers section.
Previously, this was the view of a Linkedin Company page. Simple CTA’s outlining an overview of the company, the ability to follow, updates and potential connections.
The older services tab provided an opportunity for 3rd party validation of a companies services.
The new look and feel features a streamlined user experience that structures content in a more natural manner. You will notice the company updates look more like a traditional social stream with added capabilities for companies tied to easier sharing & additional emphasis on visual imagery. And for the first time, company pages are now available via Linkedin’s mobile app.
The services tab also received slight adjustment to further align a consistent look & feel with the core brand hub.
The changes coincide with a network wide emphasis on streamlining the overall experience and enabling brands to connect with followers on a deeper more targeted basis.
Linkedin has traditionally been a network reserved for B2B targeting, but with more emphasis targeting individuals who leverage the powerful business network, the ability to drive 3rd party validation, targeted advertising that can support cross social channel promotion, and a streamlined interface to further drive engagement, Linkedin should be considered when developing a cross channel social strategy that includes targeting individuals that are key to Linkedin’s user base.
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Today featured a rather large announcement from Twitter regarding the future of their advertising product. According to multiple sources the announcements hit the wire today. I was at Twitter HQ in San Francisco just a few days ago and the Twitter Interest Graph was a featured topic of discussion. I just received the green light to discuss publicly from Twitter today, so here we go.
Now that the news has been unveiled, let’s take a deeper look at the Twitter Interest Graph and it’s potential impact for our clients. With 140 million users and strong international growth, further developing their ad platform was an obvious next step to drive increased value and offer additional opportunities to monetize their brand relationships.
Currently, the promoted tweets product was focused primarily on amplifying messages to users who were either already following a particular brand or a similar association as deemed by Twitter. Now by introducing the ability to target promoted tweets via other factors such as location and now interests, this opens up the landscape for brands to capitalize on growth and awareness goals that were simply not feasible until now.
An example of this would be American Airlines. Currently, AA could use a promoted tweet to target it’s 415,000 followers or people deemed similar by Twitter. Now, AA could essentially target new users based on interests tied to travel or destinations.
Google has it’s Google Knowledge Graph, Facebook it’s Social Graph and now Twitter has it’s Twitter Interest Graph. This graph, based on 25 top level and 300+ second level “interest categories” in addition to custom interest segments, uses asymmetrical real-time signals by users to drive the correlation with a users interests. In layman’s terms, Facebook shows a direct relationship between an interest and a user via a Like. Twitter takes other signals such as who an individual follows as well as your retweets to make associations of interest. This is also an extension of the logic used by the “who to follow” suggestions on your Twitter homepage.
From an earned media perspective, this definitely changes the game when it comes to driving value from Twitter. I cannot go into the details of the models discussed, but know that based on actual Twitter data the value of a campaign over the course of multiple years is extremely positive.
From a data standpoint, it is still unclear how this data will extend beyond the ad platform. With Facebook’s social graph, we have access to 180 points of data if authorized by the user that includes interest level data. This is incredibly powerful information to create highly relevant experiences and spark action on behalf of a user. As it stands now, and this could change as the graph evolves but today, the data is primarily tied to insights associated with paid campaigns.
Example of Facebook’s Social Graph data points
This is a great next step for Twitter as it continues to evolve it’s platform from simple utility for brands to becoming a major factor in not only impacting real-time and topical events, but harnessing the true power of it’s 140 million users and more closely associate brand goals with better targeting options to truly maximize opportunities.
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Groups on Facebook are nothing new. But if you represent a brand on Facebook, groups for the most part have not been an integral part of your engagement strategy. All of that may be changing as Facebook has begun beta testing groups functionality embedded within brand pages.
To date, groups have been reserved for individuals to create either open or private spaces to collaborate and share information. However, there has not been an option to apply this functionality for brand pages. This can be a significant enhancement if leveraged correctly and in conjunction with other elements of your integrated strategy.
To this point, brands have relied primarily on their timeline to drive a majority of quick hitting conversations that vary based on engagement levels. But deeper discussion and interaction by the brand and consumers has been limited to date to varied apps & tabs that can still lack the level of brand to consumer and peer-to-peer interaction that some brands desire.
If you are a very large brand, having the ability to segment conversations or even isolate campaigns has been difficult to facilitate natively within Facebook. Things are definitely changing with the recent roll out of additional precision targeting to segment content by various attributes beyond location and language, Facebook is making it easier to have multiple conversations with different audience segments.
This may also play a key role in the emergence of the groups for brand pages functionality. By leveraging precision targeting to segment content postings and then push conversations into a central location to further foster the conversation and enable peer-to-peer interaction beyond a single post is potentially a key integration point that brands need to consider.
Having the ability to create a specific group around various topics can further drive engagement and extend campaigns to those who are truly interested. This was prevalent from 2005-2008 during the hey-day of branded forums. The value in understanding who of your core fan base is willing to engage in topical conversation can be a very telling insight.
Brands that have capitalized on the concept of user segmentation to drive brand advocacy via task based interactions have been a key driver in building additional affinity and loyalty for brands such as Chili’s & their Chili-head nation via Facebook.
By taking the first step to natively support topical segmentation, beta brands now have the basis for creating both open and potentially private groups.
Here is a shot of the current group setup options
While open conversation is of key interest, one of the other elements of groups, the private, “invite only” option is also potentially appealing if it rolls out to brands as this may provide a deeper level of interaction with those individuals that the brand deems the most topically or socially influential. This could even be a subset of engaged open group users that are then invited into a private group for unique interaction opportunities.
CNN is one of a handful of beta partners experimenting with groups on their brand page. Groups make a lot of sense for brands that either have a high amount of topical content or campaigns that strive to drive deeper user interaction.
Here are the elements of the groups beta as it exists today on CNN.
Groups are consolidated via a visual tile similar to other tabbed elements. Initially the group tile shows fb icons vs. a branded tile. This may be due to the need to show the number of topical conversation groups that are currently active.
Once you click on the tile you are driven to the standard view for tabbed pages with the option to join a topical group. Groups can also support Facebook media campaigns at this level.
As stated below, anyone can see the group and who’s in it if it is an open group.
Below is the view of the default groups landing page. Content flows in a similar manner to newsfeed with a slight difference associated with the “seen by” call out showcasing how many group members have seen the content.
One nice feature is group centric search.
Meaning users can search for specific keywords based on interest within the group.
It is unknown when the full functionality will be rolled out, but it is possible to work with your Facebook representative to potentially secure a spot in the beta program. As a marketer, it is important to identify the potential value associated with this type of functionality and the impact it can have on a branded presence to drive deeper engagement.
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This morning my new article 5 brands that are Instagram Superstars is the IN FOCUS cover story for iMedia Connection.
The article is an in-depth review of how innovative campaigns from American Airlines, Red Bull, Tiffany’s, Ford & Nike are using visual imagery to evoke emotional responses and to further humanize the brands.
Here is a link to the full article.
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Recently I was interviewed by E-commerce Times about the newly released Foursquare promoted products. The article focuses on the pros & cons tied to Foursquares new promoted updates feature.
Here is a link to the article.
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The purpose of this post is to dive into the recently launched Facebook Trending Video option and how it can potentially amplify branded content.
Trending videos appear as a single newsfeed update and are based on video content created by a user or their friends by open graph enabled apps such as Viddy, SocialCam and Chill. The videos that create the most engagement, such as liked by a friend then may appear as a trending video.
For a campaign that calls for the creation of branded content that is more “reality” vs. fully produced, capturing the content via a socially enabled app can be the first step in pushing content beyond your owned/brand social presence within Facebook.
In a recent discussion with Facebook, it was brought to my attention that the Trending Videos are comprised of both user generated content that is based on relevance as discussed above as well as commercially placed content that is published from open graph enabled apps.
So if your campaign has elements of branded content that are captured by open graph enabled apps then this content has passed the first requirement for commercial placement within the trending video stream. The second step is for the agency or brand to have a relationship with a Facebook account rep to help facilitate the placement.
The benefit of this type of placement in conjunction with other awareness drivers can be a key addition to further amplifying the content via Facebook vs. simply having the content reside in the newsfeed or on a tab within Facebook. As we all know, the real advantage of Facebook is the sheer size of the networks users.
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Today I was a contributor to a Fortune Magazine article Brands are learning to “Say Cheese”
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Microsoft quietly launched so.cl (Pronounced “Social”) yesterday. Developed by Microsoft’s FUSE labs, it is focused on exploring the possibilities of social search.
So.cl is a combination of social networking & search. At it’s heart is social connectivity with like minded people that is topically driven. It combines elements of Google+, Facebook & Pinterest with the underlying goal to further integrate social with search.
With So.cl you can share your searches & help others discover what they might be looking for by aggregating content into topical categories. Many social elements are taken from existing networks. Video Parties are similar to Google+ hangouts. The all too familiar activity stream drives relevant content directly to the user. So.cl also features visually driven topics similar to Pinterest, but the core differentiator is that the content is primarily driven off of a users search results.
So.cl claims that it is an experiment in open search, meaning your searches on So.cl are viewable by other So.cl users and also available to third parties, assuming for relevance & targeted topical advertising. There is the possibility though that this experiment becomes the basis of Microsoft & Facebook’s social search strategy.
Google+ took the first major step in driving connectivity via social search, with the search giant owning 83% of organic search traffic, launching a socially enabled network that also extends via search via the “+1” as well as Google+ direct connect shows how the future of social will become synonymous with search.
You cannot talk about social without referencing Facebook. Facebook’s platform is like a walled garden when it comes to relevant/topical searching outside of Facebook. The “Like” button has become ubiquitous throughout the web, but when it comes to amplifying and connecting via traditional search Facebook is lagging behind Google.
With their recent partnership with Microsoft’s Bing search engine, and so.cl built on Bing API’s, so.cl focuses heavily on discoverability associated with “open search”, this may be the next step in amplifying Facebook topical activity.
So.cl features social sign on with both Facebook & Windows Live ID, which sets the stage for deeper integration into the social graph. One interesting observation when you authenticate via Facebook is that of the 180 data points that can be mined, so.cl only wants your basic info, e-mail & group data. The groups option really peaked my interest as to how they are going to use this data.
One of the interesting options buried in the settings is the ability to set your primary search provider to So.cl to publicly share your posts. So.cl is powered by Bing’s API’s but is branded So.cl.
Similar to Pinterest’s Pin it option, So.cl also deploys a bookmarklet option, essentially providing a quick and easy option to share any web item directly into your so.cl stream.
One key difference from Pinterest is that So.cl allows users to create “Rich Posts” where users can combine interesting images and links on the web and assemble them automatically into a compelling visual montage.
What does So.cl mean for brands? At this point So.cl is still a “research project” and is not designed to take the place of full-featured search & social networking tools, but this project could lead to the future of social + search integration as it pertains to Bing & Facebook. This also provides insight into the coming convergence of search + social.
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So much time is spent defining intricate social strategies across owned social channels. But there are certain branded elements that receive minimal attention that can significantly amplify these efforts.
One such item is how organizations incorporate social elements into their e-mail marketing campaigns. This is relevant as organizations that leverage both e-mail marketing & social channels tend to receive better results for their campaigns according to a report from Vertical Response. This strong correlation can be further amplified by fine tuning the social enablement of the actual messaging.
If you review branded e-mail marketing campaigns you will see inconsistency in how social sharing is enabled. The goal should not be to drive awareness that the channel exists, but to create frictionless sharability of the content and in some cases to also provide relevantly targeted messaging based on the users social graph data.
There are multiple buckets that brands across multiple verticals fall into when representing social connectivity via e-mail.
1) The Social Chicklet – Many brands follow the rule of just adding a socially enabled chicklets to the top or bottom navigation of communication. While paying homage to the brands owned channels, the actual engagement on this style of placement is lower than other methods.
Playstation as well as a majority of brands that reference social channels in this manner go with the approach of simply providing visibility into the fact that their channels exist. There is however a missed opportunity to share the message itself or specific content segments that are worthy of sharing.
2) The Social Call Out – The second level of integration takes the social chicklet & applies a direct call to action that is specific to the desired channel. This at the very least calls out to the user that a certain action needs to be taken that may drive additional value to the user.
In the example below, Fandango provides specific calls to action on what they would like for the user to do with the referenced social channels. FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook
Here are other examples from Eddie Bauer which leverages the facebook share call to action, Macys & Red Envelope.
3) Socially Enabled Content – Xbox deploys a strategy that not only calls attention to their specific channels but also the ability to directly share the content of the e-mail, they also take special care to socially enable each individual content block for maximum sharability.
4) Socially Centric Communication – Some brands have invested efforts to provide communication that directly highlights their social channels and how users can benefit from engaging directly with their channels. The benefit to this approach is that individuals consume different types of information across different channels. By highlighting the benefits that their social channels provide, they are potentially driving the user to action to associate with the brands owned social channels. It is also possible to track the organic growth associated with the call to action to test the impact of the campaign as some brands e-mail databases triple their current fans/followers, etc…
Below is an example from CORT that highlights an individual receiving value and drives a targeted message about a potential value exchange from engaging via their social channel.
Pizza Hut dedicated an e-mail message touting the value of becoming a member by leveraging their current network size, teasing with potential exclusives.
5) Socially Relevant – One of the bigger opportunities for brands is associated with the adoption of social sign on & leveraging open graph data to drive highly targeted recommendations and communication. In my recent post I wrote about the benefits of social sign on and open graph.
From an e-mail standpoint, the ability to pull in relevant open graph elements to further drive socially enabled gifting, such as birthday reminders and socially optimized wish lists come to forefront. These principles can then be applied to driving socially relevant and targeted messaging to drive a user to take action on behalf of either themselves or their closest friends.
Example of how Old Navy could further socially enable a post purchase e-mail
By taking the time to consider how to truly socially optimize e-mail marketing, a brand can truly capitalize on the permissive nature of their users to share their content vs. vaguely eluding to the fact that the brand has social channels.
On a final note, socially enabled sharing when it comes to retail shopping experiences are key across the prime millennial & gen x targets when it comes to point #3 below.
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Back in January I wrote about 3 brand benefits of Klout. Today, Klout launched brand squads, which is their version of brand pages into beta with Red bull as their primary launch partner with more to come in upcoming weeks. Red Bull was also a key innovator with the launch of Facebook timeline for brands as I recently covered as well.
In recent conversations with Klout’s Garth Holsinger, he provided insight into the release of brand pages for Klout. “Previously, a brand was treated like an individual user, which in some cases does not necessarily make the most sense as a Klout score for a brand should mean something different.”
With the new release, Garth’s words ring true in that the new squad pages uncover the top influencers associated with the brand (topic) as well as showcasing the latest Red Bull content and providing a platform for the brand to directly reward influencers with brand centric perks.
Below is an example of the initial beta for the new Red Bull squad page
This presents an interesting dynamic for brands, as they are able to reward those individuals that are already passionate about the brand vs. pushing content to individuals to consume. By aligning influencers directly with the brand, it provides an easy point of connection between brand & influencer.
The example below showcases the top 1000 influencers tied to the topic of Red Bull
The top influencers are determined by +K’s which are given to other users who are influential around specific topics. Note that +K’s are specific to the Klout platform meaning, users who are already engaged with Klout directly are influencing the allocation of +K’s vs. simply using a users Klout score. This is a key point to consider for brands looking to solely use Klout squads as a primary influencer identification & engagement channel.
Top influencers also have an opportunity to receive a news associated with the brand as well as access to brand perks that are centralized within the topical brand page vs. the normal perks location via the navigation.
Normally, perks are exclusive products or experiences that users can earn based on their overall influence tied to their Klout score that are distributed to select influencers based on their topics of authority, location & score. With the introduction of squads, a secondary level of perk associated with topic specific influencers are also available. I have a request in to Klout to confirm if the topical perks are also associated with a premium cost similar to the existing perks program.
This is a significant step forward for Klout as it creates a more relevant experience for brands vs. treating brands as an individual and applying the Klout algorithm solely based on the brands published content. This new model makes more sense from a brand perspective. It will be interesting to see how the topically driven influencers begin to align as the system is predicated on klout’s proprietary +K’s.
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My commentary was included in a Fox Business article discussing social advertising.
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By Tom Edwards
Recently, I attended the Facebook Studio Live event in LA. The keynote speaker was author & Facebook employee Paul Adams of the Global Brand Marketing team. Paul provided a very insightful presentation that proved to be the highlight of the event.
In February I wrote about the importance of Social Sign-On for brands. Paul’s presentation reinforced this message and also provided additional insight into 3 fundamental shifts that are key factors to what is quickly becoming the next iteration of the web.
1) The web is being rebuilt around people
2) Amount of information we can access is increasingly exponential
3) Information is everywhere but our physiological capacity to process information has remained the same
From a marketing standpoint, these shifts also represent a fundamental change in how we as marketers should approach campaign strategy as well as the design of brand sites moving forward.
Lets consider the initial statement “The web is fundamentally being rebuilt around people”. Think about how Facebook has redefined how you as an individual represent your virtual persona. You show affinity towards brands via Likes, your opinion and interaction with others are the keys to fueling the algorithm that shows you the most relevant content. You select the types of content that you interact with from the sources that you deem have value. In essence, you are now in control.
The side effect to this control is that you are also providing extensive amounts of data via your social graph that now allow for more personalized experiences across the web.
Web experiences have evolved from the early dot com days of simply repurposing marketing materials to becoming more interactive by nature. The web as it stands today, represents incremental innovation when it comes to true integration of social with branded web sites. Strategies today involve “bolting on” social features. This meets a basic need of interconnection, but the brands who will truly capitalize on the next iteration of the web will provide a social by design approach that drives frictionless and relevant engagement to its users.
Examples of this concept are beginning to appear across the web as more organizations begin to adopt open graph principles into their brand presence. One example is Etsy. When you initially look at a site such as Etsy, you see a standard web presence that could be any commerce driven site that you have seen before. The site puts the onus on the user to drill down via categories or assuming the user knows what they are searching for.
By leveraging Open Graph, Etsy is able to create an experience that is incredibly relevant to the end user and their friends by quickly analyzing their Likes & affinities and presenting items that may be of interest. This frictionless discovery increases purchase intent by quickly surfacing items that may be immediately relevant.
An even richer experience is being provided by Amazon’s new Facebook open graph driven beta.
Amazon has been at the forefront of surfacing relevant items based on purchase history. Their relevancy algorithm’s have been a foundational element of their success over the years. It is very telling that they have recently launched a beta that further integrates a users social graph data to provide additional levels of recommendation.
The Amazon Facebook beta experience quickly scans the LIkes of the user as well as the social graph data of their friends to surface targeted recommendations that are based on interaction by friends as well as actual amazon purchase.
By adding additional utility in terms of gift giving for friends and discoverability of wish-lists, a user quickly has access to items that their friends may be truly interested in receiving.
The process of leveraging social graph data to streamline the path to purchase exemplifies the potential of social graph enabled social commerce. Social commerce should be less about seeding products via social channels, and more about creating seamless experiences that are permissible to end users vs. trying to interrupt. More on the topic of interruptive vs. permissive marketing based on this model in a future post.
The relevant web is also incredibly important based on the statements associated with the amount of information that is available as well as our capacity to comprehend information. With the exponential growth of information and choices, our dependency on our closest bonds to help us process information becomes even more relevant.
By enabling relevant experiences that users can seamlessly engage with, the ability for brands to capitalize on these fundamental shifts become fully realized. Those that embrace the social graph and redesign their brand presence to seamlessly integrate with social channels vs. simply bolting on features will realize greater returns.
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Last December, Twitter launched their version of brand pages which provided the first step towards leveraging Twitter as a destination for brands. While the validity of brand pages in their current form have been questioned based on how users consume feeds vs. actual page interaction, it is clear that this was the initial step in a broader strategy.
Today, it was announced that Twitter is now taking the next step with their brand pages offering and will soon allow brands to create specific experiences tied to the brand page, including e-commerce, contests and sweepstakes and according to early reports will be contained within the brand’s tweet timeline vs. a 140 character limit.
This is big news for brands for a number of reasons:
1 – Brand centric activation opportunities – By allowing brands the opportunity to directly tie contests & sweeps to a brand page vs. separate landing pages, their is an opportunity for longer dwell times on a branded presence and more of an opportunity for a user to directly connect with the brand. This also provides additional value to brands who have or will invest in Twitter’s advertising platform.
Here is an example of how brands have facilitated Twitter sweeps in the past. The new announcement will create associations directly with a brands page vs. separate landing pages as shown below.
McDonalds is already using a combination of pinned & promoted posts & a Hashtag centric campaign. In the future, this will drill into a Twitter based branded experience vs. micro-site that facilitates deeper brand engagement & also drives a more robust CRM strategy.
2 – Social Commerce – The future connection between Twitter & e-commerce is officially on the product roadmap. Based on the dual role of co-founder Jack Dorsey, who is also the CEO of mobile-payments company Square, we definitely foresee an opportunity to further drive e-commerce interaction that is tied to existing Twitter behavior. This is further fueled by Twitters performance over the 2011 holiday season, where Twitter led the way in average order size over Facebook.
Recently, Twitter partnered with American Express allowing Amex card holders to sign up for a service that ties a users tweet via a Twitter hashtag, or search term, that’s unique to a specific offer. After the user makes a purchase, deal savings are automatically credited to that customers American Express card statement within one to three days.
3 – Destination vs. Portal – Since inception, Twitter has performed as an aggregation hub or portal vs. a true end destination for users. This is supported by the amount of overall referral traffic Twitter creates. By connecting branded destinations with branded acquisition enablement vs. simply aggregating content, advertisers can now create more robust programs via Twitter by providing an end destination within Twitter vs. driving to Facebook or other owned channels.
4 – Connect Organic & Paid Content – This move will also greatly lift the importance of Twitter’s ad programs as brands can leverage promoted tweets and other ad types to drive brand engagement directly with their branded presence. Those brands that incorporate promotion with natural extensions of Twitter’s most compelling engagement techniques will be the ones to truly capitalize on additional engagement & acquisition rates.
While Twitter has a ways to go in order to rival Facebook in terms of direct brand interaction, today’s announcements show Twitters dedication to continue to enable brands by providing more opportunities for users to interact directly with a brands presence vs. simply consuming their feeds.
NOTE: It should be noted that only brands that spend a minimum in advertising are eligible for brand pages.
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The roll-out of Facebook Timeline for brands on leap day proved to be a showcase for brands that were a part of the private beta prior to the roll-out. One of the clear winners out of the gate was Red Bull. Not only has the brand done a great job of seeding milestone content since it’s founding, they launched an incredibly compelling scavenger hunt that spans the history of the company and integrates brand milestones in a seamless manner with the hunt.
By pinning the contest, Red Bull is highlighting the campaign for 7 days and ensures that any user that drops onto their timeline is met with an inviting opportunity to join the hunt. Terms and conditions are linked to an app that houses the rules of the contest.
Here is the app housing the terms & conditions. Note that canvas apps now have a width of 810 px.
Step 1 – The initial clue called for a user to go back to the 1st Red Bull ever sold. The next step was to identify the date on the bottom of the can for the next clue.
Step 2 – By applying an Instagram type filter and a clue to “look outside the box” the next date was revealed as part of the image frame.
Step 3 – Next, Red Bull pulled in a Spotify play-list image to unlock the next clue.
Step 4 – This clue took a moment as the border states this is a clue. Pull up the image and step back and “clear your mind” and the next date is revealed.
Step 5 – This clue took the longest for me to work through. Driven by a clue by Red Bull in the comments RE: CAPS, I took the first capped letters in the message to unveil the phrase “Find the Timecodes”. This referenced the 4 images below and the time in the YouTube video where they appear to reveal the next date.
Step 6 – This clues photo was tagged with “Anna Graham” and the comment clue was “a rag man” or anagram. Which is simply a puzzle to unscramble the words to form a new phrase. By taking the clues I was able to unlock the final clue.
Step 7 – The final step proved to be the most difficult of the 7 as it was based on clues using prime numbers combined with the final clue of 2=a & 3=x to decipher the final location of the Timeline Timewarp web-site along with the password to complete the scavenger hunt.
The answer to the final question was to take the letters that matched the prime numbers of the final clue. This revealed the secret URL that took you to the final stage.
Once you decipher the last riddle you are taken to a “secret” landing page for one final challenge ;)
Yes, I won a prize!!!
Here is the confirmation response from Red Bull’s media department.
The level of complexity associated with the hunt and the true integration into elements of timeline made the experience fun and engaging, but I question the duration of engagement for the average consumer to stay engaged throughout. I would love to see the level of fall-off at each given stage of the promotion.
You can tell some people really enjoyed the challenge
Regardless, it is the first example of a compelling brand promotion leveraging Timeline.
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Today marked a day that we have been anticipating for a few weeks now. No not leap day, but the launch of Facebook’s timeline for Brand Pages. Brands have an option to now preview or publish their brand pages with the comprehensive roll-out happening on March 30, 2012.
Instead of going into a lot of detail out of the gate, I am changing the normal format and going with a more visual representation of changes as well as guidelines for some of the changes based on my roll-out of the BlackFin360 Timeline Brand Page.
Below is an example of the Legacy posts / Brand Milestones. Note the ability to append location & date and to post current & back-dated updates without pushing into the newsfeed. Also note that milestones will appear as full-page width updates vs. the staggered approach used for regular updates.
Once the milestone is published, you have the option to “pin the post” to create a semi-static piece of content towards the top of your brand timeline. Pins can be stories, photos, videos, campaigns, tab cross promotion, contests, etc… this is handy for promotions and highlighting key events or even simply highlighting your fan of the week. Once you have pinned a piece of content it has a “bookmark” signifying that it has been pinned.
Example of a pinned post
In future posts we will explore the ins and outs of the changes as well as what happened to custom landing pages as well as Like gating. But for now enjoy the visuals.
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Linkedin has proven to be an incredible asset for B2B Social Media Strategy & execution. With Hubspot defining Linkedin (45%) as the most effective B2B source for lead generation followed by Facebook at 33%.
With the roll-out of company status updates last October, Linkedin took the first step towards positioning itself as a marketing channel for brands. Now with Monday’s announcement of the Company Follow button, they are taking the next step in their follower ecosystem strategy.
Linkedin is now expanding the ability to follow a company beyond it’s core domain and now enabling organizations to allow individuals to follow them directly from their branded homepages or other owned properties by adding a quick code snippet to their branded pages. Brands such as Starbucks, AT&T and American Express are initial launch partners.
Similar in its impact as a Facebook like, the individual will receive status updates via their Linkedin feed. By extending the reach of the follow beyond Linkedin, the over 2 million companies in it’s network will have even greater opportunities to execute B2B content strategies both within Linkedin & their branded & owned channels.
Because B2B social is generally more targeted than B2C social, the ability to drive targeted interaction in one location while also providing a comprehensive footprint throughout the channel is key. Now with the ability to more closely associate the follow externally, it enables a more dynamic experience for the brand. As Linkedin can serve as a hub of services & 3rd party validation of those services via recommendations.
For those interested, here is the location to add the new company follow button to your branded website.
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For the past few weeks I have received numerous calls and e-mails on the topic of Facebook Brand Pages & the Timeline roll-out. There have been many discussions with Facebook, with those in the industry and internally looking past the roll out and how strategies will need to be adjusted based on the new direction.
All of the feedback pointed to the fMC or Facebook Marketing Conference on the 29th as the location to unveil Timeline centric brand pages. And with official outlets now reporting what we have known for a while now, such as Mashable’s post today, Timeline brand pages will be announced on leap year.
Since the roll-out of Timeline for general users, it was not an “if” but a “when” will brands have access to Timeline and what does this mean for a current brands strategy. What will happen to custom landing tabs? How will Timeline impact brand engagement and what about my custom apps?
There will be a phase of growing pains as brands transition and I will take a wait and see approach and follow up with a post shortly after the official roll-out as to not drive additional speculation, but there will be some potential changes that will definitely require a new approach in terms of user flow, especially if you deploy tactics that map paid elements to custom tabs to drive a specific user action.
You can see evidence of the shift toward Timeline support in some of the changes that are already rolling out on the self-service ad platform as well as the recent introduction of Timeline based apps and the desire to incorporate new verbs into users newsfeeds as well as expand the footprint of frictionless 3rd party services into Facebook.
Even before we had a date we had begun sharpening our pencils and reviewing current strategies to ensure that the new direction continues to support brand goals & objectives. I am definitely looking forward to the announcements on the 29th.
You can livestream the fMC event directly from their site.
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We have all dealt with “YAN” in one form or another over the past few years. YAN stands for Yet Another Network login. This stems from brands using proprietary authentication methods vs. leveraging Open Authorization (OAuth) such as Facebook’s Graph API (OAuth 2.0). To put it simply, brands like to use their own username & passwords vs. allowing a user to login with their Facebook or Twitter ID’s.
YAN is an even bigger issue when combined with the fact that 88% of online buyers had at some point intentionally left registration information blank or used incorrect information when signing up for a new account, up 12% from 2010. Also, the expectation of consumers for brands to support Social Sign-On has increased significantly as eMarketer and Janrain recently reported that consumer desire for Social Sign-On has increased to 77% of US Online Buyers in 2011.
The importance of leveraging a single sign on authentication platform that is socially enabled becomes the key to unlocking a brands social CRM strategy. The reason for this is that Social Sign-On can lower the barrier of entry for a user, increase validity of data via the users social graph as well as increase stay rates.
According to recent research from Gigya, web users who log into 3rd party sites with Facebook’s Graph API spend 50% more time on those sites, and view twice as many pages. Think about the impact to a Fortune 500 retailer with 50% increase in stay rates and how that may impact purchase frequency.
When it comes to selecting which service is ideal for your brand, Gigya also released information that shows that Facebook accounts for 61% of those social logins.
Where social sign on really gets interesting is when a brand leverages an OAuth solution, such as Facebook’s Graph API. Instead of depending on a user to input a few sets of pre-determined data, you potentially have access to 180 data points to associate with the user. This includes the ability to access data tied to their feed, friends, activities, interests, music, books, movies, television, likes, checkins and more based on the users privacy settings.
This increases the probability of accurate subscriber data as well as the ability to append your proprietary questions on the back-end of the authorization of the user. Users in this scenario are more likely to share information as they are not repeating the information process. This also means that for a brand, the ability to build a robust profile around an individual beyond the standard data points such as basic demographic data and purchase history becomes a reality.
One of the more progressive brands when it comes to Social Sign-On is Nike.
Nike offers multiple options for authentication.
When you choose to login via Facebook, look at the data that Nike gains access to in one session…
A possible user scenario is as follows. Nike is about to become the uniform provider for the NFL in the upcoming 2012 season. Imagine if Nike had the ability to quickly scan the profile data of those who have authenticated via social sign-on and find team & athlete related Likes, game Checkin’s from the last season (Timeline makes this even easier), team related status updates, etc… tied to the users NFL team & players of choice. They would be able to proactively target those users with highly targeted and relevant offerings around the upcoming seasons jerseys and other merchandise that the user would then be compelled to engage.
This solution combined with other integrated tactics would most likely net better results than engaging in a mass e-mail/traditional campaign. Moving forward, the brands that understand how to leverage the immense amounts of data that individuals are providing via their social graph and then create relevant & highly targeted outreach campaigns will be the brands that will capitalize on socially enabled commerce.
As e-marketer shows below, in 2012 $3 billion in goods will be sold via social media this number jumps to $14 billion by 2015.
The key to this trend is not just positioning products via social channels, but lowering the barrier of entry, mapping CRM & social graph elements as well as highly targeted, relevant and timely offers via social & traditional channels.
The brands that understand how to better integrate their CRM programs with Social Graph data to create robust user profiles that are then the basis for executing their marketing strategy will be the winners.
It should be noted that integration of SSO is a cross departmental effort and this is one of the primary reasons more fortune 500 organizations have not adopted this method. It will take visionary executives who understand the value of data integration to push SSO forward.
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Identifying topical influencers has been a key to driving awareness and activation for many socially progressive brands over the past few years. One of the measurement variables many brands have come to rely on is Klout.
Much has been written about Klout since it’s founding in 2008. Some praise & swear by the service, others question the validity of the score and ability to “game” the system. Regardless, users work each day to increase their Klout score and brands are eager to reward those indiviuduals.
At it’s core, Klout provides social media analytics to measure a user’s influence across their social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin, Foursquare, and many more and assigns a score to the user. This daily score is meant to reflect the influence that individual has to drive action in social networks.
Currently, Klout boasts over 100 million profiles, 2.7 billion+ pieces of content & connections analyzed daily and 5,000+ partners & developers with over 45 billion+ API calls.
From a brand perspective, there are multiple ways to leverage this data and audience to drive action. From the Klout Perks program, to leveraging Klout’s API to the upcoming Klout brand pages.
Klout Perks – The most visible brand programs associated with Klout is tied to Klout perks. Perks are exclusive products or experiences that users can earn based on their influence. Perks are distributed to select influencers based on their topics of authority, location & score.
This summer, I was associated with a perk from Disney to attend a pre-screening of Winnie the Pooh. Being a dad of 3 young children it served as a great opportunity to provide a unique experience for our entire family.
Influencers who receive Perks can choose to talk about the perk/product or not but the thought here is that by enabling the product or experience, the influencer will feel compelled to share the perk with their network as I did with the Winnie the Pooh perk.
Examples of Klout perks offered previously include:
Chilis: Gift cards to try “Lighter Choices” menu items as well as a Chili’s 2 for $20 Steak dinner
Hyundai: Integrating their Social & Gaming activation with VIP tickets to their Veloster Gaming event.
PopChips: Samples of 6 different flavors mailed to recipients
Contraband Movie: Driving Sweeps activation via Influencers
Perk programs are categorized by Entertainment, Experiences, Food & Beverages, Retail, Sports & Technology. For a brand, Perk programs can enable new product launches, sampling programs, experiential entertainment and more. Affordably priced, brand perk programs are the most direct way to activate against the 100+ million Klout profiles.
Klout API – With over 5,000+ partners and developers, Klout’s API is leveraged by brands for multiple purposes. With Klout’s API, you can glean data such as Klout Score, which is the most used API, or specific sets of data tied to topics such as “Marketing” or “Facebook” and unveil up to 5 topics tied to users.
There are some requirements to fully maximize the API, such as in order to request a Klout score for someone through the API, you have to have their Twitter ID. This is key for brands developing their Social CRM programs. A brand may want to map existing data into Klout’s API and the brand should account for capturing Twitter handles as part of their social data mining strategy.
Some brands are using Klout’s API data in innovative ways, One example is CapitalOne. They leveraged the Klout API to accelerate users in their loyalty program. They offered bonus rewards to users based on their Klout scores. This means everyone who participates with a Klout score between 10-100 gets some form of bonus rewards based on their influence.
The API presents unique and compelling data that brands can leverage to drive engagement & target key topical influencers to drive action or reward and accelerate via loyalty programs.
Klout Brand Pages – In recent conversations with Klout’s Garth Holsinger, he provided insight into the upcoming February release of Brand Pages for Klout. “Currently, a brand is treated like an individual user, which in some cases does not necessarily make the most sense as a Klout score for a brand should mean something different.”
With Klout Brand Pages, brands will have an opportunity to build influencers groups that are related to their specific industry. An example for a brand such as American Airlines would be able to associate with specific topics such as travel and interact directly with those influencers.
Brands will be able to show their content & streams and also show the most influential content about American Airlines. Elements such as Facebook comment engagement, Retweets, etc.. will aggregate into Klout brand pages and the brand will have an aggregation point of influencers to drive direct communication. Premium levels will be available for brands to subscribe to for additional outreach capabilities.
I will follow up with a deeper dive into Klout brand pages once the service launches in February.
Thanks goes to Garth Holsinger of Klout as well as Brad Alesi of The Marketing Arm for data points included in this post.
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Let’s play a quick game of word association. I say “Shazam” you say _____. The default answer by most would be “music”. If that was your initial response then you may want to think again as Shazam Entertainment Ltd. hopes to change your association with their app.
From This…
To This…
Chances are that you have either downloaded, used, heard about or seen Shazam in action as it is available for both iOS & Android. With over 150 million users and 45 million installs on smartphones & tablets in the US, the potential reach is impressive. Boosted along the way by great reviews, exposure via Starbucks App pick of the week and continually adding new features to the ever evolving product roadmap, Shazam is quickly moving from simply being a music identification service to a player in the digital activation space.
Shazam’s recent Starbucks Pick of the Week. Yes, I may have grabbed more than one….
With a recent investment of 32 million dollars, Shazam is aggressively extending the platform to support different forms of digital activation & engagement. Key changes in their model such as allowing unlimited tagging of content across all levels of their offering and strategic partnerships with NBC Universal properties has led to new features that support entertainment based tagging vs. simply tagging music.
In other words TV Spot + Shazamable Call to Action + User Tagging = Digital Activation.
By now you may have seen one of the many Shazamable ads or shows that highlights the Shazam icon placed strategically on the screen for a period of time. Initially, you may be thinking “why would I want to shazam this commercial”? Case in point, this recent Marshall’s ad.
Notice the Shazam marker in the lower right
The app then uses it’s spectrogram based audio footprint of the ad to identify and launch the tagged content. Instead of the standard artist & song information, the experience shifts to become the direct response launch point of branded experiences. Now Shazam supports driving a user to a branded destination as well as enable social connections with the brand, or push to an e-commerce offering. The opportunities to create an engaging digital experience is now viable by simply tagging an ad or show with the app.
Without a doubt in 2012 you will see the rise of Shazamable ads. With 150 million user reach and the fact that the second screen is becoming a mainstay to our television viewing experiences, brands & NBC Universal partners will look to Shazam as a means to drive digital interaction directly from your primary screen with the hopes of either enhancing the viewing experience or incenting users to engage with branded destinations.
The biggest barrier at this time is the stigma that Shazam is primarily a music identification service. Work will need to be done to continue to educate the 150 million current and future users that the app is going beyond figuring out what the cool song was in the latest Apple ad to that ad now creating additional digital touchpoints and the ability to buy the featured product via the app and oh by the way still tell you what the name of the song was as well.
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At long last Twitter has decided to allow brands to create Facebook/Google+ style brand pages. This along with a major redesign focused on usability & discoverability of content was unveiled yesterday.
With a slew of launch partners such as Best Buy, American Express, Dell, GE, Nike, Heineken, Disney and more, Twitter is following in the footsteps of Google’s recent roll-out of Google+ brand pages.
One of the primary reasons for the rollout is to better support advertisers. According to eMarketer, Twitter’s global ad revenue is projected to reach $139.5 million in 2011 and approach $399 million in 2013.
By creating branded destinations vs. simply aggregating content, advertisers may engage in more robust programs via Twitter if the possibility to drive additional engagement with specific content over longer periods of time becomes a consistent option.
What is the value for a brand to embrace the change? Here are 5 feature benefits of the new Twitter Brand pages.
1) Customizable Headers | Brands have the ability to further express their essence with a larger profile image and a customizable header.
In the Pepsi example below, they take a creative approach to their header
2) Promoted Tweet | Brands have the opportunity to control the message visitors see when they first come to the profile page via a promoted tweet at the top of the timeline.
The “Top Tweet” becomes a showcase opportunity to drive additional engagement on relevant content, be it promotional, educational, etc.. without the risk of being lost in the timeline.
3) Auto Expand Embedded Content | Promoted content will also go beyond simple links and actually show the content, if it is a video, etc… top tweet will auto-expand to reveal photos or videos from various sources.
4) Optimized Moderation | – The update now allows brands to separate their @ replies & mentions. This will be extremely useful for those that manage the day-to-day engagement on behalf of brands. Users also have a nice option to speak directly to the brand with the new layout with the “Tweet to Brand” option directly under the header.
5) Advertising Performance | Twitters advertising offerings have grown considerably over the last year. With options tied to promoted tweets, accounts & profiles. By creating additional opportunities to drive dwell time on a branded destination, in theory the opportunity to drive additional impressions and clicks becomes greater.
The one issue I have initially is related to how Twitter content is consumed. With a large number of individuals consuming their tweets via platforms outside of Twitter directly & TweetDeck, it will be interesting to see if there is more of an emphasis to not only follow a particular brand, but to also drive directly to their branded presence when specific campaigns are in action.
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This is a repost of my iMedia Connection Cover Story.
With the combination of 40 million users in a little over 88 days and a 68% share of the search market, Google is positioned to fully maximize social engagement with Google+. The initial launch strategy was primarily consumer focused and any branded solutions were put on hold. With the recent release of Google+ pages, now is the time to define your brands strategy when it comes to fully maximizing the benefits of Google+ both short & long term.
There has been a lot of discussion about how Google+ compares to Facebook and the ideal ways to leverage the platforms. It is important to note that even though there are many similarities, the fact remains that both platforms have some major differences and strategy around maximizing resource allocation will be key moving forward.
On the surface the two networks are eerily similar. Status updates (Newsfeeds & Streams), photo sharing, social games & external activators (“Like” Button & +1). Further, both enable 3rd party development, integration with mobile & a desire to connect & share. But the fundamental difference is that Facebook is a true social network — and has been from day one — and that is the true strength of the platform. Google+ which appears to be a social network but is actually a representation of the evolution of user behavior tied to relevant content, search, discoverability and connection.
Thus, when it comes to maximizing your Facebook strategy, be it acquisition, engagement or advocacy, it is fairly self contained within Facebook’s walled garden, with the ability to aggregate content to third party locations and a limited contextual impact on topical search results. That being said, one of the key points of differentiation is how Google+ content is directly relevant to search results, and how that will potentially drive business value around the +1 as it is pervasive beyond Google+.
This statement was just reaffirmed by an e-mail I received from Google this morning: “Your +1’s reach not only the 40 million users of Google+, but all users who come to Google every day.”
Here are 10 potential strategic advantages & benefits for brands to incorporate Google+ into their 2012 social and search strategies.
Potential Brand Benefits of Google+ Brand Pages/Entities
1 ) Integration with Google Search – Google currently owns 68% of search market share. The fact that the Google +1 icon is now a part of every Google search result shows a glimpse of the level of integration Google has in store for users & brands alike. A user can directly recommend a link from their search results, and that recommendation is simultaneously shared on the users Google+ +1 profile section. By combining paid search and incenting +1 behaviors, you can begin to see the potential of this level of integration as the user may not be actively engaged on Google+, but the ability to drive a user to engage by recommending content with the click of a single button is appealing.
Now, you can also automatically add Google+ pages to your circles from Google Search.
Here is an example of a search for BlackFin360. I choose to +1 the Page
The +1 is then aggregated into my Google+ profile under +1’s
2 ) Google +1 – Similar to the Facebook Like button, the Google +1 button has the opportunity to truly transcend the platform by driving significant 3rd party integration. In fact the Google +1 button overtook the Twitter tweet button on most major websites with a 33 percent spike in integration recently. Granted, it is still far behind the Like button in terms of saturation but the fact that both Facebook & Google+ drive engagement to a central destination — as opposed to simply being a conduit to various destinations such as Twitter — shows the potential of 3rd party integrations to drive engagement.
According to Google, “People can now recommend your brand, not just your individual ads or sites, helping your +1’s add up faster”.
The +1’s value goes beyond Google+ and really speaks to the longer-term goal of Google, which is true integration and relevance across social & search content. This is an incredibly smart move by Google. What will really win the day for Google is the ability to connect social, search & self-service profiling. This will further enable brand sites more so than Facebook’s internalized approach. Further, with the addition of the +1 to image searches as well as integration with YouTube, it is possible to drive additional +1’s from multiple points.
3) Direct Connect – Now, you can also automatically add Google+ pages to your circles from Google Search. By adding +BrandName as part of your search query, you will be taken directly to the brands Google+ page and have the ability to add to your circles. This is not immediately available and certain steps have to be taken in order to enable this process, but the potential benefits are significant.
4 ) Circles & User Segmentation – Allowing brands to potentially segment fans is a big win. One of the issues with brand management on Facebook is tied to messaging across audience segments. By allowing brands to potentially seamlessly categorize fans, it allows the style of engagement to change dramatically. Imagine if you are driving engagement with 13-17 year old segments as well as 18-24 year olds. The brand & social persona’s associated with content could shift to further driving engagement based on audience segment vs. a one size fits all approach.
One important note about “circles” for pages is that the brand page cannot add a person to it’s circles until that user has already added the page to one of their circles. This is primarily based on messaging to users and having to opt-in by adding the brand into their circles first. Another major change from the user profiles is that all content is set to public.
When it comes to driving acquisition strategy within Google+ as a brand, it is initially inherently more valuable for a user to add you to a circle as opposed to giving you a +1. Think of it this way: The addition to a user circle is equivalent to a Facebook “like” in terms of impact to the stream and ability to interact directly with users.
Branded Circles are arranged by Following, Customers, VIP’s & Team Members.
5 ) Google Advertising Programs – Google+ will inherently “increase the performance of your ads: +1’s surface recommendations in search and display ads”. (Or so the email from Google referenced.) Looking at tightly coupled integration with social content, relevance associated with interests within Sparks and Google’s Display Network, Google AdWords and Double Click advertising products, and how robust Google Analytics can be in comparison to Facebook Insights, it is easy to see the strategic benefit to a brand to take advantage of this level of integration.
6 ) Sparks & Recommendation Engine – One of the most impactful elements of Google+ for brands is potentially Sparks. Brands could focus advertising dollars on Sparks programs that are relevant to their brand & product offerings. Taking it a step further, creation of a recommended or +1 relevance based on a users & circles sparks/interests that is then socially shared could be very compelling. This would be very similar to Facebook’s sponsored stories.
7 ) YouTube, Hangouts & Google TV Integration – With YouTube a part of the Google family, Google+ integration was sure to be a part of the strategy. The inherent social nature of YouTube translates well in terms of integration of +1 — embedding video and further integrating the YouTube & Google+ experience to make sharing and recommending content even easier. From a brand perspective, being able to distribute unique, consumer-generated content that is relevant to the brand while driving +1’s back to a brand page is very appealing. One of the interesting additions was also the decision to integrate Hangouts with YouTube’s sharing options.
Now a brand can post video content and possibly give a product preview to VIP’s or influencers. This takes the traditional webinar and flips it into a more engaging way to drive F2F discussions.
One area that really intrigues me is how Google TV may integrate with Google+ to create a truly social entertainment experience. I envision further integration between Google TV, YouTube, Hulu & Android to drive truly integrated entertainment experiences across screens. From a media perspective, you could truly bridge the gap between traditional & digital placement by incorporating a relevant ad placement via information collected from Sparks & Google Search. This to me is the future of enhanced television.
8) Google+ & Social Gaming – Google invested 100 million dollars into Zynga in 2010, and recently rolled out Google+ Games. With over 50% of Facebooks 700 million engaged daily with Facebook social games, it is a key motivator for brands to monitor the Google Games offering. Keep an eye out for how Zynga and others align with Google+ to further drive engagement, creation of options to add users into brand circles, and how game engagement will translate to the Google adwords program.
The success of recent brand integrations on Facebook with Farmville, including Frito-Lays recent world record for driving “Likes”, has given notice to brand managers of the power of Social Games & strategic partnerships with the game providers. With the additional layers of integration found with Google+ it will be interesting to see who can quickly capitalize.
9 ) 3rd Party Development Platform – One of the keys to successful Facebook engagement has been the enablement of third- party developers to create an application ecosystem within the platform. As with the recent rollout of Google+ Games, Google+ will enable developers access to relevant API’s, as it has done in the past, and the ability to extend the platform. This is crucial to creating opportunities to engage and differentiate on the platform.
Take a look at Google’s Robust API’s (click to enlarge):
10 ) Android Integration – With the Android’s market share currently at 49.5%, integration with Google+ is a key point of differentiation for both Google+ & Android. With both an app & web version of Google+ and an Android exclusive with the Google+ Huddle functionality, the level of integration between Android & Google+ is palpable. With the recent release of Ice Cream Sandwich, Android’s latest operating system, Google+ also saw a major revamp in terms of user interface, ability to interact with the platform and share directly from Android devices. With the streamlined changes, and the AdMob & Adsense offerings, it will be very interesting to see how brands fully capitalize on +1 and mobile behaviors to further drive engagement & relevant ad serving.
Other areas of focus & interest will be how international or localized regions are supported in terms of aggregating brand +1’s, and how the Google+ commerce & currency platform strategies will unfold.
Brands will need to evaluate the true reach and amplification of the +1 from an earned media perspective. Be sure to note the differences in what shows up individually in your streams versus what is tied to content. Wiht Facebook, one of the secrets outside of edgerank is the level of detail that is shown by interaction.
Regardless, there is enough evidence of the potential benefit of Google+ brand pages to dedicate time & ample resources to develop a platform-related digital strategy heading into 2012.
Add BlackFin360 to your circles here.
Follow Tom Edwards @BlackFin360
This morning my new article 10 Strategic Benefits of Google+ Brand Pages was the cover story for iMedia Connection.
The article reviews Google+ from launch through the recent roll-out of Brand pages as well as 10 strategic benefits of using Google+ Brand pages both short & long term.
Follow Tom Edwards @BlackFin360
At long last Google has finally launched Google+ brand pages. There has been a lot of speculation on what would be included and the potential benefits to brands. Now that they are finally here it will be interesting to see what is fact vs. fiction and more importantly how best to optimize the experience and drive meaningful engagement.
There is already a fast growing list brands positioning their pages from Fox News to the Dallas Cowboys and now you can add BlackFin360 to that fast growing list.
You can add BlackFin360 to your circles here
Here is the direct link to create a Google+ brand page
For now the functionality closely mirrors that of the consumer Google+ experience with the exception of the Google+ Direct Connect option. Google+ Direct Connect allows your Google+ brand page to show in a Google search by simply having the user search +Brandname e.g. +BlackFin360
The Hangouts option provides a new twist on transparency as you can support a F2F live chat with up to 9 people at one time. It will be interesting to see how creative brands can be with Hangouts and what potential policies will be put into place to manage that process.
More to come on the features and functions available for Google+ brand pages in future posts.
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After managing many Facebook ad campaigns, I wanted to share 5 recommendations to be aware of when executing your campaign.
When it comes to optimizing your Facebook ad campaigns it is not enough to set the campaign and just let it run. It is incredibly important to maximize your spend, test multiple options and continually optimize your campaign.
Facebook’s ad platform is one that is fairly easy to use and the potential reach is one of the biggest draws for brands to engage. Initially, plans were all about driving Likes and ad units pointing internally to brand pages facilitated that need. Now with the platform focusing even more on engagement, having the ability to drive engagement on a post level becomes even more important and having a strategy that maps to both acquisition & engagement are key.
If you plan on managing your own campaigns here are a few tips to further maximize your ad spend.
1). Align ad unit type with Campaign Objectives & Budget – When you elect to run a self service Facebook campaign you will notice multiple options and ad types. And as I mentioned above, the units should be an extension of your strategy. You can select from Sponsored Stories and Facebook ad examples which I have referenced previously.
Sponsored Stories
Page Like Stories are good to capitalize on Social Reach
Facebook Ads for Pages
Fb Page Post Example (Great for driving engagement on a post level to maximize Edge Rank)
Fb external units are good to drive clicks off of Facebook, but Call to Action needs to be relevant & compelling.
If you have a smaller budget and your goal is awareness you may consider a CPM or Pay for Impressions campaign. If you are driving acquisition around a specific event or contest, ensure that you are fully optimizing your targets and go with a CPC or Pay for Clicks campaign but I would recommend the precise targeting option.
Also note from a daily spend perspective if you are just starting to run a campaign for the first time there are daily caps set on your account. Over time Facebook will review and potentially increase your daily spend amount.
Example message from Facebook
2). Captivating Creative is Key – Ensure that the creative of the campaign is compelling and be sure to test multiple options. Strong creative can be a difference maker in driving engagement with your ad unit.
3). Clear Call to Action – Driving Likes and social connections directly from the ad unit are key. Take an opportunity to drive a Like directly from the unit by simply adding text that asks the user to Like Us & Learn more.
Depending on the end destination, it is important to not only have your media driving awareness, but to also ensure that when the user lands on your selected destination there is a clear call to action for the next steps. Whether that is driving a Page level Like, a landing page for a contest, or an application, it is important to ensure continuity throughout.
4). Target, Target, Target – It is not enough to sit back and depend on the Broad Category Targeting, especially if you are executing a CPC centric campaign. Make use of the Precise Interests option and pay attention to how adding additional interests directly impacts the potential reach of the campaign.
Example of Precise Targeting
Targeting tied to Reach
5) Monitor & Optimize – As your campaign gets underway ensure to set specific checkpoints to review campaign performance, test units by both Impressions & Clicks to see what drives the ideal results. And continually monitor not only the performance of the units but also the impact of the campaign on other factors such as delta of Likes from the onset of the campaign to post level engagement. I highly recommend supporting most Facebook acquisition strategies with a Facebook media buy in order to fully take advantage of the platform.
Also, you cannot have the Paid, Owned & Earned benefits without the Paid element.
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In the ever changing social landscape platforms & services come and go but one thing is consistent when it comes to monetization. Most networks are focused on selling some form of advertising next to your content. And outside of YouTube’s recent changes, most of the time revenue does not come back to the user until now.
Chime.in is a new entrant into the social space and just came out of a private beta. What makes Chime.in different is that it will pay users to contribute by sharing 50% of revenue it earns from selling advertising on your profile pages. This applies to both individuals & brands.
If you are feeling very ambitious, if you sell the real estate yourself you can keep all of the proceeds.
As a user, instead of a 140 character status update, you have a the ability to upload photos, videos & 2000 characters of text. Because Chime.in claims to be an interest network vs. a social network, the focus on content that is relevant to users is at the forefront of the experience.
Here is an example of the Chime.in content interface
Where this gets really interesting is from a brand marketing perspective.
With a focus on relevant content, and control over advertising revenue on the brand level, Chime.in can offer brands a new way to monetize their social followings. This shifts the dynamic from a link driven focus to one where direct monetization of followers is possible.
At this point, the site is still a work in progress as I have noticed odd behavior by the algorithm but Chime.in is definitely something to be aware of and consider when planning for 2012.
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Today, Google rolled out new features for Google+. The update includes popular posts, visualization of share data, photo editing & Google Apps to name a few.
Popular Posts – Similar to what Linkedin does with it’s Linkedin Today Top Headlines, “What’s Hot” is now a part of your stream. As you work through your stream, you will notice a “What’s Hot” option with a radio button to scroll through some of the top items being shared on Google+.
Here is an example of What’s Hot from my Stream
Ripples – This is an interesting addition. It is basically a data visualization tool that allows you to track the amount of shares on a post level. Fun Stuff.
Here is an example of Ripples
Google+ Creative Kit – This update combines instagram style filters with the ability to add text and basic editing. This is an interesting update as now it is possible to quickly drive hashtag driven photo contests such as the current #gplushalloween event.
Here is an example from the Creative kit, simply go to photos –> Select your photo until in the light-box option –> Edit –> Creative Kit
Here is the Creative Kit Layout
Google Apps – Finally, Google+ is now available for organizations that use Google Apps. Today, you can manually turn on Google+ for your organization. In addition to all features, some of the unique additions are the ability to share with your organization.
Still no updates on Google+ for brands, although some reports state that it may roll out in November.
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Since 2007, I have been blogging about various topics related to social media. I have worked with many fortune 1000 & Global 50 brands and have defined strategies across channels & various platforms. But the sheer velocity and reach associated with how social has become a part of our everyday lives is simply amazing.
Below is a great infographic that provides a visual look at how social networks are now taking up a majority of our time online.
Social Networks: Dominating Our Time Online by Infographiclabs
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With the upcoming release of the iPhone 4S, I decided to upgrade both my iPad 2 and iPhone 4 to the new iOS 5 operating system prior to picking up the 4S.
Apple boasts over 200 new features tied to the OS, with some specific to the iPhone & iPad. After a few tries, I was able to upgrade both and have spent the last 24 hours identifying what I find useful in the new OS and have narrowed the list from 200 down to my top 10.
Here is my top 10 list of what I found the most useful:
1) NOTIFICATIONS – I really like the new approach to notifications. With an integrated approach that feels much better from a UI perspective, notifications feel like an extension vs. intrusive. This extends to apps such as Facebook as well.
Lock screen notifications
In App notifications
Swipe Down notifications – Swipe down from the top of the screen and you will drop down your notification center. This area can be configured to show weather as well as the latest notifications, updates and even track your stock portfolio.
(2) iCLOUD – I am a fan of the new iCloud service. In order to use the free service* you must be on the iOS 5 operating system. Once you upgrade you have the ability to use:
*You start with 5GB of free storage and can purchase more
3) PHOTO ENHANCEMENTS – Simply Double Tap the home button on the lock screen to pull up a shortcut to activate your camera. This is extremely helpful, especially at events.
4) PHOTO EDITING – In addition to the upcoming 8 megapixel camera in the 4S, the iOS 5 update added much needed Editing support for photos.
5) TWITTER INTEGRATION – With Apple’s decision to align with Twitter, iOS 5 highlights their commitment to further integrate the micro-blogging service into the experience.
6) SAFARI – With most changes on the back-end, the features that impact usage are the Reader List and Reader Button.
Example of a Reader Button Activated Article
Example of the Reading List Display
Example of Reader List activation for Safari on my Mac.
(7) MAPS – Not major changes here, but I do like the fact that you can now share map locations via multiple options.
If you have Siri via the 4S, then you also have the ability to ask for directions via voice commands and Siri will remember your previous request. Here is my analysis of Siri.
8) iMESSAGE – allows you to interact with other iOS 5 users with unlimited text, photo & video messages.
(9) NEW APPS – With each new update to the iOS new apps normally follow and this launch was no exception.
(10) Wireless sync to iTunes – Enough Said!!!
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Recently, I posted the Power of Instagram for Brands. This outlined the benefits of incorporating Instagram into existing brand digital strategies as well as highlighting adoption and the top 10 brands on Instagram.
As a follow up, here is a great infographic from the Infographic Labs team.
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When you hear the term social media most people immediately think about Facebook and Twitter and consumer focused campaigns and conversations. But what doesn’t come immediately to mind is that Social is a very powerful channel for B2B organizations.
What is interesting is that 86% of B2B firms are using social, compared to 82% of B2C. And how they are using it is surprising as well.
59% are focused on Thought Leadership
48.9% are focused on Lead Generation
45.7% are interested in Feedback/Reviews/Recommendations
34.7 are interested in paid advertising on social sites
Linkedin has proven to be an incredible asset for B2B Social Media Strategy & execution. With Hubspot defining Linkedin (45%) as the most effective B2B source for lead generation followed by Facebook at 33%.
With Today’s Linkedin announcement that they are now enabling company status updates, they are taking another step forward in further allowing organizations to connect directly with potential targets.
Here is an example of the new Company Status updates
With the ability to outline services, drive recommendations and now adding a voice to the brand, it will be interesting to see how organizations capitalize on yet another avenue to interact with potential clients.
Cintas & RackSpace are maximizing the Linkedin platform to further drive engagement with their brand by outlining their products & services and driving recommendations for their offerings.
Here is the RackSpace example
Because B2B social is generally more targeted than B2C social, the ability to drive targeted interaction in one location while also providing a comprehensive footprint throughout the channel is key. Brands can engage via groups, Q & A in Linkedin answers and use the inherent tools in the platform to drive targeted interaction.
Philips Linkedin Group Example
Organizations can also purchase PPC Ads as well as targeted rich media to further drive their acquisition strategy.
With so much attention given to Facebook, B2B organizations should maximize their Linkedin experience. Whether it is to further amplify thought leadership, drive acquisition of leads, or promote feedback/reviews & recommendations, Linkedin’s latest changes can further enable an organization to meet and exceed it’s goals & objectives.
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With all of the changes on deck for Facebook, it will be interesting to see how the Edge Rank algorithm will potentially change and how this may impact Brands usage of Facebook.
What is Edge Rank? And why would I care if it changes? When you first visit your Facebook top news feed, you may notice that the topics discussed are not always a live representation of your friends updates but it is actually a collection of updates predetermined by Facebook.
The process to determine what you see in your newsfeed is managed by Facebook’s Edge Rank. This is the algorithm that Facebook uses to display content from your network that it deems you would find the most engaging.
From a brand marketing perspective driving relevance and engagement through the newsfeed is one of the key benefits of the platform. Thus creation of a content strategy that capitalizes on the Edge Rank algorithm is of paramount importance.
Edge Rank is calculated by weighing Affinity, Weight & Time Decay as it applied to your network.
Affinity = The more you interact with certain individuals, the higher your affinity to that individual and the higher likelihood that you will see their updates.
Weight = Weight & interaction are similar as this category is dependent on the number of likes & comments that your update has received.
Time Decay = As with anything, the value/relevance of the post decays over time as new content is published.
Moontoast had a great infographic that highlighted the Edge Rank algorithm.
When maximizing your Edge Rank position it is important to engage as the brand with the comments from your fans as this helps create additional affinity connections.
It is also important to drive engagement on a post level as this is now aggregated on the Friend Activity tab. See previous post on Friend Activity.
It is also important to occasionally drive likes on the post level as this not only drives additional reach via fans networks but also impacts how often the brands message would appear as Top News.
This also ties in nicely with the Sponsored Stories ad units as they can drive likes on the post level.
Finally, by providing relevant & timely content at a cadence your fanbase is comfortable with, it is possible to limit the effects of time decay.
As the new Facebook timelines are rolled out to the masses and additional activity streams are in place, it will be very interesting to see how the concept of Edge Rank evolves with the next iteration of Facebook.
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Today multiple changes were rolled out across the Facebook platform leading up to the F8 developer conference. Outside of the changes to the newsfeed, merging of Top News & Most Recent, etc… One of the big changes you will immediately notice if you are an admin of a brand page is the new Friend Activity menu option that now resides directly below info.
This new option highlights users friends activity with a given brand page. The driver behind this is to show a more direct relationship with brand interaction amongst your friends in order to potentially strengthen engagement and consolidate brand related activity onto one tab that is directly tied to the brand.
This can also change the strategy for how a brand drives engagement on a post by post level as the availability/mandate of this tab now increases the need to not only drive acquisition of the Like, but to also focus on a sound engagement strategy.
From an admin perspective you cannot remove the Friend Activity option at this time.
Many new changes are on the way to the Facebook platform over the next few days. Keep your RSS feed subscribed here for the latest news that may potentially impact your brand’s Facebook page.
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Photos can tell many stories and they are powerful representations of the world around us. It is no wonder that users have taken the simple task of taking photos with their iPhones to new levels with apps such as Instagram, Hipstamatic, PicPiz and Pose.
Instagram, a photo-sharing app for iPhone users, is quickly becoming a force for individuals & brands alike. With over 10 million users and an average of 1.3 million photos uploaded per day, it ties the ability to adjust your photo via multiple built in filters with socially enabled features such as sharing, liking, and commenting.
Why is Instagram attracting users and brands vs. say simply using Twitpic or another utility to take and share a photo? One reason may be the ability to easily customize photos where users feel in control and further expressing their personality & style with a simple user interface. The other thought is how Instagram enables social sharing across multiple channels with ease.
From the app, you have the ability to tag your photos with relevant hashtags, (#Starbucks) subscribe to feeds of individuals & brands as well as view the most popular submissions. In terms of social sharing, Instagram allows you to share your works of art across Twitter, Facebook, Email, Flickr, Tumblr, Foursquare and Posterous.
Brands have found innovative ways to incorporate Instagram into their social strategies to drive awareness & engagement. Those that use the medium well understand the opportunity to humanize the brand, incent users to create content on their behalf via unique hashtags & photo contests and it offers a quick and easy way to share visual content and of course engage users.
Below is a list of the Top 10 most followed brands & organizations on Instagram (As of September 15, 2011)
1. MTV = 103,036 Tweens, Teens, Young 20’s + Music + Visual Self Expression = MTV #1.
2. Starbucks = 91,157 – Starbucks understands the power of crowdsourcing. From their groundbreaking work with the My Starbucks Idea program to activating amateur photographers across the globe to tag #Starbucks with their Instagram enabled iDevices. You can go to starbucks.com/coffeehouse to see the latest images.
3. Burberry = 86,544 – Fashion & photography go hand in hand. It is no surprise that Burberry uses the service to showcase their professionally created visual imagery associated with their brand.
4. ABC News = 67,874 – ringing in at #4, ABC News uses it stream to visualize the news and users engage via comments
5. NPR = 65,972 – One of many news sources using Instagram to visualize the news.
6. Red Bull = 59,298 – Red Bull rings in at #6 with a healthy following. The brand executes hashtag photo contests and rewards users with likes as they show their affinity for the brand visually around the world.
7. CNN = 58,256 – Yet another news service visualizing the news
8. NBC = 55,012 – See #4, #5 and #7
9. Kate Spade = 45,597 – Another Fashion entry in the top 10. Kate Spade focuses on uniquely photographing merchandise & sharing the images via multiple social channels such as Tumblr & Twitter.
10. Celtics = 35,433 – Events are a natural extension for Instagram. Sporting events in particular can generate a significant amount of visual content. By understanding and capitalizing on this the Boston Celtics round out the top 10 with over 35,000 followers.
Other brands of Note include:
1. Volkswagen
2. Gucci
3. Levi’s
4. National Geographic
5. Coca Cola
6. Pepsi
7. McDonalds
The brands that are closer to the innovation end of the social marketing spectrum understand that it is not enough to simply rely on Twitter & Facebook but to ultimately be present, monitor & potentially engage in the channels where their brands are being discussed.
Many organizations view additional channels as spreading the brand too thin and fall into the trap of only leveraging Facebook & Twitter. I view each social channel as serving a specific purpose based on how consumers use the channel and the ultimate goals of the brand.
If you have the ability to define a strategy that incorporates various mediums while maximizing how they were intended to be used you can truly drive value for both the brand and the consumer. And yes there are branded conversations that happen outside of Facebook & Twitter.
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Recently we, Red Urban Dallas, completed an amazing collaboration with our sister agency Red Urban Toronto. They work very closely with the Volkswagen brand in Canada and are responsible for very innovative and compelling campaigns.
The initiative started as they always do… with an idea. The idea of a crowdsourced VolksAd came from the very highly regarded Creative Director of Red Urban Toronto, Christina Yu.
Red Urban Toronto had completed serialized ads for the Volkswagen Golf GTI and wanted to extend the campaign from the two current TV spots to incorporate Facebook & YouTube.
Ad 1 – Drive Until: Courage (Chapter 1)
Ad 2 – Drive Until: Time (Chapter 2)
This is where I joined the project. Working closely with the Red Urban Toronto team, I was the strategic advisor for the execution across social channels.
When it came time to execute the VolksAd, the goal was to crowdsource all aspects of the upcoming commercial. From users commenting & voting on storylines, the script, model of the car, the cast, the music & the edit. The Red Urban Toronto team did a great job of executing the campaign.
By spacing the voting activities over multiple weeks, the team was able to maintain engagement and kept fans interested even to the point of livestreaming all 14 hours of the making of the making of!
By incorporating the names of the individuals who contributed during the campaign into the credits of the final edit, there was a sense of ownership for each individual for the finished product.
The results of the campaign were impressive. Active users jumped 140%, Fans of the Volkswagen Canada brand page jumped to 364,097, there were 119,647,537 total media impressions and over 2,070,936 Facebook impressions.
Here is the full case study video
Here is the finished edit including everyone who contributed to the final product
Here is the official press release
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One of the more controversial posts over the past year was tied to my POV on 2D barcodes, specifically SnapTags vs. QR codes. This sparked an interesting conversation.
To follow up on that conversation, instead of getting into a philosophical discussion I will let this infographic sent to me by the SpyderLynk team kick-off the discussion. Would love to hear your thoughts after reviewing the infographic.
Snaptags vs. QR Codes per Spyderlynk
Let the commenting begin!!!
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Although it has been available for a while now, one of the under utilized options to drive a Like for a Facebook Brand page is as simple as texting like_____ to 32265 (FBOOK if you are in the US). In the case of our facebook page, you would text “Like BlackFin360” to 32265 without the quotes. All that is required is that your mobile device is confirmed to your Facebook account.*
This method is a great alternative to 2D barcodes to Like or printing Like Us on packaging as it is directly actionable and once the user has confirmed their mobile device it is as simple as texting Like and the brand page name. The user will then not only receive updates via their newsfeed but any brand that they like via text will also receive the latest updates from your brand page directly as text messages.
Recently, Facebook was driving activation around local markets and provided Text to Like stickers for window fronts of local retailers.
Here is an example of a Text to Like sticker
As I mentioned above, in order to capitalize on this feature a users phone needs to be confirmed with Facebook. Below is an outline of what is required to confirm your mobile device with Facebook.
Open the Facebook mobile app then to settings at the top left. Or you can go to the mobile tab of your Account Settings page to activate Mobile Texts. Click “Register for Facebook Text Messages” and complete the steps that follow.
Step 1 Select Country & Mobile Carrier
Step 2 is confirmation
Step 3 Like the Page
As I stated previously, instead of simply stating find us or Like us on Facebook, capitalize on an opportunity to drive a Like on a direct mail piece, speaking at a conference or possibly on packaging. Most people have the ability to text and this is an untapped acquisition play that is more directive & enabled by quick response vs. passively asking for a like and putting the onus on the user to find the brand page, then Like it.
*If you are in a different country, here is the list of activation codes.
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Today Facebook made a significant announcement regarding the future of their location services. Below is pulled directly from today’s post.
Tag Locations in Posts
Before: You could only “check in” to locations using the Places feature on a smart phone.
Going Forward: Now you can add location to anything. Lots of people use Facebook to talk about where they are, have been or want to go. Now you can add location from anywhere, regardless of what device you are using, or whether it is a status update, photo or Wall post. Of course, you can always choose not to add location at all.
As a part of this, we are phasing out the mobile-only Places feature. Settings associated with it are also being phased out or removed. (You can read more about how location works and settings affected here: http://www.facebook.com/about/location)
This is a significant move on the part of Facebook as it takes them out of emphasizing the check-in game and extends the amount of potential data available ge0-targeted ad placement. Checking in will still be available as part of the platform but the onus is now about appending content with location.
To be direct, Facebook views itself as an advertising platform. With the ability to drive significant impressions and higher than average click-through and engagement, the ability to target advertising is the key revenue driver for Facebook.
By tying location to the past (Share where you have been), present (Share where you are) & future (Share where you are going) model and integrating location with content, the context of the post + location can provide additional relevance to marketers looking to connect and drive behaviors with Facebook’s plethora of users.
How this will potentially integrate with Facebook deals is still unknown. This is a logical shift on Facebook’s part and gets them out of direct competition with the gamified geo-location services while driving additional data to further strengthen their advertising position.
Smart move by Facebook.
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Recently I answered a question on Quora that I wanted to share as a post as well.
“What is the best way to measure ROI for increasing the number of fans for a Facebook Page?”
Since this question is focused primarily on success metrics tied to acquisition, I will forego discussions around engagement metrics and jump into 5 KPI’s that I reference as part of an acquisition plan.
1 – % growth over a period of time | As I have mentioned before, on average the top 50 (US) Facebook pages growth rate is 5% per month. Using this as a baseline you can track & project your growth % and track the % increase as a core KPI.
E.g. AllFacebook.com has a good resource to track against the last 30 days of growth.
2 – Like acquisition rate | When executing a promotional program or simply tracking ROI against the % increase, I look at the total cost of the program to acquire the Like. Based on my research over multiple campaigns (including media) a good baseline average Like acquisition rate is ~$5.00 per like. We have experienced below $1 acquisition rate on highly successful campaigns but you should be tracking the Like acquisition rate in order to set realistic expectations with projected Likes vs. budget allocated.
E.g. Brand A recently increased Likes by 125,000 and spent 200K to execute the program/media, etc… the Like acquisition rate for this initiative would have been $1.60 per Like well below average thus a great value for the brand.
3 – Earned Media Value | Vitrue had an interesting study determining the value of a Like at 3.60 using the $3.60 as a potential baseline number it is a quick calculation to determine the current earned media value of a brand page.
E.g. Nerf With 420,093 Facebook fans has an earned media value of $1,512,334.80
4 – Facebook Like = 20 | In a recent discussion with Carolyn Everson of Facebook, she referenced that based on their data a Facebook “like” is equivalent to 20 unique visits to a brands web site.
5 – Facebook Media Reach | One additional KPI to review is media performance in terms of both Impressions & # of Likes generated with & without media support. Using the Facebook self-service platform, or a platform such as Adapt.ly are essential to support your growth initiatives.
There are many other metrics that you can track and platforms such as PageLever & Edgerank Checker to go further than Facebook insights but these are a few that I like to use when tracking success metrics on Facebook growth initiatives.
What are some additional metrics that you deploy to track against ROI for growth strategies?
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Twitpic founder Noah Everett has just launched a new microblogging social network called Heello. Heello down to it’s core is a Twitter clone. Outside of the Tweet being replaced by Ping (Which might draw the ire of Apple) what you will notice is that the 140 character limits and many of the microformats are in tact.
Because Twitter has essentially rendered Twitpic obsolete with some of the latest advancements to the service, Heello seems to be a direct response to this move by Twitter as a means to try and compete for marketshare.
Heello is currently an approved Twitter app so cross-posting between the services is possible and with Twitter’s developer ecosystem anxious due to inconsistent interactions with Twitter, there may be a place for Heello in the ever growing list of social networks.
In order for this to happen though Heello will need users and at this point there is no mobile support nor API’s which are critical to drive adoption. Also, from a brand perspective there is not yet support beyond simple content engagement.
Will Heello be the next big thing or will the advancements of Facebook & Google+ make services such as Twitter & Heello obsolete? The likelihood is high as both Google+ & Facebook offer destinations whereas Twitter & Heello are more of a sharing utility vs. destination.
Regardless, if for no other reason be sure to claim your namesake/brand/persona on Heello just in case.
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Outside of the recent flurry associated with Google+, the one term that has been top of mind throughout the digital space recently is gamification. Gamification is a term used to describe organizations using game mechanics to drive engagement in traditionally non-gaming products. There are examples of gamification everywhere in our daily lives and many brands are integrating game mechanics in unique and compelling ways all with the purpose of driving user engagement.
Below are 15 examples of Gamification and how brands are capitalizing on the trend.
Xbox Live | Achievements, Leaderboards | Microsoft struck a chord with traditional gamers when they first rolled out achievement points. Users can earn a certain amount of gamerscore by completing specific tasks or actions in game. This simple addition had a profound impact on the space as nothing to date had motivated behavior to play titles beyond ones taste for specific genres while also creating an aggregate & visible record of your gaming prowess. Brands took note of the trend and the loyalty that users developed in their pursuit of gamerscore & bragging rights. I attribute the current craze of achievement based gamification to the success of Xbox Live & achievement points.
E.g. Gamertag
Foursquare | Rewards, Badges | Location based services such as Foursquare, Gowalla & Facebook Places have redefined game mechanics in non-gaming products. Users and brands alike have taken notice and Foursquare stands out with 10 million users on a platform that was built around solid game mechanics. Users can claim mayorships, unlock badges, receive special offers & rewards such as discounts to specific retailers while also tracking against friends via a leaderboard.
Examples of Foursquare Badges
Example of Foursquare/NFL Super Bowl Rewards
Example of Foursquare/Pepsi Reward from SXSW 2011
Foursquare leaderboard sponsored by Pepsi
Gowalla | Virtual Goods, Badges, Rewards | Like Foursquare, Gowalla has had an impact on brands by incenting location based check-ins while incorporating virtual item reward programs that then translate into physical goods.
Example of Gowalla badges/pins
Example of Virtual Goods/Physical Goods
GetGlue | Badging, Rewards | The gamification of entertainment has been growing significantly over the past year. Similar to how individuals check into physical locations with services such as Foursquare & Gowalla, now it is possible to check into entertainment destinations such as your favorite TV Show, Movie, Music, Video Games, etc… With players such as GetGlue, Miso, Philo and Tunerfish all vying for your entertainment check-in, each platform offers different mechanics but each is built on the foundation of game mechanics such as badging & rewards through various brand partners.
Example of GetGlue Sticker tied to TRON
Example of a GetGlue Reward that offered 40% off of Mad Men on Blu-Ray or DVD
Linkedin |Progress Bar | Linkedin offers a small example of gamification by incenting users towards 100% profile completeness with a progress bar that is visible while on the edit profile page. By providing a visual representation of your profile completeness Linkedin hopes to trigger behavior that drives us towards completeness.
Example of Profile completeness
SalesForce | Leaderboard, Achievements, Leveling | Salesforce has taken gamification to another level with this addition to the popular CRM platform. With Engage, Salesforce users activities within the system are tied to various game mechanics and offers direct competition with other users within their organization. By incorporating this level of competitive visibility organizations can capitalize on surfacing different behaviors and hopefully drive additional engagement with their systems.
Example of SalesForce’s New Gamification Dashboard
Mint | Achievements, Progress Bar | As discussed on Mashable, Mint is offering a Financial Fitness Score that is based on core game mechanics associated with task completion, progression & achievements. By taking an ordinary exercise and creating a casual gaming experience, mint is creating an opportunity to drive new user acquisition in a creative way.
Example of Mint Gamification
Example of Mint Point Acquisition
CheckPoints | Virtual Currency, Rewards | CheckPoints incents users to engage in retail settings via compelling game mechanics. Users are incented to scan specific products in exchange for CheckPoints which can then be exchanged as a virtual currency for rewards such as gift cards. Brands can create compelling programs with CheckPoints to drive retail activation and product engagement all based on gamification of the shopping experience.
Example of CheckPoints Scan for Tyson Chicken
Example of CheckPoints Rewards
Shopkick | Virtual Currency, Rewards, Contests | Similar to CheckPoints, ShopKick also offers incentives and game mechanics for users to engage with specific products. By incenting users with specific offers prior to entering a retail location, ShopKick users can then interact with those products in store and earn points which translate to virtual currency. ShopKick also incorporates a hyper geo-targeted approach to driving engagement as shown below. By rewarding behavior by simply entering a participating retailer, ShopKick can influence behavior via a game mechanic.
Example Geo-Targeted Gamification associated with Target
Example of ShopKick Rewards
Hallmark | Facebook Credits, Virtual Goods, Gifting, Sharing | Facebook credits have become the default currency tied to Facebook’s ever popular social games. Beyond the social game mechanics brands are leveraging Facebook credits to incent users to interact with specific content. Hallmark incorporates many game mechanics into it’s Facebook application the Hallmark Social Calendar.
Example Hallmark Social Calendar and Facebook Credits
Example of Hallmark Social Calendar Gifting
Example of Incenting engagement via Points
Starbucks | Leveling, Rewards | Starbucks has incorporated game mechanics into it’s popular loyalty program. By incorporating multiple levels and associated rewards & perks per level with a progression tracker, users are incented to continually engage with the brand.
Example of MyStarbucks Rewards
Nike | Achievements, Badges, Challenges, Rewards | Nike has redefined running with Nike Plus. The ability to track, share, challenge and interact with like minded friends & runners across the world has been wildly successful. By incorporating game mechanics throughout the program Nike is able to create an engaging experience that transcends the real world activity.
Example of Nike Plus Goals & Challenges
Example of Nike Plus Progress bar & Leveling
Buffalo Wild Wings | Trivia, Challenges | Buffalo Wild Wings has been adept at carving out their place in the social ecosystem. By leveraging powerful platforms like Vitrue and partnering with Scvngr, they have created an engaging social persona that has served them well with over 5 million fans on Facebook. In terms of gamification they incorporate trivia regularly into their wall posts as well as incorporating online challenges tied to rewards.
Example of a Buffalo Wild Wings program that incorporates Scvngr
Microsoft | Achievements, Contests | Ribbon Hero is a creative game mechanic driven tutorial now in Microsoft Office. By completing specfic tasks and challenges you can then integrate Ribbon Hero with your Facebook account to compare how adept you are vs. your friends.
Example Ribbon Hero
American Airlines | Progression Bar | A simple game mechanic is used by American Airlines to visually represent your current elite status qualification.
Example of American Airlines mobile app
As you can see many brands are capitalizing on the trend of integrating game mechanics into their non-gaming product offerings to drive engagement. What are some other examples of gamification by other brands?
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With Google+ yet to launch pages to support business, Facebook proactively launched the Facebook for Business resource center.
The center provides everything from guides for Pages, various ad products, sponsored stories and platform applications. These resources were not always available in one location and can serve as either a great refresher or provide new insight into the depth of Facebook’s platform and are written in a very straightforward manner.
As I stated in my last post, Facebook is still priority #1 for brands.
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While a lot of buzz and attention has been placed on Google+ over the past few weeks it is too soon for brands to divert attention & dollars away from Facebook. While there is a lot of speculation on how Google+ will enable brands, one thing is still very clear. The #1 option for brands focused on B2C interaction & engagement is still Facebook.
Facebook is the number one seller of display advertising in the US now according to eMarketer and has surpassed both Google & Yahoo. While Google+ has gained momentum quickly, analysis still shows there is a lot of duplication across networks with a majority of new Google+ users maintaining accounts and engaging across both Facebook & Google+.
From a brand perspective no other social platform is as well equipped to support brands both domestically and internationally than Facebook. With the breadth of reach available and the lack of brand support on Google+ (For the time being) it’s important to note that Facebook is where the remainder of your 2011/2012 $$$ should be allocated.
To support this statement look at the recent rollout of Facebook’s sponsored stories and how their usage of social context drives interaction. If you have yet to use this type of ad unit you should consider it as a part of your next Facebook media buy. This ad unit presents interactions with pages into dynamic ads that are shared throughout users newsfeeds and due to the personal & social nature of the unit they grab user’s attention quickly.
The results have been impressive with 1.6x lift in brand recall, 2x lift in message awareness and 4x lift in purchase intent according to Facebook. This is a key differentiator between Facebook & Google+ at the present time. The social context that Facebook provides to brands and support with a variety of programs still makes it the primary choice to execute a Paid, Owned & Earned strategy.
I have found the following graphical representation of Facebook’s Sponsored Story types to be extremely useful.
Time will tell who eventually wins the highly coveted ad dollars. But as it stands today it is still no contest when it comes to where to spend your brands social advertising dollars.
Follow Tom Edwards @BlackFin360
For those of us that work closely with brands, the initial beta for Google+ was exciting but not quite fulfilling for brands. Granted it is a Beta and is not intended for brand or non-human entities at this time. The recent announcement of Pages or Entities for brands on the 2011 platform roadmap means it is never too early to begin thinking about Google+ brand strategy with what is known today.
Below are 10 potential points to consider for your 2012 digital strategy planning as it relates to Google+.
Potential Brand Benefits of Google+ Brand Pages/Entities
1 ) Integration with Google Search – Google currently owns 68% of search market share. The fact that the Google +1 icon is now a part of every Google search result shows a glimpse of the level of integration Google has in store for users & brands alike. A user can directly recommend a link from their search results and that recommendation is simultaneously shared on the users Google+ +1 profile section. By combining paid search, and incenting +1 behaviors you can begin to see the potential of this level of integration as the user may not be actively engaged on Google+ but the abilty to drive a user to engage by recommending content with the click of a single button is appealing.
Here is an example of a search for Hasbro’s NERF product. I like NERF so I +1 the Page
The +1 is then aggregated into my Google+ profile under +1’s
2 ) Google +1 – Similar to the Facebook Like button the Google +1 button has the opportunity to truly transcend the platform by driving significant 3rd party integration. In fact the Google +1 button overtook the Twitter tweet button on most major websites with a 33% spike in integration recently. Granted it is still far behind the Like button in terms of saturation but the fact that both Facebook & Google+ drive engagement to a central destination vs. simply being a conduit to various destinations such as Twitter shows the potential of 3rd party integrations to drive engagement.
3 ) Circles – By allowing brands to potentially segment fans is a big win. One of the issues with brand management on Facebook is tied to messaging across audience segments. By allowing brands to potentially seamlessly categorize fans it allows the style of engagement to change dramatically. Imagine if you are driving engagement with 13-17 year old segments as well as 18-24 year olds. The brand & social persona’s associated with content could shift to further driving engagement based on audience segment vs. a one size fits all approach.
Here is a mock-up of how a brand could further segment consumers via demographic circles
4 ) Google+ & Social Gaming – Google invested 100 million dollars into Zynga in 2010 and look for Google+ to create it’s own Google Games flavor of social gaming in 2011/2012. With over 50% of Facebooks 700 million engaged daily with Facebook social games, it is a key motivator for brands to monitor the Google Games offering and how Zynga and others align with Google+. The success of recent brand integrations with Farmville, including Frito-Lays recent world record for driving “Likes”, has given notice to brand managers of the power of Social Games & strategic partnerships with the game providers.
5 ) Google Tools/Apps/Gadgets Integration – If your organization uses Google Apps for business it looks as though Google will be holding trials with a handful of users to test integration between Google Apps for Business & Google+. Additional integration could come in the form of Google Gadgets where it may be possible to re-purpose rich media elements as a Google Gadget that could then be shared with a user via Google+. This would further drive efficiency with marketing dollars while providing additional tools to drive acquisition & engagement.
6 ) YouTube & Google TV Integration – With YouTube in it’s stable, Google+ integration with YouTube is not far behind. The inherent social nature of YouTube translates well in terms of integration of +1, embedding video and further integrating the YouTube & Google+ experience to make sharing and recommending content even easier. From a brand perspective being able to distribute unique & consumer generated content that is relevant to the brand while driving +1’s back to a brand page is very appealing from an earned media perspective.
One area that really intrigues me is how Google TV may integrate with Google+ to create a truly social entertainment experience. I envision further integration between Google TV, YouTube, Hulu & Andriod to drive truly integrated entertainment experiences across screens. From a media perspective you could truly bridge the gap between traditional & digital placement by incorporating a relevant ad placement via information collected from Sparks & Google Search. This to me is the future of enhanced television.
7 ) Google Map Integration – Many brands have physical locations and creating a distributed module that integrates Google Maps or even more importantly Google Latitude integration. It will be interesting to see if there is additional focus on integrating Google Latitude with Google+ to rival Facebook places and the other key players such as Foursquare & Gowalla. Brands could claim locations and proactively be pinged with relevant offers based on check-in history and Google+ spark interests.
8 ) Android Integration – With the Android’s market share currently at 49.5%, integration with Google+ is a key for both Google+ & Android. With both an App & Web version of Google+ and an Android exclusive with the Google+ Huddle functionality, the level of integration between Android & Google+ is apparent. Even though the Hangout feature was left out, there are still signs towards further integration for Google+ beyond the app. The latest version of Google+ enabled phones are rumored to provide additional functionality such as a potential one touch +1 feature in the next generation phone. This may have brands rethinking their approach to Android applications.
9 ) Google Offers – With the launch of Google Offers, it is a natural extension for brands to incorporate group buying where applicable. By integrating this with Google+ as well as search results there could be a very compelling acquisition program tied to Google+ extensions that is amplified via Google+ users.
10 ) Sparks & Recommendation Engine – One of the most impactful elements of Google+ for brands is potentially Sparks. Brands could focus advertising dollars on Sparks programs that are relevant to their brand & product offerings. Taking it a step further, creation of a recommended or +1 relevance based on a users & circles sparks/interests that is then socially shared could be very compelling. This would be very similar to Facebook’s sponsored stories.
Other areas of focus & interest will be how international/localized regions are supported in terms of aggregating brand +1’s and how the Google+ commerce & currency platform strategies will unfold.
One additional point will be to evaluate the true reach and amplification of the +1 from an earned media perspective. While Circles & segmentation are key how this information is shared and disseminated via the stream is incredibly important. Be sure to note the differences in what shows up individually in your streams vs. what is tied to content. With Facebook, one of the secrets outside of edgerank is the level of detail that is shown by interaction. You “Like” NERF and it is represented in your newsfeed. This is key for true adoption & ultimately big advertising dollars to be spent on Google+.
As far as what the potential brand pages would look like Sean Percival created an interesting mock up of what a potential Starbucks brand page could look like.
Follow Tom Edwards @BlackFin360
This week saw the launch of Google+ which is Googles answer to Facebook. Google has definitely had setbacks when it comes to Social solutions. Google Wave anyone? So what do they decide to do this time around? Basically mirror Facebook.
There is even a CSS overlay that now converts your Google+ experience to look like Facebook.
When you break down Google+ the initial functionality looks very familiar with a few subtle differences tied to the Profile & stream of news. The Stream is similar to the newsfeed and users can “+1” specific updates. The functionality is so similar to Facebook’s newsfeed that it makes me think if you can’t beat them copy them.
Beyond the profile & stream there are 5 core areas of Google+ upon launch.
Circles – The basis of circles is to allow users to segment their friends and drive updates to specific groups vs. your entire friends list. Users can follow updates from specific circles with the ability to further filter streams of information.
Hangouts – Brings live group video chat to the table. An individual can allow multiple users in various circles to initiate group video live chats. It’s sort of a mashup of Meetup & Skype’s group video chat.
Instant Upload – Instant Upload is a service that ]removes the barrier between uploading images from your mobile device to a social service. Instead of selecting which image to upload, all images are uploaded and you select which to share with your circles.
Sparks – Sparks is the Google+ version of a relevancy engine. My assumption is that this serves a dual purpose of identifying and sharing interests as well as the engine to tie users interests to Google’s ad platform. It will be interesting to watch the progression and to see if Google+ takes from Facebook’s sponsored stories and other socially integrated advertising options to attract potential ad revenue.
Huddle – Huddle brings group texting to the social network. Similar to GroupMe & Beluga recently Acquired by Facebook users circles can now carry on the conversation outside of the standard web interface. It looks like Google+ beat Facebook in getting this feature to market.
+1 – Google’s version of the Like button, +1 is designed with the same intention as a Like and will be appearing on 3rd party sites near you. I assume Google will integrate the +1 into search results similar to Buzz. I am also assume that brands will now want to drive both Likes & +1’s in the never ending quest for earned media.
I am sure that the future of Google+ will be tied to deep hooks with the Android operating system, an extensive ad network based on information provided via Sparks as well as a push to drive 3rd party adoption of the +1. Also with Chrome gaining market-share and closing the gap on Firefox there will most likely be considerable integration there as well.
One of the core advantages of Facebook for advertisers beyond reach is that Facebook is a platform first and foremost and with a laser focus on driving social for users & brands alike. It will be interesting to see how Google+ will attract & support brands. As they have just announced “Pages” for brands is on the roadmap.
This is clearly the biggest threat to Facebook to date as it takes the best elements of Facebook and adds new functionality. But it has a long way to go to match Facebook as an advertising platform.
The things to keep in mind moving forward is that Google currently owns Search, YouTube, about to purchase Hulu, Chrome with 20% market share as well as the Android operating system and driving usage of their online office productivity suites and apps. If anyone is positioned to challenge Facebook it’s Google. But time will tell.
Follow Tom Edwards @BlackFin360