I found an interesting article today on TechCrunch about Fanbase Media debuting a social platform for Instagram. Fanbase Media, if you haven't heard of it, is a new social marketing start-up (I swear there are soooo many social start-ups these days!). The company is only manned by 3 people who just help companies like Michael Kors run promotions and contests on the photo sharing site, Instagram. Fanbase believes social marketing is going from a stage of simply pushing out content, to a stage of compiling and gathering user generated content and using that content to get marketing results. The engagement and interactions using user-generated content completely outweighs just publishing content. Fanbase has already begun making an impact on the Instagram community, but has also recently started working with Vine (a Twitter created mobile app).
They believe the place to be is with strictly mobile apps where people take pictures/share stuff directly from their mobile phones. This makes sense as this industry is exploding and people cannot get enough of these social apps. Apps, smartphones, and the marketing that goes along with them is constantly evolving and is super exciting to me! Even in the last year there have been crazy shifts in social platforms and a huge shift in marketing on these platforms. Companies are finally coming around to social media, as they should.
Fanbase is smart for creating the platform they did, but in this industry I believe it's tough to survive too long because so many new start-ups come along every day. With technology, nothing is going to last forever since someone will always come up with a more creative/faster/cooler way of doing something. Also, the platforms like Instagram and Vine are not to be dwelled on, as we have no idea how long they'll last. Sites like Vine and Instagram are trendy, but not as powerful as Twitter and Facebook in my opinion. However, this doesn't mean there are huge opportunities there, because there are!
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Social Media Marketing Tactics
Today I found an insightful article from RIS media about social marketing tactics to share with you. This was an eye opening article, and important in todays day and age. Almost every company is doing something social, but without thinking of the tactics that should go along with it. It's not only important to have a presence online, but you must also use it appropriately.
This article states that for both B2B and B2C marketing, improving customer engagement is the most important objective of social strategies, followed by increasing website traffic and increasing overall content reach. It is impressive to me that the people at RIS understand that these objectives are more important than increasing sales revenue, since they will eventually do that as well.
The next chart showed the most effective social tactics for B2B and B2C marketing. Creating articles and blog post content was ranked #1 for both B2B and B2C, followed by creating social share buttons for B2C and creating research articles for B2B which makes sense.
The final chart illustrated the most difficult tactics to execute for B2B and B2C social strategies. Creating audio/video content ranked first for both categories. This does take time and effort, but then again, you should spend most of your time curating content, so this makes sense. You will not achieve a successful campaign if you do not take the necessary steps in creating the content. People these days are good at estimating the effort put into ads, etc. so it is important to put a lot of time into this.
This article states that for both B2B and B2C marketing, improving customer engagement is the most important objective of social strategies, followed by increasing website traffic and increasing overall content reach. It is impressive to me that the people at RIS understand that these objectives are more important than increasing sales revenue, since they will eventually do that as well.
The next chart showed the most effective social tactics for B2B and B2C marketing. Creating articles and blog post content was ranked #1 for both B2B and B2C, followed by creating social share buttons for B2C and creating research articles for B2B which makes sense.
The final chart illustrated the most difficult tactics to execute for B2B and B2C social strategies. Creating audio/video content ranked first for both categories. This does take time and effort, but then again, you should spend most of your time curating content, so this makes sense. You will not achieve a successful campaign if you do not take the necessary steps in creating the content. People these days are good at estimating the effort put into ads, etc. so it is important to put a lot of time into this.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Spring Break Experience & Google Reader
Been a while since I've blogged... Nice to be back on here again. I'm finally back in school-mode after a week of tests and papers. Two weeks ago I went on a Spring Break cruise to Nassau/St. Thomas/St. Maarten on the Carnival Dream. If you haven't heard of this boat by now, you must live under a rock. To sum up the story, the boat broke down in the St. Maarten port (similar to what happened to the Carnival Triumph a few weeks before). Air conditioning was off for maybe an hour, elevators didn't work, and some toilets overflowed. It wasn't bad at all. The staff kept us very educated as to what was going on, and a time frame for recovery. When I woke up the next morning still in St. Maarten, we knew we weren't going anywhere. It ended up being an engine problem, and we'd all have to be flown back to Orlando on charter flights. (Rough couple weeks for Carnival... $$) But as it relates to social media, it was crazy on CNN how blown up the story got. CNN made it seem like our conditions were horrible and exaggerated 10x more than I ever expected. Once I was back home I went on Carnival's Facebook page. They were very quick to update and inform their "fans", which I was impressed by. It's important to be responsive in an eventful time like this. I will still ride Carnival, and have no problems with the cruise line whatsoever. (The 50% off another cruise coupon helped a little I suppose...)
The next issue I chose to blog about today is Google's decision to shut down their RSS feed, Google Reader. To me this is somewhat shocking as it is a widely used and reputable tool. Some quotes from the article suggest that social media may be the new RSS, and that the shut down of Google's program may be a net positive overall. A lot of new programs have been made in the last 5 years that haven't seen action because of Google's program, so this is an interesting development. The effect of this decision hasn't been seen yet, but I'll be sure to update you when more data becomes available. It is sure to make an impression on the content marketing scene and in social media.
-Steffan
The next issue I chose to blog about today is Google's decision to shut down their RSS feed, Google Reader. To me this is somewhat shocking as it is a widely used and reputable tool. Some quotes from the article suggest that social media may be the new RSS, and that the shut down of Google's program may be a net positive overall. A lot of new programs have been made in the last 5 years that haven't seen action because of Google's program, so this is an interesting development. The effect of this decision hasn't been seen yet, but I'll be sure to update you when more data becomes available. It is sure to make an impression on the content marketing scene and in social media.
-Steffan
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Social Marketing Tricks
Today I found a few interesting articles offering tricks in social media marketing. The first article was from Mashable and offered tricks that top brands utilize. (I thought it was relevant that in italics before the article started, author Wasserman noted that the post had also been published on American Express' OPENforum, a community based forum I have previously mentioned...) Wasserman goes on to identify three social marketing tips used by large brands that you could use too. 1. Becoming a passion brand. An example in this category is Nike, consistently highlighting the same underlying point: athletic achievement. This is a topic that all athletes are passionate about and can connect with on some level. The second tip comes in the form of becoming a personality brand, such as Skittles. Skittles does not have the same opportunity as Nike to attract passion but rather can utilize a stream of consciousness updating on outlets such as Facebook to drive involvement. One funny example of their posts is, "the frenemy of my frenemy is my enefriend. This entertains followers and comes off as witty and clever. The last tip from large brands is to be transparent. A good example of transparency comes from Microsoft, who regularly post blogs about current initiatives, etc. Transparency is highly valued among consumers and creates a certain level of trust.
Another excellent article I found today came from the Examiner regarding the idea that social media strength lies within content/audience, and not the viral factor. It is safe to assume that brands do not produce anything "ground-breaking", and as a result you can see that a good social strategy must be based on the content published and audience involvement. Viral videos are really quite random and short-lived, usually individual user generated, and do not seem to thrive in the big business social world. Instead social strategies should aim to strive in responsiveness and to publish information specific to the needs of your audience. Finally, this article states an interesting development- the circle of content life breakdown. In this model, there are three circles of reach for a brand. Circle 1 being your immediate family, followers, fans, etc., circle 2 being your family's connections, and circle 3 being the people that are unreachable to you but that circle 1 can share information to. The article also goes on to reiterate the importance of quality over quantity in posting and information sharing.
The final article I found for today from NDTV.com touches on a different subject, the risks of social media marketing. The prime example illustrated in this article is of the recent McDonald's hijacking of the Burger King Twitter account. The daunting task of managing a company's social media feeds is becoming more and more difficult, as hackers seek to complicate the entire process in a variety of ways. Hackers posted on the Burger King feed that they had been "sold to McDonald's". Wow, think of the implications here. This shows the importance of being a step ahead of hackers - you must have prepared statements for such emergencies, and be ready to react quickly. Public relations and corporate communications is a major part of the success equation today, and must be managed correctly.
I hope you enjoyed today's post or learned something new. See you next time.
Steffan Pedersen
Another excellent article I found today came from the Examiner regarding the idea that social media strength lies within content/audience, and not the viral factor. It is safe to assume that brands do not produce anything "ground-breaking", and as a result you can see that a good social strategy must be based on the content published and audience involvement. Viral videos are really quite random and short-lived, usually individual user generated, and do not seem to thrive in the big business social world. Instead social strategies should aim to strive in responsiveness and to publish information specific to the needs of your audience. Finally, this article states an interesting development- the circle of content life breakdown. In this model, there are three circles of reach for a brand. Circle 1 being your immediate family, followers, fans, etc., circle 2 being your family's connections, and circle 3 being the people that are unreachable to you but that circle 1 can share information to. The article also goes on to reiterate the importance of quality over quantity in posting and information sharing.
The final article I found for today from NDTV.com touches on a different subject, the risks of social media marketing. The prime example illustrated in this article is of the recent McDonald's hijacking of the Burger King Twitter account. The daunting task of managing a company's social media feeds is becoming more and more difficult, as hackers seek to complicate the entire process in a variety of ways. Hackers posted on the Burger King feed that they had been "sold to McDonald's". Wow, think of the implications here. This shows the importance of being a step ahead of hackers - you must have prepared statements for such emergencies, and be ready to react quickly. Public relations and corporate communications is a major part of the success equation today, and must be managed correctly.
I hope you enjoyed today's post or learned something new. See you next time.
Steffan Pedersen
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Interesting Articles
Doing my weekly scanning of GoogleNews' "marketing" and "social media" articles I found a few intriguing ones this week to write about. First of all, PC World published an article regarding recent surveys done by Pew and GlobalWebIndex about social media platforms. It stated that whites are more inclined to user Pintrest, Twitter is mostly populated by African Americans and people who live in cities, Facebook has more women than men, and Instagram is most popular with adults under 30 years old. With surveys like this becoming readily available, just think of the marketing implications. Knowing this kind of stuff makes segmenting so much easier and you can really target whichever audience suits your product. Social media campaigns are undoubtedly becoming more and more specialized with these types of facts in mind. The article goes on to highlight more demographic information of the various social platforms. The most interesting statistic, in my opinion, was that 67% of internet users are active on Facebook (crazy!). The next article was from UK's Guardian about baby formula milk and how marketing promotions aimed at women are causing a decline in the number of women who naturally breast feed. Gifts and samples are given out with misleading information about the nutritional benefits of formula as opposed to natural milk. This is illegal and in fact putting children at risk. It's horrible to think that through marketing and promotions a company can cause mothers to change their habits and attitudes towards such products. And the fact that they are publishing misleading information about what to feed newborns just for monetary gains is horrible. To them I say: let mothers make their own decisions, and be more careful about the information you publish. The last article I found was from Yahoo about recent hacks on Facebook, Twitter, and news websites. The attacks on Facebook and Twitter were not to hurt the sites, but to infiltrate user accounts and obtain email addresses, names, etc. The hacks on the news sites were by a Chinese hacking team that wanted to control the sites' coverage of China. With overall technological knowledge increasing globally, attacks like this will continue and could potentially lead to the downfall of such sites if precautions are not taken. Facebook is an extremely powerful social site, and with over 1 billion users it is scary to think about someone hacking into it. Apologies for the randomness of topics covered today (especially the breast feeding). Hopefully you learned something or at least found this interesting.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Content Marketing and Integration
I found an interesting article today on clickz.com about content marketing trends for 2013 and thought I would share it. (January seems a little early to forecast the years' trends, but I found them very interesting...) Smartphones are flying off the shelves, and marketing is yet to truly catch up to this demand. Integration is becoming the norm-- you can see it at every corner, in every restaurant, and at every store. E-commerce is thriving, and businesses are becoming desperate to receive your "likes" and to have you use their Apps. Ideas, philosophies, and people are even turning into brands. It is actually becoming quite scary and overwhelming.
A trend is currently forming around authors/bloggers who are joining together behind a common cause/passion to create "brands" of their own. Creative partnerships of this nature are actually quite exciting and I believe can lead to great innovation. Voluntarily combining your website or work with another prominent persons' work is a genius idea and should be supported to the fullest. I certainly hope this trend explodes in 2013.
Another topic of discussion comes in the trend of brands evolving into thought leaders. This means that brands who have immense followings and experience in their content marketing campaigns are now actually becoming the "go-to" places for customers seeking advice or help with critical interests. It takes patience and perseverance to achieve this placement in consumers' minds, and very few companies are actually able to accomplish this. An example of a thought leader, to me, is that if I have any issue/question about budgeting I will head to the American Express website or blog (called OPEN FORUM) to find my solution. This is extremely intelligent and I believe will be an area of growth in 2013. What company doesn't want their brand to be known as the "go-to" place for information for consumers? The connection this creates between people and brands is amazing.
A final trend from the article I agree with and see exploding this year is the rise of infographics and outlets such as Instagram and Pinterest. Visual narratives are extremely powerful and much more convenient and attractive for consumers than reading a whoooolllleee page of letters. Once a consistent stream of visuals are created and published, followers will flock to your website to gain knowledge and "re-tweet" or share what you post. Integration of information in to social media in this way is very interesting. It allows people to have a constant "feed" of information they are interested in, without having to do any research. This trend, along with the rise of infographics, will certainly continue throughout 2013, and probably even become the new norm. Personally, I think they are very appealing and I thoroughly enjoy Instagram in this way. I can scroll though 10 posts on Instagram and learn the same things I would learn in 10 articles, but at a fraction of the time.
Content marketing and our generation's continual integration are interesting topics that go hand in hand. I look forward to seeing what 2013 has in store for them.
Until next time,
Steffan
A trend is currently forming around authors/bloggers who are joining together behind a common cause/passion to create "brands" of their own. Creative partnerships of this nature are actually quite exciting and I believe can lead to great innovation. Voluntarily combining your website or work with another prominent persons' work is a genius idea and should be supported to the fullest. I certainly hope this trend explodes in 2013.
Another topic of discussion comes in the trend of brands evolving into thought leaders. This means that brands who have immense followings and experience in their content marketing campaigns are now actually becoming the "go-to" places for customers seeking advice or help with critical interests. It takes patience and perseverance to achieve this placement in consumers' minds, and very few companies are actually able to accomplish this. An example of a thought leader, to me, is that if I have any issue/question about budgeting I will head to the American Express website or blog (called OPEN FORUM) to find my solution. This is extremely intelligent and I believe will be an area of growth in 2013. What company doesn't want their brand to be known as the "go-to" place for information for consumers? The connection this creates between people and brands is amazing.
A final trend from the article I agree with and see exploding this year is the rise of infographics and outlets such as Instagram and Pinterest. Visual narratives are extremely powerful and much more convenient and attractive for consumers than reading a whoooolllleee page of letters. Once a consistent stream of visuals are created and published, followers will flock to your website to gain knowledge and "re-tweet" or share what you post. Integration of information in to social media in this way is very interesting. It allows people to have a constant "feed" of information they are interested in, without having to do any research. This trend, along with the rise of infographics, will certainly continue throughout 2013, and probably even become the new norm. Personally, I think they are very appealing and I thoroughly enjoy Instagram in this way. I can scroll though 10 posts on Instagram and learn the same things I would learn in 10 articles, but at a fraction of the time.
Content marketing and our generation's continual integration are interesting topics that go hand in hand. I look forward to seeing what 2013 has in store for them.
Until next time,
Steffan
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Social Media and Celebrities
Let's get started by addressing the Falcons' frustrating loss to the 49ers this past Sunday, leaving Atlanta title-less for another year when everything was seemingly falling into place. I'm so mad I think I'll go to my Twitter to binge-tweet some smack talk to Colin Kaepernick... Just kidding, but on a similar note - an article I read this week from the Baltimore Sun addresses this sort of reaction. Wes Welker's wife, along with other frustrated NFL players/spouses, Facebook ranted about Ray Lewis' 6 kids, 4 wives, and murder case after the Ravens knocked out the Patriots in the AFC Championship. She has since apologized to the future hall of famer, but this comes to show how deeply social media is integrated these days.
Another interesting article I read about social media and celebrities came from the Huffington Post. It pertains to the "branding" of celebrities online and how there is A LOT of pressure on their profiles and posts. Anything they do or say in social media can have an enormous impact on any one of their millions of followers. On Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube celebrities are beginning to engage in marketing practices to keep their pages relevant. For this reason, I think it may be smart for celebrities to consider opening their accounts to their agents or PR/Marketing firms in order to save themselves any embarrassment or scandal.
Another interesting trend I noted in this article was the creation of the celebrity/fan relationship. Social media's integration has shifted conversations from a one-way message to more of a back and forth channel. I can personally say this is true after tweeting back and forth with one of my favorite artists a few months back. As the article states, this does create a powerful and meaningful way for celebrities to engage and increase their fan base.
In other news, Facebook's marketing company GroSocial was recently acquired by Infusionsoft for around $54 million. Infusionsoft released statements addressing their stance on helping small businesses achieve large social media presences, and how GroSocial has excelled in doing so. The 19 person team at GroSocial joining Infusionsoft means that they are now a 370 person team. Infusionsoft's customer service, larger employee base, and various tools are sure to make this a seamless acquisition. In other words, I'm sure the Facebook ads will continue to get better and better...creepy...
Until next time,
Steffan
Another interesting article I read about social media and celebrities came from the Huffington Post. It pertains to the "branding" of celebrities online and how there is A LOT of pressure on their profiles and posts. Anything they do or say in social media can have an enormous impact on any one of their millions of followers. On Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube celebrities are beginning to engage in marketing practices to keep their pages relevant. For this reason, I think it may be smart for celebrities to consider opening their accounts to their agents or PR/Marketing firms in order to save themselves any embarrassment or scandal.
Another interesting trend I noted in this article was the creation of the celebrity/fan relationship. Social media's integration has shifted conversations from a one-way message to more of a back and forth channel. I can personally say this is true after tweeting back and forth with one of my favorite artists a few months back. As the article states, this does create a powerful and meaningful way for celebrities to engage and increase their fan base.
In other news, Facebook's marketing company GroSocial was recently acquired by Infusionsoft for around $54 million. Infusionsoft released statements addressing their stance on helping small businesses achieve large social media presences, and how GroSocial has excelled in doing so. The 19 person team at GroSocial joining Infusionsoft means that they are now a 370 person team. Infusionsoft's customer service, larger employee base, and various tools are sure to make this a seamless acquisition. In other words, I'm sure the Facebook ads will continue to get better and better...creepy...
Until next time,
Steffan
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