It started as a concept, then an article, now it's a White Paper. I keep yakking on and on about how Social Media fits in to any kind of business so I figured we should make it a takeaway. A leave behind. A print out. Something you can hold in your hands or leave on your desk and rest your coffee mug on.
I'm pretty proud of it. So if you get a chance, download Fanscape's new White Paper titled, "4 Reasons to Use Social Media for Your Business."
I heard a wonderful story today that I wanted to share. Something you can take with you in the day and maybe that you can use to make someone very happy.
I was listening to Susan Bratton's DishyMix podcast. She had on Dave Evans who not only writes about Social Media but also teaches it around the world. Specifically he spends a lot of time in India. When Susan asked him to share a story about India he told this really wonderful one that explains how to make a rickshaw driver happy. I love the literal story here but I also think we can all use the basic premise to make others happy at home and when we travel. I hope you agree.
Susan: Leave us at the end of this DishyMix with some beautiful thing that you saw or experienced or ate or whatever in India. You can paint me a flowery picture or make it smell good or whatever story you want to tell. Tell us a story.
Dave: Sure. There are so many. India is an amazing place. When you talk to people who live there they refer to it as a land of extremes or a land of contrasts. It really is. You see the adversity that people deal with. You see some of the living conditions of people. And then you see living conditions and beauty and so on of other people and you recognize the way people simply get along. They accept what's going on. Really an amazing thing.
One of my favorite things to do, for people that have been in India, you will understand this story. The auto rickshaws, the little carts that sort of ferry you around. You ride in these things. It's sort of a matter of honor that you negotiate with the person that's going to give you a ride. If you simply accept the price, yes you've over paid, but you've over paid truthfully by about fifty cents. And at the end of the day if you throw an extra fifty cents into someone's paycheck, it means a lot to them and it's nothing for someone else.
So you negotiate with them and so on and they want a certain price and you negotiate and eventually you arrive at a price. Everybody smiles, you hop in and they take you where you're going.
My favorite thing to do is when you arrive at the destination you smile, you look them in the eye, I've learned a little bit of Hindi, you say something to them, you recognize who they are as an individual and you give them what they originally asked for.
And what you get back is the most incredible - directly looking in your eyes - look and smile that you - whoever you are - has recognized this other person for whoever this other person is.
The word "Namaste" what it means is "I honor what's within you."
When you look someone in the eye and you engage at this level, it's done in India but it's also not done. When you do this between the driver and a passenger in something like an auto rickshaw, the smile that you get back from the driver is unbelievable. It warms you literally for the rest of the day. It's so genuine and so appreciated.
It's this little tiny thing that anybody walking by would never notice. But to the two people involved in it, it's absolutely wonderful.
Now, if I happen to find myself in India anytime soon, I'll definitely try this out. But I bet there are ways every day that I could do something very similar. And I will.
The toughest thing for Social Media Marketing agencies is proving measurable results. Or translated - how many more pieces of product were sold as a result of our efforts. It's a tough nut to crack. But it's a nut that has to be cracked. My hope is that we'll get closer this year. Or at least get closer to having an accepted ROI measurement system that we can all agree on.
In the meantime, my friend Michael sent me a link to this great blog post today. A battle cry for measurable ROI.
What’s the ROI of answering the phone?
What’s the ROI of watering your lawn?
What’s the ROI of putting on pants?
What’s the ROI of having restrooms in your restaurant?
These are all actual lines I’ve heard, just this week, in support of ignoring the role of ROI in establishing the effectiveness of brand efforts in the social media space. There are hundreds of others. Ignoring for a second the completely arbitrary and increasing flawed notion that “social media” is distinct from the web in general at this point, each of these examples continues to point to the exuberant ignorance so many of “social media experts” flaunt on a nearly daily basis when talking about their own work and value.
A couple points I’d like to make:
1) Each one of these is used as though it were rhetorical, when in fact, businesses make judgements on these types of questions every single day. Every restaurant owner has to pay ACTUAL dollars to maintain their washroom. This is one aspect of their “I”nvestment in their business. In “R”eturn they hope this invest plays a part in people dining at their establishment. If this restaurant owner wanted to find a more solid dollar value of this investment, she could easily just block off the restroom and see the effect on her business. Whats the ROI on mowing the lawn? Ask Nike how much they spend maintaining the grounds of their WHQ campus. Then ask them how much of a factor that campus is on retention for them. Want to know the ROI on putting your pants on? Try going to work one morning without pants. Then try paying your rent once you’ve been fired. Thats ROI.
My point is this: it’s fun and cute to toss these pithy lines around, but it might be worth your time to make sure they’re based in some semblance of reality first. Your own inability to see the value in these things only proves YOU can’t measure it, it doesn’t mean there isn’t value.
2) I’d be inclined to let the purveyors of this flawed logic hang their own careers expect for this: when you devalue your work, you devalue mine too. While YOU may have to wave your hands at the notion that YOUR work has any measurable return, I don’t. But when you pedal this baloney, you make the hill steeper for all of us.
Please stop.
I not only believe the work Fight does contributes positively to the bottom line of our clients, we work very hard to prove it. When you say things like “Whats the ROI of putting on pants?” you’re basically equating the work I do to something literally any one can and does do every single day. The logical conclusion a client could draw from this is that brand activities on the social web are something that you should do, but not really consider, or worry about, or invest in. Like pants. Im not sure then how this leads to needing specialists. I don’t need to hire a special person to put my pants on me each day. If helping brands succeed on the web is the same thing, why would hire any one to help me with that?
Eric from my office just posted this handy note about Facebook on our company blog. It's especially relevant to me since I've been joining too many groups on FB lately.
Also, before I hand it off to Eric here, I've been watching what companies are doing on FB this week and was especially inspired by Einstein Brothers Bagel Company. A few weeks ago they offered up free bagels to people who joined their FB page and got a TON of fans. Nearly 400,000.
Today they asked: "Our team is always looking to come up with new clever creations for breakfast and lunch… what’s your idea for a new clever creation from Einstein Bros.?" That was an hour ago. Already over 400 responses. Remember my point the other day about how Social Media can be used for Market Research? Well, the Einstein folks are doing it live right now. Nice work.
Fanscape Sr. Manager, Social Media, Eric Fransen, is our resident expert on all things Facebook. Want to know the current promotions policy, functionality updates and other cool things to do? Eric’s your (and our) guy. Eric lays out some of the interesting things happening on one of our favorite social networking sites (have you seen the new design?).
(1) You can mention people and pages in your updates using the “@” symbol (like Twitter). You can tag people and pages in status updates just like you would on Twitter. They will be pinged, and depending on privacy settings, your posts will appear on their wall, quite similar to tagged photos.
(2) You can search all public updates to find people talking about what interests you (like Twitter). The beauty of Twitter is the ability to see what people are talking about on a massive scale. Facebook has taken a step in this direction by allowing updates to be public and letting users search them. You can also search within only your friends’ updates.
(3) Facebook can connect with AOL Instant Messenger. With the latest version of AIM, you can instant message your Facebook friends right from your buddy list. To get started, just click the Facebook Connect button at the top of the AIM beta buddy list and log in.
(4) You can run promotions, but only if Facebook says it’s ok. This is a relatively recent policy addition, where all promotions (give aways, contests, etc) need to be approved by Facebook in advance and they must be administered by a third-party app. They also cannot explicitly require social interaction to enter (become a fan, “like” a post, post a comment, etc.).
(5) The world can see when you’ve become a fan of a page (so choose wisely). With the new privacy settings, your name, profile picture and fan pages are publicly viewable by anyone. Something you should consider when becoming a fan of that really trashy TV show.
These are a few of the many aspects of Facebook you may not be aware of. Facebook is constantly evolving, as we’ve been seeing a lot of lately – with the home page re-designs and functionality updates. Eric will keep us all updated, but if you have any questions, just give us a shout!
It was the most watched television program in history with 106.5 Million viewers. Half a million more than the M*A*S*H finale which aired nearly 30 years ago when there were really on 3 channels to watch. So it's a truly amazing feat.
The game was great. I was in a room full of Saints fans and I'm guessing I was in a country full of Saints fans too.
But what about the commercials? As you saw, I posted my personal research about the ads last week. Here we are now, a few days post big game and there is a lot of commenting on the quality of the ads as well as the commentary had about the commercials via Social Media. I read a good perspective today from David Berkowitz who works for digital marketing agency 360i and who writes a column for Mediapost's Social Media Insider. Let me share it with you now...
If social media has finally gone mainstream, where was it during the Super Bowl? It wasn't visible in many of the spots.
With Facebook passing the 400 million user mark and so much of the buzz about the ads happening on Twitter, you'd expect more social media love from the ads. Instead, the Web site URLs at the end of the spots tended to go to the advertiser's main site. Where were the callouts to become a fan, follower, or friend?
Here are ten reasons why social media wasn't front and center during the Super Bowl ads:
1) Social belonged elsewhere in the architecture. Marketers must make decisions on where social media fits within their digital architecture. Frequently, their main site serves as the hub that links out to their social presence elsewhere, and those social properties link back to the site.
That doesn't have to be the case; a social network, blog, or microsite could serve as a hub, or it may be a decentralized approach without a hub but with the pieces still connecting together. For Super Bowl advertisers, their hub tended to be either their homepage or a page within their main site. Brands with an active presence in social media had an opportunity to direct consumers to their social channels from their sites, yet that's where a number of marketers fell short.
2) The spot was just the beginning of the experience. Volkswagen best illustrated this by running a punching commercial with a callout to "play punchdub at vw.com," where a Facebook-centric game allowed visitors to send virtual punches to friends. The TV spot works on its own without a Web component, but the social addition may extend the life of the campaign much further.
3) There was a failure to integrate. Integration of any sort remains a hurdle for most marketers. I'm referring to integration broadly because it's a stumbling block in just about every possible way: traditional and digital, paid and earned media, paid and natural search, bringing various agencies together during the planning - the list can go on. It's a safe bet that the challenges of integration and a lack of communication prevented some of these ads from being more social.
4) Social media informed which ad ran. I love this quote from Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Google's blog (which I found out about through MediaPost's Online Media Daily): "We didn't set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search. Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact. But we liked this video so much, and it's had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience." In short, Google did its market research and felt it could boost the impact of its videos by running it on TV.
5) The ads themselves were use- generated. I'm referring to the Doritos ads, which outnumbered the total of touchdowns from both teams last night. The user-generated and selected ads could have had more social tie-ins, but that's missing the bigger picture. It's also telling that the whole concept of user-generated advertising hasn't taken over. Overall, the spots were more of the same professionally produced sketches of anthropomorphized animals, celebrity guest stints, ironic slapstick, and near-nudity (from Megan Fox to guys in tightie whities) that we've come to know, love, and forget about two days later.
6) The focus was on listening. Here's a headline I hope is never again newsworthy, via Computerworld: "Intel to monitor social networks on Super Bowl ads." I give Intel credit for sharing what it's doing. Intel spokesperson David Veneski told Computerworld, "It's the first time [Intel has] gauged audience reaction around an event by using social networks." One would think that with an investment of $2.5 million per half minute, this is part of the cost of doing business . The cost of one second of Super Bowl airtime ($83,000) can buy a year of premium access to most social media monitoring tools, and several months of analysis from most service providers. This is the last year to let this story pass for news.
7) The order was reversed: social media promoted the ads. A funny thing happened on the way to the Super Bowl: brands from Coca-Cola to Bud Light used social media to plug their Super Bowl spots. This can seem counterintuitive; this year's Super Bowl was watched by over 100 million viewers nationally, so it's not like the ads need promoting. Yet brands took advantage of their social channels to extend the experience, whether by pushing out Facebook status updates, live tweeting during the game, or using digital word of mouth to spread the word before and after.
8) The ad was about social media. In one ad Megan Fox used mobile social media to cause worldwide havoc, while in another Vizio plugged getting Twitter and Flickr on your TV (giving Twitter a potential new slogan: "what to watch when 'Jersey Shore' reruns aren't on"). So yes, I counted as many ads about social media as I did ads about men in underwear. What a milestone.
9) The ads were for Web sites. If a marketer is trying to get you to a Web site (Godaddy, Monster, Google, TV.com, CarMax, Cars.com, HomeAway, Teleflora), going to their social presence on a different site would be counterproductive.
10) They just forgot. Hey, it happens. As the Colts know too well, there's always next year. And unlike the Colts, marketers can spend a few million bucks to guarantee their spot in the game.
Last week I gave an example of crowdsourcing by showing how we designed Fanscape's company logo through the crowdsource website Crowdspring. I promised to talk this week about conversing in the crowdsource space.
First, get over the idea that you have to do everything yourself. Thanks to the web and specifically Social Media, you can find experts in nearly every area willing to give you their thoughts or practice their skills in exchange for money or exposure.
Second, once you've gotten over the fear of outsourcing to others, then you need to know how to ask for what you want.
Four ideas on how to communicate when crowdsourcing:
1. Give an overview of who you are and what you hope to accomplish
When doing our Fanscape logo via Crowdspring, this is the language we used:
Creative brief
Fanscape is in search of a new logo to use throughout our business materials, including our website (www.fanscape.com), business stationary, and other official assets.
**Who We Are**
Fanscape is a leading Digital Marketing Agency that provides interactive marketing solutions for today's most exciting entertainment and technology-related products. We utilize strategic Online and Mobile marketing methods to surround the target consumer and complement traditional advertising. We very much live in the world of blogs, social networks, widgets, and all that is web 2.0.
**What We Are Looking For**
We are looking for a logo that is clean, slick, and not over-the-top or cutesy. While we would like something that fits in with today's web 2.0 world, we also do not want it to appear dated when the inevitable 3.0 rolls around. The logo will most often be used on white backgrounds, but should also be easily adapted for darker backgrounds.
You can learn more about us at our website, Fanscape.com.
!!!IMPORTANT!!! Please do not attempt to incorporate any design/color elements you see at our website! Our site, like our logo, is being updated and the color scheme / design will be changing dramatically -- use it strictly for information only.
2. Be prepared to update if you see things going in a direction not to your liking
Example: when we saw the direction our crowdsourcing was taking, we posted the following:
Update1-Oct-08, 3:11p.m. PDT
Great to already see submissions so early on! One quick note -- Digital Marketing Agency is NOT our tagline and should not be included with the logo. It was included in the assignment title just to describe what it is we do. Thanks!!!
3. Give Examples
We didn't do this for the logo example I've shown above, but if you have an idea of what you want to accomplish based on other things you've seen, then point people to this. For example, when we were designing our latest website, we compiled a list of other websites that we liked. We boiled it all down to specifically what we liked about the individual sites and compiled this into an extended creative brief document. Now, we didn't crowdsource our website, though I wouldn't be afraid to do that in the future, but we did use similar techniques to the logo design crowdsourcing. Point being, you want to be as explicit as possible if you do have something in your mind that you hope to accomplish. I am particularly picky when it comes to design. I often know what I want but have a hard time explaining what is in my head. So, I find the best way to alleviate the inevitable frustration between myself and the designer/developer is to give examples.
4. Be prepared to expand on what is created
What you get is often not the end product. The logo that was originally created was slightly different, see below:
Final product:
It's basically the same, but we changed the font a bit and the colors as well. This is typical and another great reason for crowdsourcing because you are paying for concept and initial details. After that, you own it and can do what you need to in order to make it right for you.
As I mentioned last week, crowdsourcing in my opinion has risen to new heights via Social Media and something you should embrace. From creating a logo to finishing your movie script, there are great resources on the web to help you out with those tasks that stare at you from your to-do list every day. Just make sure to always explain your needs and thoughts clearly so that you end up getting what you want. Follow the four steps I listed above and you should get what you want.
I did some research on Super Bowl ads today. Every year I look forward to the ads and thanks to social media, you can find a lot of the ads (or parts of the ads) online in advance of the big game. The cost of an ad in this year’s Super Bowl is between $2.5 - $2.7 Million per 30 second spot. The reason an ad costs so much is mostly because of the size of the audience watching the Super Bowl but also because the ads themselves get extended shelf life because news programs feature the “top ads” and Internet websites carry the ads.
This year I’ve also found several categories that correspond with the ads such as UGC, Facebook components, and Stunts - i.e. “banned” commercials. I’ve listed this all below with some commentary.
Coke took a very active Social Media approach to their Super Bowl ads in response to Pepsi pulling their Super Bowl ads in favor of digital marketing. Coke took the social part literal and geared some extensive social media marketing around their Super Bowl ads towards social cause. Per an article I read: "Coke plans to give up to $500,000 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and will raise half of that money through a campaign tied to the company’s Facebook page. As of Wednesday, Coke started offering branded virtual gifts that Facebook users can send to their friends for free. For each gift sent, Coke will donate $1 to the Boys & Girls Club."
These guys took the same idea as Doritos. And the results are really good. I personally love the one called "Casual Friday." Also, there is one they label Too Hot for TV for some added social media value. Here is what I read about this program: "Close to 1,000 entries were submitted to the HireMyTVAd contest and while CareerBuilder originally set out to hire only one concept, in the end, three ideas were selected and each received a $100,000 prize."
Banned – These videos go for the “banned from the Super Bowl” stunt-type exposure. The KGB one is really good and the GoDaddy one is typical of GoDaddy’s annual Super Bowl campaign.
No idea what this will look like, but notice the integration of the Shazam iPhone app in this one. I tried to test it but the clip is too short to see what is supposed to come up on Shazam.
This is the commercial getting all the press this week because it was rejected by CBS to run on the Super Bowl. They claim it’s not a stunt and they were really prepared to spend $2.7 Million to run it. They also argue that CBS is allowing a politically charged "Focus on the Family" commercial to air that is very Right Wing and Pro-Life so why can’t they air this? I tried to find that Pro-Life commercial but it wasn’t available yet.
I love this topic: Crowdsourcing. I'm a believer and I put my money where my mouth is. When we re-branded Fanscape with a new logo and a new website about a year ago, we used a website called Crowdspring.com to design our logo. Here's how it worked for us (and it still works the same way today): you go to Crowdspring, set up an account, and post that you are looking for someone to design a logo. Give as much input as you can, determine a price you feel comfortable with, and launch! We put a prize of $250 for our logo and within two weeks time had over 100 entries. It was amazing. And oh so simple.
The basic logo and typeface came out very close to the above logo. At the end of the process the designer got their money and we owned the logo outright.
Meanwhile you can do the same thing for videos, websites, even products using sites like MediaMobz.com and Etsy.com.
What I've just explained via example is the basic concept of crowdsourcing - determine what you need and then find the right online destination to source that need.
Next week I'll talk a bit about conversing in this area.
I see much in life as a possible business. It is exciting, but also torturous. I just don’t have enough time. A new idea often sends me into hours of thought, research, and ultimately deviation from what I really need to do in a day. I believe that the Internet has made it easy for anyone to create a business. I believe that the Internet has made nearly everything in life easier. I believe that trying to impact the masses is a tough notion, but finding a group of people similar to you, is at your fingertips. I believe that music is free, and that is not a good thing. I believe that life is a collection of experiences and that every day I learn something new and forget something slightly new.
I have learned that the toughest part of running a business is inspiring your own employees. I have grown to understand that you have to show your family at least as much respect as your customers.
I went to college at the University of California, San Diego and majored in Economics and minored in Literature/Writing. I wish I had majored in Literature and only taken the one Economics class that taught me about Supply and Demand.
Larry Weintraub is the CEO at Digital Word of Mouth marketing agency Fanscape. All blogs posts are Larry’s personal opinion and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Fanscape clients.
It started as a concept, then an article, now it's a White Paper. I keep yakking on and on about how Social Media fits in to any kind of business so I figured we should make it a takeaway. A leave behind. A print out. Something you can hold in your hands or leave on your desk and rest your coffee mug on. 
Fanscape Sr. Manager, Social Media, Eric Fransen, is our resident expert on all things Facebook. Want to know the current promotions policy, functionality updates and other cool things to do? Eric’s your (and our) guy. Eric lays out some of the interesting things happening on one of our favorite social networking sites (have you seen the new design?).
I see much in life as a possible business. It is exciting, but also torturous. I just don’t have enough time. A new idea often sends me into hours of thought, research, and ultimately deviation from what I really need to do in a day. I believe that the Internet has made it easy for anyone to create a business. I believe that the Internet has made nearly everything in life easier. I believe that trying to impact the masses is a tough notion, but finding a group of people similar to you, is at your fingertips. I believe that music is free, and that is not a good thing. I believe that life is a collection of experiences and that every day I learn something new and forget something slightly new.
