Top news of the week

• The social media smackdown between Google, Twitter and Facebook has taken another turn with Don’t Be Evil, a tool developed by engineers from Facebook, Twitter and Myspace (remember them?) that reduces the importance of G+ results.
• Google+ is finally allowing pseudonyms and nicknames in a 180 degree turn from their original and controversial “real-name only” policy. Read what Stilgherrian had to say about his experience in August last year [warning: C bombing imminent].
• US politicians have decided to postpone further action on the online piracy bills SOPA and PIPA in reaction to online protests. In the words of Jeff Jarvis, we are the lobbyists now.
• Obama is answering questions on a Google+ Hangout on Jan 30th. He also recently joined Tumblr and Instagram but appears to have no plans to release a collection of cover songs on Spotify.
• Monday was Community Manager Appreciation Day (#CMAD). Yay for social (media) workers.
• Claims Anonymous were planning to take down Facebook on Jan 28 have been announced as fake. This follows recent hacks to CBS and Universal Music websites, the websites of the U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. Copyright Office, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The hacks were in response to the raid on Megaupload, the $42m earner for Kim Dotcom.

New stuff of the week

Bupa’s FoodSwitch app seems to have hit the sweet spot, reaching #1 in the app store, but more importantly appearing to make an impact outside of the tech blogs and marketing rags to real WOM testimonials. A must have for the “label readers” (you know who you are!) the app is perfectly timed to feed the New Year resolution craze, provides a service that is useful and beautifully simple, and has a thinly veiled education piece weaved through it. The only downside is that some people have had trouble finding products meaning there’s a possibility they will lose users before the database is more comprehensive.

Infographic of the week

Social login and social plugins increase page views- see how.

Random stuff of the week

Mini has impressed yet again with Fan the Flame- a campaign to drive “likes” of their Facebook page in Belgium and Luxembourg. Mini installed a live streaming social installation at the Brussels Motor Show where a Mini Countryman was held on a 15% slope by a thick rope. Underneath the rope was a Bunsen burner that was ignited for a second with each “like”. The person who’s “like” finally broke the Mini free got to keep the car. Watch the video here.

Windows Phone challenged techies at CES earlier this month with the #smokedbywindowsphone challenge. Basically, PC Guy went around challenging people to see whose smartphone could complete tasks faster- tasks such as uploading a photo to twitter- and Windows Phone won 88% of the time. The loser had to give the winner $100. Major ouch for iPhone. Watch the video to see PC Guy in action.

Social clusterf#ck of the week

Once again, we are shown that Twitter is an advertising platform that companies have yet to achieve control over. In a campaign that strongly echoes of #Qantasluxury, McDonald’s have stuck their foot in it this time with the #McDStories campaign. Maccas put a callout for people to share their experiences, but it soon turned into a #McFail when people started tweeting McDonald’s horror stories. Here are some highlights:

#McDStories Working drive-thru shift as a teenager. Arch Deluxe fell off the conveyor belt onto the floor. Re-wrapped it and sent it out.

— Curtis Townson (@ctownson) January 24, 2012

3 times I have purchased the Benedict Bagel, 3 times I have had egg shells right through. #mcfail #mcdstories

— Kimberley Hopkins (@Kim__dracula) January 24, 2012

While the hashtag generated some not so positive commentary, McDonald’s have said that the negativity accounted for merely 2% of the day’s mentions, potentially thanks to the quick thinking of the team that swapped the hashtag to #MeettheFarmers.

*HT Mike Watkins

Photo credits: Regretsy; Engadget

Thanks to social superstar Madi Arnold for contributions.

Facebook

Profile image: 540 x 180            Thumbnail: 200 wide (allow 12 for border)

Profile stream: 97 x 68 (5 images required)

Profile image: 128 x 128 (scaled down to 48 x 48 in stream)

Larger than 48k but no more than 700k

Background: 1280 width, 66 – 194 for the left hand side of the background [Twitter fixed width of 865px]

Smaller than 800k, left aligned

Hat tip to Banyan Branch for some of these details

NB: Twitter will be changing from the existing standard profile page layout to a new enhanced layout soon. Artwork will need to be changed then. Confirmed specs for this layout are:

Profile image: 835 x 90 header image

https://business.twitter.com/advertise/enhanced-profile/

Channel background: 1500px and 2000px wide, 1200px and 2500px tall

Smaller than 256k

http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en-GB&answer=1735230

Profile image: 192 x 202

Scrapbook stream: 126 x 126 (5 images required)

Update:
So I’m alive.
I’m in hospital.
The police came to my house and found me.. well,
lets just say it wasn’t a pretty scene.
so yeah, I’m so sorry to the people I worried.
and thankyou to the people telling me to hurry up and kill myself already.
It’s really just what I needed right now.
I’ll keep you updated.

Also, thank you so much to everyone who sent me a message.
You have no idea how much it means to me.
I wish I could respond to all of them but there’s 1000+
and I wouldn’t know where to begin.
But seriously, from the bottom of my heart,
thank you. 

I’ve used Storify for the highlights but here’s a few links that might get you inspired to jump into the debate.

The points of view:

Social Media ROI Hypocrisy 

Social Media and Return on Investment: Some clarity

There’s no ROI in Social Media Marketing

Twitter accounts:

Olivier Blanchard

David Meerman Scott

Matt Ridings

So are you Team Blanchard or Team Scott? Is there ROI in social media? How do you explain it to your c-level execs?

I’m Team Blanchard. It’s all down to the type of activity, how it matches your objectives and what you actually do to trigger sales. If people are wondering why their Facey page is yet to earn a sale the first place to check is where and when you’ve told people to go and buy your stuff and how they can do it.  In the crush to become oh-so-social and avoid the hard sell too many companies are avoiding the actual sell. Doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

I love this presentation about storytelling. It takes you through quotes from cinematic storytellers, philosphers, branding experts and from the now 7 billion on every day life. Each quote tells its own story, with a carefully chosen visual to support the idea. And the sum of the quotes tells the story of storytelling – its power, relevance and impact.

My favourites?

“Great stories happen to those who can tell them.”

Ira Glass

and

“To be a person is to have a story to tell.”

Isak Dinesen

and

“Stories have power. They delight, enchant, touch, teach, recall, inspire,motivate, challenge. They help us understand. They imprint a picture onour minds. Consequently, stories often pack more punch than sermons. Want to make a point or raise an issue? Tell a story.”

Janet Litherland

photo credit nateOne on Flickr

I have an ongoing internal battle over the issue of influence. Whether it’s my hesitation about tools like Klout offering product sampling to influential audiences or my concern over customer service teams treating those with large social followings with preferential treatment, there seems to be something amiss with the use of influence in social strategies. So today I was happy to hear that we may be getting closer to linking customer service, social media and influence.

The technology isn’t new but the uptake is slow. Several software companies offer products that can not only provide a link between a customer ID and a social profile but can also assign workflow tasks to customer service staff to reply to the customer if they use a tracked keyword on an identified and linked social account.

Today’s speaker, Ted Bray from software provider Right Now, used the Peter Shankman/Morton’s story as an example of the difference between marketing influence and customer service influence. To further illustrate his point he told us that as a regular Marriott guest, he recently deviated his travel plans and stayed with another hotel chain in Singapore. He tweeted his appreciation of their service and left it as that. Ted’s point was that this was an opportunity for the Marriott team to jump on his disloyalty and show him some love.

If the Marriott had the right tools in place, they’d be notified that one of their platinum loyalty program members had tweeted about staying at another hotel. Ted said he would have been more than impressed if he’d received a tweet in reply asking for the chance to win back his loyalty.

The room agreed. This would be a powerful way to recognise opportunities to go above and beyond for loyal customers. And personally, I’m more comfortable with this definition of influence, using customer service on social media to influence the behaviour of a (high) revenue generating customer.

So do you think this would work in Australia? Do you think the telcos, the banks, the frequent flyer programs, the department stores, the retail outlets etc would be going above and beyond customer expectations to integrate this kind of technology?

I’m reminded of the Interflora campaign in the UK that monitored Twitter looking for users that needed cheering up. They contacted tweeps who had tweeted about feeling down and sent a bouquet of flowers as a surprise. Who doesn’t love a random act of kindness? Turns out – a hell of a lot of people who feel like they’re being watched or that brands are eavesdropping on their personal (yet public) conversations.

Today I posted a poll on Twitter asking the question “How would you feel if a company had your Twitter profile linked to your customer profile and used it to proactively contact you?”. I hold no illusions about the quality of data my poll will produce, but so far most respondents have said they would be impressed that a company was monitoring their online behaviour.

So which companies will be first to use this kind of technology to target their top 20% of customers? How will we react? What would you do if you were contacted? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Facebook has introduced a Subscribe button

You can now Subscribe to a user’s profile in Facebook without needing to send a friend request. This will only allow you to subscribe to public posts however yesterday Facebook announced improved friends lists as they encourage users to customise individual updates to different groups of people in your life, public no doubt being one of them.

Sponsored Stories will appear in a news feed ticker

As you browse through Facebook you may notice sponsored stories appearing in a news ticker on the right hand side of the page. This and the upcoming in stream advertising will no doubt increase Facebook’s estimated $1.6b ad revenue.

Vanity URLs are now easier to secure

You no longer need 25 fans to secure a vanity URL. Considering even some agencies need to beg and plead their friends to fan a page to get to the 25 mark this will make life a lot easier for most. I’m sure those wanting to squat on URLs of perceived value would have had 25 fake profiles set up to help them out in the first place anyway.

Know how your updates were shared

With an insight that will be making it’s way into social media page reports across the world, Facebook will now post details on how your updates were shared. Now maybe they could throw in some details of click through rates for links shared on Facebook. Please?

It’s a tried and tested marketing tactic to put your product in the hands of your audience. Whether it’s a Calippo sorbet handed out in beach car parks, sausage pieces dangling on the end of a toothpick at the butchers, Pantene passed on to commuters at Town Hall or a Napoleon lipgloss on the back of a magazine – samples make their way into our lives on a regular basis. It’s really no surprise that sampling has made an impact on social media. So how will it work?

Blog advertising community Nuffnang  has launched Product Talk, a product review program that puts samples in the hands of keen bloggers. A product is offered up for review and bloggers have the opportunity to participate with a set of instructions outlined for the campaign. Nuffnang wants to ensure transparency so has asked all bloggers to include a disclaimer on their blog with the review. So far there have been opportunities to try coconut water, body lotion and an iPhone app for directory assistance.

Mamamia has The Opinionator, a built in review program that allows the audience to sample a product and leave their thoughts within the Mamamia community (blog not required). The post about the product is shareable and comments are welcomed with specific questions directed at the audience with a final call to action – “so come and join the conversation”. There’s even a basic rating functionality for the smaller commitment – 1 – 5 stars. This would no doubt be used in conjunction with a recently launched advertising package which involves “a conversation based competition for readers to win your product or service”.

Analytics platform Klout has jumped into the game, combining the idea of sampling with the inherent need for SMEGs to define (and access) online influence. Klout Perks offers those with the right amount of “klout” the opportunity to register for a product all for the cost of a social update (tweet or Facebook post). I registered for a #redbullsim after seeing a tweet from Keith Don on Twitter and have been watching the hashtag madness grow since then. It may not be perfect but it certainly seems more effective than the pushy shopping centre promo staff who were accosting World Square passers-by with free SIM cards just last week. Can’t remember the name of the company and I, like many others, didn’t pick one up, mostly in fear for being signed up for something like most other centre promotions.

It seems that advertisers haven’t been jumping on board the social sample bandwagon just yet – can you see the benefits of getting a product in the hands of the vocal minorities? Or will sampling through social media just turn into spam?

Image credit: @nhoj

I was catching up on some reading and came across a case study about the social media success of US airline JetBlue. One particular section got me thinking:

I won’t name agencies, but we had a couple of agencies who talked about how adept they were on Facebook and how incredible they were on Twitter, and one of the agencies — it wasn’t probably a day after we met with them — I started getting follows from people in the agencies and they were all from accounts that were created in the last two or three days.

Marty St. George, Senior Vice President, Marketing, JetBlue (source: Mashable)

Do agencies need to tweet to prove they “get” social media?

As the head of digital at H&K Sydney it may surprise you that I don’t think every marketer should be on Twitter. I find people to be apologetic if they explain that they’re not into it. So what? It’s a personal preference to use a social network that is appropriate to your style and your needs. I love it, and I’d love for my interest in it to be contagious but I’m not fussed if someone else doesn’t get it. If Marty St. George had struggled to find on Twitter a representative of the agency in question  I’d be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt – maybe a few key people ran personal accounts and numerous accounts for clients. Of course that wasn’t the case.

From an agency point of view, it would be odd if a good digital agency didn’t have a good digital presence. However marketing is supposed to be about knowing your audience. If clients need help in digital because they don’t understand it themselves, they’re probably not the type to stumble across your blog or follow you on Twitter. There’s a difference between proving yourself to your target audience or advocates and grandstanding in an echo chamber.

So what’s my answer? Yes, to prove you get a social network it would most likely be necessary to be active in that social network. However there’s nothing wrong with having a damn good reason why it’s not appropriate or suitable, as long as you’re happy to admit that.

Would love to hear your thoughts – fire it up in the comments! Do agencies need to tweet to prove they “get” social media?”

We’ve seen artists and bands explore digital opportunities with varying degrees of success, from Arcade Fire’s The Wilderness Downtown to Radiohead’s In Rainbows promotion to Lady Gaga style fan engagement strategies to Lily Allen’s MySpace “breakthrough”. They’re testing ways to release their music, to get noticed, to motivate fans to buy their music. The latest effort to make headlines comes from a collaboration between English band Kaiser Chiefs and advertising wunderkind Wieden+Kennedy.

The concept is simple:

1. Make your own Kaiser Chiefs The Future is Medieval mixed tape using 10 out of 20 songs available
2. Design your own cover artwork and promote your awesome album to friends
3. ????
4. Profit (well, £1 for each album you sell)

Love it?

Forget advertising vs digital vs creative vs PR vs search, the real owners of social media are the communities that thrive around common interests, shared activity or personal relationships. And one of the most prevalent communities in Australia belongs to our mums.

Essential Baby released results from a survey of over 4,000 Aussie mums who are members of their community.

92% of these mums actively engage with social media, including Facebook, Twitter and EB community

This stat may seem obvious given the survey audience but almost 80% of these members have been a part of the Essential Baby community for at least 6 months and 22% of them have been members for over 3 years. The desire for content, advice or a common interest is strong but the members use their associations with one another (enabled by more personal network platforms) to turn a directory of information into a community.

30% of mums confess to be on Facebook constantly throughout the day and 73% check in to their social networks at least once a day

I think 30% of SMEGs would struggle to match that kind of usage! We know 9 million Aussies use the ‘book but how many get the chance to stay connected throughout the day? With the amount of time it takes a mum to get out of the house with a baby in tow, the ease of connecting with friends, family and other mums online doesn’t mean that social media replaces real world interaction but it certainly improves it.

This stat is also a great proof point for the amount of daily content and conversation generated by popular parenting communities who post Facebook updates multiple times a day. The audience is there so if mums are your target market why not take the opportunity to interact with them on a daily basis? Be warned, this level of interaction in a campaign will require an online editorial strategy – enough relevant and interesting content to seed every day.

On the flipside, if 73% of the audience only checked in once a week then you’d still need to consider frequent updates to ensure that your post is seen – how often do you see updates from more than 1 or 2 days ago in your news feed?

37% use social media to connect with friends, 20% to follow offers, discounts and promotions and 25% to share photos

I’ve written before about the debate between consolidating your audience in one place vs giving a niche audience exactly what they want. 20% of these mums use social media to save money on products. If you’ve got regular offers, discounts or promotions you should be letting them know exactly where to find them! This may mean a second Twitter account, a smaller Facebook page or even a commitment to posting deals to sites like Buckscoop or Top Bargains but if this is your audience it’ll be worth the effort.

It’s no surprise that photo sharing is huge with mums. Social media takes the family fridge door hall of fame and plasters it on the virtual walls of grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends and even casual acquaintances. If you’re looking for a way to engage mums in your campaign, remember this pride and eagerness to share photos.

Why should you care about mums and social media?

99% of the mums surveyed by Essential Baby are grocery buyers

54% have a cat or a dog

30% spend $600+ a year on toys per child

Most shop twice a week at Woolworths or Coles

Over 70% test drive 3 or more cars and research for 1-3 months before purchasing

45% manage their family finances, another 35% share the task

If your job is to sell stuff to A/B grocery buyers then you should have a presence in social media.

Disclaimer: these statistics were shared with me by Fairfax Digital, a client of Hill & Knowlton. I have not been asked to promote Essential Baby (which is a property of Fairfax Digital), however I showed interest in stats around the use of social media by Aussie mums and requested to write about the survey.

While some branded content benefits from less overt connections with the actual brand itself, any opportunity to use the success of a viral video to trigger more interaction is just smart marketing. Given the way video is shared, other opportunities to turn views into an opt in audience come from tapping into Facebook’s social personalisation and sponsored stories and dominating the search results for keywords relating to your video.

What campaigns have you seen that successfully take the viewer from the video to another branded channel?

My contribution included this Ignite presentation and another round with the microphone later that evening on the karaoke machine but let’s just stick with the Ignite preso for now.

Let me know what you think!

How many times have you had the discussion about the Facebook monies? It continues to irritate me that just because someone can update their Facebook profile in 30 seconds they think the development and management of a branded page of over 20,000 fans, customers and detractors can done in the same timeframe.

ROI usually initiates arguments over the “soft” metrics of social media. I’d like to call out the “lazy” metrics – those who use new sales as the only definition of ROI.

Forensic marketing has the ability to pull apart the sales funnel and define ROI in much more depth – taking into account the cost per acquisition of a client, the cost to serve a client and the cost to retain a client. So for example if your campaign pulls in 1,000 new sales you might be pretty happy. If the campaign was expensive, attracted the type of client that contributes little to your revenue stream but drains your resources, you might not be so happy.

Social media doesn’t need to be your conversion tool. It can be your lead nurturing tool; your investment into retaining clients or even your distraction for all the tyre kickers while your sales team hits up the tier one prospects. If your activity helps you achieve your objectives then it’s not hard to find the correlation between social media activity and ROI. Provided you’ve set the right objectives – but that’s another story.

I’ve signed up to lead/co-host/present a few events including 2 discussions, an Ignite presentation and a workshop.

I thought I’d share my Ignite presentation with you now. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept it’s a 5 minute presentation with slides that automatically transition every 15 seconds. 5 minutes – 20 slides – every 15 seconds. I’ve included the notes so you have an idea of what I’ll be rattling on about as I go (but you’ll have to visit the Slideshare website to see them under the presentation).

I think it’s a really interesting concept. We use masks to hide, to identify, to unify and we struggle with the consequences of anonymity and inhibition.

My final questions to the audience and to you here are these:

So the digital world is your stage. How are you introducing yourself? How are you wearing your mask? What will it say about you?

It was quickly RTd and few (if any) were to know that the tweet itself was the teaser to a campaign called The Breakup. Retweets were answered by NAB individually with a a link to the campaign video and an explanation of the campaign.

Fast forward to one of the most viewed videos of the week:

Rear View Girls just happens to be a campaign for Levi’s and this unbranded hot piece of entertainment has caught the attention of  over 7 million viewers to date.

So my question to you is this. What’s the difference between fooling your audience (and pissing them off) and a clever, attention-grabbing teaser? As SMEGs espouse the importance of transparency, can you get away with stunts like those from NAB and Levi’s or will the reveal backfire faster than you can say “sentiment analysis”?

“Everyone else has one.”

It’s true. You can now Like everything from tampons to food favourites; from gum to theme parks. However a recent study by ExactTarget and CoTweet called “The Social Breakup” has put the microscope up to the fan/brand relationship and found fans are getting a little more selective in their social media relationships. So while Facebook has become a major priority for 2011 marketing plans how can you upgrade your relationship status from “it’s complicated” to “in an open relationship”?

Be relevant

Some key reasons for a social breakup can be chalked up to a lack of relevance. If your marketing plan is designed to tap into the needs and wants of your target market then this should be an easy fix -there was a reason it was defined as a viable market in the first place. A common mistake is to maintain a “one size fits all” page with a muddle of objectives and messaging for fear of diluting your opt-in audience. With Facebook’s new layout and functionality for Pages it’s easy to cross promote pages and continue to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time.

Who’s doing it right?

Air New Zealand runs Facebook Pages for the homeland fans, Kiwis living in Australia, Australians living in Australia and those just wanting to stay on top of the cheapest fares. Choice!

Be creative

We’re in the business of telling stories. With so many campaigns fighting for the attention of an often indifferent audience, creativity achieves amazing cut through. This doesn’t mean everyone needs to introduce Old Spice style tactics but there is an enormous amount of potential to make your mark within Facebook beyond the humble status update including photos, videos, games, gifts, polls, competitions, quizzes, booking and sales engines, livestreaming, personalised content and a thousand opportunities that haven’t even been thought of … yet.

Who’s doing it right?

Burberry used an interactive video on their Facebook Page to create an experience similar to what they receive from their own website. No word on whether poor imitations were seen on other Pages.

Be selective

Your fans are getting more selective and so should you. If you run a competition to win a big screen TV to drive more Likes to your page you’re sure to get a whole heap of people who love big screen TVs. That’s not that great if you’re selling laundry detergent. Concentrate on getting your message to the people who care about buying your products, or influence those who do.

Who’s doing it right?

The Johnnie Walker Facebook Page uses content and conversation aimed to the connoisseur rather than the average Saturday night scotch and coke guzzler to support its positioning as a premium brand. We’ll drink to that.

Hat tip All Facebook

Immediately I can see how this will allow brands to deliver more relevant content to their target audience. The cross promotion of pages and news feed items will give admins the opportunity to leverage audiences for various pages without trying to create the one-page-fits-all approach.

Facebook tells us that all Pages will be using the new layout by March 1st. For those yet to see the changes, here are some screenshots of the layout and opportunities.

(Sometimes recommended pages is shown under the advertising ad. You can see how many of your fans like other pages)

(Those notifications at the top left hand side are new fans or new interactions. You might want to switch off the email notifications so you don’t get bombarded for all new notifications for all your pages. The default is on. Of course!)

I’d really like to hear more from the lot of you so my New Year’s Resolution is to start something simple called question of the month. It might be better to just kick things off rather than try to explain it further.

So my question to you this month is: why do you write? If you blog, do you pick topics and writing styles that will get the most page views/tweets/comments you can possibly get or do you write to have your say regardless of whether you grow an audience or not? Is this your favourite form of expression?

This year instead of trying to predict where digital may go in 2011 I thought I’d get retrospective with my top 5 posts of the year as determined by page views.

1. This is why you need good content – an infographic by Flowtown and Postrank showing the trends in consuming content on the interwebz
2. A personal note – something that makes my heart jump in my throat every time I see it clicked, shared or mentioned
3. SMEGnation – my rant about rants and the “you’re doing it wrong” crowd
4. ad:tech Sydney 2010 - a wrap up on some of the learnings from the ad:tech crowd
5. A lesson on blogger outreach – a look at the value proposition in blogger relations

As far as what got people talking, these two posts about social media and customer service and spreading the love sneak into the top 5.

My personal favourite was a post inspired by Avinash Kaushik from Occam’s Razor which is an analysis of sentiment analysis because it got me thinking about language and the human layer and I could talk about it for hours. Just ask the Hill & Knowlton crew who have been unlucky enough to be subjected to my ramblings masked as “training”.

So that’s it from me for 2010. Happy new year!!