Simply Zesty» – SimplyZesty

New Suggested Friends Tool On Twitter Incredibly Useful

Niall Harbison — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 13:12:06 +0000

Twitter has started rolling our new suggested user lists based on who you follow and who follows you. It’s something that has been missing for some time now on Twitter and personalization of the service like this is really going to help the Twitter expand further. This is in some ways a smarter version of the suggested user list which mostly featured 500 random celebrities and Twitter power users. One of the biggest issues that I have had with Twitter is that the amount of people I have added recently has dried up because I just have not had the time to use Google or Twitter search to find all the people I am looking for. This latest move by Twitter really is a move in to Facebook’s realm because one of the biggest success stories of that site has been the power for Facebook to suggest people that you should be friends with and aide you with simple discovery of people you should be in contact with.

How Smart Is The Suggested User List?

The feature is still being rolled out as we speak and it should be appearing on all profiles soon but it does have a couple of issues in that most of the people on the suggested lists that I have seen are people that I am very aware of on Twitter and have chosen not to follow as well as most of the suggestions being very localized in terms of their geographic spread. What I do like about this though is that for the first time in ages there are tons of people that I could start following to improve my stream and the UI makes it incredibly simple to click the follow button and start adding people. I’m pretty sure that the lists will start to get smarter as more and more people use them.

Discovery As A Whole Much Easier Now

Clicking on the find people now opens up a whole range of options to discover new people and that can only be a good thing for twitter and is probably why they have spent so much time developing this new set of features. I can now find people via email, via country or interests or just by simple search. Twitter really really needed to do this because I personally found that my own stream was getting tired and staid but I just didn’t have the time or desire to add new users but with these new features it changes everything.

Becoming More Like Facebook

Twitter is many things to many people including a breaking news tool and live search engine but ultimately it needs to be a social service and for a while that has been lacking because I just haven’t had an easy way of finding new users and people I know. Facebook have been the kings of connecting you with friends from the past, work and college friends and that has paid off so spectacularly. I love Twitter and find it incredibly useful at times but I have always found it fell down on connecting me with my real offline friends (mostly because they are not there yet). Hopefully this new suggested user list will spring Twitter on to the next level and make an incredibly useful tool even more powerful and engaging.

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Whats Foursquare All About? Simple Guide From A Power User

NiallF — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 12:04:17 +0000

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a little obsessed with location based services and none more so than Foursquare. Yes, there are others out there like Gowalla & Yelp! and it is rumoured that Facebook will bring in some sort of check-in feature in the not to distant future but Foursquare is primed to own this space and as one of their biggest fans I’m here to tell you why!

What is Fourquare & why are users falling over themselves to check-in?

Foursquare is the hottest location based service with over 2 million users and growing steadily. The application allows you to tell your friends where you are at any given time and also gives you the option to push this through to Facebook & Twitter. Some people argue that they don’t want their friends to know where they are, that’s fine… just check-in off the grid and keep your whereabouts secret but still gain the points.

Foursquare is a game, each week everyone starts on a clean slate with 0 points. Each time you check in you are awarded points and you battle it out throughout the week with other users in your city or just keep it amongst friends to see who can accumulate the most points.

Badges and Mayorships

So what else gets users crazy about checking in? Badges and Mayorships; Foursquare allows users to unlock all kinds of unique badges for completing different tasks, for example I recently unlocked the Barista badge for checking in to 5 different Starbucks – there are some badges that will drive you crazy when trying to unlock them but it is important to remember that some are city specific, here is a nice list of some of the badges available.

Mayorships are another kettle of fish altogether, there are some serious battles happening around Dublin right now for the Mayorship of various venues and locations. It might sounds a little complicated but basically, a user becomes the Mayor if they have more check-ins over a 60 day period than anyone else. I am desperately trying to win back Mayorship of Simply Zesty while holding off competition for St. Anne’s Park – its tough being Mayor but it really gets you out more Note: at the time of writing this I was not Mayor but you will be happy to know that I have now taken back what was rightfully mine.

Tips on getting more out of Foursquare

Users are setting up locations all the time and another useful feature is that they are adding tips for these venues. These tips are very beneficial and even more so if you are visiting a foreign city and not sure about what the best sandwich is or what time a bar gets busy at. User generated content is powerful, even more powerful when your friends are providing it.

Foursquare is FREE for Businesses

The only reason I see the growth of Foursquare slowing down is if businesses such as bars and restaurants chose to ignore it. Some restaurants and hotels have some really excellent offers, for example, head down to Wilde – the Restaurant in The Westbury Hotel and avail of a 3 course dinner when checking in on your birthday! or after your 5th checkin to the Camden Court Hotel you can enjoy dinner for 2 for €50 with a free bottle of Prosecco in The Iveagh Restaurant

It only takes a little imagination to do something a little different, I think businesses such as bars, restaurants, coffee shops, even the Guinness Store house could all be doing something. Why not claim your business now:

How could Foursquare improve their service?

Gowalla & Yelp! both allow users to add pictures when they check-in, I think it is a must for Foursquare to do the same. Maybe some sort of integration with QR codes or Sticky Bits? No matter what they have planned, I think the future is very bright for Foursquare even if it takes a while for everyone to check in Would be really interested in hear what everyone thinks about location based services in general and what features they would like to see.

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Zesty Show – Kindle, Twitter & Youtube

Lauren Fisher — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:54:46 +0000

Welcome to another week of the Zesty show! You’ll notice a slight change to the lineup this week. Fagan and I were out with clients so couldn’t make the show! This week the guys are talking about the Kindle, Twitter bringing photo and video into your livestream, and Youtube increasing their video limit. What do you think of the background by the way – any suggestions for what you’d like to see?

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How To Increase Your Youtube Video Views

Niall Harbison — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:46:06 +0000

If I had a penny for every time I had been asked by somebody to create them a viral video or how to get millions of views on Youtube I would be a very rich man indeed. People think they produce a video (usually of a corporate office setting with a new product announcement), put it on Youtube and all they have to do then is sit back and watch the video views roll in. As anybody who knows anything about online video will tell you the chances are your video will get a couple of hundred views at best. So how do you get the word out about your video online and increase the amount of people who see it on Youtube? Here are some of the little tips and tricks that will help you…

Make Friends And Network On Youtube

People think of Youtube as a place to watch videos but just like any of the other social networking sites there are plenty of ways to interact with other users and engage with the community. You’ll need to start befriending people within your niche, sending them private messages and complimenting them on their own videos and leaving comments wherever relevant. This is a slow process and is very similar to leaving comments on other blogs to grow blog traffic and although it takes lots of time it is highly effective.

Add Annotations To Your Videos

So annotations are getting easier to add on Youtube and although the biggest fault the system has it that it doesn’t let you link out to 3rd party sites (huge spam issues would arise) annotations do help you to grow subscribers. Have a look at the last 10 seconds of our video below and you’ll see a couple of links to our own channel and to our “about us” video. Used correctly (and there are tons of creative ways in which you can do this) annotations are an easy way for you to quickly drive some new subscribers to your channel or views to other videos that might not have been getting so much traffic.

Grow Your Subscriber Base

If there is one sure fire way to give your videos a little boost on Youtube then it is to have subscribers. A subscriber is somebody who will be alerted with an email every single time you upload a new video and their value should not be underestimated. Having somebody make that commitment to you is massive and channels with a couple of hundred subscribers is a great way to get your views up and if the video is good enough it should spread organically from those couple of hundred people to many others.

Tag And Describe Your Video Correctly

Although over the years Youtube has made every effort to improve video search most of the search is still done through text and tags. This means that you need to take lots of care when you are filling out your description and title and make sure to add as many relevant tags as you possibly can. Remember that Youtube is the second biggest search engine in the world after Google and that people could be searching for the content in your video right now so make sure you give them all they need to find it.

Thumbnails

Thumbnails for those of you not familiar with the term are the little images that appear before you click through to a video. You can select which image appears on the back end of Youtube once your video has uploaded and it is vitally important that you select something that is going to entice people to click immediately. Remember that when people search on Youtube they will be presented with 100s of results so in order for your video to stand out it needs to be highly visible.

Embed The Video And Share Wherever You Can

This is a very obvious one but there is a good chance that most of your views are not going to come on Youtube itself but mostly from third party websites. You should certainly have the video on your own website or blog if relevant and make use of your social media profiles like Facebook and Twitter to get the video going. If you have any friends who might be willing to push it out for you that can work well and if you think the video might be relevant to another blogger or website there is no harm in asking if they would like to feature it.

Create Signposts Or Links To Your Video

The old saying that people use for websites “build it and they will come” rings very true for video as well (they won’t actually come no matter how great you think your website/video is). There are millions of other pieces of content out on the web that are as good if not better than what you have produced so you are going to have to work at it and really spread the word about your video. Creating links and virtual “sign posts” to your video is going to be the key. You’ll see a little subscribe button over on the right of our page here on the blog, the Youtube logo appears on all our email signatures and we link through from Facebook and Twitter and all our other social media profiles.

Leave Video Responses

This is one that works incredibly well but it does take time to implement. Basically any video that is out there on YouTube can have video responses left to it (you’ll often see them along the bottom of the main video). You actually have to submit these yourself as a user and if the owner of the original video thinks that they are good enough they will allow it to appear as a video response. You will have to go through videos manually to find places where your video
will have a chance of getting accepted but it’s a great way to get you video in front of people in your niche who are clearly interested in a similar video and who might just click through to yours next. Again if you have followed the first step of effectively networking with other Youtube users then there is a good chance that plenty of people will accept your video response requests.

Any other tips yourself? Share them in the comments…

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Video – Twitter in super real time

Lauren Fisher — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:16:14 +0000

I just caught this video on The Next Web and had to share it with you. It shows you a version of Tweetdeck with real-time updates and it’s absolutely mindblowing. It comes following Twitter’s developer release of their new API. Tweetdeck are calling it the speed of wow, and you’d have to agree with them after watching the video below, from TNW :

Now this is certainly cool, and ultimately manageable if you have under 500 followers say, but is this just a little bit too real time? The issue with this is that it becomes more about a stream of information, than the information itself. If you’re following a lot of peole on Twitter, then it does become unmanageable and you won’t really be getting much out of a service like this. You also need to think about how you’re accessing Twitter. With a service like this, in uber-real time, you need to be logged in there pretty much all the time or you miss out on content.

What I do like is the fact that Tweetdeck have extended this out beyond just tweets, and the service will also show you things such as new followers or favourited tweets instantly. This information can sometimes become a little lost.

This is an experimental version of the new service and if you’re interested in signing up then you can do so here. Not one for the faint-hearted, and I’d wait a while after eating before trialling! What do you think, is this too much of a good thing?

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Social Media Stats UK 2010 Video

Niall & Lauren — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:30:51 +0000

A couple of weeks ago we announced that we would be opening a UK office and with staff on the ground and our first client work being done we thought it would be a good idea to compile a video with all the latest numbers in the UK. Our friends in TORA helped us with the research on this piece and the very talented James Doherty animated it for us. The video is a really great snapshot of just how important social media is becoming in the market place and how brands and businesses are starting to embrace it for real commercial gains. It was fun to make and will hopefully introduce us to the UK market and open a couple of doors for us. Let us know what you think…

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Where does social media fit?

Lauren Fisher — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:51:15 +0000

It’s a commonplace situation where a brand or business will want to get involved with social media, without really knowing why. Either their competitor is doing it so they think they should, or someone above them has told them to ‘do’ social media. They know what it is, but they’re not sure why they should be doing it. This is one of the most common problems people have when starting out in social media, because they haven’t really asked themselves what social media can do for them. This is the trick. You need to find out where social media can fit in your existing marketing and business strategy, so you can focus your efforts. And the nice answer is that it can fit pretty much everywhere!

Social media has evolved in a unique way in that it is now moving out of the social media ‘niche’ and instead the technologies available mean that it can effectively plug in to your existing business on practically every level, and not just marketing. I’ve put together the below diagram to show how this really works (thanks to Sarah for the design!) :

Looking at the diagram above hopefully shows just how integrated social media can be in your existing marketing activity, expecting it not to perform on it’s own (as I previously discussed) but instead looking at it being a multi-purpose medium. It also shows the danger of not investing time or money into social media, as you can clearly see the potential it has to optimise your existing marketing of business efforts. The next question you need to ask yourself is :

How is your business structured?

As well as thinking about how social media can sit across different areas of your organisation and affect the everyday outputs of your business. Just as social media means that your different marketing efforts are now talking to each other and working together, it means that different departments in your organisation must now do this too. This is a huge potential for organisations, to really make the above diagram work in the way it can do. This is the exciting phase 2 of social media. You’ve embraced the individual technologies, now you can find out how they can really affect and improve your organisation. Is your business structured in such a way that you can allow social media to filter through different functions and departments?

The potential for social media to create new job roles is also vast. Cisco currently employ 7 people in their social media team, and they expect this to rise to 20 or 30 by 2011. We’ve also seen this across many other brands who now recruit a head of social media, or recruit for this role a la Pizza Hut. Whether or not social media is creating completely new roles, or instead creating hybrids, remains to be seen. Ultimately, social media has the potential to make the workplace more of a democracy, as your customer service team sit next to your web team, PR team etc etc.. Just as the diagram shows how social media fits your marketing or web channels, you can also argue that is the potential to sit across different departments in an organisation. Many are terming this the ’social (or hyper-social) organisation.

Hopefully what this post shows you is that social media operates at many levels and is no longer just something to throw in to show that you’re doing it, or following your competitors. It’s recognising how social media can improve what you’re already doing, through new channels that fit the older practices. It also emphasises the fact that social media can’t be expected to work on it’s own, but that it should function in a multi-channel marketing campaign.

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Social Media Interview Of The Week – Jason Falls

NiallF — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:57:28 +0000

Jason Falls is one of the leading educators and thinkers in the social media, public relations and communications industries. He has the unique perspective of having lead a national advertising agency’s Interactive and social media efforts, worked with Fortune 100 brands as a social media strategist and served as an independent consultant in the social media industry. He has advised major, regional and niche brands including Humana, General Motors, The Envelope Manufacturers of America, Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark bourbons, Louisville Slugger, and The National Center for Family Literacy. His work has resulted in acclaim and recognition in publication and honors, including a 2009 SAMMY Award for Best Integrated Social/Cross Media Campaign.

One of the most in-demand speakers in the social media space, Falls has spoken internationally and nationally and is known for his engaging style, wit, humor and for adding value to each audience’s experience. Falls is the president and co-founder of the Social Media Club Louisville. He is an educator, consultant and professional speaker and can be found online here consistently rated at or near the top of the prestigious Advertising Age Power 150 Blogs, or http://exploringsocialmedia.com, an online learning community focused on teaching technology and social media tools, tactics and strategy.

You obviously love what you do but what one thing do you most dislike about the social media industry?

By far the biggest dislike I have is the defensiveness social media practitioners have about the “social media gurus.” When people complain that this consultant or that practitioner isn’t qualified to sell themselves as such they’re really showing their ignorance. A) No one has a ton of experience in social media. It hasn’t been around that long. B) We all faked it until we made it at some point. Why criticize those who are doing it now? and C) People who are bad at this will weed themselves out eventually. Funny, but the one group of people you never see bitching about the social media guru are the clients. They’re smart enough not to hire them.

Where do you see social media going, what brands are doing amazing things right now?

Social media is another channel of communications. It’s not some magic carpet ride to sales success or consumer group love. It has its role along side advertising, direct mail, email communications, CRM programs, point of sale and more in communicating to and with consumers. The more businesses understand that being “social” simply means opening up more effective lines of communications with their customers and being open and honest with them, the only place social media is going is an environment of being how we communicate. There’s no such thing as the director of telephone in most businesses. We just use it naturally. Social media will be that way one day. Yes, compelling social media marketing will empower customers and make some companies stand out, but it’s just a channel of communications.

Brands that are doing amazing things right now? Pepsi, Dell, Canadian Tire, Kodak, Southwest Airlines … sometimes “amazing” is just being consistently present and aware.

You have worked with some amazing brands, how do you measure influence?

Well, “influence” is different than “success.” I would measure influence by the number of people you can motivate to act. If you’re an influential brand, you have a large number of ambassadors, people, hand-raisers, etc., who will go buy, try and even recommend your product. Same as if you’re an influential blogger. The more people you can move, the more influential you are.

Success (in case that was more along the lines of your question) is measured in a number of ways, all dependent upon your goals. If your goal is tied to branding and awareness, you measure your success in how many people are aware of your brand or its benefits before, then after a campaign or effort occurs. If your goal is focused on R&D, it’s measured in how many new product features or ideas you received, implemented and the subsequent sales from them. If your goal is to sell more stuff, your success is measured in how much stuff you sold using those channels as the conduit for the purchase. In other words, the “ROI” of social media is only relevant if your goal is to make money. ROI is a business metric, not a media metric.

With so many start-ups out there, some will succeed but most will fail, which one excites you most and why?

I like start-ups that create new opportunities. One I’ve recently become aware of (and to date is not a client, though we’ve had some conversations) is Tangelo Images. They are a photo tagging platform that allows you to tag photos with anchor points that include lots of information — text, more images, videos and even purchase mechanisms. By making photos more rich and dynamic, brands can better leverage photography on their websites, users can better leverage photos for educational purposes and more. Will it be a game-changer? If the level of adoption is high enough. But it’s at least unique enough to create almost a new category of technology.

Backupify is an excellent product which I use myself, what does the future hold for Backupify?

Backupify, which is a client of mine, is online insurance for your data. Because almost all of our data, including contacts, schedules, documents, videos, images and more are gravitating to “cloud” or online hosting, we will all need to ensure that data is protected and backed up. Backupify’s future is about giving users the peace of mind that if a service goes down, someone has their back. And I would anticipate Backupify’s future to be ever-expanding. From adding new social media services (like Foursquare) to enterprise-level backup solutions (Sharepoint, etc.), I could see Backupify becoming the go-to solution to insure your data is safe in the event of a system failure somewhere else.

We are seeing so many mergers and acuisquitions lately, is there one that you think would make perfect sense? (I think Google will purchase Yelp! eventually)

Facebook adding a location-based service (Gowalla or Foursquare) makes a lot of sense. I’d throw Whrrl into that possibility as well because it offers more story-telling functionality with its check-in capabilities. That sense of creating event-related “scrapbooks” is compelling and would fit into Facebook’s existing photo/video album functionality.

I could see Google purchasing Yelp! or even Twitter. I even predicted Google would purchase Twitter sometime this year (2010). Time is slowly running out there, but the fact Twitter has real-time search nailed and Google doesn’t makes me think it might still happen.

Overall, I think you’ll see a lot of consolidation in the coming years as start-ups get integrated into larger services. In the end, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo will still be the major players. Which one will emerge as the best in 2-3 years is only dependent upon how compelling the offerings can be made with the right acquisitions.

I can’t find enough hours in the day, how do you find the time and more importantly manage it?

The biggest thing is understanding you don’t have to be everywhere all the time and setting your priorities. I only post 2-3 blog posts per week, yet people think I’m Brogan-like prolific. I just focus on quality posts, not quantity. This cuts down on time I need to spend blogging. I also schedule most of my share-centric Tweets in the morning as I go through my feed reader. In 30-45 minutes, I’ve set 6, 8 or even 10 Tweets to fire throughout the day so I’m sharing consistently without having to be locked into Twitter all day. If I have a few minutes to chat there, I do. If I don’t, I don’t. And I don’t worry about what I miss. If it’s important enough, someone will bring my attention to it.

And managing it all just comes with the tools and technology you get comfortable with. I pump LinkedIn Answer topics into my feed reader. I filter out important users in Facebook and Twitter using lists. When I go check the important stuff, that’s all I see. The noise is somewhere else because I’ve filtered out the signal.

Thanks for taking the time to talk, hope to see you in Ireland sometime soon – have you ever been?

I’ve not been to Ireland yet, but would love to come. My family is originally Scotish and Irish and finding those areas of my lineage would be awesome. Maybe some day.

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How To Deal With Negative Comments And Bad Online PR

Niall Harbison — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:32:53 +0000

If you publish a blog, make videos, engage on Twitter, take part in forums or engage in anyway online there is a very good chance you are going to come across some negative comments directed at you personally or towards your brand or business. It might even be more than a couple of comments as consumers online become more vocal and are empowered by tools that let them shout louder than ever when they feel slighted. It’s part and parcel of the web but for people affected by it for the first time it can be quite disconcerting and terrifying. If you find yourself in the middle of a web storm it can seem all encompassing and as if it is never going to end. Having been slap bang in the middle of plenty of negative online storms both personally and for clients here are some of my tips for navigating your way through the negative storm…

Pause Before You Engage

The natural reaction when somebody says something bad about you is to jump in and call them a name back. Nobody likes getting criticized and the natural reaction is to fight back. Fighting back with the same sort of negativity is only stooping to the low level of the commentator though and chances are you will regret it once you have cooled down and wish you had not reacted. If I see something that has really annoyed me or somebody has slammed a business I am involved with I’ll just go and make a coffee or have a walk and think about things before replying. If they have a valid point I’ll engage but if they are just out to cause negative damage for no valid reason I’ll just step back and leave it. It’s easier said than done at times but I find that the best bet is always restraint.

Don’t Threaten legal Action

I’ve had to talk lots of people out of wanting to take legal action over something that was said online. Mostly friends who own hotels and restaurants and who feel slighted by poor reviews but luckily I have usually been able to talk them out of it. There are laws that protect you to a certain extent but to be honest it really isn’t worth your while getting involved in that side of things and in many cases it will probably make things worse. People are going to mouth off about you or your brand or business online these days in the same way we used to in the pub and that is very hard to govern so for the most part you are just going to have to grin and bear it.

Talk About The Issue Not The Person

Although you may know some of the people leaving the comment and they might even be attacking you personally you should never go after the person and instead focus on the issue. Getting personal is only going to make matters worse and you’ll be far more respected if you address the parts of the argument that merit a response. Attacking somebody personally will only drag things down and result in worse personal attacks in return.

People Wouldn’t Say It To Your Face

Some people say the most horrible and cruel things online but meet them in real life and they have suddenly there is not a peep out of them and they are as nice as pie. The web gives people anonymity and typing insults on a keyboard never seems as harmful as doing it in real life. You have to understand that the web lets people say things in a very nonchalant way that they never would in real life and that they probably don’t mean exactly what they are saying. So if somebody calls you a fat bastard don’t worry the chances are that you are probably nothing of the sort.

Maybe They Have A Point?

There are times when you come in for criticism online that is fully deserved. You might have released a faulty product, provided poor service to a client or made a false accusation that you thought was right at the time or simple had your facts wrong. There is nothing wrong with being wrong, it happens to the best of us all the time. The key is admitting when you are wrong and not digging the hole any deeper. I’ve been called out plenty of times for getting my facts wrong here on the blog and instead of trying to back track or I’ll just admit it and change the bog post in red to show that I was wrong. People will respect you so much more if you admit you are wrong and just put your hands up and say you got it wrong and offer to fix it.

Accept That 10% Of People Won’t Like You

Most people like to feel liked. Some people cant live without that feeling but when you spend time online you have to realize that 10% of people are not going to like you. It could be for a number of reasons including your popularity, your poor products, they are in competition etc but the important thing to remember is that not everybody is going to like you no matter what you do. No matter how many problems you fix for some people or however nice you are to them they might still not like you and the best way to react here is to leave the 10% to their own devices and keep engaging and keeping the other 90% who do like you even happier.

It’ll Be Over Before It Has Begun

When you are the middle of a storm of negativity online it can seem like there is nowhere to hide. People might be attacking you on blogs, sharing links in seconds through Twitter and Facebook and talking to others via IM and email about you, your brand or business. Bad news spreads at the speed of light and it can feel all encompassing. The good news is that even the biggest storm gets old very quickly and it’s very unusual for any negativity to last for more than a day online. Just sit tight and follow some of the actions above and it’ll be over before you know it. What you should remember though is that thanks to Google the negative stuff will stick around forever so although it is all over quickly the bad effects could stick around for years.

If You Have Strong Opinions Then Grow Thick Skin Fast

It’s the oldest saying in the book but if you are willing to dish it then you should be willing to take it. If you are online writing negative stuff about other people or leaving poor reviews then you have to expect some of the same stuff in return. In the same way if you are brave enough to put up blog posts, photos and video content then you need to be aware that people will come along and slag it no matter how good you might think it is. The Internet is a fast moving place where people have strong opinions that they are really not scared to share and shout about so if you are going to be hanging about here then you better get some thick skin pretty fast.

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How do teens use social media?

Lauren Fisher — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:50:40 +0000

The consumers of tomorrow, generation Z, are an elusive market for many brands. We all know we want to reach them, but in many ways they are the most unpredictable consumers who are hard to please. They’re ultimately different because while social media is still a novelty to the older generation,the younger demographic have grown up with the internet and social technologies – you have to work a bit harder to please them. They are inherently web-savvy and have a complex set of needs but the good news is that they are receptive to brands that operate through social media, so long as you’re entertaining them.

What’s interesting is the keen awareness that Generation Z have for their own personal branding – something that many of us still struggle to understand or control. While we assume that this audience are comfortable with sharing their entire lives online, they’re developing a sense of intelligence around this that shows how keenly aware they are of the consequences of this. A study referenced by Pew finds that that 18-29 year olds regularly control their online reputations by deleting certain posts or removing tags in photos. This is an incredibly interesting development in human and social behaviour – that this future generation have such a keen understanding of personal branding, even though they may not be calling it that. While many of us still get our heads around advancements in online technology, the Net Generation are continually adapting it and optimising it for their own needs. The challenge for marketers is to find out how they can beat this web-savvy audience and give them something that they need, before they’ve found their own solution.

Abandoning Facebook

To understand how to reach the younger consumers online, you not only need to understand what they’re doing and how you can add to their experience, you need to know where they’re going. Where once Bebo was the social network of choice amongs teens, this eventually switched to Facebook. Now something interesting is happening, that perhaps point to a wider change in social media habits. Teens are leaving Facebook and losing interest in it. A recent survey from Roiworld found that one fifth of teens that have profiles on Facebook no longer use them, with 45% of those citing ‘loss of interest’ as the main reason for leaving. This should be put into context – Facebook is still the most popular social network among teens, closely followed by Youtube, but this trend certainly can’t be ignored. This entertainment-hungry crowd are clearly starting to get dissatisfied with Facebook and are looking to newer sites to spend their time online. Companies need to be ready for this to ensure they are adaptable and can maintain cross-channel campaigns to keep this audience entertained.

What is also interesting is that teens often use social networks in a completely different way. While Twitter for example is seen as a much less popular site among youth, this doesn’t really tell the full story. 11-13% of Twitter users are teens, but they don’t really maintain active accounts. Instead they use it more as a source of information and news, rather than actively tweeting and using it from a social perspective. This is an important consideration for brands who may not think that there’s a younger demographic on there to communicate with. There is but you need to think about how they’re using it, again as they create their own rules. This represents a wider trend amongst teens’ use of social media. They tend to be more direct in their use of social networks, using them less for gossip and chat and more as a way to get what they need out them, such as sourcing information or organising events. Again I think this is an outcome of teens having grown up with social media and using them more effectively than adults.

Purchasing power

Ultimately what brands really want to know, is whether or not their target audience really have an intent to purchase online. They do, but not where you might think. Where teens flash the cash is through social gaming. The same survey by roiworld finds that an incredible 43% of teens with a social networking profile have spent money on social gaming, in areas such as buying accessories for avatars, music, or currency to buy virtual objects. And of these that are buying items in social gaming, nearly half say they have an allowance for this. Good news for companies.

Even though the teen audience in Facebook is starting to wane, Facebook’s new virtual currency system – Facebook credits – may have quite an impact here. More and more developers are choosing this method of monetisation, which will make purchasing in social games a much more streamlined experience.

What really separates and defines teens’ use of social media is the fact that this is a generation of ‘doers’. Many claim that the internet is making teenagers dumber, but I would rather look at this as a regular moral panic that is just getting recycled. First it was the TV, then it was video games and Child’s Play and now it’s youtube. I come from a less cynical school of thought, that the internet is improving the way younger people think, making them more active in their pursuit of knowledge, more amenable to multi-tasking. They also tend to use the internet to make them more effective and proficient at everyday things, getting to the information faster than most. Computers will always be there, so it makes sense that kids know how to use them. This is in line with the writers Howe and Strauss, who wrote ‘Millenials Rising – The Next Great Generation’ (2000). They saw the Millenials (those born between 1982 and 2000) as a ‘can-do’ generation, armed with the tools and technology to plan, and build communities. This is not a passive generation and they were are certainly from stupid. And this is exactly what we can expect the next wave of youth to be like. What we are looking at is a connected generation and it’s an exciting vision of the future.

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Niall Harbison — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:09:24 +0000

I get frustrated by things like the social media monitor tracking the amount of likes brands have. Why? Because it forces people in to thinking about the numbers and ultimately just throwing money at a problem to beat their rivals. It’s all about a race to the top. Who can spend the most money to acquire likes or followers so as they can reach the top of charts without thinking what the purpose of their campaign is. Every single time I enter a pitch with a potential client they want to know how much you can increase their likes or Twitter followers so as they can keep up with X other business. It’s understandable because everybody has to report to somebody at the end of the day and they need something to impress their bosses with and to a certain extent one of the main things we have to do as an agency is to educate people that it’s not just about the numbers. It’s a tough challenge believe me. Now there is no issue with adding in metrics to social media and it is one of the things we are working pretty hard on in the background since we announced our partnership with a market research agency but brands and businesses need to forget about pumping money in to campaigns just to get the most likes. Rather than explain why it’s a bad idea because it would take me a couple of thousand words here is a short video from Seth Godin that explains why the race for numbers is just so wrong…

The worrying thing is that the message just doesn’t get through to people and there is so much money being thrown around at the moment in search of numbers through social media channels. Whats important to remember in terms of likes on Facebook is that no matter how many you have Facebook allows users to filter out updates from your stream from that page and even worse your news feed is based on an algorithm that feeds you the content you interact with the most so even if brand X buys your loyalty in the short term it could be a false “like” unless it’s content you genuinely want to see. You only have to look at some of the click through rates on Twitter or the amount that Twitter followers “sell” for on Ebay to see that those numbers mean nothing at all either. How many of your followers do you actually interact with? How many would do something for you? I would guess it could be as low as 10-20%. It’s a false race everybody! Concentrate on bulking that 10-20% out a little more by striking up conversation and doing stuff for other people, thats what works! Most readers of this blog will already know what I am talking about here but the vast majority of people out there think in pure numbers and the more of them that can see the video above the better!

*Am pretty sure I shared this video in the past on another blog but it is well worth sharing.

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How 10 Of The World’s Top Sports Brands Are Engaging On Facebook

Tom — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:46:14 +0000

We have the news this week that Facebook has surpassed 500million users. Is there no end limits to where this online phenomenon can go? Brands and businesses of all walks of life embrace Facebook and sporting brands are no exception. Some of the largest brands on Facebook are sporting related and it is undoubtedly a superb way to communicate with fans and build a community online. Lets be honest, top sporting brands are an easy sell as there is a devoted fan base already assembled. It will be interesting to see what some of these brands do with FAcebook in the long run and if they aim to monetize these huge fan bases. Here’s a look at some of the largest sporting brands on Facebook…

The NBA

The NBA’s Facebook page currently has 3,441,966 fans and is growing at an exponential rate (+ 30,437 since 20/7/10 at time of writing). The interaction and engagement on the site is phenomenal with each post regularly getting over 1,500 ‘likes’ along with hundreds of comment. There has also been 27,774,795 video plays on the page. The NBA are perhaps the most successful sporting brand in social media with an overall 38 million followers on Facebook and Twitter across the various official NBA pages. They are currently the sporting kings of social media.

Adidas Originals

This page is an innovative approach to integration on Facebook. The main difference being you can see Facebook comments and reviews from fellow adidas Originals fans about a particular product. Thus, while you are looking at the new sneakers, not only can you look at pictures of the shoes, zoom in on the product but you can also read reviews from Adidas Originals Facebook fans or users who have an opinion on that product. The page has 3,486,492 ‘likes’ at time of post. The Adidas originals page reflects the whole mantra of their campaign: originality.

Puma

Another revitalized brand of recent times, Puma, have combined digital channels to great effect in growing their brand online. Closing in on 2 million ‘likes’, they have had a 30% increase in fans since December. They also release videos on their YouTube tab such as the trailer for ‘Chasing Bolt’, the latest Puma Usain Bolt advert.

Manchester United

This official page was set up on the 12th of July and already boasts over a million fans. Very few sporting brands command the type of global devotion that Manchester United do and their arrival on Facebook was always going to herald massive attention. This number will continue to grow and grow. The type of content on their site so far is not ground breaking mainly interviews and low scale competitions. However watch this space as this will soon change.

The NFL

It is actually quite surprising that the NFL doesn’t have more fans and interaction on Facebook given the size of the brand. Over 500,000 fans are not to be shunned at but it is not a massive amount in relative terms. It is surprising for instance that the NHL has more fans than it’s more popular counterpart. Expect this number to rise though as the new season approaches in September and the advent of apps such as the season showdown come into full swing.

New York Yankees

The Yankees have been one of the coolest sporting brands for a long time and their Facebook page is a reflection of this to an extent. Not packed full of innovation, this page delivers regular, relevant content on the Yankees with links to the biggest news and stories. The page has immersed 1,729,026 fans and has high levels of interaction.

NHL

As alluded to earlier in the post, the NHL would not be as dominant a brand worldwide as the NFL. However, their Facebook page has more fans (over 630,000) and has higher levels of engagement. They have incorporated virtual hockey gifts into the site as well as latest videos, providing rich content.

Real Madrid

One of the biggest sporting brands on the planet, Madrid’s Facebook page has more than two and a half million fans. The fact that their wall hasn’t been updated since the 11th of July shows the power of this brand. In English and Spanish, the page has some clever options to build your own team but not a huge amount of innovation or integration is present at the moment.

Nike Football

The Nike brand speaks for itself but their online activity exploded around the World Cup. Their Write the Future campaign accounted for 34% of pre World Cup buzz online. This is an incredible statistic considering they weren’t even an official sponsor. Their Facebook page obviously ties in with the Write the Future campaign, offering chances to young footballers to get discovered.

FC Barcelona

The largest football brand on Facebook is Barcelona football club. The page has over 3 million fans and their success on the pitch is reflected online. There is a fairly common theme emerging here. Many of the top footballing brands don’t need to be hugely innovative on their Facebook page to gain fans and interaction as the fan base is already there and more than willing to show their colours online.

Is Facebook Sports Interaction The Future?

Ultimately, it is much easier for big sporting brands to build communities on Facebook and they already have a massive fan base all over the world. Their is a natural desire to interact with your team on Facebook as sport is a passionate topic, as we have discussed before. Gaining these massive online communities presents all sorts of opportunities to these brands and practically every brand on this list is selling some product through their Facebook page whether it be tickets or merchandise. It will be interesting to watch how this sector progresses and grows over the next year.

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The Zesty Show Epiosde 6 – Flipboard, The Times & Ford

Lauren Fisher — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:03:58 +0000

Welcome to episode 6 of the Zesty Show! An exciting week for us in our show, when we got a mention from the wonderful Tim Lovejoy on Twitter. Unfortunately we couldn’t incorporate his suggestions this week, but we’ll be working on it! This week we’re talking about Flipboard, which has got Fagan in a bit of a tizzy. We’re also looking at Ford’s decision to launch their latest car online, through Facebook. What do you think? Don’t forget to tell us what you think of the topics discussed in the comments below. And apologies as we said we’d be on itunes but unfortunately we’re not yet! Enjoy the show and have a lovely weekend

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Bringing Social Media In To The Bathroom – A Step Too Far?

Niall Harbison — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:26:19 +0000

I spend my life immersed in social media. Its my job. Its my social life and its all I talk about so today when I had a couple of minutes spare time to use the bathroom in a popular small local hotel the last thing I thought I would come across was social media. How wrong I was! Right there above the urinals (and in the cubicles for your more relaxed lavatory requirements) were ads for the hotel’s Facebook page, Twitter account and blog URL. A little piece of me groaned when I saw those posters. Was this really the level we are at now where getting likes, followers and blog readers has been deemed so important that it needs to interrupt our bowel movements? I’ve talked in the past about just how ineffective this sort of advertising is in terms of driving numbers and it just makes me cringe the more I see it. The sad thing here is that somewhere within that organization there has been a meeting about increasing the profile of their Twitter account and Facebook likes and a group of people have decided that advertising in the bathroom was the right move. There is an argument to be made I suppose that you might be on your phone and only one click away from the profiles but what sort of connection is that going to make? What are you going to think in the future? Oh that’s the place with the great toilets? I really must go back in there for a quick slash! There is no doubt that social media is changing how we communicate, how we do business and disrupting whole industries but we need to keep a little perspective at times and not get carried away. What do you think? Is this smart marketing and something they should be applauded for? Or are you like me and think this is just a step to far in the race for more followers and likes?

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Exciting Youtube project – Life in a Day

Lauren Fisher — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:42:18 +0000

You may have noticed a little logo next to youtube lately, that’s to advertise their ‘Life in a Day’ project. It’s an historical world-wide effort to crowdsource a documentary of one day in time. In the words of the creators : “One world. 24 Hours. 6 billion perspectives”. It takes place on 24th July and is being championed and run by Kevin Macdonald and Ridley Scott, both Oscar winning directors. This has all the beauty of a project like 365 days, calling on people to share a moment in their life, and ultimately appealing to event the smallest of egos! Not inspired yet? Watch the video below and hopefully you will be!

What’s even more exciting is that this will be premiering at Cannes Film Festival in 2011. Not a bad incentive for those taking part.

How can you take part?

To get involved you simply need to shoot your moment on 24th July and upload it to the official channel here. A submit button will appear to upload your videos between 24 and 31 July and let’s hope there’s no cheating! If you want to double your chances of a bit of exposure, you can also film a video entry to the following questions set by Kevin Macdonald : What do you love? What do you fear? What makes you laugh? What’s in your pocket (is there a story behind any of the objects)?

There are a few guidelines that you have to follow, such as not including trademarks in your clip, or material such as music, TV or film footage that you didn’t create yourself. There’s no time limit to the clips however, and most importantly they want people to use their imagination and not try and conform to a set theme. As a nice touch the creators are also naming the people whose footage ends up in the film as co-creators and will be bringing 20 of these to Sundance to celebrate.

We’ve seen a lot being done in the way of crowdsourcing recently, but this is something a little bit different and really just stood out to me. i really couldn’t like this project anymore. It’s so wonderfully simple yet has such an amazing concept at the heart of it – when you really stop and think about it. Bringing people together from all over the world to see what happened in there day. It will be the most immense time capsule of our time and I for one will be taking part! There’s 2 days left to go until the project launches so you’ve plenty of time to get your thinking caps on and be part of a brilliant project. Only question is, who’s sorting through the entries?

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