Archive for Social Media
Does your business have Klout?
What’s your “Klout Score?” It’s a question you’ll hear more and more often in the months to come.
One of the social media trends for 2011 continues to be the gathering and leveraging of opinions. Not just opinions of those who like one brand over another, but of those who are so influential as to change the minds of the folks who very well could be your new customers.
Klout, a network that allows users track the impact of opinions, is becoming a powerful tool for companies who want to collect large amounts of data about how people interact with their brands, services, products and overall image. You can use this tool to identify key influencers and keep track of their online influence.
Here’s an interesting case study from a few months back: Virgin America used Klout to hand-pick a key group of influencers and then took them on a free flight to Toronto–their newest destination—from either San Francisco or Los Angeles.
What did the airline company ask in return? Nothing but a simple online acknowledgement – good or bad – about the flight they had just received. Of course the recipients blogged, tweeted and posted their good fortune and even now the ROI is producing great results!
Crowdsourcing for bright ideas: Lessons learned from GE
Happy New Year’s Eve! On this last day of 2010, I’m looking back at where we started and finished in our own innovation projects and how we accomplished our goals. How did you do in that respect? Did you notice any trends that can help your business in 2011?
One of the bigger trends of course is our quest to understand how social media can grow and expand our business. I’ve noticed that this past year many more companies have used social media in their pursuit of useful ideas than ever before. I enjoyed reading a report from Greener World Media about crowdsourcing when it comes to sustainability projects.
The article looks at three efforts by GE’s Smart Grid challenge, eBay’s Green Team, and a leading European retailer’s green customer foray and how those leaders used crowdsourcing to generate sustainability ideas. Check it out.
One example that stood out to me was this summer’s “GE ecomagination Challenge: Powering the Grid.”The company and other firms spent $200 million to grab ideas from society via a new website. Nearly 4,000 ideas were submitted over a three-month period, and at the end there were more than 70,000 comments to sift through. GE held a contest for the best ideas and announced the winners earlier this month.
If you want to try something similar, the article suggests three rules to make your campaign successful:
1. Be painfully clear about the results you want from your campaign.
2. Embrace transparency.
3. Link the campaign to co-value creation.
In GE’s case, it asked participants to send forth their best thinking to create initiatives that would enhance an aspect of their own lives. Making it personal was the evident key in this crowdsourcing experiment.
Tummy Time keeps this brand in the pink
How can you increase your online buzz by 200 percent? Crank up your social media AND your color!
It worked for Pepto Bismol. The digestive relief medicine’s TV and print budget was drastically slashed this year, so that a new social media effort could attempt to do what the Old Spice brand did with its “Smell Like A Man” campaign.
Up until last summer Procter& Gamble spent up to 90 percent of its ad spending on traditional media, but in July the company dropped that to 10 percent to spend the bulk on digital media. You’ve probably seen the innovative ads on Facebook and web videos. The star of these ads is the actor from last year’s hit film The Hangover, and features the actor sitting inside a large stomach bringing the Pepto relief via a vibrant pink spray.
In addition to the familiar pink tonic, the ads touch on something most of us are familiar with this time of year:
Overindulgence!
The results have been comforting for P & G with increased sales and volume that the company hasn’t seen in years.
The indulgence theme doesn’t end after the holidays. The company says it will continue its social media campaign until well into 2011. Stay tuned!
Facial recognition technology gives Facebook a one-click edge
The Facebook Blog shows you how to tag using facial recognition technology.
As facial recognition technology becomes more user friendly for social media and other personal applications, we’re starting to see and hear reaction from those who have concerns and from people who think its great.
Facebook just launched a photo tagging application using the technology to help users tag photos faster. If you want to see how it works, pull up one of your Facebook albums that contain some group shots of friends you haven’t tagged yet and you will now see suggested tags.
I read an article about this last night on The Facebook Blog which says that Facebook has been working on the facial recognition platform since October. First Facebook added group tagging, so users could type one name and apply it to multiple photos of the same person. This week Facebook announced new Tag Suggestions, making the chore of tagging multiple photos a single-click process.
Every day, people add more than 100 million tags to photos on Facebook. They do it because it’s an easy way to share photos and memories…Tags make photos one of the most popular features on Facebook.
While tags are an essential tool for sharing important moments, many of you have said tagging photos can be a chore. (Like that time you had to tag your cousin and her fiancé over and over and over again in 64 different pictures of their engagement party, and then go back and tag the guests.)
(Click the photo to read the full article)
That means that when your friends upload photos of this year’s holiday party, your face will automatically be recognized. According to The Facebook Blog, you can opt out of this by visiting your Privacy Settings, choose Custom, then change the setting for “Suggest photos of me to friends.”
Survey says most of us will shop online holiday deals
Thinking of skipping the mile-long lines this shopping season? You can get just as many deals online, without ever leaving your couch. Last year’s Black Friday saw shopping increase by 35% over the year before. And the following Monday, dubbed “Cyber Monday,” saw nearly $900 million internet sales.
Consulting firm Deloitte says a whopping 70 percent of us will shop online this holiday season, and 20 percent of us will use our mobile phones to buy. 12% said they would use social media sites such as Facebook to aid them in their purchasing decisions.
If you use geologation apps like Gowalla or Foursquare you’ll notice retailers vying for your dollars. Elsewhere online Facebook is hoping retailers buy ads on its 500 million member site. Starbucks, McDonalds, Starbucks, Gap and others are creating ads, and Gap has already given away 10,000 pair of jeans in stores across the nation thanks to Facebook.
Here’s what top retailers are doing this Black Friday to woo shoppers:
- Lowes is hosting a “Lowe’s Black Friday Sneak Peek Party on Facebook,” where fans get access to tremendous deals like 90% off products on their website.
- JC Penney is offering a shopping spree contest, plus launching an Angel Tree giving campaign through Salvation Army to help seniors in need.
- Kmart is promoting a Christmas trip sweepstakes in Twitter and Facebook.
- Social sites like LivingSocial and Groupon are offering visitors holiday shopping coupons.
Geofencing takes a stab at location-based apps
Imagine walking or driving through your local neighborhood and getting an instant message that alerts you to a home for sale that matches your needs, or a message that tells you your favorite hot wings are the deal of the day at a restaurant right around the corner. We are getting closer and closer to that kind of technology. Last week a new location platform was introduced that could be a stepping stone in that direction. Sparkle from Location Labs helps developers create better location-based applications, and will ultimately help businesses serve the wants and needs of consumers.
Using “geofencing,” Sparkle allows for the identification and location of any phone and supports voice control, SMS and a very intriguing feature: the ability to detect motion and velocity. Developers say that might be used to automatically disable your text while you drive. You can read more about geotechnology here.
For Android and iPhone owners, the new technology will someday be able to suggest deals or check-in points, and even set up location-based controls for your kids.
That’s just the start. From Location Labs’ website I found several fun apps that use geolocation technology:
- Mayor Maker – Automatically checks you into your favorite Foursquare places without actually opening Foursquare.
- Dine Out Cheap – Alerts you to a nearby dining deal.
- MobiQpons – Shows you when and where to redeem coupons as you walk by.
- Whatamap – Lets you roam a mall or other indoor shopping area to find great deals.
- Noel Group – For travelers wanting to know weather conditions and local events.
Research: Only 4% of U.S. adults use geosocial services
We’re hearing today that a very small percentage of adults in the U.S. use location-based applications like Foursquare. Pew Research has found that only four percent of adults use location-based services like Facebook Places or Foursquare.
The Pew Research center found it’s only four percent, and only one percent on any given day.
Geosocial services are enabled through your smart phone’s GPS, and sometimes just by checking in you can receive a coupon, discount or a free item. Check out the rest of the demographics and results here.
Yesterday Facebook announced it will begin allowing businesses to offer coupons. I wrote about Groupon earlier this week, and it is also announcing increased incentives to retailers.
I use these applications, but many from my generation do not yet feel comfortable using geosocial services, citing the need for privacy. How about you?
The Coupon Comeback
In this down economy we’re seeing one trend making a comeback: Coupons. Last year coupon-redemption gained 23 percent–the first gain in nearly two decades.
Before our current recession we saw many people dismissing the discounts, citing they were too much trouble. But the tough economic climate isn’t the only thing bringing them back into popularity. Internet coupons and discount codes that smartphone users can download are making deal-seeking hot again.
I just read an article over at Advertising Age about how many companies are copying the Groupon model for offering their fans and followers great deals. Groupon was launched just two years ago and quickly got 25 million subscribers.
The article cites two major brands, Wal-mart and Healthy Choice foods, offering incredible deals to their shoppers. Last week Wal-mart launched a Facebook app that offered a whopping 18 percent off of a plasma television set once 5,000 people “liked” the ad.
Healthy Choice offered a similar coupon on Facebook that increased in value the more people clicked “like.” A few weeks ago Healthy Choice launched a coupon that increased from 75 cents to $1.50 off a two-for-one deal as more people liked it on Facebook.
Groupon was the first to try this model based on likes, and of course it encourages people to share it with their friends in order to unlock the savings faster.
What I find fascinating is that unlike paper coupons, social media coupons greatly increase the brand’s fan base without costing much money. I think you’re going to see a lot more of this model in the future. Imagine how this type of internet marketing will impact the consumer spending habits on hotels, restaurants, toys, electronics and just about every industry you can think of.
Google TV and the network big three
This week we’re hearing more on the strife between Google and television’s major networks, ABC, CBS and NBC and Google.
The Big 3 are blocking some of their most-watched and beloved shows from being watched on Google’s new Web-TV service, Google TV.
Google TV was launched in May, and allows us to search for and watch television programs through the Internet.
Here’s a great explanation of what Google TV is, and how it works.
Check out this video from Google released at it’s launch this past May:
Worries of pirating or just getting lost in the vast Internet universe isn’t stopping HBO, MTV or TBS from maximizing Google TV. But you won’t be able to watch episodes of NBC’s “The Office,” CBS’s “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” or ABC’s “Modern Family.”
The station executives have said that the service will change forever the existing broadcasting business. I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing, or that the Big 3 will be able to stop the inevitable.