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What Should Be The Outcome of Brand Conversations in Social?

Published November 15, 2011 branding , Facebook Leave a Comment
Tags: brands, conversations, Facebook, social media

Do big brands actually have conversations with the people/customers/prospects that friend, follow and fan them? Before we answer that, let’s talk about the dynamics of what we the consumer “feel” if a brand does talk to us. Happiness? A sense of belonging or inclusiveness? What should happen after the like?

What does a consumer want? Do they want content? Do they want to share what the brand says? Do they want something? Do consumers really want the following conversations?

Tom: “Maybe I should buy Famous shoe brand x shoes and walk to work, it would be quicker!”

Famous Shoe Brand: 2 hours later “Hey Tom, how’s it going today? What’s new?”

Tom: 5 minutes later “Not much, got in late today because of traffic”

Famous Shoe Brand: 2 hours later “Really? You’re in LA, was it the 405? What about taking the Santa Monica (10) Freeway east, the Hollywood (101) Freeway north through the Cahuenga Pass?”

Tom: 5 minutes later “Hey yea I never thought about that! Got any free shoes?”

Famous Shoe Brand: 24 hours later…”Nope sorry, but check out our new video and share it with your friends!”

According to eMarketer, Marketers know that building a Facebook page is not just about collecting “likes” but building relationships with fans and getting them to share and discuss brand-related content.

Is the above simulated conversation the basis for a relationship? No, but maybe it’s a start. What might be Tom’s impression of the shoe brand now?

Social has created a situation in which brands are now on the hook more than ever before for creating compelling, sharable, consumable digital content. Yes, at the end of the day engagement wins and brands are competing every day for the eyeballs of their digital consumers who have or haven’t liked their brand. In return they will get the interest and consideration of the user/consumer. Thus brands are banking on consistent, high level, content posted daily being relevant and interesting; and that in return it leads to what?

Leads, conversions and sales right? Let’s not lose sight on why brands are doing this. But those same brands need to understand what the digital, social, consumer’s expectation and motivation is as well.

The Assumptive Close of Facebook App Registrations

Published May 19, 2011 Facebook 1 Comment
Tags: Facebook

There needs to be a better way. I wanted to download a report that was on Scribd but I needed to Login/Signup. My options? Use Facebook or standard email addy. But upon further investigation of signing up via Facebook, I see that Scribd will access the following data below.

What if I don’t want Scribd to send me emails, post to my wall, access my networks, my user ID and a list of all my friends? It seems a little bit excessive don’t you think? There has got to be a better way for Scribd and it’s users to derive mutual value from each other through Facebook registrations. This just isn’t it. Am I wrong? And yes I know they are not the only one’s doing this…People need to understand the value of their data. Their social currency is gold to others and they need to leverage it as such.

When Social Media Strategy Becomes Irrelevant

Published March 21, 2011 Facebook , google , Japan Earthquake 4 Comments
Tags: Facebook, google, Japan Earthquake, social media

What’s important? Every day online and in the social media bubble we talk about ROI and the strategy and the channels used to grow your social media presence and impact. Here are 3 examples where social media has never figured more prominently and yet it had nothing to do with strategy or ROI, but had everything to do with the engine that does drive social media, PEOPLE.

This past Friday, YouTube created the YouTube Person Finder a channel that is aggregating video messages from the victims and the people affected by the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan more than a week ago. No strategy, no ROI justification-Just YouTube realizing that they could create something that could help people in a time of need.

Meanwhile Google, creates the Google Person Finder which is pulling all relevant search information about people affected in the region into a simple interface. You can either supply information that you know about someone or you can search information posted about someone you know. On top of this, Google has created the Google Crisis Response Page which in my opinion should be shared by everyone just based on the amount of information posted and updated on it.

A Facebook Causes page was recently created to support and raise awareness and funds for the earthquake and tsunami victims. The page is called Help Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami Victims, and it allows Facebook users to donate anywhere from $10 to $500, or they can join the cause and share it with their Facebook friends. So far they have raised $240.000 This might not seem like a lot but every bit of it will help. Additional Facebook resources can also be found here Global Disaster Relief on Facebook page.

This is bigger picture stuff here and at the end of the day has nothing to do with business strategies or ROI but has everything to do with people using the power of social media to make a difference when it matters most-People in need. Impactful stuff…

Monetizing Facebook

Published February 25, 2011 Facebook 4 Comments
Tags: Facebook

Let’s look at three situations.

We’ve all been wondering either on the behalf of the company’s we work for, or the clients we serve, or for ourselves- How can we leverage Facebook to actually make money? Recently, Social commerce platform ChompOn, threw down the gauntlet by publishing some data on how much a Facebook share and tweet is worth.

For those who have never heard of ChompOn, they are a site/service where you’re able to create Groupon like widgets to embed on your website.

Real quickly, for shares and tweets, ChompOn was able to attribute sales to the original action, so they took the total revenue attributed to each action and divided it by the total number of shares/tweets. For likes and follows, they had to estimate attribution by looking at their traffic references and subtracting out purchases made through shares/tweets as well as purchases made through direct traffic.

I don’t know. It seems like such an inexact science. I know it’s based on The notion of group buying shares and likes and tweets but still…Can we be that precise on the value of a share or a tweet? If we were, I would think much more would be happening in this space and business. Is that why Groupon was valuated so high?

Next we have some data by Emarketer in which it was reported that US marketers will spend $3.08 billion to advertise on social networking sites this year. Additionally, that growth in spending will bring social media ad dollars to 10.8% of the total spent online in the US.

What’s not surprising though was that the primary driver of the change in projected spending is because of greater ad spending on Facebook.

”2010 was the year that Facebook firmly established itself as a major force not only in social network advertising but all of online advertising,” said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson, author of the upcoming report “Worldwide Social Network Ad Spending: 2011 Outlook.” “In 2011, its global presence is something multinational advertisers can’t ignore.”

These numbers just blow me away. Look at the change in revenue from 2009 to 2012 in the US alone!

OK last one here. Recently SmartPulse conducted a poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — asking: Have you bought ads on social networks? If so, did the ads deliver a high return on investment?

The choices consisted of the following:

No, I have never purchased ads on social sites — 64.86%
Yes, I have bought ads on social networks and the return on investment was low — 27.03%
Yes, I have bought ads on social networks and the return on investment was high — 8.11%

I’m going to echo the question that was broached in the body of the survey results: “Why is the ad spend on social sites growing so rapidly, and will it continue?” I’m then going to affirm the next statement:

I am astonished by these ad-sales figures, since everyone I seem to ask either says they’ve never purchased social ads, or they have bought ads, but would never do it again because of extremely low return.

Am in the bubble that ignores banner and display ads? Perhaps. isn’t the click thru something like 1/2%? I get it that social networks understand that their main source of income is always going to be derived the majority of the time from advertising. Facebook it would seem, is ideal then, given their 600 million registered users; because it can indeed provide a platform to purchase highly targeted ads based on specific demographics. But I think this highlights a bigger issue-No one is challenging a better way to make money either via Facebook or in social, either from a platform perspective, aside from a subscription model, or from the advertiser/brand side.

So of the three scenarios. Is a Facebook share really worth $14? Are advertisers wasting money on Facebook? What advertiser is making money on Facebook? What brand is doing a killer job of utilizing Facebook to make money and can prove it?

Brands are still not taking Twitter Seriously

Published February 1, 2011 Facebook , Twitter 17 Comments
Tags: Facebook, Twitter

I’m not nitpicking. But let’s talk about social media icons. We’re starting to see them on everything. Specifically the Twitter and Facebook icons. Just because we see them, doesn’t mean that those companies are “social”, that they are engaged, fully engaged or partly engaged. We can easily call it social media lip service, but when I checked the Twitter presence of some of the top 100 global brands according the Businessweek-engagement was little or none, and in a lot of cases, the brands didn’t even possess the Twitter handle.

For example, @Disney has over 140,000 followers and yet has only tweeted 210 times. I know it’s Disney and they might not have to care about Twitter, but that’s not the point. It’s 2011 and brands are going all in when it comes to social. Just look at this years Super Bowl Ads. This might be the year social takes the Super Bowl by storm.

Check out @Samsung 2500 followers and… a total of 8 tweets. Meanwhile they have over 200,000 fans on Facebook. Was this the strategy they were told or did they come up with this internally? Should I give them the benefit of the doubt in regards to when they launched their (new) social identity? Is it a work in progress? Take GAP, over 50,000 followers and yet a mere 400 or so tweets…

You’re probably saying it’s just Twitter, but for brands, Twitter makes more sense than it does for the casual user. It’s a better fit and it’s an opportunity.

With that said, I would like to say to brands, “Don’t be social because you have heard you need to be”. Yet we know that’s how some operate. Why not attach a strategy with some (not many) achievable decent KPI’s to your social initiatives? Weave your Twitter activity into your daily routine the way you check email dozens of times per day.

Hey Brands, don’t hoard social, own it. Yet I know major companies that either go out and do nothing with their Twitter presence or worse, squat on their Twitter handle so that others don’t it. For example. @Budwesier, @L’Oreal, @Heinz, @Colgate, @Chanel, @Wrigleys , @KFC, @Avon , @Adidas, @rolex , @Hermes, Tiffany, and ING, all get an F. Hello strategy? You might be thinking or actually they might think that they don’t need to bother with Twitter-Guess what? Twitter is free and Facebook is free and the barriers of entry and engagement are absurdly low.

What a lot of companies fail to realize is that we consumers will search for them, or they will eventually come up in search because of a question, a customer service issue, or because prospects want to see who they are. We will click on your social icons. Then we’ll come to our own conclusions. Search and social are not strange bedfellows. Your social results and personas will come up high in search and if you and your brand are coming up short, it’s an opportunity lost.And if you are there, don’t sleep walk through the chance to engage with your customers.

Social without a purpose is a waste. Brands who put the Twitter and Facebook icons on their site or on their marketing collateral with nothing to really show for it, is not very smart. Of course I also think having search results where a brand and its associated products does not come up on page one or position one is a major transgression, yet some major brands miss that opportunity as well. Positive search results are a win and always will be. Bad search results can be devastating.

Control the social aspects of your brand.

There are no take backs in social media…

Published January 27, 2011 communities , Facebook , Social Networks 1 Comment
Tags: #socialmedia, communities, Facebook, Social Networks

Originally I was going to write about how NFL players not playing this past Sunday were tweeting during the NFC championship game about how Quarterback Jay Cutler seemed to NOT want to go back in the game because of a perceived injury to his knee, how he was not tough, how he was soft, how he lacked heart. Little did they know that he was actually hurt. They were reacting more to his body language, to what the camera showed us or by what was being said or not said during the telecast. Little did they know that thousands were reading what they were tweeting.

I was going to talk about how the players NOT PLAYING tweeted things I’m sure in hindsight they wish they could have taken back about one of their peers. How they didn’t know the impact this was going to have. How Jay Cutler couldn’t even defend himself given that the game was going on. It was compounded by how quickly it became viral over the course of the next 24-48 hours. Some players retracted what they said through additional tweets AFTERWARDS but the fact of the matter was that the tweets are there to be seen, searched and read by thousands. FOREVER!

Well if this authority figure or this well known former or current player said it or thought it or tweeted it, it must be right? It must be true. Right???

Yep I was going to talk about how athletes should be careful of what they say about themselves or others especially on social networks. Until it happened to me. This is one of those valuable lessons that includes more than public figures. It’s about you and me and how we treat others. And I feel awful about it. Let me give you a quick background.

I joined a private group in Facebook. It was a fun irreverent group of like minded professionals initially talking about the stuff, the challeneges , and the issues we face every day. But the tone of the group slowly shifted or evolved into something I didn’t really recognize anymore. I felt somewhat uneasy about the change and actually thought about leaving the group prior to; but I still fired up the machine to see what was being talked about and to contribute.

What happened was I got caught up in the bashing of a colleague and peer who I have respect for. He wasn’t there to defend himself. He wasn’t part of the group. It wasn’t fair. It’s one thing to critique a blog post-Hey we all write crappy ones from time to time, but taking it down a notch was not fair. I didn’t defend him, I joined in and kicked him too! It was there for people to read and comment on what I said. Most didn’t notice but I did. It’s bothered me ever since. I know better. Not just the fact that it was on a social network but this has to do with civility and respect.

Afterwards, a good friend who was there and who actually defended this person, took the time to point out to me that I was better than that. She was right. I just wish I had realized it before. Sure it was in a private Facebook group but I can’t take back what I did and naming names does me or this blog post no good, but there’s a valuable lesson here. It’s one in which I’ve told companies about and probably fuels a lot of their trepidation of social media engagement.

Once it’s out there, it’s out there for everyone to see. It’s in ink not pencil

Sometimes, the hardest lessons are the ones you have to experience first hand. The NFL players who tweeted about Jay Cutler probably wish they could take back what they said, and so do I. It’s not part of what I am about. I can do better. I apologize. Like I said, there are no take backs in social media.

What Does it Mean When Social Media Companies Can’t Survive?

Published October 7, 2010 Facebook , social media 3 Comments
Tags: 12seconds.tv, Facebook, google, jay baer, microsoft, xmarks

In recent weeks I’ve received emails from Xmarks and 12seconds.tv announcing that both were ceasing operations by the end of the month. I was bummed. With Xmarks, I actually used it every day to keep all my bookmarks synced across multiple machines. With 12seconds.tv, I had used a dozen times or so and I could see an application or a place for it in the crowded world of social applications and services. So why did they both decide to shut the doors?

No revenues. Simple as that. They could not make any money. Both companies had traffic and users, and both applications were free, but the problem was, they could not figure out how to make a living off of a social utility. I’ve said for a long time that I can’t stand the traditional internet business model that’s predicated on traffic. I hate that model; and yet as we speak in 2010, we have 2 companies that needed traffic to grab advertisers, and to a certain degree had half of that equation, and yet still couldn’t survive.

What does that mean?

Sure we’ve had a ton of companies that have gone belly up, but what does it mean today? Back in the day, when your internet startup wasn’t tied to a transactional product, your best bet for survival was predicated on a mix of lots of traffic, word of mouth, and great service which attracted advertisers. But that still was no guarantee of survival. Especially when it basically was relying on traffic fueled ad dollars.

This morning Jay Baer wrote a post about how social media behemoth Facebook was basically suffocating the rest of the web 2.0 world. Frankly I have to agree with him. Not only is Facebook swallowing up our time, but it’s redefining our choices and driving our preferences-which means that companies that are trying to go it alone in the social media landscape, now have to compete for attention and eyeballs of people that prefer to play inside the walls of Facebook only!

Forget ad revenue from traffic as a major concern for new social startups. They now have to compete with Facebook right out of the blocks. It reminds me of the halcyon days of first Microsoft’s dominance and then Google’s. Everyone was always wondering what they were going to do next. This is Facebook’s world and we’re just living in it.

That’s what that means.

Facebook Infographs

Published May 24, 2010 Facebook Leave a Comment
Tags: Facebook, facebook privacy policies, marc meyer

Which one of the following 3 infographs might be the most accurate?

On Trust and Children in Social Networks

Published May 10, 2010 Facebook 17 Comments
Tags: Facebook, privacy, Social Networks

So I’m at my 12 year old daughter’s softball game last Friday night and as the game is concluding I reach for my cellphone and I see a text from my wife it reads:

Your daughter is on Facebook”?

I text back

She better not be”.

As I’m waiting for her to emerge from the dugout, I decide to call my wife who is in Ohio for the weekend for my nephew’s first communion. The first words out of her mouth are that her sister Terry tried to “Friend” my daughter on Facebook. I was shocked and stunned. But there were some legit reasons why. Here’s 4 of them.

1) Not 2 weeks prior to this happening, I was on television and in front of a live audience, as well as members of the school board, explaining why I did not see the point in children (freshman to sophomores on down) using Facebook, let alone a social network at all. They’re too young.

2) I had explained to those that attended, how important it was to monitor your childrens online activities.

3) I had outlined how important it was, to explain the implications of privacy and what can happen when you are “out” there to your children.

4) My daughter saw the event on television

Apparently I suck at drinking my own koolaid. I did not do a good enough job of monitoring my child’s online activities. I took for granted that my straight A’s student, great athlete, daughter would never violate the trust that I thought we had. She had asked previously if she could get a Facebook account and I said no and I explained why.

Here’s the cautionary tale.

First off, I felt completely betrayed by my daughter,
Facebook has no idea of the challenges that parents face.
Even “good” kids will do what their ‘friends” tell them to do and what their parents tell them not to.
My daughter knew she wasn’t supposed to be on, but her friends told her to set up an account.
As smart as my daughter thinks she is, and yes she is, she still set the account up wrong, but luckily she had not put “that much” info out there.
There were dozens of other “friends” waiting for her to “friend” them back. Dozens.
Those other “friends”, were no older than 13, but the majority were younger than 13. That means that they worked around the so-called age limit to join Facebook.
Children have no clue what privacy settings are and how to set them up on Facebook.

So what’s my point? I supposedly was monitoring my daughter’s online activities. I live, eat, breath and sleep this social media stuff, and yet she did it while my wife and I were down the street trying to hit tennis balls.

The parents of the others that I saw on there? Chances are, they do not live, eat and breathe social media. I bet if I were to at least look at the privacy settings of those accounts, 90% of them would be wide open. That’s a problem. One of many.

As social networks and mobile phones continue to evolve, and as the age of innocence continues to evaporate, and entry into owning a phone continues to be lowered-issues about content, behavior, ignorance, and privacy on social networks are going to continue to escalate and magnify. Take it from me, or maybe not…

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