Cerebra

Confessions of a Content & Community Manager Part 2.

Reece Jacobsen — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:18:18 +0000

Give your Facebook updates the Edge.

Most of you have heard of this new buzzword Edgerank by now. For those of you that haven’t, well, it’s about time you caught up.

At first I thought it was just another term to add to the arsenal that us folks in digital would be able to throw around in a pitch or status meeting. Like a new “viral” to get existing or potential clients a little aroused. Looking deeper at research though, there seems to be some substance and unlike the “V” word, it doesn’t happen by complete chance.

You’ve heard of that saying, “If it isn’t on the first page of a Google search, it doesn’t exist” right? The same is true for Facebook. According to the world’s most popular social network, 95% of users only view ‘Top News’ posts, which is why it’s so important to be there - think of Edgerank like another form of SEO.

Very few people are privy to the exact details of this algorithm. However, people on the outside have broken it down into the following formula and believe it to be pretty close to the truth.

Edgerank = Affinity x Weight x Time

Affinity: This translates to how often a fan engages with your post. The more often a fan engages with the Page (such as views, Likes, comments, click-throughs or shares) the higher the affinity between your Page and that fan. We’ve all seen it work, go Facebook stalk somebody and all of a sudden their dinner updates are all up in your newsfeed.

Likewise, the friends of our engaged fans that have a high affinity with each other will see the page’s updates pop up every time that interaction takes place. This is where Friends of fans (potential reach) comes into play.

Weight: This is determined by engagements. The more unique engagements from different users, the higher the weight score. This means that 20 comments from 20 different users is better than 20 comments from 2 fans. Also, the kind of update plays a role, for example, a plain text update scores lower than an update containing links or rich media. This is because click-throughs to pictures, videos or your website are more credible engagements than a mere ‘Like’ in Facebook’s eyes. Facebook rewards updates with higher yielding engagements.

Time: Well this one is easy. The more recent your update, the higher your score. Each update has a shelf life. People in the industry believe that this is approximately 3 hours but it really does vary between pages / brands. If you don’t update your page for a week, your Edgerank will decrease dramatically.

According to this formula, your Edgerank would vary from update to update and this influences your page’s average ranking. I could be mistaken, but I guestimate that this average is measured over the last 28 days.

There are a few hints and tips on how you can get your Edgerank up. We can’t tell you everything we know for obvious reasons, but here are five of them:
1. Ask questions instead of making statements. Never forget, you need responses and questions need answers.
2. Relate to recent ‘real-life’ events. People are talking about the news, so get involved.
3. Strong calls to action. Ask fans for likes, comments, or shares (you’re allowed to)
4. Rich media is gold.
5. Fill in the blanks are your best friend.

Remember, your fans can and will ‘like’ other pages. If you want your updates to get seen, you have to fight for the right. See you on the battlefield.

ROI – The Return on Influence

Jacques Du Bruyn — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:42:19 +0000

A topic that is gaining increasing popularity and causing much debate within social media marketing is ROI. There is the school of thought that believes it cannot be measured and, like everything in life, the opposing school that believes it can. One of the most frequently asked questions I receive from my clients is on the topic of ROI. Especially within the financial industry - the urge to measure ROI is engrained.

One can easily ascribe numbers to Facebook pages and Twitter profiles and measure the amount of clicks and ‘likes’ that occurred during (and following) a Facebook advertising campaign. The difficulty is calculating the amount of said ‘fans’ on a brand’s Facebook page that are actually converted into something valuable to the brand. I.E. The number of those ‘fans’ that are going to make use of the brand’s products or services as a result of the interaction on Facebook. Does the number of fans on a page honestly reflect the return on tangible investment?

ROI is defined by Investopedia as a measurement used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment, or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. In order to calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment; the result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio.

As most of us are aware, social media is not a new phenomenon, but rather something that has been going on since the beginning of man. It is in most people’s inherent nature to socialise, with a strong focus on building, maintaining and nurturing a community. It just so happens that it is now taking place online with the use of various platforms. Let us assume for a moment that we are socialising at a party. Someone tells you that you really should be using camera brand X instead of brand Y. If this person has a lot of influence on you, chances are you might seriously consider their suggestions. Socialising is all about influence; it is about creating an image about you that is believable to the observer.

If we replace the word ‘investment’ with ‘influence’ in the definition above, it will read, “a measure used to evaluate the efficiency of influence”. So if socialising is what brands want to do with their communities, shouldn’t they rather measure the return on their influence as opposed to tangible monetary return on the initial investment?

Return On Influence measures the qualitative performance of the brand after the investment has been made, it reveals the truth about the brands tangible performance. If an investment of R4000 on Facebook adverts renders 2000 new fans, influence measures the amount of those new fans that took action or engaged. Here are some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that you can use to measure Return On Influence:

* Participation Behaviour
* Brand Stature
* Resonance
* Loyalty
* Advocacy

These KPI’s are qualitatively driven but then again, so is socialising. If a brand is trying to socialise with their community then the above KPI’s should be top of mind instead of a ‘what financial return can we get’ driven mindset. Think of it like this; If you’re only friends with a specific person for financial gain, chances are they will soon feel that the relationship isn’t genuine. The same should apply for engagement on social media platforms. As your Social Move states; the social connections you make through your web strategy are at the core of your influence – it’s this strategy that affects the perceptions, attitudes and actions of your audience. The first product that your web engagement should create is impact. Your impact is relative to your social media influence, while standard ROI seeks to attribute a financial value.

[2012 trends] Strong and continued growth for social media

cerebrin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:18:24 +0000

With 2011 in the rearview mirror, we expect a strong and continued growth on various social media platforms in 2012. The increased online penetration and a strong drive from mobile operators to connect more people to the internet through smartphones or dongles will undoubtedly lead to more people joining social networks.

The year in review

As more South Africans learn to enjoy the benefits of leading the connected lifestyle, the more our national online community grows. 2011 brought considerable growth to the SA social media landscape. According to the most recent World Wide Worx survey:
Twitter has grown from 88 000 users in 2010 to over 1.1 million users in 2011. Admittedly, only 40% of these users engage actively, with the remainder using Twitter as a breaking news source.
Facebook grew from 2.8 million users to over 4.2 million users. However, as of August 2011, only 3.2 million South Africans visited the site in the year-to-date.
LinkedIn also reached the 1.1 million mark - enjoying an 83% growth from 2010 to 2011
MXit's subscriber numbers declined from approximately 17 million users to just over 10 million. The advent of BBM and other mobile IM apps are the likely cause for this declination.
With Facebook's growth stagnating in the UK and the US (Facebook has over 800 million users worldwide, 75% of which are outside of the US), emerging markets such as South Africa are where growth is focused, and Facebook sees our predominantly mobile market as a huge opportunity.

What to expect in 2012

Our hope is that more companies emerge on mobile and social media platforms in 2012. Although mobile is already a major player in the social space, all signs point to further growth.

With the likes of Alan Knott-Craig Jnr at the helm of MXit, we expect brands to take MXit more seriously, but also foresee the platform receiving a much-needed makeover. Although MXit's subscriber numbers declined sharply in the past year due to BBM and other instant messaging applications, it can still be used by brands to engage with its fans by availing exclusive content downloads to users (unlike BBM et al). MXit will remain a relevant and viable option for brands that want to engage.

Brands that made investments in what could be called the first-mover phase of social media in SA will now be reaping the rewards of huge amounts of analytics and data. The downside to this data is that it does not necessarily link backend customer data to frontend social data - "social CRM" is an emerging trend seeking to answer this problem.

Integrating tools with legacy backend systems

We expect to see a huge drive from these brands to start linking social profiles and customer profiles, allowing smarter decision-making on business and social fronts, as well as more tangible social insights to business. The only issue here is integrating tools with legacy backend systems.

As social gains further momentum, and those on social become accustomed to the transparency and accountability that brands have on these platforms, consumers will become more demanding and expectant of brands in 2012.

This could possibly also have a detrimental effect on brands that are late to the social network bandwagon, as more consumers come to expect brands to be online. These socially schooled users will invariably be looking for more valuable content, rather than fluffy updates.

Consumers becoming smarter

2011 has been an information-and-sharing overload. Everywhere we looked, brands were pushing their social media sites and demanding that their consumers engage. Thankfully, consumers are becoming smarter and brands need to keep up. We hope that brands change their tactics and strategies in the year ahead in order to keep up and stay ahead of the curve.

Brands also have to be genuine participants in social media, rather than dictators. Brands shouldn't necessarily jump on board every social media platform that's available. Instead, they should be wise and strategic in their decisions, choosing platforms that suit them and their messaging.

Keeping that in mind, yes, context is key, but content still drives conversation. Find a platform that suits the brand, talk to consumers by enhancing their lifestyle, and spark conversation that encourages participation. How? Content.

Great content

Great content will allow brands to not only let consumers engage with them, but will allow for them to actually do something constructive with that content.

We also foresee a stronger link between social and TV, as brands realise that they can better harness the money spent on traditional media - consider the three screens most consumers have immediate access to: television, computer and cellphone.

Examples of this would be hashtags before certain shows, helping to categorise conversations. This will also drive consumers onto branded content, sponsorships and brand advertising. With a strong link between mobile, TV and social, we expect to see an increase in after-hours interaction on social platforms, especially with micro-blogging (ie Twitter).

Not enough integration between PR and social media

Finally, public relations. While PR is a much older industry than that of social, there is still not enough integration between the two. It is understandable as traditional public relations officers like to keep things "traditional". We hope to see more social media agencies, or social media departments being created by public relations firms. Underestimating or ignoring the medium could serve as a death knell to many agencies.

Ultimately, brands have to become more creative (read as effective and not necessarily gimmicky) with their solutions and campaigns. Although we are a developing country, it doesn't mean our campaigns are below par; SA is truly amazing and some of our executions and campaigns are on a global scale.

2012 will bring forth some exceptional ideas and executions, and we look forward to seeing all the great things this country has to offer.

By Heike Meyburgh (@Heikemey) and John Beale (@jtbeale).

*This article was originally written for www.bizcommunity.com.
Image: Grant Cochrane / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Managing your social media profile

Kellen Rodney — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:00:12 +0000

The recent massive boom in online social behavior has turned social networks into powerful profile building opportunities. Having a Twitter account is now the latest “must have” item for every famous movie star, musician, business person and fitness athlete – each of whom use these online tools to build and manage their online reputations. But, it isn’t just for famous people. Thousands of ‘ordinary’ people have cleverly used social media to build powerful online profiles, and the tools to do so are available to everyone.

Whether you’re conscious of it or not, everything you do online impacts your reputation and either builds or detracts from your ‘social influence’. You see it every time you log onto Facebook, Twitter, or any one of the other social networks – people sharing their thoughts, ideas, pictures or videos - your impression of each person you connect with is based on their activity. Similarly, your reputation is inextricably tied to what you do, say and share which is why it’s incredibly important to understand how it all works.

Whether you’re online casually or a professional building a profile you need to be considering the following points:

1. Exposure yourself

First identify your target audiences, the people you want to connect with, and then find out which online networks they use. Facebook, Twitter, MXit, LinkedIn, etc all have slightly different demographics and audiences and, because you can’t do it all, you have to choose wisely.

Once you’ve made the choice expose yourself. Build your profile, fan pages, YouTube channels – whatever connects best with your audience. You’ll be able to tell what types of content work best by simply testing what gets the most attention. Remember, you’re directly connected so they’ll tell you what they like and what they want more of. The rule though is to be constantly creating and sharing great content.

2. Become more connected than a bowl of spaghetti

Because of the networking structure of these sites, the essence of it is to share information across networks of people who share similar interests. As people comment and interact on your profile, people in their network are able to also see what is being said, thus expanding your own network of fans. The most beneficial element of this is that these networks are friends of friends of friends, and recommendations from friends are always more credible. The more networked you become, the more the network will work for you.

3. Follow the basic guidelines

Achieving success online is not a science. Many different people, from different industries have achieved different forms of success using different methods. While there are no steadfast rules, the following guidelines are the most common threads:

“Share, share and share some more”

The most valuable online currency is content. Use every opportunity available to share your knowledge and insights via engaging content: written, video, audio, pictures. Content is king and your pieces of content are the focal points around which your communities will gather so create often and share freely.

“As you would be in person”

Conduct yourself as you would if you were face-to-face, which hopefully means you’ll be polite and avoid alienating people. You may come across many different types of people who may be starting out with little or no knowledge of your industry or someone who has been there for years who just wants a boost.

“Honesty is the best policy”

If you are asked about a topic about which you do not have adequate knowledge, it is probably better to tell the user that you can’t help them. If they act on your recommendation and have a bad experience this impacts negatively on you, damaging your online brand.

“Relevance and reality”

As most of what you have to share is based on your own experiences, (unless of course you are qualified in your field) people have to understand that what works for one may not work for all. Be clear in your communications that ‘in your experience’ a certain technique or workout was a success or not. Anyone could be reading your posts so be aware of this when writing so nothing can be misunderstood. It might be worth your while to investigate adding a disclaimer to your blog or Facebook Fanpage.

“Be present”

Your fans and followers are going to interact and it will need to be two-way. This is a good thing because interaction is like oxygen to fire. The more you interact, answer questions, or simply respond and acknowledge the more committed and loyal your followers will be and the quicker your community will grow. Interaction is at it’s highest when new content is first shared so if you post a new blog or load a new video you must make sure you have the time to interact straight after loading the new content.

“Integrate and cross pollinate”

If you have more than one social presence (and you probably already do), try to integrate the audiences and cross pollinate. Post your videos on your YouTube channel but also share the link of your Facebook page and Tweet about it. Just keep in mind that they are different audiences so not everything should be cross-posted, but on the whole, integrated networks greatly improve your audience reach and influence.

“Content is King”

I’ve already said that but I’m saying it again so you know how important it is. You can’t just show up and expect people to flock to your awesomeness. Create great content, share your knowledge and get yourself out there.

Those are my top tips for building a strong social media presence. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @kellrodney.

SOPA and what it means to you

Zahira Kharsany — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:36:00 +0000

If you haven’t heard of SOPA by now, where have you been? SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a proposed bill that aims to crack down on copyright infringement by restricting access to sites that host or facilitate the trading of pirated content.

SOPA’s main target are international sites, such as torrent sites like The Pirate Bay, which are the go-to places for illegal downloads. Pirate Bay, among others, hosts their servers in Sweden and other European countries, which makes it difficult for US-based companies to take action against them.

Though content creators such as the music and film industry have battled piracy for years, with the infamous Napster sparking the great internet piracy debate, US companies could never take action against internationally hosted sites.

SOPA will call for US-based sites like search engines, advertising networks, and other providers to withhold services from these flagged sites, i.e. Google would not be allowed to list flagged sites in their search results, and Paypal would not be able to transmit funds to these sites.

The current piracy bill being enforced is the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. We see the results of this bill clearly on YouTube; users upload a copyrighted song, and under this law, the song’s copyright holders can send YouTube a “takedown notice”. YouTube is protected against liability as long as they remove the content within a reasonable timeframe. Immediately thereafter, YouTube notifies the user who has uploaded the content and the user has the option to appeal the decision. If the two sides keep disagreeing, the matter is taken to a US court and settled according to US law.

The problem with the current act is that it is not effective because it cannot be applied to international domains. SOPA includes a provision for this by forcing US companies to refrain from servicing flagged sites. It will also make it harder for US internet users and international users using US search engines to find and access these sites.

Above and beyond the information blackout that SOPA outlines, it makes all websites (yes, even US based sites) liable for the content that their users upload. Due to the bill’s broad language, many tech companies, especially Wikipedia, Google and Reddit, are up in arms against it. Sites like YouTube are worried that they will be forced to more closely police their content to avoid having a run in with the law.

Those opposing the bill say that it effectively promotes censorship and is rife with the potential for unintended consequences

YouTube would just go dark immediately, Google public policy director Bob Boorstin said at a conference in November. "It couldn't function."

The bill calls for every payment or advertising network operator, ISPs, search engines, web hosts and users to take responsibility for infringing behaviour and to set up a process in which outside parties can notify the company that one of its customers is an “Internet site is dedicated to the theft of US property”. Once the network is notified, it is required to cut off services to the site within five days. Filing false notifications would be a crime, but increases the burden of proof and the legal costs of the accused.

The cruel truth is that placing copyright infringements will not aid in the fight against piracy. Pirates will always know where to go, but above and beyond online piracy, in certain eastern countries copyright infringements are not exclusively online, but also through actual DVD/CD sales. An art that has been perfected over the years to the extent where one cannot identify the fake from the original anymore.

What does this mean for South Africans?

We’re all quite adept at utilising Google to get the information we need, or Wikipedia for that matter. Censoring these sites will result in us being limited to websites that the United States deems appropriate.

International pressure would surely mean that the South African government would follow suit, probably by amending the current Protection of Information Act to clamp down on international websites, including Facebook and Twitter. With the broad definition of copyright infringing material, your own personal blog or website could be shut down if you had the audacity to quote from a film, post lyrics or have the semblance of an actor or actress in your archives.

In an effort to be pragmatic and not political, we are forced to ask what will happen to the jobs that social networks and the new web has managed to create and sustain in the past few years? Forget about being employed, how can we be considered free if our knowledge is being controlled by the radical few?

Saving the rhinos one Tweet at a time

Kate Kearney — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 06:51:45 +0000

I’m not sure when last you actively tuned into the TV or radio news to catch the day’s headlines. Nowadays, relevant and breaking information is simply a tweet away. And with Twitter (followed closely by Facebook and YouTube) becoming the go-to news source, it’s not surprising that it’s also becoming a serious noise maker when it comes to causes and plights.

The latest issue to surface in South Arica is that of rhino poaching. A pretty relevant topic considering that gram for gram, a rhino horn is worth more than gold, and over 443 rhinos were killed in our country in 2011 alone.

On 11 January this year, news broke that eight rhinos had been poached at the Kruger National Park in one day – with the news came a flurry of outrage across all these social media platforms. Twitter saw the words “Kruger National Park’ trending, with thousands of people proclaiming their distress and anger at the issue, creating hashtags such as #GiveItHorns and #StopRhinoPoachingin2012, arranging Tweetups and writing blogs.

The question is – does noise on a social media platform have any relevance, and does it help the cause whatsoever?

I think it does, and here’s why: The people using Twitter to communicate are savvy forward-thinkers, with opinions, connections and a strong sense of community. A few people have even confessed that if it wasn’t for these platforms, they would be unaware of the goings on around them. The power of millions of people on one platform crying out for justice is a lot stronger than, say, the email petitions of several years back, or the ‘ag shame, it’s horrible, but what can I do?’ comments we are all used to.

Recently, PharSideUK released a chilling video on YouTube, silently narrating the horrors of the rhino horn trade. A mere four days later, that video had over 217000 views. The word ‘rhino’ has been mentioned on Twitter thousands of times in the past three days, and subsequently Facebook, blogs and other social media platforms were flooded with news, information and stories, all stemming from a single, sad incident.

This makes me think about the fierce emotions us South Africans expressed during the passing of the Secrecy Bill late last year. Again, thousands of Tweets, Black Tuesday petitions and Facebook updates were cast, yet the result was not a positive one, and ironically, all that noise resulted in a soon to be silence.

This is what happens, when you leave it up to the masses. If you had an agency to streamline this, you would have one or two hashtags, a leading opinion and a clarified goal. Working within guidelines and a structure would allow Twitter noise to turn into a broadcast message and help us all work towards a common target. With causes such as rhino poaching and speaking out against a secrecy bill, it’s pertinent to get the masses involved, but if the masses aren’t of one voice, the impact is lost.

Together, we can make a difference, both to the plight of the rhino but also to the participation in your communication campaign. Pop in to our Cerebra community for a chat, and find out how we can make your voice heard.

Confessions of a Content and Community Manager

Reece Jacobsen — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 06:49:37 +0000

Confessions of a Content and Community Manager: Where did all my Pageviews go?

2011 has come and gone, giving most of us a good hiding in the process. I for one am happy to see the back of this year but before it goes anywhere I must say thanks, because like every other hiding I got growing up it taught me a few valuable lessons.

I recently had a look at some of the stats from one of my clients Facebook page and after hitting the ‘Sherlock Holmes pipe’ I found something pretty interesting…

The fanpage in question grew by little over 120 000 fans from January 2011 to November 2011. Now I know the pageviews and unique pageviews will be impacted by what campaign or competition is running at the time (See the spike in the graph above), so don’t jump down my throat just yet. What I find hard to believe is that with over 120 000 new fans there is only a difference of 40 000 pageviews when there is no special competition.

Fans aren’t popping in for a visit, unless they have a reason to - like a shiny new iPad or to rant on your wall. Yet if we look at the Comments vs. Likes vs. User Generated Content (Wall posts) we see a lot of growth in terms of engagement.

The reason for this is simple: people are inherently lazy - they would rather ‘like’ or comment on an update direct from their news feed. It’s easier that way, especially for mobile users. What this means for brands is their presence is limited to the update filtering through their fans’ feed. It’s a trend that we expect to continue as basic smartphones are predicted to outsell feature phones for the first time in history next year. This translates into more ‘mobile social networkers’ than ever before. Rumour has it that plans are underway to get tabs onto mobile, but until such time, what are these fans really missing by not visiting your page?

If you want to get those numbers up without big ad spend, we’re going to have to go back to the ‘Content is King’ argument, as that is more than likely the only thing your fans are seeing. The brief five seconds in a fan’s newsfeed is all you have to work with so you better make it good. If you want more traction on your updates, you have to make them ‘Shareable’ (not sure if that’s a real word, but you get what I’m saying). The ‘share’ is the Facebook equivalent of a Twitter retweet except it lasts longer. Start having a closer look at what content updates your fans are sharing to their wall for their social network to see. I’ve found that including rich media in an update works quite well, but the general rule of thumb for shareable content is less sales and more lifestyle – does it resonate with your fan’s lifestyle or personality? At the end of the day it comes down to how well you know your audience.

In terms of analysing this data for your clients, it’s probably best to let your clients know that they shouldn’t be reading too much into the number of pageviews you get as it’s not exactly an accurate measurement of how well you’re doing. We’ll be having an in depth look at the recently released Reach graph, and how this is a new measure for your KPI’s as well as showing valuable return

All that being said, bring on 2012.

After all, it's still selling

Jacques Du Bruyn — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:24:35 +0000

We all remember the four Ps (promotion, place, product and price) of marketing. The 2000s ushered in a new look at the four P's and brands started realising that they need to take a client-centric approach to their marketing. The four Ps then became the four Cs (customer, conversation, cost, convenience).

A new move hit the marketing scene after the client-centric approach, this time it was called 'branding'. Instead of seeing all the integrated marketing books on the bookstore shelf, you started seeing books on 'branding'. We were dealing with the customer's emotions and how organisations could reach customers through this thing called 'branding'. We were faced with questions like "what is a brand?" and the answer of course was "everything is a brand, in fact, YOU are a brand".

We are going through yet another era in marketing. If you take a look at the marketing section in your local bookstore you will now only see one book on the four P's, two books on integrated marketing, about 10 books on 'branding' and the rest will have the words 'social media' on them. Yes, that's right, social media marketing is the new focus of the global marketing industry.

So what is social media marketing's aim? If the four Ps was about the organisation, the four Cs was about the organisation becoming more client-centric and branding about making emotional connections with the client, what is this social media marketing thing about?

Answer? Like all others; selling!

It's always been about selling. You will hear more and more about how social media marketing is about content and conversation, "it's not about selling, we are here to have a conversation with our community, give them amazing content and solve their problems, really show them that we care". You want to show them this so that you can? Sell!

The only reason a brand exists is to sell itself. A non-profit organisation also exists to sell the fact that it needs donations. It’s clear that selling has only become more subtle; the 'soft sell'.

Brands need to become clever about how they deliver the soft sell. Soft selling is not about hiding the fact that you are trying to sell but rather about being transparent about everything that you do and say. Here are some tips on soft selling on social media platforms;

1. Don’t try to sell! Just relax, let your product or service do the talking
2. The more you give the more you can take; give your community a reason to engage with you. Present your brand along with content that educates, entertains and engages
3. Don’t be afraid to tell your community that you are the best at what you do, but present the facts of how what you do benefits your community.
4. Lastly, always be transparent about what you are doing. Tell your community when you are selling and when you are giving. The more transparent you are the softer your selling becomes.

Where is the marketing industry headed after social media marketing becomes a standard? I cannot answer those questions accurately, because it is a dynamic that constantly changes. What we can predict quite accurately is that brands will continue to sell themselves using what ever medium is available at the time and that being transparent is a guarantee for soft selling success. The more a community knows about a brand the more that brand is trusted. The more a brand is trusted the more it is subtly communicating a message that attracts current and potential clients. Sell, but do it softly.

Tackling large projects

Kellen Rodney — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:46:54 +0000

My team and I were recently made aware of the importance of aligning goals at the start of any project. Meeting our client’s expectations was essential to our success, unfortunately the vested parties were not always on the same page, which made steering the proverbial boat that much harder.

Communication and collaboration are such important elements. It contributes toward the team meeting all the relevant needs and achieving the desired end product.

While we managed to complete the project successfully, allow me to share a few core learnings in order for you to avoid ending up in a similar situation.

1. "On your marks, get set…"

It is essential that all teams are involved from the scoping phase of the project, else you run the risk of failing. If your client or the key stakeholders don’t provide input from the beginning, it will cause avoidable delays and most likely inflate the budget. Two things that are dear to any client; time and money.

It’s extremely valuable to have the entire team in the room when a new project is being briefed. Every person who has a vested interest in the outcome has to have a chance to provide input from the start.

This is a huge challenge because you will often hear, "I can't make this meeting, so get things started and you can brief me in later". Don’t let anyone do this to you! Find a time that suits everyone and ensure that they participate.

If a key piece of information is not relayed in the early stages it can cost the project ten times more work, cash or pain if picked up later.

2. Spend as much time as necessary making changes early.

Rather spend some extra hours early in a project to ensure that all your bases are covered. Consider the cost of change curve that is relevant when it comes to Agile development. It highlights that you need to make changes to a project early, while it’s still cheap to do so. The further you get into the project, the higher the cost to change your path.

3. Lot's of talking

Frequent feedback loops are very important. Constant communication about progress, project tracking and obstacles, new developments etc. needs to be handled on a daily or weekly basis. This also relates back to ensuring that everything that has been finalised align with the overall objectives of the project.

4. Be honest

Recognise shortcomings or limitations. If you can identify any elements that will interfere or limit the ability to get the project done, then you need to address these immediately. Whatever the cause of concern may be, you will need to have the strength to confront these impediments and resolve them before they cost you productivity or delivery.

In summary, take time early on to align everyone's goals, keep these as your compass throughout and always ask yourself if what you are doing meets the goals, make sure the team is being honest and, communicate often. If you can get this mix right, then your project is on the right track!

Understanding the TwitterSpeaks

John Beale — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:47:08 +0000

If you’re on twitter you have no doubt seen some pretty strange and colourful “language” being used by some tweeps. Staying on the cusp of what’s cool and what could land you in SMH territory can strain the brain, so I’ve tried to demystify and give some clarity on what each one of them means, starting with the aforementioned.

SMH - Shakes My Head

Literally shaking of the head from side to side in disbelief or disagreement

E.g. @KeenyKeenz - I’ve been in traffic on the M1 South for an hour only to realize there’s a roadblock on the highway. SMH

LOL – Laugh out Loud

One literally laughs out loud (this hardly actually happens and you can no doubt guess that the user has hardly even smirked)

Another newer iteration of the term being “Lolmentations” – commonly confused with the book of Lamentations from the Bible, which it has no reference to whatsoever.

E.g.“ Just saw a NonhleThema trip and fall flat on her face… LOL!”

ROFL – Rolling On the Floor Laughing

Something so funny you literally wrap your hands around your torso and roll around on the floor, legs pulled up as if in the fetal position, as you laugh…rolling. (You would probably have last seen this behaviour from children)

Iterations of ROFL are LMAO (Laugh My Ass Off) and LMFAO (Laughing My F*cking Ass Off) – Both of which are not literal laughing till the muscle and fat on the rear of the waist fall off.

E.g. “Card at walmart said "do you know why old men wear their pants so high?" *opens the card* "You will soon" #ROFL”

TLTLTLTLT

A laughing sound make with your tongue on the roof of your mouth blowing air through your mouth, a uniquely South African expression (think Muttley from Wacky Races)

E.g. “RT @JB_XM_Swana: I feel so lost! Twitter on the web! Tltlt! So desperate of me! Sies!”

"dies" / "death"

The expression generally implies that one finds something so funny / so amusing it kills you. A familiar expression is “I nearly died laughing”. Cutting out all the unnecessaries on Twitter it is just used as per below

E.g. “*dies* RT @LilTuck317: Damn yo breathe stink bro...my Baby’s breathe smells better than that and she drink similac all day!”

O _ o

A text iteration of an actual facial expression. One eye is opened larger than the other. One can imaging a raised eyebrow on one eye and the other eye slightly clinched in a look of skepticism or doubt. This can be performed with either the capital O or the zero “0”. Also understood as “whaaaaaat?!”

E.g. “@pretti_poca My ex unfollowed me 0_o”

ducks

A digital interpretation of ducking and/or hiding. In this incarnation the user usually makes use of this term when he / she has said something that will elicit a negative response from the user he / she has directed it at. More commonly understood in real life when one throws an object (e.g snowball) at another person and then ducks so as not to be seen or hit

E.g. “Blackberry is lame *ducks* RT @thatyoungblood if one more person tells me blackberry is lame I’m going to kill”

Kwa Kwa Kwa / Kwaaaaa

Commonly confused with a mating call from a bird, but couldn’t be further from the truth. Kwaaa / Kwa kwa kwa is closely related to “LOL” and “ROFL” but more culturally relevant. Kwa Kwa Kwa or Kwaaaa has recently come under fire because it is not an accepted way for white race groups to express laughing. (where LOL / ROFL is more relevant for white minority groups )

E.g. “Kwaaaaa RT @leratomolele: Hahahaha....RT @Sentletse: That awkward moment when Blackberry users want to download iOS 5.”

side eyes

With eyes slightly shut one glances from one side to another. This can be commonly understood as a stare with some form of intent, sometimes negative or otherwise with a thought. E.g. giving the hot girl at gym side eyes as she walks past

A recent “social media influencer” has given insight “While it denotes much the same thing as (-_-) the less subtle *side eye* is a direct interpretation of a judgmental stare.”

E.g. “*side eye* RT @jtbeale: @KeenyKeenz so much of insight *pats on head* “

- __ -

A beautiful use of the keyboard if I may say so myself. The expression of eyes like slits and a flat mouth is one of pessimism, annoyance or dissatisfaction to a certain topic.

E.g. “and the brakes are fixed on da truck...it only cost 300 -__- and dats wit a discount smh” / I just want my voice back -__- being sick stinks!”

claps once

One of the newest in the Twitterverse is the action of actually clapping once. One can imagine laughing so hard you unknowingly clap once. This can commonly be assimilated to a “knee slapper”.

RT @Theri_dahlin: Rotflmao! but Estie's one of the funniest haters EVER! #comedineSA she hates EVERYTHING. Whooo shem *claps once*

hands on head

Struggling to visualise? The kid from Home Alone used to do this all the time. An expression of complete and utter surprise to the point of near shock. Taking each hand and placing them on either side of ones head, with your mouth hanging open.

Is often also represented by |0_0|

E.g. “Yoh! *Hands on head* RT @SassyChick I’m done with seeing you @VeliM69, you cheated, you’re a scrub”

Facepalm

Lowering ones face into ones hand, usually partially concealing part of the face.

The gesture is a physical interpretation of the emotion of embarrassment, shame or woe on behalf of another party, or to oneself

E.g. “@gniddo Waiting for a course to start that apparently doesnt exist... #facepalm”

I do hope this recent enlightenment on Twitter “speak” has widened your horizons (vocabulary) and will stand you in good stead when you next engage on Twitter.

The Recipe for Baking Social

Heike Meyburgh — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:13:41 +0000

Social media is an integral ingredient of any integrated communication campaign. It can serve to highlight and improve the effectiveness of all other aspects of your campaign, especially if it has been incorporated from the start.

But how do we get the most out of this remarkable and dynamic mix? Easy, just follow the recipe:

Ingredients:

All the teams you can get your hands on (Digital, Advertising, Radio, PR, Activations, etc)
One campaign (note: if you don’t have this on hand, it can easily be substituted with either a strategy, long-term goals or objectives)
A healthy pinch of creativity
Two spoonfuls of time
An healthy supply of budget

Preparation:

Be sure to remove all egos from the consultants involved – even the hint of ego has the potential to spoil the outcome.
Mix time, budget and teams in a room. This needs to be done well in advance to get the best outcome.
Once the initial ingredients are mixed, each team can look at their respective field of interests and contribute to the greater picture.
At this point, value will be added and you will get buy-in from all parties involved.
Sporadically inject creativity and the willingness to think outside the box to get the best out of the team.
Mix these ingredients until there is clear direction, set outcomes and tasks.

Bake:

Set the oven to 140 and see how the ingredients start interacting
If all egos have been removed, this will lead to successful, creative engagements bubbling with ideas
As the heat rises with the nearing deadline, ensure that all teams are on the same page.
Note: each team will have their own tasks and outcomes, but the initial thorough mixing should allow each team to add value to the greater campaign.

Enjoy:

Voila, you’ve just baked social media into an integrated communications campaign. Sit back and watch your hard work pay off
Remember to do a report at the conclusion of the campaign, to highlight its failures, successes and learnings.

NLP and the art of mirroring

Dillon Kin — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 06:46:58 +0000

Have you ever noticed why some people have the ability to speak with a difficult person while you struggle to get them to be on the same page as you? One of the most exciting things that’s been developed for business is Neuro-linguistic programming or NLP. It can be used for building communication and rapport amongst your friends, family and colleagues.

If you're not familiar with NLP, here's a short history: NLP was developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in the 1970s. Bandler was completing his masters in Information Science and Mathematics and Grinder was a professor of Linguistics. They both noticed a connection between thought, communication, and behaviour and subsequently developed the practice of NLP.

At its core, NLP is focused on positive outcomes, physiology, experiences, language and our own mental programming.

One great NLP technique - “mirroring” - can be used to build a rapport with almost anyone. Mirroring is a technique where you identify the type of sense that is more dominant in a person and mirror them by using the same language patterns. Most people communicate and interpret with their senses. Usually, one sense is more dominant than another, and it can range from the following:

Visual
A visual person makes use of words like “I see” or “Looks good”. These types of people see images in their head and make sense of things with images. Their primary sense is sight.

Auditory
Some people learn better by sound. After hearing things once or twice they can fully understand the message being conveyed. These types of people use words like “That rings a bell” or “Sounds right”.

Kinaesthetic
Others understand things better by touch. Most artists or creative people are kinaesthetic. You will notice these types of people when they use words such as “I can't put my finger on it” or “I can't get a grasp of that concept”.

Think about how you communicate and how you interpret things. For instance, if you're a visual person trying to communicate with an auditory person, you will clash. It's as if the two of you are speaking completely different languages. Most people are unaware of how they communicate but if you just listen to yourself communicate with others you will start noticing that you use certain phrases more often than others.

By listening closely to others during communication we can pick up what type of communicator that person is. If we mirror them by using similar language patterns. We gain the trust of the person we're communicating with and they get a better understanding of the message we're trying to convey.

NLP's goal is to find similarities in people and bring them together and not to highlight the differences. The main thing about NLP is to bridge communication gaps, such as the way you phrase words and sentences in a conversation.

This very technique can be applied to the written word in our social media activities and campaigns. Here are some examples of phrases used online:

“I love this video”
“Looks awesome”
“Best advice I've heard in a while”
“Looks exciting”
“Let's touch base”
“Doesn't feel right”

If your ideal audience tweets “Looks exciting” then they have already given you a clue about them. It is a visual person, and you should use similar language when communicating with them, for example “Please look at our Facebook page and tell us what you think of the colouring”.

You can even research what people are saying about you and what phrases are most used on Twitter and then tailor your social pages accordingly. For example, if most of the people used phrases like “Looks exciting” then use a lot of visual elements on your Facebook page, Twitter profile etc.

Even though social networks have us speaking in jargon or in limited characters, it’s all still about communication. There are always basic clues for us to utilise mirroring to enforce positive engagement with our intended audience.

Rock out with Cerebra at the VJOY awards

Craig Rodney — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:54:26 +0000

Cerebra will be rocking the Vodacom Journalist of the Year 2011 awards next week and because you’re awesome we want you there! We have two tables and are looking for five cool people to come and hang out with us and the best of SA media. If you’re keen then let us know why you rock and hopefully we’ll all get to party together.

The 2011 VJOY Awards, one of the hottest events this year, will be going down on the 4th November at Vodacom World in Midrand. Cerebra is proudly sponsoring the social media in journalism category so if you’re one of the people who joins us you may even get to go on stage and present an award. Only joking. You will get to watch someone go on stage, which is also pretty cool.

Drinks will be on us, cab fare on you. So, if you’d like to hang with some media types on the 4th November then let us know. Telling us why you would make the ideal dinner date will definitely help your chances.

Comment below, Tweet or Facebook us and hopefully we can hook you up.

The magic of transparency

Reece Jacobsen — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:58:24 +0000

I’m not a big fan of liars, which is kind of ironic because I work in marketing. Over-exaggerating to make a product sound better than it is, hiding behind T&Cs, or even denying there is a problem all together are all tricks of the trade used by ‘the man’ against us helpless consumers. But for how long?

Social media has the potential to either launch your brand into a new level of customer loyalty or mobilise the mob. The power lies with the consumer - the question is how will you make sure your brand isn’t a victim? The time has come to embrace transparency.

I watched an interesting TED talk the other day by a man called Marco Tempest and he said something that struck a chord. According to Marco, “Magic is the only honest profession. A magician promises to deceive you and he does.” Normally deceit is not cool, but if that’s what you get promised you can’t be upset if that’s exactly what you get. That being said, you do have every right to be upset if you were promised the world and all you got was a pain in the ass.

Deceit from a brand is easier to manage (for the brand) when dealing with individual customers. Think of a magician - it’s easier to deceive one mind than 10 and even harder when there are 1000. You can tell the person that walks into your store a little white lie to make them sleep better at night, but try to pull that stunt on an audience of 100,000 customers on your social platforms and you’ll think the London riots were child’s play.

If it’s magic your brand is looking for, deceit is not the answer. As a matter of fact, it’s quite the opposite. The ‘ace in the sleeve’ for any brand is transparency. Instead of pulling a rabbit out of a hat like a magician, you’ll be pulling things like loyal customers out of yours. Sure, your brand may look vulnerable at times and won't always be right, but a willingness to take part in a discussion with your community members on an open forum will build trust. Once your customers trust you, and you trust your customers not to over-react and jump down your throat (yes it does work both ways) the relationship you have on social media can become very constructive.

You show me a brand that’s willing to let it’s guard down to it’s customers and interact in a personal manner, that takes the suggestions and concerns of their online community seriously, and I’ll show you a brand that really understands the meaning of social.

All about the audience: things to consider before creating content

Alex de Coning — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 10:04:58 +0000

Creating content is our business, it’s what we love to do
We develop messaging as outlined by You
(The respected client and potential thought leader)
To create awareness and educate the reader
We develop anything from product releases
To thought provoking opinion pieces
We indulge the masses with our multilingual tweets
And other amazing writing feats

But what exactly makes your content good?
Relevance and Context should
Let’s explore that idea in more detail
To help you create content that will not fail

The Audience is at the beginning and at the end
They are the folks with money to spend
It is thus pertinent to list
That the audience must understand the gist
Determine who they are and what they want
Don’t just write something for your aunt
How do they go about content consumption?
Find out! Don’t just make an assumption

Defining a key message is your first port of call
Like your submission, it should captivate and enthrall
Remember that this message is your number one priority
It must remain consistent if you wish to speak with authority

The structure of your communications has to follow suit
With the key message nestled firmly at its root
The most important information is conveyed at the start
You need a firm base when you want to bake a tart

Relevance is the next stepping stone
Is this something your audience wants, or will it make them groan?
Medium and relevance go hand-in-hand
Classic FM doesn’t care if you started a band

And finally, consider the tone
Is it something hysterical or dry as a bone?
As long as you’re certain it’s what the audience want
But whatever you do, please avoid using Comic Sans font

What F8 means to your Facebook experience

Zahira Kharsany — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 08:27:48 +0000

Background

Last week was Facebook’s annual F8 Developers Conference. F8 is the one conference many Facebook developers and marketers eagerly await. Here CEO, Mark Zuckerburg, announces the much-anticipated changes to the Facebook platform.

At a glance, there is one stand out change, and it is the way users interact on Facebook. You will be able to share more data than ever before. New social applications will bring more content into the social graph and support exclusive partnerships with the likes of Spotify, Yahoo, Netflix etc.

New Facebook Features

Timeline Profiles*
The new timeline profile will collate status updates, photos, check-ins and events, all of which will appear in a ‘scrapbook’ of your life. Zuckerburg refers to this as ‘serendipity’ – an emotive experience with greater data visualisation. This could eventually impact the way Pages will be displayed and experienced, but this hasn’t been revealed yet.
*Timeline is currently only available on developer accounts but will soon be rolled out to the rest of the Facebook userbase.

Ticker
You may have spotted this already in the ‘new’ Facebook changes that happened last week. Facebook has split the newsfeed so that it is broken into different interaction areas. The ticker is found on the right of your screen above your chat contacts and will reflect what Facebook terms as ‘lightweight news’. This could be anything from common friends becoming friends, to a friend leaving a comment on one of their updates and soon to be Spotify* playlists, so that songs can be shared too.
*Currently not available in South Africa

Open Graph
This is the biggest reveal. Open Graph will be the ultimate driving force behind the new set of applications. Through one click, for example, access will be granted indefinitely to an application, and for us there will be an opportunity for greater targeting and creative opportunities for applications - all of which can be shared by users in real-time. This implementation means that any application can be social.

Partnerships / Social Recommendations
By allowing partnerships, Facebook is able to provide the user more social experiences with brands. An example is the eventual implementation of sharing Spotify playlists with friends. This can go as far as reading news directly in the news feed from Yahoo and interacting with movies from Netflix. The opportunities are endless.

See your friends activity on Facebook Pages
Along with Profile changes, Facebook has a new feature on Pages. There’s a new Friend Activity navigation link on Facebook pages, which allows you to see what your friends are saying about and on that specific Page. This means that you can see exactly how your friends are engaging with this brand and their thoughts without intruding.

Comment on Pages without Liking the Page
Fans no longer need to ‘Like’ a Facebook page to be able to comment on it.

Social Advertising
With every new change on Facebook it means new advertising opportunities to support the new products. Social advertising allows you to advertise particular status updates, as well as ‘Sponsored stories’ through actions. This boils down to being able to include online purchases, playing a song or watching movies in collaboration with Facebook partners.

Overall, Facebook is now getting super social. These new developments compete directly with the likes of Google+ while blowing the other platforms straight out of the water.

Through bringing in friend recommendations and activities on Facebook, users will more likely watch the movie you’re watching or listen to the music you’re listening to and also allowing for this without having to leave the platform.

For brands this means more competition and means that quality content and unique experiences will be key. Furthermore, websites will have to be optimised for socialising and start promoting content and their applications.

Facebook have also revealed that they now have more than 800 million users.

Online Brand Analyst

Kellen Rodney — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:21:04 +0000

Job objectives:

Ensure brand sentiment of clients is maintained positively, and any negative communication is mitigated through appropriate strategies
Optimise the use of ORM for clients
Ensure clients are aware of negative sentiment and issues around their brand
Maintain effective communication channels, with the prompt and accurate dissemination of information to all relevant parties

Duties:

Monitor and track sentiment of brands and conversations that are happening online
Effective relationship management by building relationships internally and externally
Have a thorough knowledge and understanding of clients business and requirements
Actively engage in Cerebra’s working environment and deliver high quality work

Minimum requirements:

At least 1 years research experience or experience in data analytics
Experience in a similar role would be advantageous
A degree or diploma in journalism, communication, marketing,advertising or other equivalent related degree/diploma is an added advantage.

Mail your CV to us: careers@cerebra.co.za

SlutWalk ORM Audit

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:47:48 +0000

Cerebra and BrandsEye partnered to deliver an ORM Audit on the initiative SlutWalk, happening in Jozi on 24 September. Check back soon for the follow up / post event report

Cerebra slutwalk orm_report_sep2011

View more presentations from Cerebra_Communications.

Instagram: Strike a Pose!

Lloyd Wybrow — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:41:45 +0000

Instagram, the insanely popular photo sharing iPhone app allows users to both add styled filters to their photos and then share the photos with other users. Much like Twitter, you can follow other people’s photo streams and they can follow yours. Like, comment and share – this is the stuff that social dreams are made of. Since it launched in the App Store on the 6th October 2010, Instagram has grown to a community of over 7 million users and counting. With 1.3 million photos uploaded each day — that’s a rate of 15 photos per second.

It’s no wonder then that the new darling of international fashion brands is none other than Instagram a platform that celebrates visual prêt-à-porter beauty. The service has created new social media marketing opportunities for brands that are visually orientated and Levi’s Brazil was one of the first to roll out a full marketing campaign using the service.

The forward thinking fashion brand took full advantage of Instagram’s unique features to display and promote products from their forthcoming collection. They didn’t limit their Instagram stream to product pictures only; they also loaded related pictures that represented the brand’s personality. While the campaign was reported to have only generated limited results, they engaged with a smaller but more engaged community – a sign of good things to come.

We’re past the question of whether Instagram provides a marketing opportunity, all that remains is how extensively and effectively brands will be able to use it. The question is, how will brands establish a two-way communication between themselves and a consumer that goes beyond just a comment on a picture and will South African brands follow this trend?

Cerebra goes all Oprah

Heike Meyburgh — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:27:19 +0000

Every Friday morning all Cerebrans meet in the boardroom for a session of knowledge sharing, usually taking the shape of a well-thought out presentation or interesting find of the week. That was until Craig Rodney (@Craigrodney) threw this concept on its head.

*insert dramatic music*

Under the guise of an upcoming pitch for Cape Tourism, he led the company through the potential clients comms needs. According to the fake pitch, the “client” required three people from Cerebra to travel to Cape Town and experience everything the region has to offer, from surfing and paragliding to wine farm tours. To make it fair, we were told that the selection of who would go would be completely random – everyone was in the running.

We had people pull all kinds of stunts wanting to be part of the chosen few. “I have never been to Cape Town” was definitely a contender by pulling the sympathy card. People desperately put forward all kinds of motivations for why it should be them but Craig was having none of it.

The random systems had to be fair to everyone so the winners would be decided by picking a piece of paper out of a hat. Only fate and Lady Luck could help you. Everyone clambered over each other to get their folded piece of paper but no-one was allowed to look… the tension was killing us.

The rules were simple: unfold your paper and if you see the word “winner” then you are one of the lucky three. Craig started channelling his inner Oprah when he slowly counted down, 3... 2… 1… OPEN!

The office turned to mayhem as one person after the other started screaming with excitement. Winner, winner, winner….. winner? Mayhem turned to confusion as more than three people were jumping for joy. That’s when Craig clicked to his final presentation slide:

“You’re going to Cape Town. You’re going to Cape Town. You’re ALL going to Cape Town!”

There was no potential client and the brief was fake. The whole presentation was a sneaky Oprah-styled ruse to announce that Cerebra was taking everyone to Cape Town for our year end holiday. How crazy is that?

So, to Cape Town and all who dwell there, Cerebra is coming to party so we hope you’re ready. See you all soon!

Social media on the bottom line

Reece Jacobsen — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 12:26:38 +0000

It’s a fact that any company’s main objective is profit, and because of this it’s understandable that ‘big cheeses’ will look to all marketing platforms to contribute to the bottom line. Sales via social media looks and sounds appealing to a big cheese as sales would offer the most tangible return on investment, but is it really what they need? I don’t think so and here’s why.

2-way interaction:
Imagine an advert burst onto your TV screen and instead of promoting a new product or campaign it asked how you felt about their brand, or even what changes you would like to see the brand make to turn them into a better company? Currently it can’t happen because you are not able to directly reply to that TV ad. What is the point of asking a question if you cannot get a response? Customers will just land up yelling “Fix your F#*%&^@$ call centre” in their living room while their 6 year old stares at them blankly.

2-way interaction is one of the main reasons I prefer interacting with a brand on social networks. I can have my say and I know it’ll get through. Hell, even if it doesn’t, I know there’s a much better chance of the message getting through than me yelling at my television. Why not take advantage of this unique property, and find out more about how your customers are feeling.

Zappos.com are one of my personal favourites for the way they engage with their customers online. Just have a look at this screenshot. If that isn’t what customer service is all about, I don’t know what is!

Check the screenshot

It’s boring and invasive:
In the same way it’s not right for above-the-line adverts to want to chat, I feel brands solely pushing product via social networks are losing out. You’re not going to attract an engaged community to your Facebook page with a ‘Verimark’ content update. You’re more likely to build a community if you relate your message to their interests. Nike are a great example of this. Minimal product push, but they ‘sell’ you the true sportsman’s lifestyle extremely well.

If you’re a sportswear retailer, your content is not limited to sales of takkies and tracksuits. More often than not community members are already buying your brand. Knowing that these people fancy a little exercise, why not give them health tips? Or Usain Bolts diet plan? You know your customers enjoy this content, why not build a relationship with them via valuable, informative content about their interests. Invading their privacy in the places they hangout is not going sit well with them, unless you’re giving them info they can use.

Market Research:
Understanding your community may not directly add to your bottom line, but if you look closely enough, you can find enough value in using social platforms to develop a strategy for the channels that do sell. Above-the-line campaigns that you spend a fortune developing and implementing can be ‘tested’ by your online audience for a fraction of the cost. According to socialbakers there are just fewer than 4.3 million Facebook users in South Africa. That’s 8.7% of the population. Twitter’s penetration is even less. Why not build rapport with your online community and get honest feedback on where you’d like to take your brand before you do. This 8.7% are still the early adopters of South Africa and it’s these customer opinions that will affect the rest. Your online community is a representation of your demographic and you’ll be much better equipped to go out and make a sale if you know who you’re talking to.

Coca-Cola is a shining example on how to build a strong relationship with fans. Instead of shutting down the ‘unofficial’ fan page created by genuine fans, they absorbed them and let them carry on doing what they had been doing after it grew to be the most popular product page in the world. If you’re not familiar with the story you can bring yourself up to speed by watching this video

The message you push to your online community is better served by first finding out more about where your brand stands with the average Joe on the internet. Make your deals and specials easy to find for those that would like to see them in their own time. Less than 20% of your content updates should be product related, the rest should be dedicated to building a strong relationship with your community, taking advantage of 2-way engagement and respecting their space while you both find out more about each other.

If you think I’m wrong or want to chat further there’s a comment section below.

Achieving great results by being proactive

Glen Bvuma — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:06:42 +0000

If this was one of those TV commercials about funeral & insurance policies, it would go something like this, “Don’t you just hate it when clients tell you what to do? Well, with being PROACTIVE you are covered”.

Put simply, being proactive means thinking and acting ahead - basically, this means using foresight and creating the time, space and opportunity. It's a great method for avoiding more work down the road but also can be extremely important for preventing disasters, planning well for the future and for instituting systems at work, in study, and at home that make life easier for not just you, but others as well. Many of us look to proactive people as the instigators of action and creative ideas in society.

So why is being proactive important? Well let me make it clear, in public relations and in any field for that matter, a proactive approach gives you more control over your planning and enables you to set the agenda. You get to decide how best to present the image of the company or client.

Being proactive is also a great way of not letting the client become the one in control of the PR. You have to be in control and you have to set the pace and define the strategy and actions. If you aren’t proactive then clients often feel the need to take these functions back, rendering the PR practitioner powerless.

Being proactive also means that you work to create the results that you and your business will experience, rather than waiting to react to what other people are doing.

Here are some suggestions that can help you become a more proactive person.

Know which tasks are priorities and which can wait.
If you aren’t already skilled in setting priorities then study and use the action priority matrix
Evaluate your procedures and processes as you use them.
If the word SYSTEM were an acronym it would stand for: Saves You Stress Time Energy Money. So build systems that achieve this but also keep improving them.
Try to anticipate things you will need to know.
If you don’t try to anticipate, it won’t happen. Make it a practice to think ahead.
Develop a mindset that looks to solve problems instead of dwelling on them.
Define the problem (what is it exactly?), and then decide what needs to happen to overcome the problem and how you’re going to do that; and get on with it
Examine critically how you might perform those tasks more efficiently
Create a plan, procedure, checklist or routine to accomplish the task and then look for steps in the process to eliminate, consolidate, or shorten.

As a PR professional you should aim to be two things: proactive and useful. Being proactive will help you in your client, media, and co-worker relationships-even if it is a simple thing like updating people on the things you’re responsible for before you are asked. Being useful applies to those relationships as well. The more useful you are, the more trusted you become.

Having said all this, we need to also understand that being proactive is a learned skill, it is being courageous in taking risks. Being proactive is learning from one's own mistakes and learning from the mistakes of others. Being proactive is about creating desired results and moving yourself forward.

Let us all start being proactive!

Social music and Drupal

Dillon Kin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 07:55:49 +0000

There's nothing else like music. Music fills the soul and brings people together. For Centuries, people have been listening to music together and talking about it, living it, feeling it. It makes sense then that the conversation of music would be taken online.

Here at Cerebra, we are a diverse bunch... some of us like shredding rock music and others like to bop their heads to Hip Hop and Jazz. One thing is certain though, everyone here has an appreciation for music.

Heike Meyburgh had the genius idea of starting a music Friday. Every Friday all the Cerebrans in the office would choose their favourite song from a music theme, which would be decided by the winner of the previous week's event. We've had themes to the likes of “movie soundtracks”, “What you listen to when you were 18” and even “One Hit Wonders”. You're probably guessing who decides the winner, well all of us of course. This is a democracy after all. Each of us have the opportunity to vote on songs we like and by doing so, a champion arises.

What started out as a manual pen to paper voting system snow balled into something wonderful. I decided to create an online voting system for CerebraFM. This took me less than 2 hours thanks to the awesomeness of Drupal and Aegir.

I created a new site on our Aegir hosting service and from there, implemented one of the contrib themes and created a funky logo just to spice things up a bit. I then installed CCK, Views and Vote Up/Down. I created some content types with fields for artist and song title. Then I created a view which displays all the songs in alphabetical order. Once this was done I just configured the Vote Up/Down module to display on my newly created content type. I added users and gave them permissions to add their song choice and vote on each others songs.

There are tons of creative ways you can utilise Drupal for fun things like this. Drop me a message if you've done something cool or have a cool idea for a social sites on Twitter @dillonkin.

This little voting website has been a fun way for the Cerebrans to share music, vote on each others songs and create conversations around music. If you'd like to see what we get up to every Friday, then go check out our CerebraFM site.

Communicators, stop making noise!

Alex de Coning — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 12:29:32 +0000

Please note, the feedback on my draft blog post was, "Don't just preach about reducing noise, practice it" and that's exactly what I did - you should be able to read the post in its entirety by pressing Ctrl+A / CMD+A)

~~If it's too loud, you're too old. That's true if we refer to the Metal, but on the already overcrowded Internet, noise has a completely different meaning.~~ I think it suffice to give a short introduction to noise in the channel.

According to the ~~infallible~~ Wikipedia, "Communication noise refers to influences on effective communication that influence the interpretation of conversations. While often looked over, communication noise can have a profound impact both on our perception of interactions with others and our analysis of our own communication proficiency."

There are many forms of noise~~, from psychological noise, to physical noise~~. The ~~very~~ definition itself is a grand example of semantic noise - that's when you use big words when the regular ones will do just fine. Wikipedia could've said, "Communication is about understanding the message. Anything that interferes with that understanding is noise."

Communication professionals are the message wards; they cut through the noise to expose the nougaty centre of the message, making it accessible to the target audience. But that task is becoming increasingly difficult with the amount of information out there.

Example time:

Fig 1: ~~As you'll notice from my keen Gimp work,~~ the green section is only a portion of the message, while the red section is largely erroneous information.

Therein lies our conundrum. With the advent of the internet and the vast improvement of information technology, journalists are approximately three times as busy today as they were in the 80s because they now have to produce content for a variety of channels. Back in the day it was as simple as drafting an article and submitting it to the editor - where they went from there depended on the diligence of the journalist. Today the media is expected to prepare content for the daily publication, the online portals, tweets, blogs, podcasts, etc. There are plenty of mediums, each referring the audience to the next ~~(think about DJs inviting their listeners to engage with them on Twitter or Facebook)~~. The dynamic nature of the Internet demands that information is submitted on a second-by-second basis, preferably on every available medium.

~~Unfortunately, I do not have the goose that lays the golden eggs.~~ We will never eliminate the noise. Even face-to-face engagements cannot guarantee that ~~some~~ parts of the message won't be lost due to the ~~cultural, gender, psychological, political or professional~~ background of the communicators. But we can employ a few strategies to ensure our message isn't lost in the noise, consider the following:

KISS! Keep it short and simple. Blaise Pascal once wrote, "Sorry for writing such a long letter, I didn't have time to write a short one" ~~We've established that there is already a lot of information out there;~~ don't inundate readers with more irrelevant information than necessary. Simplify your language. While most folk would have appreciation for your kick-ass vocabulary (or Google's for that matter) it doesn't mean that the wider audience would understand you. Of course every rule has some exceptions, when the brief is to prepare a long / technical read - do that!
Education and understanding. ~~South Africa is a cultural melting pot, but~~ the exponential growth of the Internet and rapidly decaying international borders dictate that we can no longer only cater for a location-specific audience. Keep it Glocal - think globally, but activate locally. Communicating glocally effectively means having a keen understanding of your audience ~~- it's rarely one person, one culture or one nation you're speaking to these days. Marketing 101 - know your audience.~~
Engagement and feedback. It's important to listen. Listening to your audience will let you know if your message went down like a cold beer or a lead balloon. Engage with your audience, gain feedback and revise where necessary. You can even employ your colleagues to assist you before the initial draft goes to a client or editor, ‘fresh' eyes can have a tremendous impact on your message. Admittedly, you won't be able to keep everyone happy all the time, but through continual engagement you can tailor your message to suit the intended audience. Everyone appreciates an open, accessible and responsive communicator.Being a good communicator means you have to be a good listener.
Don't rush it. Stephen King said that he typically shelves a draft for a couple of months before revisiting it to make the necessary edits. ~~Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of months in our industry, but that still doesn't mean that we should rush when finalising and disseminating our communication.~~ Take the time to choose your words carefully, step away and re-approach it once you've had an opportunity to clear your head.

~~Ultimately,~~ everything you DO is a form of communication~~, be it verbal or non-verbal~~. Even while you're sleeping you are sending a non-verbal "please do not disturb" message. A message that is so simple yet so strong that it immediately influences the behavior of any human witnessing the act.

In closing, consider the following:

Deleting the non-essential information allows your message to highlight the essential... bits.

The Music & Lyrics of Social Media

Jacques Du Bruyn — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 09:59:10 +0000

Bands and musicians looking to build online fan bases are opting out of building their own websites and opting into building powerful online communities straight on the top social networking and content sharing websites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Qik.

Starting a band is fun, but there is always the pain of trying to get noticed by people other than your mother. You want real fans, people to stalk you and ask for your picture at gigs. I’m the front man for a band called Finding Noah, a band that has made many mistakes on social media, but has also seen some success using the right techniques and I want to share my insights into the best practices for bands on social media.

Sheet music - the platform

Most bands pre-2008 would have built their own website and maybe a MySpace music account where they could upload songs and pictures and form a community around their music. Websites aren’t dead, but many bands have realised they don’t need to make the investment into their own website, they can do just fine using the popular social media sites and tools.

Facebook - the stompbox

As a platform, Facebook is an absolute given so let’s jump straight into some key points. Firstly, do not start a group on Facebook, start a fanpage. There is a big diffrerence between the two. Make sure that your profile picture looks like you’re in a band, not a picture of you holding your flute. From my experience adding a tab to your fanpage is a good idea. The RootMusic tab is a great way to integrate everything into one. You can upload pictures, events, songs and the beauty of it all is that the songs are automatically uploaded to SoundCloud. SoundCloud is a platform that puts your sound at the heart of communities, websites and even apps. Watch conversations, connections and social experiences happen with your sound as the spark.

The other added value of RootMusic is that you are able to track the number of plays that your songs have received as well as number of downloads. You can pull your Twitter feed into the page, which is a brilliant way of attracting new followers. Remember to set your RootMusic tab as your default landing tab, it gives a great first impression.

Never underestimate the power of Facebook adverts. Finding Noah spent R200,00 over two weeks and gained +/- 100 new fans, something that R200,00 worth of posters could never do.

Have a look at the Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ Facebook fanpage, they have integrated everything really well and while they don’t post content that often, it’s relevant and personal, not only broadcasting marketing messages.

The Facebook lesson we learned is that if you post too often you will loose followers. Keep it at one update per day to start with, keep the content relevant and post your songs - people want to hear your talent.

Twitter - the amplifier

Twitter is a great way to share with fans in real time at gigs, by posting updates and pictures from your live events. From my experience, make sure that you don’t use your band’s Twitter account as your personal Twitter account. Your followers want to know about the band, not the cupcake that you ate at your grandmother’s birthday. The Red Hot Chili Peppers (@chilipeppers) used this well when broadcasting teasers leading up to their new album release that is taking place on 30th of August 2011.

The Twitter lesson we learned is that people don’t interact personally with a band’s Twitter account, they would rather engage personally with your personal account. This is true for @parlotones vs @kahnmorbee the lead singer.

YouTube - the tattoo

YouTube is the best way to share your music videos. Videos add personality to your band and show off your talents. The best thing about YouTube is that it integrates with Facebook which means that you can easily post to your Facebook page. Don’t only post your music videos but create stories and episodes around road trips and tours that you take. When people first get a taste of your music they will want to explore your music more, and videos (both music videos and ‘behind the scenes’) are a great way to let people experience more.

YouTube is also home to a number of fan videos that are made for bands. Cover songs and tributes from fans to their favourite musicians and bands. What a great way to let people show their love for your music and to interact with them.

The YouTube lesson we learned is that it’s a highly engaging way to show off your stuff. Use it wisely, be engaging and perhaps invite fans to be a part of your videos, chances are they are more likely to share it that way.

Qik - the loud solo

If you want to be very bold then use Qik (www.qik.com). This tool allows you to broadcast a live video as you play. All you need to do is have the app on your smart phone, share your personal Qik URL and a very fast Internet connection. Fans can then subscribe to your stream and watch you live.

The Qik lesson is simple: only use it if you have a fast internet connection.

The Crescendo - last words

Ultimately, the goal is for you to have fun and create opportunities to grow your fan base, expose your talents and allow people to find and interact with you. Let your band’s personality shine through to the platforms that you use. Engage with your fans and rock on.

The Hollywood Hole in One

cerebrin — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 07:53:46 +0000

Guest post by Elliot Sharod

Sports men and women are starting to realize that if you want to attract and build a loyal fan base and rake in the subsequent million dollar sponsorships, you have to get naked. Actual naked works but I’m talking more about exposing fans to your life off the sports field using social media.

Sports people used to live relatively secret lives. We saw them on the grass in our local sporting venues, saw them on the telly or read about their performance in the papers. What happened off the field used to stay off the field, now it appears on page 6 of the newspaper. A public hungry for more and more information now demands to know everything about their favorite sports stars and the media feeds this need by exposing the personal side – both the good and the bad.

Some would argue that it’s an invasion of privacy and the media should focus on the sport while others argue that the additional interest is good for sponsors and endorsements. They’re both correct and this is the reason why many sports stars are using social media to take personal control over the ‘invasion of privacy’ side while raking in the million Dollar endorsements at the same time.

As the interest from the public grows, so more money gets pumped into the machine called sport. Advertising, endorsements and sponsorships all contribute to the games growth and development. Spectators pay more to see the professionals hit a ball, run a race or score the try and the fan’s demands for interaction with the players has created this new opportunity.

This is why social media has had a profound impact on the sporting community. We all want to know more about the man who runs the hundred in under 9,58 seconds, we want to find out more about the golfer who sunk the long putt for the million dollar prize and we all want to find out more about the All Black captain who soon have to apologise to his nation for once again failing to produce a world cup trophy. (One can only hope)

Social networks such as Twitter bring the fans closer to the star, and the star closer to the fans. The star can feel the support and respect of the fans and critics, and the fan can gain that intimate access to the sports stars’ personal life. The fan and the star now have a tangible connection, something that has never really existed before.

It’s not just the personal things we can find out about a sportsman or team that makes social media a great tool - news, updates and commentary and laughs can be made and easily shared the public, and fans can easily share their love, advice, coaching or critique directly with their idol.

It’s easy enough for someone to scroll through their phone to an app that will connect them directly their favorite sports person who, in turn, will share with them all of the information they are looking for. It’s an amazing way of bringing the average Joe closer to the Joe Montanas of the world.

Bubba Watson is one of the best examples of what I’ve described above. A professional golfer, Bubba is also a fun-loving Tweeter that has embraced the technology and has become a popular figure both on and off the fairways. Known for his whacky personality and equally unique golf swing, he has become popular among the fans online and on-course. Bubba doesn’t just write 140 character messages to his fans, he takes it to a whole new level. Bubba videos most things that he does to provide followers with a deeper insight into his life. Fans develop a feeling of intimacy with him as a result of this. Check out Bubba’s YouTube Blog

Notable sport Tweeters include:

John Smit - SA rubgy captain @johnsmit123
Trevor Immelman - Professional golfer @TrevorImmelman
Bubba Watson - Professional golfer @bubbawatson
Rory Mcilroy - Professional golfer @mcilroyrory
Rio Ferdinand - Manchester United @rioferdi5
Jack Wilshere - Arsenal Football Club @JackWilshere
Tony Hawk - Professional skateboarder @tonyhawk
Kevin Petersen - Cricketer @kevinpp24
AB de Villiers - Cricketer @ABdeVilliers17

Cerebra brings social media to the 2011 Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards

Craig Rodney — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:26:40 +0000

Yes that’s right, we’re proud to be one of the sponsors of the 2011 Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards. It’s our first year as a sponsor and we’ve teamed up with Vodacom on a new category: Social Media in Journalism. Making the most of the social web is definitely something worth rewarding.

The 'social media in journalism' category will: (official voice) recognise and reward the use of social media tools, platforms and communities by a journalist in the preparation and/or delivery of journalistic content. This could cover the use of social media in information gathering, research or promotion and distribution of the content of a story.

You can’t avoid the growth of social media mainstream reporting and journalism. Social media touches many aspects of how content is gathered, shared and promoted. Many South African journalists are using social tools and communities to enhance their work. There is no one set formula which is why we're excited to hear about the many ways that social media is being used by the media industry that you are part of.

Entries for the 2011 Vodacom Journalist of the Year 2011 Awards are already open. If you’re a journalist and you’ve used social in an interesting or effective way then we definitely want you to enter. Visit journalist.vodacom.co.za to get all of the information, check out the prizes and submit entries. Entries close on the 26th August. The National awards ceremony takes place in Johannesburg on November 4th.

If you aren’t sure whether you’re a journalist or not, ask your editor!

2D or not 2D?

Brendon Spronk — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 08:25:24 +0000

Welcome to the wonderful world of little squares in a bigger square otherwise known as the 2d barcode!

First created by a Toyota subsidiary, Denso-Wave, in 1994, they are small square blocks made up of black and white squares, which are scanned by 2d barcode readers (decoders). They may go by the name QR Code, quick response code, 2D tag and 2D code, among others. You may have seen one, although you probably never interacted with it, and small and large businesses around the world have ‘dipped the toe in’ experimenting with them to find value.

Shortly after the creation of this technology, the world never really stood up and took notice. The most obvious reason is cost, as you would need expensive hardware to scan the code. They were created for industry and used mostly for asset tracking. At the time, the average man on the street had no use for them.

Time passed and some clever folk in development shops around the world put 2 and 2 together and realized they could use the mobile phone camera to scan the code, decode it and make use of the 7089 character storage the barcode can hold. 7089 characters is roughly twice the size of this blog post! These same clever folk also realised they can make the phone do clever things with the data like open a web browser, trigger the built-in map application and even populate the phones contact sheet with business contact data (stored in the code) ready to be saved by the phones owner.

Soon after these developments some excitement happens in the international media. A few brands’ marketing departments experiment with the codes to generate conversation around micro-sites (mobile and web) and even film companies (as seen on the large Leicester square film promotion of 28 days later) use codes to get punters into the seats of cinemas.

Waiting for the big (2d) dogs…

The 2010 Google IO conference – saw the lighter side of the 2d barcode where Google printed the codes on the conference t-shirts which they used to track lectures, visitors and just have some fun. The same year saw some Facebook users blogging that they had spotted QR codes on their profile pages (although this is confirmed only to a small group (a test group)). Axe, the deodorant brand, ran extensive campaigns pushing back to mobile sites. Heineken also had a go at a 2D marketing campaign. Then… little to nothing happened.

Which leads to the big question… are 2D barcodes here to stay? The large technology companies have tested them and retracted their solutions, along with the retail and FMCG industries. Why the retraction? No doubt it was the lack of uptake and use.

My gut feel is that 2D barcodes will continue their path, creeping in and out of the market for some time. They will find true value and meaning when there use changes – possibly in the small to medium business space – as they have fantastic asset management abilities (what they were originally designed for). When they can be monetised they will become more mainstream and once a tipping point of use happens, they will become commercially used to better effect.

Activity time!

I think its time for people to make their own minds up. Why don’t you try a code out and make your own decision.

Here’s what you will need:

1 x mobile phone with a camera and an internet connection
1 x 2D barcode decoder (software to be installed on your phone)
1 x 2D barcode (supplied in this blog post)

We can’t help you with the camera unfortunately. But once you have sorted that out, download a barcode reader onto the device. Most app stores will give you a good array of options if you search for ‘2D code’ or ‘QR code’.

We recommend i-nigma, zxing or Scanlife

Once this is installed, its time to scan your first code. Here is one to try. We stored a phrase in the code that will show on your screen when you scan this. What is the phrase?

If you went through our activity exercise and successfully scanned the barcode, you might find your mind racing with opportunity! Can you find a new use for this type of a solution in your world?

Let us know what you would do with your 2D barcode campaign in the comments below.

Happy scanning!

A convenient truth

Craig Rodney — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 08:28:50 +0000

Somewhere in this world there is a book that lists holding statements companies should use when things aren’t working out perfectly. These statements have been created to disguise the real problem, divert the blame and placate the customer. I hate this book and when I find it I will burn it.

We hear these statements on call centre hold messages, read them in apology SMSs and listen to spokespeople mumbling them into the camera. The reason these statements are always used is because they work. They work because we fall for them, and we fall for them because we aren’t listening acutely enough to ever question them. Well, I think we should start.

It wasn’t that long ago that companies (and governments) could quite easily tell bold lies to their customers. In today’s socially connected information intensive age it’s nearly impossible for companies to lie without getting found out. So with lying out the window, what’s left? Well there’s always the kinda-not-a-lie-sorta-the-truth-but-also-not holding statements.

These statements are popular because they definitely aren’t lies but they also aren’t the truth. They reside comfortably in the grey area between the two – not enough of a lie or a truth to get you into trouble. They are convenient truths.

Some of my favourites and what they really mean:

“We are experiencing higher than normal call volumes”
This statement has become the standard hold message regardless of call volume. What you may not have noticed is that the company is blaming the customers who are calling, not the under-staffed or under-prepared call centre. How dare our customers all call at the same time and cause this problem!

“Delays due to technical difficulties”
What exactly is a technical difficulty? Well, it isn’t exactly anything, which is why this statement is so popular. Technical difficulties cover everything from engine failure to late passengers to hung-over pilots. If a baby vomits on the boarding stairs, technically speaking, someone has to get a mop and clean it in case a passenger slips. They’re telling you that they don’t want to tell you what’s causing the problem because if you know you’ll have something specific to complain about. Clever.

“Failure due to over demand”
This is the absolute pinnacle in blaming the customer. Yes, it was all of you damn customers and your demand that have caused these problems. How dare you all do exactly what we told you to do. You’ll notice how perfectly this statement works as a convenient truth. Yes, demand did cause the failure, and yes, blaming it isn’t a lie, but it also isn’t the whole truth. In all likelihood the company (the one that spent millions launching and marketing the product) erred in their estimates and built systems that couldn’t handle the load. But why admit to that when you can just as easily blame the customer?

So now you know how to spot a convenient truth. The sad truth, however, is that plain and simple honesty goes a very, very long way and it’s a pity that so few companies trust the loyalty and understanding of their customers enough to simply tell them the truth.

The Favourite

Reece Jacobsen — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:48:38 +0000

In my previous blog post I spoke about Twitter endorsements and their value in your quest of the Twoly Grail of gaining more followers. We all agreed that getting retweeted is great but retweeting a complement someone else paid you is a clear cut sign that you’re a douchebag. What we didn’t all agree on was my evaluation of the ‘favourite’ function on Twitter. Also know as starring.

In case you missed it, this is what I said:

“This one’s easy. You liked a tweet so much, it made you favourite it so that you could go back and read it again one day. While it’s nice to have your tweets favourited, it’s not all that great at getting you new followers.
True value rating: 1/5
Douchebaggery rating: 0/5”

It was pointed out to me that this statement is not entirely accurate. The uber clever @UberEllis read my post (bless him) and was kind enough to let me know I was well off the mark on my ‘True Value’ rating of 1/5.

In his words:
Favouriting has a higher data-level value than a retweet. Retweet posts only to your followers, where favouriting reaches audiences on 3rd party content aggregators, for example favstar.fm. Put simply, having your tweet favourited rocks.

Beyond simply favouriting tweeting, the functionality exists for you to:

View someone’s favourites alone (twitter.com/twitterhandle/favorites)

Follow some favourites

Automatically create lists out of favourites using the Twitter API

If anything, more people need to be aware of the value of a favourite vs. retweet. Check out some of the functions listed above and play with some of the goodness. You’ll be surprised how far a favourite can reach.

So Mr. Ellis, I took your advice and headed on down to favstar.fm – I believe I owe you a thank you and a re-evaluation of the power of the favourite:

The favourite or starring is a highly under-rated Twitter endorsement. Some people favourite your tweets purely to go back one day and have a laugh, or re-read the article you tweeted. Other people are showing you off to the world via 3rd party content aggregators, maybe even submitting your last blurb as a “Tweet of the Day”. With millions of views daily on sites like favstar.fm, a favourite is quite possibly the most valuable Twitter endorsement of all.

Allow me to humbly upgrade my rating:
True value rating: 5/5
Douchebaggery rating: 0/5

Now, if you wouldn’t mind, save this post as a favourite, I could use the extra followers and your pitiful retweets aren’t helping. If, like Andre, you think my value and douche’ ratings are flawed, drop me a line reece@cerebra.co.za and tell me what you think.

Thanks and goodbye.