Friday, 4 June 2010
Thursday, 3 June 2010
LATEST SOCIAL MEDIA OFFERINGS TARGET BOTH ADVERTISERS AND CONSUMERS
It’s been said that advertisers today are competing for cultural impact, not just product sales. To this end, today’s engagement goes well beyond convincing a person to buy something. Advertisers are interested in finding ways to seamlessly weave a brand experience into the mix that consumers perceive as adding value. It's achieved when the consumer feels they have a relationship with the brand and steps forward to act on behalf of the brand or with the brand. The latest wave of social offering’s attempt to provide new ways for brands to advertise online or consolidate existing social. Some of the new kids on the block include:
You already use services such as Foursquare or Gowalla to share physical locations and Flickr to share photos. WeReward adds an incentive for users who participate in advertising-related activities. WeReward converts social activities that consumers are already enjoying into ways for advertisers to get attention. For example, a company such as Domino's, which is a client, might offer rewards to users who post photos getting pizzas delivered. WeReward lets users check out lists of tasks from advertisers and claim points, discounts or small sums of money for completing them.
VideoGenie harnesses users' passion for creating videos and posting them online by allowing brands to request videos on certain subjects. The company's platform makes it easy for everyday people to produce usable content with prompts and timelines. The goal is to extend all the tools necessary to allow users to make a video without any need for editing. VideoGenie also offers rewards and/or discounts to users who complete videos or whose videos are selected.
GeoToko helps brands harness the dizzying array of social services through a single interface and works with the review site Yelp, the location-based services Foursquare and Gowalla, and the microblogging site Twitter. The platform allows marketers to offer prizes, discounts, and contests through all of these sites, increasing overall efficiency for advertisers.
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http://www.goodbuzz.ca
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Social Media and Transparency in Government
It seems in most of the democratized world today, political parties are deeply entrenched national entities trying desperately to remain relevant with younger constituents. This story is not unique to Political Parties mind you, as many organizations also need to realign themselves periodically to stay relevant.
Want to know how to engage younger constituents? Find ways of taking your perceived weaknesses and turning them into strengths. Extend participatory channels that lead to new and deeper relationships, increased relevance, support, and donations. Most of all extend the auspices of transparency. What that really means in today’s government, we’re certainly not qualified to comment on. However, what we do know is your message must seem authentic, genuine, and honest.
Leveraging Technology
Imagine a Political Party actually being constituent-driven? Imagine the transformational, democratizing power of opening digital channels directly to constituents? Imagine you were valued stakeholders in making better and more relevant decisions (if you so chose).
Imagine if Parties freely invited all citizens into this discussion to extend a genuine sense of “connecting” and participatory engagement? What if a Political Party made constituents feel like it’s their system and framework to mold (for their benefit). Maybe even invited discussion and allowed all stakeholders their say. Imagine evolving the current “issue or leader”-centric assessment of our political landscape to one of long-term philosophical beliefs?
Has the evolution of technology and socialization finally outgrown our current political framework?
We’d love to hear what you think. Join the conversation at http://www.goodbuzz.ca
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ADVANCED SOCIAL MEDIA RESOURCES
1. Mashable: The Social Media Guide. Undoubtedly one of the most prolific blogs for reviews of new Websites and services. Mashable has great social media resources and guides! Click Here to go to Mashable
2. ReadWriteWeb: This popular blog furnishes insightful analysis of web trends, and is full of all sorts of timely information about social media. Besides helping you stay on the cutting edge with social media marketing, this blog is a must-read for anybody with an ecommerce enterprise! Click Here to go to ReadWriteWeb
3. PR 2.0: Technorati ranks it among the top 1.5% of all blogs on the Web. It’s also ranked among the leading voices in the Ad Age Power 150 list of blogs worldwide. A wealth of social media info here! Click Here to go to PR 2.0
4. Chris Brogan: A social marketing strategist who can be immensely helpful to anyone who wants to learn about social media marketing. Click Here to go to Chris Brogan
5. Social Media Examiner: A free online publication that will show you how to use Twitter and other social media sites. It also offers some truly fantastic info about how to generate sales and increase your brand awareness. Click Here to go to Social Media Examiner
6. 180/360/720: A source of good information about marketing in general and social media optimization, as well. Click Here to go to 180/360/720
7. Social Media Explorer: Basically, this blog boasts as its main contributor Jason Falls, another social media guru. It’s a jewel and a must for every social media marketer! Click Here to go to Social Media Explorer
8. Digital Buzz: This blog is a jumpin’ little place with all kinds of goodies for the entrepreneur, including juicy tidbits about social media marketing. Warning: Very interesting reading here for ecommerce folks, it’s easy to spend more time than you planned on this blog! Click Here to go to Digital Buzz
9. Neville Hobson: The Numero Uno PR blog in the UK, and fantastic reading for anyone, anywhere who is into ecommerce and social media! Click Here to go to Neville Hobson
10. The Future Buzz: Really great blog that will provide you with some useful tips and pointers on marketing, generating buzz about your business with social media, and more. Click Here to go to The Future Buzz
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Tuesday, 25 May 2010
DOMINO'S SHARES HOW THEY MAKE CONNECTIONS WITH FANS ONLINE
Focus on the conversations that matter
To a Domino’s local franchisee for example, the brand-related conversations that really matter are taking place near their geographical location. While the overall brand image of Domino's is important to a local franchisee, owners can obviously make the biggest impact by focusing on the local discussions. To do this they use tools to search Twitter conversations within a specific geographical radius (like Monitter).
How Domino's Engages in the Nonstop Online Conversation About Their Brand -- presented by Ramon De Leon from GasPedal on Vimeo.
Deal with Issues Immediately
An advantage to being active in social media is that you can quickly turn around negative buzz about your company. When a customer tweeted some negative comments (venting about Domino's), a local franchisee/owner quickly responded with a video apology that the customer saw, and then shared with the online community. The video has since been embedded/shared some 87,000+ times.
Always be prepared to share
Always be on the lookout for things “of note” to share, Domino’s local franchisee/owners post everything and anything. When an order was made for 600 large pizzas, one local franchisee hired a live blogger to document how Domino's went about placing the order and shared it with his customers.
Watch a Presentation (below) by one Chicago-area local Domino’s franchisee on how he employs social media to wow your customers and respond to negative buzz.
How Domino's Engages in the Nonstop Online Conversation About Their Brand -- presented by Ramon De Leon from GasPedal on Vimeo.
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Goodbuzz Inc. - Looking for the top social media campaigns from around the world? It’s easier then you think.
Saturday, 22 May 2010
OLYMPUS INTEGRATED SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN MODEL
Olympus Integrated Social Model Campaign Model includes:
The Augmented Reality (AR) work done here by Total Immersion is also excellent and pays off the product attributes in an immersive way using emerging technology (reinforcing the cutting-edge attributes of the product itself).
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Wednesday, 19 May 2010
LEGO, AND THE ART OF STAYING RELEVANT - SOCIAL MEDIA
Brands like Lego are highly dependent on brand communities. Understandably, as ‘sense of community’ is one of the major tenants of self-definition. Moreover, belonging to the "group" can give meaning and association (as well as emotional safety, a sense of belonging, and identification. LEGO learned along the way that these social constructs hold more brand-building potency than any other form of communication.
Long before the LEGO company's official website went live in 1995, the group noticed that hundreds of sites, created by LEGO fans all over the world, were already live. Most sites paid tribute to the brand and expressed values the company just wouldn't have been able to claim themselves with such credibility. LEGO didn't really know how to take the situation. The company's culture had, until 1995, been focused on preventing anyone using its brand name. This attitude helped the company survive through the eighties when hundreds, if not thousands, of competitors tried to imitate the well-known plastic bricks. On one hand, the sites that were popping up on the web were misusing the brand's identity and name. On the other hand, they gave LEGO a type of positive exposure that the brand could never communicate itself. By the late nineties, this exposure had helped LEGO attain cult status among teenagers who proclaimed their admiration. In Japan, for example, the brand even became such a hit that the product could even be purchased in the hottest clothing stores.
LEGO had such potent brand spirit that its consumers adopted the badge as their own - forming brand communities that provide permanent testimonial to the excellence of these brands. LEGO consumers have assumed stewardship of the brand, and as such do a great deal of the communication work for them as part of an extended brand community.
Staying Relevant
Lego Group has been smart about keeping its brand relevant among kids, as potential distractions have increased substantially since the Lego building blocks hit the market more than 60 years ago. The company has attached the Lego brand to a variety of popular, critically acclaimed video games based on the "Star Wars," "Indiana Jones" and "Batman" franchises. There's even an iPhone app called Lego Photo for making digital pictures colorful and blocky.
Lego has also recently added a bit of technological wizardry to drive foot traffic into its stores. The toy manufacturer is setting up augmented reality stations in its more than 50 shops worldwide. Customers can pull a Lego package off the shelf, hold it in front of the Digital Box kiosk and see an animation on the screen of the completed Lego project overlaid on the box in their hands. A camera interfaces with the screen to pull off the augmented reality trick and it seems to be an effective way of using high-tech gizmos to wow mall shoppers into buying a thoroughly low-tech construction kit.
As we’ve mentioned many times recently, augmented reality is one of the more popular technologies recently, and now even Lego boxes are getting the augmented reality treatment. The boxes were created by the Danish toy company and augmented reality experts. Users simply hold up the LEGO box and the QR code will activate the augmented reality feature, showing you a 3D model of the Lego kit inside. If you twist and turn the box around, the 3D image twists and turns accordingly too, allowing you to see how it’ll look like from all angles.
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Tuesday, 18 May 2010
SOCIAL MEDIA'S DYNAMIC IMPACT
Social media is a significant game changer not seen since the heady days when the Internet itself burst into the public consciousness (1997-98) changing virtually every business practice as a result. Social media is no different.
- How search will merge real-time social media;
- How many industries, like the music business, are re-engineering itself to be a social business, with sites like DIY Musician providing examples of new distribution systems sans the record labels;
- How consumer-electronics companies like Samsung are building social-media capabilities into their products, which then become the focus for their ad campaigns;
- How direct marketing is merging with social media: social e-mail marketing;
- How the media business is being driven by social media; Clay Shirky weighing in on the new media environment;
- How crowdsourcing is making its way into product development so that even P&G recently noted that 35% of new products came from customers and partners;
- How sales and CRM and are all becoming organized along a newer paradigm called The Social Enterprise: A Case For Disruptive Transformation;
- How everything seems to be colliding and converging into or with Facebook -- the poster child of the social-media revolution.
Razorfish - Brand Experience Report (2009)
Some interesting facts from the report: 25% of those surveyed followed a brand on Twitter, and 40% are fans of brands on Facebook. The report provides rationale and reference to support the proof point that digital drives sales.
Read or Download the Report here.
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Friday, 14 May 2010
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