Author Archive

The education industry is engaging in an interesting debate between those who champion social media as a tool for students to take learning to a new level and those who attempt to keep it out of the classroom altogether. Many feel there’s no place for Facebook and Twitter in the classroom and the industry has been reticent to fully embrace the medium.

Facebook has made serious efforts to try and ensure they reach out to parents and the education community, addressing concerns regarding the use of the platform by children and teens. They have created a resource for teachers that answers some common questions such as what to do if you suspect abusive behavior on Facebook, how to hide your personal Facebook profile from your students and how to report underage users. Facebook requires all users be at least 13 years old.

All of this drama within the education field has made some industry leaders slow to adopt social media campaigns. The sad truth is that taking Facebook out of the equation ISN’T an option. Teachers, your students are on Facebook and you can either see that as an obstacle or embrace the platform as a new way to reach your students.

There ARE some big players making quite a splash on Facebook, so let’s take a look at what we can learn from the top Facebook pages in education. These pages aren’t directly dealing with the complex issues outlined above, but they are targeting and engaging parents and students quite successfully. I would ask any teachers out there that have good examples of how Facebook is being used to connect with students, PLEASE comment and share with readers below. continue

There have been a bevy of instant Facebook tab creators to hit the market lately. After wasting quite a bit of time fumbling around with some that weren’t effective, I thought I might as well document my findings to save others from making the same mistakes.

The tools I have outlined below are the best ones I have found that don’t cost an arm and a leg. Frankly, many of the new tools that have been created since the addition of iFrames to Facebook are on a ‘Freemium’ model and rival other tools that had cost thousands of dollars per month.

If you are among those looking for more comprehensive options, Social Fresh has started a shared spreadsheet that anyone can contribute to. There are also other options listed there.

Here are my top pics listed in order of how much I like them. continue

I LOVE Gowalla! But I wasn’t born that way. I started off using Foursquare, gobbling up all my mayorships before that platform had hit critical mass. Just as my quick love affair with the square hit a plateau, I was forced to sign-up with Gowalla as research for my article on LBS deals. I was skeptical and resentful that I had to spend time on yet another platform. On top of that, Gowalla had the smallest user base (just under 500K) – so from a marketers perspective, my thoughts were ‘why bother?’ Well, that initial research was almost 6 months ago and I have been avidly using Gowalla ever since.

Questions to Consider Before You Commit

There are some great reasons to try Gowalla for yourself and I have them outlined below. But before I dive into why Gowalla works for me, I’d like to review what to consider before committing to a check-in platform. The idea for this post actually originated from a discussion at a recent May 5th shindig. A digital marketing student asked me which check-in platform she should be using. She wanted to make sure to choose the “right one,” in order to prevent managing multiple check-in accounts. A lively discussion ensued with most participants falling into 2 camps: Gowalla and Foursquare.

My take-away from that encounter is that each platform meets different needs. Understanding what you want to get out of the tool and the reasons you want to engage are key to determining the right tool for you. Some questions to ask yourself before making the commitment:

• Are you only looking for discounts, deals and promotions?
• Which platform are your close friends using?
• Are you interested in discovering new locations?
• Do you want to be actively marketed to while using the application? continue

Brand: Power Rangers Samurai
Social Media Marketing Team: Rob Hughes, Lisa Peyton, Ryan Lewis, William Crane, Mitch Daugherty
Campaign Length: 3 months
Results: Facebook ‘likes’ increased by 200,000 and Facebook interactions grew to almost 2,000 per day!
Watch the animated presentation of this case study: 2010 Facebook Case Study

The Team

The Goal – Saving the world from TOTAL DESTRUCTION

Saban Brands needed to create buzz and excitement surrounding the premiere of the new Power Rangers series airing in February. They had created a website and Facebook page but were unsure of how to get traction within the already thriving Power  Rangers fan community online. With dozens of Facebook pages already dedicated to the Power Rangers, Saban needed to ensure their page was the leading source for information and fan interaction. Bonfire’s task was to grow the Facebook community as quickly as possible before the launch of the new series, February 7th 2011. Let the battle begin!

MISSION

• To combat fan boredom and apathy and save the world from total destruction!

WEAPONS

• Facebook Fierceness

TIME

• 3 months prior to launch of Samurai series Feb 07, 2011

Fan Growth: Gathering the troops

Our first objective was to create a platform for fans to share their love for the  Power Rangers brand. We wanted to feature the fans and make the Facebook page about THEIR interpretation of the brand. We created a Fan Art Contest  and allowed the community to vote on the artwork that would be highlighted as our Facebook page profile image. We also created a Mighty Members collectors album featuring fan photos of all their cool Power Rangers collectibles. Within our 3 month campaign we quickly collected 600 images from our collectors.

OBJECTIVE

• Increase Facebook interactions by featuring fan content

TACTICS

• Facebook fan art contest
• Mighty Members collectors photo albums
• Tuesday Trivia

Mighty Members Collectors Album

Tuesday Trivia

We quickly learned that the fans knew more about all the seasons of Power Rangers than we did. We wanted to make sure to challenge the die-hard fans and solicited tough trivia questions from the community. Regularly updating the page with fan-created trivia improved Facebook interactions dramatically. The winners were listed in the Power Rangers ‘Wall of Fame’ as being some of our SUPER fans.

Fan Advocacy: Arming the troops

Once our numbers began to grow, we wanted to arm fans with easy to share assets allowing them to be ‘brand advocates’.

OBJECTIVE

• Arm our troops with tools to help them become brand advocates

TACTICS

• “Show Your Colors” Campaign
• “Samurai Yourself” Profile Photo Creator
• “Which Ranger are you?” Quiz

‘Show your colors’

We used Facebook to recruit and support our current brand advocates. By creating 5 unique profile images and sharing with Power Rangers fans on Facebook, we gave the community the power to ‘show their colors’. Facebook fans quickly updated their profile pics with the image of their favorite ranger.

‘Samurai Yourself’

And for those that wanted to take it one step further, the ‘Samurizer’ was created. An interactive feature of the Power Rangers website, fans could take a photo of themselves and quickly become whichever ranger they chose. The application made if easy to save the customized photo and to share on Facebook.

‘Which Ranger are You?’ Quiz

Knowing that our fans typically identify with one of the Rangers, we created a quiz that would help them learn more about the new Samurai Rangers. The quiz shared fan results on Facebook and promoted the new series premier.

Community Facebook Quotes: Fans speak out!

I don’t know if this can be classified as ‘Power Rangers swag’ or not, but its not everyday you get re-tweeted by the Power Rangers, and I am quite proud of this accomplishment. Go Go Samurai!

-Josh green

People comment on this page 24/7. ITS AWESOME

- Delaney Cummings

I would simply like to applaud the people in charge of this page for their hard work, fast news, well-kept site, and lack of bs that other pages seem to be burdened with.

- Todd Olsen

The Press – Power Rangers Tops Allfacebook.com’s Most Explosive Facebook Pages List

During the height of our campaign, the Power Rangers Facebook page was featured as one of allfacebook.com’s ‘Most Explosive’ Facebook pages alongside Microsoft, ‘The Bachelor’ and Adidas. The international list offers up the top ten pages that have seen ‘tremendous weekly growth totals’.

The new series was publicized in several other major news outlets:

Los Angeles Times:http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/07/entertainment/la-et-power-rangers-20110207

Los Angeles Times ‘Hero Complex’ Blog: http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/02/07/power-rangers-samurai-looks-for-fighting-chance-with-new-generation/

EW.com – http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/02/01/power-rangers-samurai-video-intro-exclusive/

IGN Television News – http://tv.ign.com/articles/114/1145326p1.html

AOL TV Squad: http://www.tvsquad.com/2011/02/02/exclusive-power-rangers-samurai-photo/
Results

TV.com – http://www.tv.com/video/10517281/power-rangers-samurai

ClevverTV.com Interview with new Rangers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTVeuHoGN4k

The Results: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

During our 3 month campaign the community grew dramatically.  The new TV series premiered Feb 07, 2011 with a staggering 16.8 million viewers in the show’s first week!

Result Details

Facebook ‘Likers’

Nov 01 – 1298
Feb 07 – 201,666

Daily News Feed Impressions ( Daily The number of times people (Fans and non-Fans) have viewed a News Feed story posted by your Page.)

Nov – 877,196
Dec – 3,443,998
Jan – 9,004,560

Facebook Interactions (Daily Likes and Comments)

Nov  -  13,268
Dec  – 22,026
Jan -  39,663

This post started out as a tribute to May Day – searching for creative ways labor unions and anti-union supporters were using Facebook. I had recently read an article about how Facebook could potentially REPLACE labor unions and excitedly went to work looking for well-organized, active pages. What I found instead was a handful of pages that seemed to have little in the way of followers and even less interaction. So, I changed the topic of this post to covering politicians and political groups that DO have a following on Facebook. Below I have outlined the top US politicians on Facebook and what we can learn from their pages.

Union Woes Continue on Facebook

If there ARE active labor union themed pages out there, they are hidden deep within Facebook’s inept search function. I was able to find this page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Union-Labor-Works – one of the few union pages I could find with more than 10 fans. The page had only one wall post and 233 ‘likers.’ There were no custom tabs and I could find very little information about the organization. No photos, no videos, nada. There WERE active groups and events surrounding union topics and perhaps these Facebook tools work better to provide an on-line rallying cry. continue

Find any great April Fool’s pranks on Facebook last week? I had some difficulties spotting them. I was hoping to report on brands playfully posting outrageous updates, wacky profile pics and basically playing their community for fools.

One of my clients did have some success with this April Fools prank: The Mauve Power Ranger! (Image below) The community LOVED it and engaged with the Facebook update throughout the day.

Pranks aside, what I did find on Facebook last week was an array of businesses attempting to engage. Looking for the most creative uses of the coveted 520 pixels on a tab, I started with allfacebook.com’s most ‘Explosive Facebook Pages’ of the week. I figured that Facebook pages quickly recruiting ‘likers’ must be offering up great content. This assumption was proven to be incorrect with just a few exceptions.

continue

As a professional who has been implementing campaigns in Facebook for clients over the last few years, I know one thing to be true: change is coming. If you learn to deal well with change, chances are you’ll be able to bypass the frustrations with Facebook that many developers and marketers experience. As of yesterday, all Facebook pages now reflect a new lay-out and offer users additional functionality . I’ve been eagerly anticipating the move to allow iFrame functionality on page ‘tabs’.

Facebook has been promising this feature to developers for months and I had grown skeptical that they would ever make it work. The issue is that in order to create an interactive experience on a page tab you were limited by FBML, a bastardized mark-up language with limited functionality. Common scripting languages like Javascript wouldn’t work on Facebook tabs. This meant marketers had two options: 1) use a ready-built application that could do the job but offered little or no customization or 2) pay a company thousands of dollars to create one for you. After some testing, I can assure you THAT has all changed. continue

Bonfire Social Media recently conducted a survey and there was one stat that really stood out. A whopping 94% of businesses surveyed felt that adding social media to the marketing mix would help meet overall business objectives. That was expected since social media has become THE marketing buzz word over the last few years. The shocking part was that 68% of those businesses neglected to allocate resources to social media. So many businesses completely get the value of social media, but haven’t made the move to put their money where their mouths are.

This article is for those who recognize the value of social media but due to lack of time, knowledge or fear have refused to step-up and commit to implementing a social media campaign. continue

Company: Intel Software Partner Program
Social Media Marketing Team: Ryan Lewis, Bonfire Social Media; Jon Bullinger, ISSP Global Program Marketing Director and Rick Puckett from Intel’s marketing team
Campaign Length: 9 months
Result: 32% increase in overall program participation

The Challenge

Intel’s Software Partner Program (ISPP) works to support independent software vendors using Intel technology. The program provides a portfolio of benefits spanning the entire product life-cycle, including research and planning, development, marketing and distribution of their applications.

The challenge was attracting new participants and getting the word out on program benefits to a segmented group of developers. The ideal participant worked in the B2B market developing software for other businesses. The campaign’s original methods of communication included a quarterly newsletter and a blog with infrequent posts. They were finding it difficult to keep the content in the newsletter fresh as it only went out every 3 months and the blog wasn’t getting much traffic.

They had seen success using a LinkedIn group, but this group proved excessively time-consuming as it required manual updates of information for group members. Intel’s team was overwhelmed with all the communication options available and they were struggling with consistent messaging.

The Solution

Bonfire worked with Intel team members Jon Bullinger and Rick Puckett to develop a social media strategy from the ground up. The goal was to increase program participation by at least 25%. The key components included a plan for consistent messaging across all distribution platforms; Social Media network automation; a blog content strategy and newsletter integration. continue

We have reviewed the responses to our survey and have identified some surprising results. The most striking insight was that 94% of you believe social media WILL improve your overall business objectives; however very few of you had dedicated substantial budget or resources to your social media campaigns. Additional responses indicated that most of you lack the time and technical knowledge required to implement successful social media campaigns. You can find the complete results from the survey here:

http://bonfiresocialmedia.com/Bonfire-Social-Media-Survey-Results-Jan-2011.pdf continue