This is just a few simple and hopefully helpful tips to plan for a promoted trend and aim to make the most of the placement and spend.

That same year, 32 million people livestreamed the League of Legends World Championships Season 3 on Twitch.tv

Predominantly a games streaming service (though with popular videos quite frequently fronted, excuse the pun, by girls in tops 2 sizes too small), Twitch has a huge following in the youth market. It has become the go-to platform to share gaming content online, making clips and gameplay easily sharable to friends and, increasingly, to give professional players a platform to share with their millions of fans.

And with PS4 integration from launch via the Share button, the service is seeing an increase in console players livestreaming their games. On Xbox One it’s a slightly more convoluted process – you have to search for and download the app – but once you’re set up the barriers to sharing your gaming prowess similarly fall away.

So why is Google interested? It’s no coincidence that Twitch has made money with unskippable pre-rolls at the launch of a stream and at user-defined times after that, following the hugely successful YouTube model that accounts for up to $5bn of Google’s total $55bn revenue. Add to that the estimated 12-13 million consoles sold to date across both platforms.

This is a huge audience that, while gaming, isn’t watching YouTube or accessing other Google properties where they can have ads injected into their consciousness. Until now this was a closed loop of attention for Google, and with the demographic crossover between console gaming and YouTube, it’s not a huge leap to suggest that this purchase is based on opportunity cost. (I realise YouTube is ubiquitous, but Sysomos have previously reported that the 20-35 year old demographic are the most active sharers on the platform by more than double the next group)

With a foot in the door of the console ad market, Google can carry on doing what it dos best on every other platform in every other part of our lives, and any potential lost ad revenue from wandering (gaming) eyeballs can be gently and unobtrusively harvested yet again. The balance is restored.

And for a mere $1 billion.

Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/59937401@N07/5857416122/in/photolist-5BkTaj

There are some brands that are always going to struggle to produce content that people care about. Those that have no brand to speak of or those sit in low interest categories. And those brands need to question what the value of social is. Hint: it’s okay to use it as a broadcast channel if you’re not an engaging brand.

But for those lucky (or clever) brands that have a brand, a tone of voice, a point of view that people care about (or at least have a passing interest), social media offers them a powerful tool to build that brand. I’m not talking about free organic reach, we all know that’s a bust. And I’m not talking about driving ‘engagement’ amongst your fans as an objective – anyone with even a passing knowledge of how marketing works should know that it’s a poor investment. But social networks, sharing buttons, feeds, hell even email all provide a different route to customers that traditional advertising. We all know messages are more powerful if shared by friends. Social content is different from advertising because it has to give people a reason to share, to talk about it online, or if we’re desperate, to like it.

But creating cool stuff people want to share isn’t enough for brands. We are stil advertisers, not publishers. Otherwise we would just post pictures of cats. And whilst that may sound amazing, unless you’re selling pet food it doesn’t really count as marketing.

That’s not to say that every post has to have a sales message, or link through to an ecommerce site, but it does mean that your brand needs to have a reason to be posting that content. In recent years the trend towards news jacking, reactive or real time marketing has resulted in brands clambering to be the first to get a post out, regardless of whether it was a good brand fit. Royal baby? Quick, put a crown on our detergent product. Tube strike? Quick, have put funny quote in a TFL logo. Snow storm in the states? Photoshop a coat on our soft drink.

Obviously it’s not black and white, this kind of thing is not always wrong, many brands are able to demonstrate their tone of voice in how they comment, or demonstrate their brand values based on what they choose to react to. But for every good example there are hundreds of examples of pointless social posts that just try to capitalise on a trending topic, regardless of whether or not it has anything to do with the brand. And the same goes for memes, jokes and funny pictures.

Someone, somewhere decided that social was to be measured on the number of likes a post got. It was only a short period of time before some savvy community manager realised that if, instead of posting branded content, they posted images they lifted from reddit or buzzfeed then the number of likes would go up. Because people like funny stuff – they more often than not don’t like branded content. Very few people ‘like’ adverts.

Sadly it seems that most brand managers bought into this approach, which has resulted in agencies being measured on likes and comments etc, and the easiest way for them to do that is to do less and less content about the brand and more and more ‘like bait’.

The net result is that marketing was relegated to the side lines in favour of meaningless ‘engagement’. Terms like brand equity and salience were all but forgotten.

But it needn’t be this way.

The formula for good, effective social content isn’t hard. It’s finding the balance between something they care about, something that makes them smile, laugh, cry or find useful and something that promotes a product or brand. It’s the magic in the middle.

It’s this simple understanding, the balance between value to the user and value to the brand that makes the difference between advertising on the left and memes and kitten pictures on the right.

Sometimes you’ll skew to the right, sometimes you’ll skew to the left but if you want to be making good social content, you should always be striving for the middle ground. It’s really not hard. And we really shouldn’t still have to be saying it in 2014.

“{insert new platform name} is the next Facebook”

“Teens flock from X to Y”

The above are becoming all too familiar headlines as brands and marketers display Locust like behaviour, swarming in on a platform or buzzword technology, eating up any case study they can get before moving on to the next.

We’re an industry obsessed with the next rather than the now.

Before you move on hungry for the next meal, have a think about if you’re even getting the now right…

Facebook

I’m sure you’ve read an “it’s dead” article or two by now. Before you go and put flowers on the grave – have you heard that they’ve started to change their offering? no longer expecting you to communicate and nurture a fan base but instead go back to investing in good old broadcast and reach.

Yes, it’s annoying they want you to do something different and forget lots of the stuff you’ve been busy getting your head around, but at the same time, it’s a chance to do less better. The craft and creativity of proper advertising. Whatever you want to call it – advertising or content it’s a blank square waiting to be brought to life with something more than a question and a stock image. Interestingly, it feels like the platform is perhaps now more aligned to the mentalities of classic above the line creatives, beautiful and simple crafted short form image and copy.

Have a look at this blog post on “100 brilliant examples of print advertising” everyone of these would make an amazing Facebook post (some slightly strange) and hopefully that challenge should inspire a creative, especially if it’s going out in front of millions almost instantly, what print title can get you that these days?

Twitter: 

I’ve always liked how twitter has kept it simple – links, images and words that you have to get into 140 characters. The restriction often becomes a challenge, you have to get creative being succinct and to the point. It’s also somewhere which is even easier to question “are you doing it right?”. If you’re a brand you have more than 140 characters at your disposal.

Paid promotion and targeting: whether it’s promoted tweets or promoted accounts have you tried them out and tested what works? Not just creatively but also with the sophisticated targeting. Do you know your followers and who they follow, if so it’s easy to find more people like them and get in front of them.

Promoted trends: they’re not cheap and it’s always surprising how little some brands make of them. Just using it as a broadcast way to get people to see a single message or expecting that because the hashtag is there sit will instantly get used. You’re being put up on the top of twitter pedestal, have something to say and do everything you can to keep any attention you might draw.

Twitter Cards:  this really takes you outside of the 140 characters. Push email sign up and data capture through lead gen cards, provide previews content and what’s behind the link, app install cards for one click downloads. It’s surprising how little these seem to be used or how little I see them in action at least.

Finally, image dimensions. You don’t need users to click to see your content. Adapt to the context of the platform in which the content is served, like the BBC below:

Further reading:

Twitter tips for beginers: Everything I wish I knew about twitter when I started 

Twitter at eight, a great summary of the past eight years of twitter

Twitter Media best Practice guide

YouTube

You put your videos on here right, so that you can embed them in websites and post to Facebook and twitter? Yes, that’s one use for it but YouTube is a social network in itself. One that people keep turning up to in their masses not just to see what content has been posted recently but to actually spend time to search and find things.

How healthy is your YouTube channel?

Push for subscriptions. This is a valuable and still one of the only owned channels you have full control over, you won’t have to pay to reach those subscribers. You’ll give every piece of video content a good head start the more subscribers you have.

Reply to comments. YouTube used to be a little more negative than it is today, it’s worth engaging and speaking to those users as much as you do on Facebook and Twitter, it’s surprising how many brand channels neglect the comments that gather below the video they’re paying to reach millions of people.

If you’re planning to continue being a Social Locust, then YouTube might be the place for you:

This Coke version is a little questionable. Not even sure it’s official.

However, Unicef have have put this great and very simple mobile build out – The Unicef Tap Project. Just put your phone down and don’t touch it for 10 minutes. Every 10 minutes means the sponsor donates a day of clean water. During that ten minutes there’s messages from the charity, nothing too needy – just some good strong facts and comparing you to others who have taken the challenge.

A benchmark for any ‘look up’ messaging has been set, executed relevantly and well.

“You find a previously unnoticed urban neighbourhood, ideally one that’s a bit down on its luck. Pioneer hipsters move in and coolhunters ensure it starts trending on Twitter. A year later, the mainstream media notices and, for the next 12 months, the neighbourhood is byword for urban cool. Soon property prices soar pushing the original residents out, the bankers (always a trailing indicator) begin to move in and a Foxtons opens. Finally, the New York Times runs a piece in which it “discovers” the area and the cycle is complete. The last hipsters move on and find a new neighbourhood to play with.”

Now if we swap ‘urban neighbourhood’ for {social platform} or {tech trend} I think this description could still remain true.

Marketers, brands and agencies have become obsessed with the next big thing – I believe most refer to it as ‘Innovation’ currently – although even the terminology or words suffer the locust-like effect of Shoreditchification.

One minute, platforms, apps or technology are under the radar, picked up by the early adopters and played with out of genuine interest. It’s then brought to the attention of the masses by a Mashable article and suddenly everyone wants a piece, there’s a land grab to be first but in the process the real value or end user is forgotten and there’s a potentially great platform filled with attention-seeking CTAs. Much like in the real world that Alex describes in his article, those early adopters that unearthed the original potential have now moved on. Slowly, everyone else starts to do the same as Mashable flags another ‘next big thing’. And so the cycle continues.

The rate at which this happens is getting faster and faster. The time a brand spends or invests in a platform seems to get shorter and shorter. Everyone focuses on growth over a sustainable existence.

Alex mentions how a Foxtons will pop up and the bankers start to roll into town. Again, a metaphor for the point that a platform brings in a bigger sales team and starts to pay more attention to how much money or new ad formats they can rollout instead of enhancing the user experience or offering. Perhaps this is the IPO or over-inflated evaluation stage which it seems now happens on a monthly basis.

Alex’s take on Shoreditchification could be a positive in terms of urban renewal and allowing cities to spread outside of their congested city centres. Maybe things have become a little same-y with the pop-up restaurants and stripped brick walls, compared to a few years ago. The Shoreditchification that engulfs the Internet does not build towards something to be left behind to carry on, it seems more like we move on leaving something behind to die.

How to cut down the Shoreditchification of the internet?

1) Stop looking for the next thing, look at where you are now – are you doing it right?

2) Where’s your audience? Move with them, not with the trends that the media report.

3) If you do turn up and everyone is making burgers, don’t be scared to make Pizza.

Alex W has posted before on ESS about putting the customer first and how we need avoid getting caught up in platform hype with: Snapchat – apples, oranges and marketers

The list of questions I’ve answered so far is diverse, as people experiment with the platform and what role it’s going to fill for them, and I’ve got to be honest; I found it quite addictive. It also allows you to forward particularly interesting questions to others outside of the app, though with your network already including second-degree contacts, how useful this will be remains to be seen…

But is there a way Jelly can be used by brands? FreshMinds was quick off the mark, suggesting that there are clear benefits from a market research perspective from the potentially quick turnaround of feedback, but I think there are a few other potentially huge opportunities with Jelly.

Because of the second-degree contacts angle, there is an obvious benefit to broadcasting, for instance, new product info, to people who share some of the same interests with those who already follow your brand. Three or four years ago, the next big thing was supposedly ‘social search’, but Jelly might be the first app that actually considers this, in streamlining your audience for you, to those who are incrementally likely to want to see it.

Following on from this, it makes sense to use Jelly as an outreach tool – if you want to target people who share interests with your fans, what better way than by getting your content in front of their first- and second-degree contacts? This could prove valuable for, for instance, short-term deals for interested groups (“Want first play of the new slimline PS4? Find it here” + ringed picture of map).

Once the ability to personalise the ‘Thank-You’ card arrives (as it surely must), there will be opportunities for offer codes and personalised promotions for those who answer a brand’s question correctly.

Jelly’s second-degree contacts base could open up a different question, however, in accessing others’ networks, which I can see some users taking issue with. If it’s now possible to talk to anyone (with the app) who follows one of my followers, and I’m followed by an influential blogger with a painstakingly-built, highly-protected network, what’s to stop me from bypassing the blogger and talking to their network directly? If Rosie of The Londoner blog follows me, and I start posting great pictures of burgers to Jelly, these will be seen by her followers on the platform as well… Ok, so I won’t have the same influence as she does, but if the content is on-theme and of interest to this group, I can see there’s potential for a souring of relations there. Whether or not this actually happens is yet to be seen, but just one thing to bear in mind, if you work with influential, protective blogger networks.

What do you reckon? What did I miss, in my 40-minute exploration of the app and some speculative uses?

Key takeaways:

-          Jelly is an image + text question and answer app for your phone

-          Uses extended reach of your existing social networks

-          Opportunity to reach a more targeted, friends-of-friends audience

-          Opportunities for limited-edition content

-          Potential for personalised promotions in the future

-          Must consider whether you’re bypassing bloggers to get to their networks

UPDATE 15/01/14: The official Jelly blog has today provided a few helpful examples of how people are using the platform to help each other, as was the developers’ intention. Elsewhere on the web (and on Jelly itself) people seem to be using the app mostly for asking nonsense questions and making bad puns, while Lee Stacey has been commenting and asking exclusively about feta cheese. This, for the moment, is the status quo, while users try to nail down the core uses for Jelly. We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, here are a few examples from Nando’s, whose approach is pretty indicative of the type of content I’ve seen from brands in the first few days of the platform’s launch…

    

Not everyone has the luxury of a multi-billion dollar franchise with some access to some of the most popular iconic characters of all time, but we can learn a few things from them.

Lost Content is based on the idea that we often focus on the main campaign, content piece or single output – perhaps a TV ad or a photo shoot for a magazine. More often than not there is lots of valuable images, videos and opportunities that get overlooked or collected and then forgotten about. Magazine shoots or PR shoots might pick the single best image for a spread but there was probably many others shot on the day.

How well are you using Lost Content and is there anyone else doing it right? Let us know in the comments.

We can be honest though, we’ve been lazy as the job has already been done for us by each of the social spaces themselves, and they all do it so nicely we’ll let you just enjoy them at your own leisure. Just so that this isn’t viewed as too much if a cop out we have at least gone through them an placed them in order of our favourites.

Starting with – not a social media network – Spotify. They baked in a bit lovely shareable  insight by highlightin that in fact 20% of their total library hasn’t been listened to even once. Their mission in their round up not just to celebrate success but drive an interesting piece of discovery.

Next up tumblr, which yes you guessed delivered their best of 2013 in a tumblr. Lots of good, weird and fun stuff to rummage through. This a good resource to get that snap shot of what tumblr actually is and the kind of content that does well. It gives people who might not use it the context of the platform to help shape content. More on that in our Why We’re All Fingers And Feeds Post

YouTube. This isn’t the usual statfest they could trow at us about growth, they’ve lead with a big budget production featuring some famous faces – most of which you might not know. They are the you YouTube Superstars. There’s no doubt all of these and more of the UK talent are going to keep growing and crossover more into the classic mainstream media too.

Facebook and twitter have been doing a solid yearly round up for a few years now as they’ve had a lot to shout about in terms of growth. This year both have looked more to their stand out defining moments.

Facebook showcasing most talked about topics, most checked in locations and then also letting you connect your account and produce your own 2013 highlights page based on your posts from the year.

Twitter, again being clever in the way they showcase their highlights. Sorting by topics but then specific events and embedding their newly rolled out custom timelines to show the specific tweets related to the event.

Have we missed any? Let us know. We’re looking forward to seeing what all the platforms and perhaps some new ones have to offer in 2014.

Since we failed to find six bits of good social, we’re having to rename this segment to something less specific than ‘six bits of social’ which just goes to show how well we’re all doing at getting good work out there…

If you spot any next week, don’t forget to tell us on Twitter.

Beyonce’s new album

What it is: Beyonce decided to forgo the normal media circus to launch her latest album and instead rely on word of mouth through social media to do the job.

Why we like it: Clearly the element of surprise has helped here, and has an air of secrecy – but it’s interesting to see a celebrity such as Beyonce use Instagram to unveil a new album. Musicians are obviously in a high interest category, though there will still be learnings for brands so we’re watching how this one plays out. Forbes has the full story here.

Old Spice antagonises other brands

What it is: Old Spice creates vines that have festive messages for other brands.

Why we like it: There’s a lot of this stuff going on. Brands talking to brands, products talking to products. Marketing for marketeers. Most of it is tiresome and clearly designed to get written about on Mashable. Hopefully the novelty will wear off soon. That said, we like Old Spice’s approach, which is basically to antagonise every other brand out there.

Adidas ft Murray

What it is: Another example of ‘reactive’ content coming from Adidas. Moments after Murrary was announced as BBC Sports Personality of the Year, Adidas tweeted the above picture.
Why we like it: We suspect that Adidas actually had more than one picture to select from, so they’d be able to react quickly regardless of who won. People may think that’s not really in the spirit of it, but we think it’s being pragmatic.

Justine Sacco vs Twitter

What it is: A PR person tweets something stupid and the Internet explodes

Why we like it: It shows people are watching your stupid tweets, so don’t be racist. Okay. That’s probably a tad big brother and not really relevant for a social media blog. Fine – it’s another good case study of how important it is to know your audience, blah blah, make sure your content is on brand blah blah and ensure you have someone monitoring your social media accounts around the clock. Or something.

Bill Gates is on Vine

What it is: Bill Gates makes a vine about AIDs.

Why we like it: It’s a vinefographic. Okay. We just made that term up. Up we like charts, vine AND Bill Gates. And we don’t like AIDs. So this was obviously going to make the list.

That’s it for this week. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter for good, no-nonsense social links during the week, and subscribe to our weekly round up of good stuff