Social Media

Maybe if you are a multinational corporation, like Samsung Mobile, you don’t have to care how you spend your money. Must be nice. For the rest of us, let Samsung’s recent Facebook (FB) advertising campaign be an example of what not to do in social advertising.

The advertising rate for the FB log out page is around $700,000 per day, which is even more ridiculous when you consider that the disengaged FB user is the worst demographic to target and the worst time to target them.  However, before I get too far off on a rant, let’s take a look at what Samsung has taught us.

1. Think hard about your Call-To-Action (CTA). Samsung’s CTA is to “like” their poorly made video. Even if I did like Samsung’s video, which I don’t, what good does my “like” do for Samsung? They might get a better edgrank score, but is there a real conversion taking place? Not really. Your CTA should send visitors outside of FB, to a landing page, or an app, where a conversion will actually provide your brand value. For example, a CTA that sends visitors to a designated landing page and prompts them to enter their email address will build a contact database that a brand can then leverage with a targeted email campaign. Samsung may have gotten a big reach, but if you’re not converting that reach what’s the point?

2. Write copy that is inclusive and motivational. I get what Samsung means by the statement “If you caught our SMM Fan Santigold concert, ‘Like’ if you’re excited for what’s next,” but it isn’t clean copy and it excludes a huge demographic. I did not catch their fan concert, so I don’t feel like they are speaking to me and I’m not necessarily excited about what’s next. Better would have been to say, “Don’t miss the next Fan concert. Sign up to get exclusive access to all the hottest events.”

3. Make sure your graphic is awesome! I am not the target demographic for this ad, but as a photographer and a design junky, Samsung really missed the ball with this graphic. Santigold is no doubt a striking model, but all you have to do is a quick Google image search to find at least 5 photographs of her that grab your attention better, are more visually appealing, and make better use of the canvas.

4. Spend your money wisely. I literally salivate at the prospect of having 700k to spend on FB advertising in one day. My team here at Bonfire could put together an amazing campaign for that amount of money. We could implement multiple ad campaigns over the course of a couple months, run simultaneously, so that we could determine which copy and graphics resonated the most with demographics to actually sells more phones and increases customer loyalty.

So if you have 700k that is just burning a hole in your marketing budget, give it to charity or give it to Bonfire, but don’t follow in Samsung’s footsteps. As marketers we should be constantly pushing ourselves to attach an ROI to everything we do. The old days of traditional advertising with no accountability are over. The days of strategic advertising that drives real and quantifiable results are here. Rejoice!

For a professional writer the success of Pinterest could be terrifying. In half a year it has exploded to become the third most popular social medium in the world. Out of nowhere the network is expanding faster than even Facebook’s initial growth. Marketers gush about its potential; Forbes just declared it a $7.7 billion company. In the month of March Pinterest received over 100 million visitors. The suddenness of these figures is striking, but the real concern for writers is a fact behind the growth: it came about almost entirely without words.

The site hardly uses them. Everyone who’s visited it knows instead of headlines and pithy copy Pinterest relies on imagery to draw in visitors. Anyone who’s analyzed the metrics knows it retains them better than Twitter’s abrupt wall of text. Comic book advertising long ago revealed that photos engage people better: a sea-monkey illustration continues to sell plastic jars of brine shrimp. The benefit of good imagery is undisputed fact, but writing has never looked as comparatively obsolete as it does now.

The New York Times cheekily reminded readers that a picture is worth “about seven Twitter posts.” Marketers have always understood that a well-created image is more valuable than a sentence, but the success of Pinterest implies they’re not even comparable. The network doesn’t just use pictures; it relies solely on them and still succeeds. With a pigeonholed demographic (80% of pinners are women), this site can’t devalue language on its own, but it does reveal a larger, more expansive trend.

Pinterest isn’t as important as a case study in itself; it’s more useful as a portent, a sign or warning that visual revolution is in the air. For a site to succeed so tremendously without language proves humans have entered a new cultural era. Communication is rapidly evolving. The old exchange of information is no longer viable. Words continue to matter, but only as contextual frames for imagery. A company or brand with any hopes of success needs to see this, accept it, and begin to strategize accordingly.

The attention spans of people may have shrunk over the last century, but more likely they’ve changed. Browsing pins and boards is entrancing. Some have called it an addiction to images. The mind remains focused, but it’s now trained to concentrate on pictures not sentences. Pinterest flourishes because of this shift, and while it might someday dissolve, its use of imagery is enduring. It succeeds now because it reflects a cultural evolution, and any brand that doesn’t adapt itself will die out.

Technology is the driving force behind this change. Expanding 3G networks and high speed Internet have made the distribution of photos and videos possible. Capturing attention and selling products both relied on imagery for centuries, but consuming and sharing them have never been easier. As more brands leverage this, language as a foundation is eroding. Visual content will continue to rise as a prominent form of strategic marketing. Writers probably won’t encounter a sudden burst of unemployment, but they may begin to replace photographers and graphic designers as the world’s supplemental artists. The marketers not in this field aren’t facing doom; they just need to invest in good visual content creation, and soon.

Earlier this week, when Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook was buying Instagram, people balked. Market analysts publicized the $1 billion price tag; bloggers questioned the motives; and most others were just furious about the conglomeration. Twitter exploded with people declaring they’d just deleted their Instagram accounts. Facebook comparisons ranged from a monopoly to an imperialist force to the Borg. Calmer voices like The New Yorker theorized the move was nothing more than a power play, and the fact that The New Yorker weighed in so quickly (or at all) seemed to strike no one as strange.

Facebook is, after all, just a social network, but we don’t need another blog analyzing its power and influence. Zuckerberg himself has said he wants Facebook to be a site where all online needs are met. Already users can read articles, stream music and videos, and e-mail friends. Over 483 million people use the site daily. It’s the most popular online destination in the world, which is why some people fear it like a fascist regime. The social network possesses immense power, but people forget that despite his lofty ambitions Zuckerberg isn’t a fascist. Even if he was, other e-mail, video, and news platforms are individually more popular. Facebook is still a diversion at best, a business at worst.

From an economic standpoint, the acquisition makes sense. Instagram is all about sharing photos, which has arguably always been the main allure of Facebook. Grandmothers create profiles to see family pictures; disinterested users keep their accounts to access old photos. TheFacebook.com was first created to browse others’ portraits. Instagram works under the same premise. They’re both social networks that share images; of course the larger network would acquire the other. The most interesting element in all of this was the cost—something Jon Stewart pointed out (see below) as seemingly absurd. Facebook paid $33/Instagram user. Whether Zuckerberg saw the app as that worrisome of a competitor or that complimentary of a platform depends on whom you ask. But it needs to be asked in business terms, not hyperbole.

This deal isn’t, as some people claim, a conspiracy. The people who rail against Facebook are descendants of the people who railed against e-mail, television, and the telephone in decades past. It isn’t the Matrix or Skynet. It’s a business, and its purchase of Instagram had nothing to do with world domination. Not everyone likes Facebook, but most people use it, and those who don’t miss out on events, social updates, and news generated by friends and brands. The public outcry about Instagram will fade, and people will keep using the app, happily or not.

The only real reason this deal caused a hullabaloo is Facebook’s immense popularity. Commercially, politically, and culturally, the site has become an engrained part of our society. This is an age where the Secretary of State submits memes and Internet tycoons are featured in celebrity magazines. Of course Facebook’s acquisition of an app will make headlines. Everything Facebook does will face scrutiny. It isn’t an apocalyptic sentient being, but it is a powerful social and economic force, and every billion-dollar ripple it makes will create cultural tidal waves.

–By Justin Albano, Director of Business Development at Bonfire Social Media–

B2B marketers and business owners often ask me if the benefits of social media only exist in the B2C realm. The answer is a resounding no. The core concepts of social media: establishing your brand as an industry influencer, engaging with your customers, leveraging brand advocates, and nurturing leads along a sales cycle are just as powerful in connecting with companies as they are with consumers. In fact, B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those who do not [1], and 57% of B2B companies have acquired a customer through LinkedIn [2]. However, just like any other marketing tools, here are some best practices that will get you started in the right direction.

1) Know Your Objectives

What do you want? More customers? A better relationship with your customers? Both? As a biz dev guy I love “to do lists,” strategies, and most of all accomplishing objectives. Often, companies that I talk with are either focused on driving more leads or improving their brand’s perception and share of voice. Dependent upon your company’s objectives, you need to understand which, or both, of these categories your company falls into. Without defining your objectives, you stand no chance of measuring success or understanding the effect of your actions.

Action Items:

• Start macro and go micro. What do you really want out of your business? Do you want to grow a secure company that can be passed on to your kids? Do you have a quick profitable exit in mind? Start with your vision and let it set the framework for your strategies in every business facet. Then develop your bottom up action items, i.e. what will it actually take to get there?
• Set success metrics and milestones and review your progress regularly, not just at the end of the year.

2) Understand Your Demographics

It may seem obvious, but it never ceases to amaze me how few companies actually understand who their demographic is, what their buying cycle looks like, what motivating factors/events cause them to take action or where they get information on products and services.

Action Items:

• Create customer profiles that allow you to examine your demographics in a more intimate way. For example, Suzie is a mother of two who works full time, loves to play tennis and hike, cares about the environment, and prefers to watch movies rather than TV. Setting up these profiles gives you a great demographic snapshot and helps to focus your marketing efforts.
• Once you understand your demographic’s buying cycle, what info, education or resources can you provide to make their buying decision easier? This is not only important for brand awareness and brand perception, but should be the driving force behind your lead nurturing cycle.
• It is crucial for you to understand your industry’s keyword landscape. Which keywords are your demographic using to search for the products/services you offer or information related to your offering? Which keywords are obtainable? How do you currently rank for those keywords? Google provides some free tools for the Do-it-Yourselfers, but any digital marketing shop should help you build the list and give you the analytic insights that will enable you to make sense of it all.
• Discover which social platforms your demographics are already engaged with and focus your efforts there. Currently, there are over 800 million users on Facebook, 300 million users on Twitter, 116 million users on LinkedIn and only 60 million users on Google+ [3]. If you currently have an email database, run it through some social networks to discover who is already using which networks. This could save you mountains of time in the long run and allow you to target your unique demographics.
• Listen via social networks like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and forums, as well as online news sites. Once you know your demographic’s hangouts and keywords, you can listen to social conversations via CMS platforms like HootSuite/TweetDeck and by setting up Google Alerts that monitor articles, blogs and forums that are currently talking about your keywords.

3) Create Value Based Relationships

Social media is not the place for old-school messaging tactics, and the concept of protecting your secret sauce is dead. Company decision makers typically go to your website, not social networks, to learn the benefits of your products or services. Companies and consumers alike are actively searching for value-based content that makes their lives and their buying decisions easier.

Action Items:

• Offer value-based content. If you help companies streamline their processes, don’t just talk about how you do it; offer them free templates or How-To whitepapers that teach them how to be more efficient. Providing this type of value will convert prospects in to fans of your company and customers in to loyal brand advocates.
• Understand the difference between relevant content (e.g. interesting articles, company update s, etc.) and compelling content that provides value and motivates visitors to take action (either by providing contact information or requesting a demo).
• Monitor conversations within social communities, like LinkedIn discussion threads, and offer advice or input wherever possible.
• Don’t be afraid to give away the secret sauce. As we all know, understanding how to do something and actually doing it are two very different things. Some of Bonfire’s best clients are those who tried to do it themselves first and quickly realized that their time and resources are much more effectively spent doing the things that they already excel at rather than learning how to develop custom Facebook tabs, constantly managing social networks, writing blogs or producing webinars.

4) Leverage Your Current Marketing Mix

A common and dangerous myth is that social media replaces traditional and costly marketing channels with free messaging. This is simply not true. Social media is at its best when it is amplifying other marketing efforts or when integrated in to a well thought-out campaign.

Action Items:

• Install social plug-ins throughout your site. These allow visitors to share your content on their preferred social network quickly and with a minimum of effort.
• Utilize landing pages to capture leads and initiate your lead nurturing cycle.
• 59% of B2B purchase decision makers have used their smartphone to research products and services when they are considering purchases [4], so optimize your content and landing pages for the increasing number of mobile users.
• Include QR codes on in-print advertising and articles with compelling calls to action.

This is not rocket science and it’s not revolutionary. Instead, this is a new application of what the heart and soul of American business was when companies took the time to connect with their communities and develop relationships with their customers. As a B2B marketer your audience might be smaller than your B2C counterparts, but that means you can be much more targeted and strategic with your marketing. While a B2C marketer may segment their demographics down to niche communities, you can target specific decision makers within your target companies and develop a value-based relationship that not only nurtures the current sales cycle but also sets a positive framework for a long and supportive business relationship.

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Stat Citations
[1] Source: Hubspot, State of Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report, 2010
[2] Source: http://www.hubspot.com/social-media-monitoring-in-10-minutes-ebook/?source=hspd-affiliate-PID-3701805-txt-ad-social-media-10-min-day-ebook-20110819&AID=10933127&PID=3701805&SID=skim1024X498223X8a5f920e568fa93e07c8561649950bf2
[3] Source: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/b2b-social-media-marketing-statistics-to-ponder-099980
[4] Source: http://socialmediab2b.com/2011/09/b2b-decision-makers-smartphones/#ixzz1jmUIeJul

Behold: the mighty infographic.

From flowcharts to certain installments of webcomics like Randall Munroe’s xkcd.com, infographics distill data and facts and present them in a way that we can all understand. 1,000,000,000 (1 billion) is impossible to conceptualize, but infographics can show 1,000,000,000 in context and scale, using images and captions, in a way that helps us grasp that knowledge.

We’ve compiled 11 great infographics from 2011, plus two fun bonus graphics, and arranged them by topic. What are your favorites?

Economics

The Science of Salary – Shaun Saunders and salarytutor.com showed us in September the comparison between job satisfaction and salary in various professions, from fast food cooks to surgeons. The most satisfied employees, as it turns out, are firefighters. Where do you fit on that scale?

Money – Randall Munroe’s webcomic XKCD is required reading for any self-respecting geek/nerd. His chart of “money (almost) all of it, where it is, and what it can do” takes an entirely incomprehensible concept and makes it accessible and understandable.

Social Media

The Growth of Social Media – If Facebook were a child, it would be in first grade this year. If it were a country, it would be third largest in the world, behind China and India. This infographic from Search Engine Journal puts the most popular social networking sites, and how they’ve grown over time, into perspective. Which sites do you use regularly?

Major World Events of 2011 and their Impact on Social Media – Flowtown takes us through 2011, from the Arab Spring to Charlie Sheen’s breakdown, and ranks whether or not they mattered, as measured by their impact on networks such as Twitter.

Social Media’s Best Bacon Dishes – Using data from social media ratings, infographicsarchive gives us the low-down on everyone’s favorite dessert of meats: bacon. Have you eaten any of these dishes? Are some of them too out-there for you?

Science and Technology

Radiation – After the 9.0 earthquake hit Japan this spring, people all over the world started worrying about radiation exposure from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Randall Munroe took data about exposure from every day events and compared them to the risk from Fukushima.

The Insanely Great History of Apple – Steve Jobs left an unparalleled legacy in the world of computers. The folks at PopChart labs bring us a complete family tree of Apple’s products, from the Lisa to the iPhone 4S.

Politics

This is Not My Beautiful House – What would Congress look like if it were, proportionately, comprised of the same demographic as the United States? The results might surprise you.

School Cafeteria Food vs. Prison Food – GOOD collaborated with Column Five Media to show us the similarities and differences in cost, content and nutrition of the food fed to prisoners and American public school kids.

Entertainment

The Illustrious Omnibus of Superpowers – Another great piece from the folks at Pop Chart Labs. 300 superheroes and their powers, from Superman and Spider-man to lesser-known heroes like Ant-Man and Matter-Eater Lad. Who’s your favorite superhero? What power would you want to have?

NPR’s Book Flowchart – 60,000 NPR listeners submitted their favorite sci-fi and fantasy book titles, NPR compiled them into a list of 100 must-read books, and SF Signal turned it into a flow chart. An interactive flow chart. It’s endorsed by Neil Gaiman and contains everything from World War Z to The Princess Bride. Are your favorites on that list?

Bonus

Inside a Toddler’s Brain – If you’ve been on Facebook, Pinterest or Tumblr lately, you’ve likely seen this diagram. Not scientific, but so close to the truth as to cause giggles that will make your co-workers wonder what you’re looking at.

The Visible Tom Waits – Again, not scientific, but Jim Lockey brings us a good visual explanation for the cause of Tom’s trademark sound. Do you have a favorite Tom Waits album?

Social networking sites now reach 82 percent of the world’s online population, representing 1.2 billion users, or nearly 1/6 the population of Earth. It accounts for 19 percent of all time spent online. (Comscore) In 2011, social media not only was further integrated into our lexicon and media consumption, it became a communication platform for important events around the world.

Some of the biggest events in 2011 like the Arab Spring and the death of Osama bin Laden were announced via social media or spread via social media.

Arab Spring

Time Magazine

Time Magazine’s 2011 person of the year was The Protestor. This speaks to the power of the Arab Spring movement that shook the Middle East and sent shock waves around the world. The Arab Spring began with the Tunsian Revolution at the end of last year and continues today. Protestors have organized on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and blogs to spread the word and gain support for the movements in Egypt, Israel, Yemen, Libya, and Syria. Even as individual countries began to shut down access to the Internet and individual platforms, protestors kept finding new ways to get the word out.

Accoring to Yahoo! News, one of the most popular hashtags of 2011 was #jan25 which marked the beginning of the protests in Egypt which ended February 11th when President Mubarak stepped down from power.

Protests in Baharain, Syria, and Libya were also spread via social media and included shocking moments like the photo of Gaddafi’s body that went viral and when a NATO commander announced the end of the Libyan war via Facebook.

The Occupy Movement
Protests moved stateside on September 17, 2011 and by October 15, 2011, the protests had spread to 1,000 cities in 82 countries. (Wikipedia) The #OWS movement has been supported through a variety of channels. On September 25, the hacktivist group Anonymous uploaded a YouTube video threatening action if the NYPD showed brutality against protesters. A massive march in NYC was organized via Twitter on October 5th. On November 19th videos from several different viewpoints of the students at UC Davis getting pepper sprayed received millions of views via YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. On December 20th Anonymous released the personal information of NYPD officers who evicted OWS protestors.

These are just some of the major moments that have been fueled by social media to mobilize protestors and keep the Occupy Wall Street movement alive.

Other Memorable Moments
#japan was one of the most popular hashtags in 2011, following the tsunami in March.

Steve Jobs, the man who defined technology communication, was memorialized after his death via Tweets, Facebook posts, and montage videos.

Many of us may remember where we were when we heard of the death of Osama bin Laden. I saw the news via my Twitter stream, others found out via Facebook, and any other platform that was able to spread the news.

Who knows what 2012 will bring as technology and social media continue to infiltrate our communication habits. The new trend of image based social media including Instagr.am, Pinterest, and Tumblr blogs may be the next platforms for getting the message across.

You know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Sources:

“Google+ skyrocketed to 40 million users in 2 months. It’s the Facebook killer.

I get more comments on Google+. It’s just, so much cleaner than Facebook.”

If you’re like me, you’ve read dozens, if not hundreds, of these type of statements over the last 4 months. Worse yet, step away and do a Google search for “Is Facebook Dead?”. You would think the platform disappeared overnight. People are actually starting to make these type of claims.

My intention here is not to bag on Google’s new and much-hyped platform. In fact, I love how clean and intuitive Google+ is; you don’t have advertisements, you don’t feel bombarded with messages and it isn’t inundated with spam as many other platforms are.

The issue I have is that we are running real businesses here. “Shiny Object Syndrome” isn’t allowed. Being cool and new is not enough and we can’t just bank on potential or assumptions. We have to look at the actual data or we could find ourselves investing our dollars in the wrong places and doing a serious disservice to our clients.

In MarketingChart’s latest set of social media data, we discover that Facebook is still far and away the most popular social network, both in terms of users and time spent.

As you can see, it’s not just that Facebook has 800 million users. People spend infinitely more time on the platform compared to all other web brands. When this is narrowed down ONLY to social networks, the differences are even more astonishing:

When we look at this broadly, it’s basically Facebook and everybody else. As we see “Like us On Facebook” right next to “Follow us on Twitter” everywhere we go, we often forget that a very high percentage of Twitter users don’t check back regularly despite having hundreds of millions of “users”. This isn’t the case with Facebook. Ironically, the number of active users is likely the reason people spend so much time on Facebook. You’ll probably find co-workers on LinkedIn, people who watch the same sports teams as you on Twitter, and people who share the same TV interests on YouTube. But you’ll find everyone on Facebook. Everyone.

And it doesn’t stop there. Although the market for new Facebook users has shrunk to the point where growth is nearly impossible, Facebook is still climbing in overall market share:

But let’s go back to Google+ for a brief moment. In terms of market share of visits, the platform has an extremely long way to go:

I hate to say the M-word, but it’s worth mentioning that MySpace still has them beat.

So what can we take away here? Does this mean Google+ is a dud? No. Does this mean you should re-invest everything into Facebook? Of course not.

The bottom line is, speculation is just speculation. Certainly there is reason to believe Google+ will be a big player at some point. But now? Unless you’re targeting a narrow group of early-adopters, it’s just another social network. It’s cleaner and easy to use, yes, but it doesn’t do anything Facebook can’t at this point and chances are your customers are not using it.

Everyone loves a giant killer and we’ve seen massive platforms fall in the past (tempting to use the M-word again here). Just remember to keep your focus on real data, avoid the hype, and focus your efforts where your customers actually are.

Recently I was honored to speak at a small CEMA Marketing group in Austin, TX. At the event, I presented some ideas for how event marketers could integrate social media with a higher participation at conferences. A lot my content was centered around keeping actions simple and having fun with available tools such as Twitter. Below are a few elements of my presentation. If I could sum up my ideas on the matter they would be this:

1. Make everything very, very easy.

2. Use available tools instead of building propriety apps.

3. Cater to online chatter through qualified community managers.

4. Educate users pre-during-post event

5. Make networking fun and easy.

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