Social Media

There is a race happening you might not be aware of. The race is for how your business controls and manages your social media. With some major players getting involved and some serious money changing hands this could prove to be a sector to watch. In this post, I’ll try to quickly summarize the most relevant platforms and what kind of businesses they are best suited for. Most only focus on Facebook, but all platforms listed have aspirations to work with other platforms.

Involver was one of the first Facebook application developers and continues to push out compelling products for companies. Bonfire has worked with Involver in past and overall they create a good product. They have jumped into the platform management ring with their “Enterprise” and “Business” solutions. They are very similar with Enterprise giving users every feature and product they make. I’ll focus on the features from Enterprise. If you want to read more about the “Business” product, click here. Below are Enterprise’s capabilities:

• 24 available “pre-made” white label Facebook applications
• Publishing on a claimed 40 media outlets. Most notable: Facebook, Twitter, WordPress
• Post scheduling on Media outlets
• Bit.ly analytic integration
• Social monitoring for keyword alerts
• Message Sentiment Measurement
• Message workflow management
• Internal analytic dashboard
• Up to 10 users

Price: Starting at $2,749 per month.

Wildfire started as a small FBfund (Facebook’s investing arm) company “way back” in January 2010. They initially created apps for pages that were simple to deploy and required no long term contracts.

As of June 2011 they have 120 team members and thousands of customers (we have used several of their products in the past). They have big aspirations to become not just an app developer for Facebook, but a fully functional social management system. In June of this year, Wildfire launched their Suite product. Here are their Suite’s capabilities:

• Drag and drop Facebook Tab creator: This feature requires no coding knowledge and can be updated frequently.
• Content Manager: The Wildfire content manager will allow for social media workflow simplicity and allow community managers to schedule and assign content posting on Facebook. This feature is very useful for companies with large teams or publish content with a high frequency.
• Promotion Builder: This allows companies to construct giveaways using a straightforward interface — drag and drop the text fields you’d like to require during the sign up, tweak the banners, then enter the official rules and you’re good to go.
• Dashboard: Facebook analytics can be difficult, but Wildfire’s dashboard can simply success metrics. Their dashboard shows analytics that are more detailed than Facebook’s standard Insights and you can even chart your progress against a competitor’s.

Price: Custom pricing. In a statement they say “low hundreds” to “low thousands”

Buddy Media is the gold standard when it comes to social media management. I mean gold as in both expensive and the best. They have every feature you could ever want in a platform and are fluent in all major languages. This is very important if you are a multinational brand that wants to segment your social media community. They currently service some of the largest companies in the world such as Starwood Hotels, Sony, Southwest Airlines, American Express and Ford. In addition to their impressive client list, they also recently received an additional $54 million in funding to grow out their infrastructure. Buddy Media can do everything Involver and Wildfire can and more. I’ll focus on the “and more” for the sake of time.

• Drag and Drop Facebook page development
• Multiple language support
• Real time analytics
• Scheduling and posting on multiple social platforms
• Large team workflow management

Price: Customized pricing. Most plans start at $5,000 per month.

I hope you have found this information helpful with any decision making in the future. If you have any you would add that I missed, please comment below.

Videos can quickly grab a customer’s attention and stay in their mind longer than a photo or even the written word. But how can you make your videos more interactive? Allow users to not only view your videos, but become immersed with them.

Annotations are a trusted, but under-utilized YouTube tool that can boost both page views and subscribers for a channel. A video’s power can be enhanced by using this simple (and free) tool.

Two examples of annotation creativity:

Interactive Promotions/Games

Annotations can be a fun way to promote products. Instead of a video showcasing a new line of toys, Hot Wheels used annotations and turned their YouTube videos into an online game. Users can choose both the type of car and add-ons to race. While it takes a lot of planning and video production, the end product is a seamless use of YouTube Annotations.

‘Choose Your Own Adventure’

Many adults remember growing up with ‘choose your own adventure’ stories. The digital versions of these use YouTube annotations to create a fun story. Fun and interactive, they can be a nice way to promote products or services in story-form.  And, unlike their hard-copy predecessor, you can’t skip ahead and change your mind!

More Practical Uses
While creativity is key to utilizing annotations, this tool can also be used to increase the number of subscribers.

• Subscribers: By using the Subscribe link type, your video can have a great call-out for viewers to subscribe to your channel, allowing for more video views and greater channel reach.
• Linking : If your channel has a lot of content, annotations can link these videos together. It not only keeps viewers on your channel longer, but also allows for a deeper understanding of your services, products or mission.
• Promoting Other Channels: Does your company have more than one YouTube channel? Annotations can help link these by promoting another channel in a relevant video. This can help to promote smaller channels from a large, central channel.

Where to begin?
Start by mapping out your annotations. Whether they are simple links to other videos, words of wisdom, or interactive elements, planning is key. Try to create a virtual path where users will be compelled to spend more time on your channel.

The actual creation of new annotations is relatively easy. Be sure to keep in mind both the placement and type of annotation.

Like anything, however, annotations can get out of hand. It is important to remember what makes videos great is the actual viewing experience. Annotations should be used to enhance and not detract from the experience. By having timely call-outs it can help increase the amount of time users both spend on your channel as well as the amount they share your content with others.

Learn More

Here are a few great resources for getting started on a YouTube annotations project:

How To: Use Annotations to Promote Your Brand on YouTube – A great step-by-step guide on YouTube annotations.

YouTube Help Guide - A simplified guide that can be used as a resource when getting started.

Television shows are a natural match for interacting and engaging with their fan base via social media. Part of this effectiveness stems from shows being serial in nature and the fact that many shows have a branded mythology behind it. While these factors can aid the conversation when the show is not airing, how do you interact with a television while it airs? Proper social media planning can make fans not only feel engaged with the show, but also appreciated.

A recent TV Guide study found that over a third more users Twitter to discuss a show while it is happening than Facebook. This begs at the question: How are shows utilizing Twitter and what can they do to make it better?

I have outlined a few examples below of how shows from different genres are using Twitter to ramp up real-time interaction with a show on-air, what they are doing right, and how (in my modest opinion), they can make it that much better.

Trueblood

True Blood does a wonderful job of creating an interactive Twitter environment. Beyond the usual show hashtags, they have created Bloodcopy.com which is the official place to follow all things related to True Blood on Twitter.  By compiling both the official profile and the character profiles, fans can interact and follow everything in an efficient, streamlined manner.

Glee

Glee is an interesting case. The show does an amazing job in general with social media. By acknowledging a Gleek of the Week each episode, they are fostering an engaged audience who feels valued and  appreciated. However, the various Twitter profiles from the main official profile to the various cast and characters seem to have a disjointed feel.

NCIS

Even though it was named one of the Top 10 most tweeted about shows by TV Guide, their official Twitter profile leaves a little to be desired. Despite having a handy branded hashtag (#NCSI), the profile does little to interact with the community, instead relying on mainly just promoting the show.

Top Chef

Finally, there is Top Chef, everyone’s favorite cooking competition show. Their Twitter profile (and the Bravo network in general) are leaders in real-time fan interaction. Both during the show and afterwards, the official Twitter profile acknowledges fans and answers their questions. A simple RT of fan feedback can go a long in making an audience member feel appreciated.

Summing It Up

How to make it better: Official profiles should not shy away from interacting with fans. By simply thanking fans or answering their questions directly, fans feel like their comments are being heard. While a fanbase may be interacting during an episode, engaging them can go even further.

Centralization: Part of the fun when interaction with TV shows is the blurring between reality and fiction. A tweet from Sue Sylvester can be a whole lot more entertaining than an official tweet. The key, however, is creating a central location where cast, characters, and fans can all tweet together (see the True Blood example above).

Fun Hash Tags: Branded hash tags are great for everyday use, but to keep fans engaged in real-time discussion, why not choose a catch-phrase from the current episode? This helps not only to increase interaction, but spur further conversation.

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.

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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

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

By Lisa Peyton, VP Bonfire Social Media

Let me start off by announcing that none of the platforms mentioned have compensated me in any way or asked me to promote their products. I simply hoped to find a good tool for a reasonable price that would allow me to track metrics associated with campaign goals. I would also like to add the disclaimer that with the dozens of great tools available, there was no way to include them all. If you have experience with a great tool, PLEASE SHARE with the community by commenting on this post.

The information provided on each tool below is only PART of the equation when searching for a good social media monitoring solution. The MOST important question that should be asked is – what do you need to track and why? Most tools out there will report on endless amounts of data; the real trick is finding the tool that will report on the data you need to determine if campaign goals are being met.

Goals

The first step to finding a great tool for my client was taking a look at campaign goals. The primary goals included growing their Facebook fan base as rapidly as possible (BAD GOAL) and tracking – that is, which social media platforms and influencers were the most active for their brand terms. A good goal is measurable and time-sensitive, but not many clients come to the table armed with goals that include this level of detail so I made a few changes and came up with these working goals:

• Grow Facebook fan base by 100% over the next 3 months
• Increase overall fan page interactions by 100% over the next 3 months
• Identify the most active social media platforms for brand terms over the next 3 months
• Identify the most influential and active brand advocates on social media networks continue

by Lisa Peyton, VP Bonfire Social Media

Last week Facebook began reporting on some interesting data within their ad platform. They are now including ‘Social %’ within the campaign data table (highlighted below) and ‘Social Impressions’, ‘Social CTR’ and ‘Social Clicks’ within exported reports. (Use the highlighted button to export a report and access the new social data.)

Facebook defines ‘Social %’ as:

The percentage of your ad’s impressions where the viewer saw at least one friend who likes your page, event, application or ad.

Targeting friends of Facebook page ‘likers’ has been around for several months and savvy marketers have been touting the power of such targeting. Until now, we had to guess at just how successful endorsements from friends were at boosting campaign results. I have to admit that this technique has coaxed me into liking some items on Facebook that I may have otherwise overlooked.
However, can social impressions make a significant impact on ad campaigns? Facebook is now reporting on data that can help marketers make this determination.

Targeting friends of page fans or ‘likers’ is as simple as ensuring that you have added the relevant page to the ad settings when creating a new ad. Within the ‘Targeting’ section of the ad creation or editing platform there’s a box where you can ‘Target users whose friends are connected to’ your page. If you are running Facebook ads, I would recommend checking to ensure this feature has been added to all of your campaigns. This will provide you with additional ‘social’ data and allow you to make more informed management decisions.

After taking a closer look at the new social data, I was a bit dissapointed with my findings. I didn’t see a clear relationship between campaign performance and Social %. Here are my key findings:

• Highest CTR for the month, 1.15% occurred on a day with NO social impressions. The same day also had the highest Action rate, again with zero social impressions.

• Social CTR trended towards being SLIGHTLY higher than overall CTR.

• Data fluctuated greatly depending on the client, leading me to believe that the ad image, copy and industry were more influential than social endorsements.

For example the lifetime stats of  two  B2C clients compared side by side pointed to little or no correlation between increased CTR and Social Impressions:

Client 1 -  Impressions: 1,864,982  Social %:  78.6% CTR:  0.041%
Client 2 -  Impressions: 1,451,355  Social %:  2.9%  CTR:  0.046%

• Actions didn’t appear to get a boost from social impressions either. Using the same example as above, the client that had the highest percentage of social impressions had the lower action rate. If social impressions were successfully sending more targeted and qualified users, it would follow that the action rate would be higher for accounts running a higher percentage of social impressions. When comparing all our client accounts this wasn’t the case.

• When comparing data there seemed to be little to no correlation between Social % and a lowered CPC. There was an apparent relationship between campaign CTR and CPC. Our clients running the lowest average CPC also had the highest CTR. But these same clients DIDN’T have the highest Social %, in fact our client with the lowest CPC ranked in the bottom when it came to social impressions with only 2.4% of all impressions being served to friends of page ‘likers’.

Overall, I feel this analysis points to other campaign factors as influencing campaign success more than endorsements from Facebook friends. I have seen the most drastic improvements coupled with compelling promotions and strong ad creative. With all the hoopla and hype over social endorsements, it’s easy for some marketers to overlook the basics. It’s still important to build a strong foundation focusing on the tried and true principles of ‘The 4 P’s: Product, Price, Place and promotion.

I’m eager to discover if other Facebook advertisers are making similar conclusions or if they are seeing more of a lift from the elusive ‘Social Impression’. Comment below with your own campaign results, trends or tips.

Here are 2 video shorts that are entertaining and informative. These videos are a good follow up to our slide presentation, The State of Online Marketing.

Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh)

This video comes from Erick Qualm, author of the book Socialnomics. It is produced with the same tone of “Did You Know?”, which is a technology video produced annually.

Social Media Revolution 2010

Based on very similar stats, Social Media Revolution 2010 is a quick video about online engagements growing quickly.