Harvest Digital news feed

Social Media Bulletin - 20.01.12

mike@harvestdigital.com (Mike Teasdale) — 2012-01-20T16:00:00Z

3 THINGS WE DIDN’T KNOW LAST WEEK:

Britney Spears Becomes First Google+ User to Reach 1 Million Followers

More than 1 million users are following Britney Spears on Google+, making her account the social network’s first to break through the seven-figure threshold. In reaching the milestone, Spears retains her title as the most followed person on Google+, ahead of Google CEO Larry Page and rapper Snoop Dogg. Google+ is approx 7-months-old, so the pop star’s 1.5m+ followers still pale in comparison to the fan bases she has built on competing social sites: 16.2million fans “Like” her Facebook page and 12.5 million users follow her on Twitter. Spears surpassed 10 million Twitter followers in October, which means she’s gained roughly 2.5 million in approximately 4 months.

Social networking accounts for one in every five minutes spent online globally

Social networking is the most popular activity online globally, representing almost one in every five minute spent online, according to a recent report from ComScore. The report, which gives ten tips about global social networking globally, reveals that social networking now reaches 82% of the world’s population, representing 1.2bn users. According to the report, in October 2011, social networking accounted for 18% of all time spent online, taking share predominantly from web-based email and instant messaging.

Facebook Reveal Over 60 apps using its new Timeline feature

Facebook users can use the new apps to update their Facebook Timeline profiles, which were rolled out last month, based on their interests. Companies involved include AutoTrader, Soundcloud, and Ticketmaster. For instance, News Corporation has launched a Timeline app for its The Daily title, which lets users share what stories they’ve read and breaks down what type of stories they’re interested in with its “Read-Graph”. Facebook users can also edit their Timeline content depending on who they want to see it. A post on the official Facebook blog detailing the launch read: “Soon, there will be apps for all types of interests, as more apps will launch over time. Whether you love snowboarding, gardening, hiking or knitting, or something else, there will be an app for you.”

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CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK: ISRAEL ANTI-DRUG AUTHORITY

This creative Facebook campaign was created by McCann Digital Israel for the Israel Anti-Drug Authority, and was the first to capitilise on the new Facebook Timeline feature. The campaign set up a fake profile for a fictional man named Adam Barak, placing pictures of his life side by side via the timeline to show his life with and without drugs.

On the left column, the photos show a year of his life as a drug addict, whereas on the right they show a year without drugs. The comparative photos of Adam display stark contrasts in his appearance and surroundings, with the drug-free Adam looking happy and successful, while the addicted Adam seems to have lost his girlfriend, job and home.

To view the campaign click here

Although this a very genius way to use the Facebook Timeline, unfortunately the campaign breaks Facebook regulations in the fact that fake profiles are not allowed. This is likely to be the reason the campaign is no longer live, and the profile page inaccessible. Although we are sure McCann were aware of this, despite breaching the rules they fetched an impressive million likes in under a week of launching, certainly creating a strong awareness for the cause. By working alongside Facebook, they could have possibly gained more mileage out of the campaign had Facebook agreed to such use. Or failing that agreement, they could have built a replica app which appeared visually in a similar way as part of a fan page, however wasn’t breaching Facebook regulations.

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APP OF THE WEEK: CRASH CORSAGE

“Crash Corsage helps you crash any wedding, anywhere, anytime. By collecting data from the open directories of personal wedding site providers, Crash Corsage creates filtered lists of nearby weddings. It then cleanly arranges important information such as what you need to wear, how the couple met, location of their party, and everything else you might need to grab a drink or a one night stand. Built-in challenges encourage users to compete against other crashers, while photo galleries and checklists let people show off their chops. It's more than a crash course in wedding crashing, it's Crash Corsage.”

To view the app click here

Some of us at Harvest are slightly disturbed by this intrusive app. Should this app’s popularity pick up, it’s likely the sites that it is scraping data from will build API’s to keep these intruders out. Whether this app is associated with the popular film release ‘Wedding Crashers’ is unconfirmed, but after the success of the film it is certainly likely to cash in and appeal to its millions of fans of the whom have had the idea of crashing weddings triggered into their lives. The clever use of social gaming adds to the success of the app, by letting crashers compete against eachother, encouraging use and competition. Social gaming is a powerful and enticing way of engaging users, allowing them to compete with others around the world.

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INFOGRAPHIC OF THE WEEK:

Twitter 2011 Trends – click here

Harvest Digital Ranked Top 10 in The Drum's 'Digital 100: Top Media Agencies by Billings' List

mike@harvestdigital.com (Mike Teasdale) — 2012-01-06T13:00:00Z

Harvest Digital have made the Top 10 of The Drum’s Digital 100: Top Media Agencies by Billings’ list! We are happy to confirm we were ranked 7th place.

This list ranks the top digital media agencies in the UK. Agencies are ranked in terms of their total UK billings from digital activities. Media agencies have been ranked separately from those working in marketing, design and build and technical disciplines, listing their audited billings rather than fee incomes which are commercially sensitive, and allowing for a fairer comparison by grouping agencies which rely on commission.

To view the full list click here

Social Media Bulletin - 09.12.11

mike@harvestdigital.com (Mike Teasdale) — 2011-12-09T16:00:00Z

3 THINGS WE DIDN’T KNOW LAST WEEK:

Facebook Buys Gowalla

Facebook has confirmed that is has bought location-based network Gowalla for an undisclosed sum. The social network had been tipped to have made an offer for the company, a rival to location-based mobile company Foursquare. Gowalla works in a similar way to Foursquare and allows users to share their location with friends and access information, recommendations and photos from the surrounding area. The app integrates with Facebook Places and blogging site Tumblr.

Twitter Revamps Their Website

Twitter has rolled out a major revamp including enhanced profile pages for brands and new tools to help users discover content more easily. The most significant update is to brand pages, giving them more creative control with the ability to insert a large header image and select one tweet to highlight at the top of the timeline. The new brand pages are free to use but are not yet available to all companies. Twitter will be slowly rolling out all the new features with the aim of it being live to all by the start of 2012. The 19 launch partners include American Express, BestBuy, Coca-Cola, Heineken, McDonalds, Nike Basketball, Paramount Pictures and Pepsi. For users, the company has also rolled out a major update for both the desktop and mobile version of the site. Twitter now focuses on four sections, Home, Connect, Discover and Me. ‘Home’ shows a summary of activity and information and hosts the timeline with all the tweets from accounts the user is following. ‘Connect’ acts as a hub for notifications and information about whom and when people have followed you, retweeted you or replied to your tweets. Me is the section dedicated to more personal aspects, such as direct messages, lists and settings. The most significant addition is the ‘Discover’ section, designed to help people find more relevant content, helping to also better display rich content such as photos and videos. Within Discover you can either view content around topics that Twitter has surfaced based on your interests in Stories, or you can select Activity, which shows you the topics that are popular within your community.

Facebook Ads Are The Most Engaging

A recent study by NeuroFocus, a subsidiary of Nielsen, recently showed that advertisements on Facebook receive much higher levels of engagement than those on regular websites. The study also found that people pay more attention to and have a higher than average memory retention of ads seen on Facebook. The study also showed that Facebook ads have gender differences in their effects, with men see them as resonating with themselves more so than women do. The study also said the ads on Facebook elicit memory retention when viewed in the news feed because the rest of the content on the page provides context that promotes learning. Apparently, these factors together make ads on Facebook more effective than those on television.

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CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK: BARNEY’S ‘GAGA CONSTELLATION’

US department store Barney’s created an interactive window display merging the amazing things that are Twitter, Lady Gaga, and stardust. The display held at their New York store allows shoppers to get their tweets onto the big screen by “wishing on a star” – that is made of ‘Lady Gaga dust’. The Barneys window on Madison Avenue features an installation titled “Gaga Constellation”, and after watching a wild display of Gaga in space, unicorns and stardust, anyone passing by can tweet their wish to the installation and instantly see it written in the stars. The CG film that plays at the beginning of the installation features Lady Gaga being formed from stars and interstellar particles, morphing into white unicorns, and then fading into the tweeted wishes of shoppers. Using the hashtag #gagastars, anyone can get their tweets next to an out-of-this-world Gaga as part of the massive 12 by 6.5 foot laser display.

View the video here

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APP OF THE WEEK: V for MURAT PARIS INTERACTIVE PRESS APP

Jewellery bran Murat Paris have created an interactive print ad designed for use with a smartphone to show users their current stock range. To use the app, you simply place the phone on top of the print ad, loading a rich mobile site that allows users to flick between various jewellery products from the brand on the virtual hand. Following on from the stock showcase, users also have the option to discover more information about each specific item, as well as locate it in their nearest store via the app map. This is a great way of delivering new marketing innovation via standard day to day print platforms, making a shopping experience a lot easier and more casually done for users in the comfort of their own homes or on the road at times when they may not have the opportunity to actually go to the store and discover the items. The app also drives footfall into stores with the tracking of local stores which stock your desired item.

View the video here

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INFOGRAPHIC OF THE WEEK:

Deck the (Social) Halls – view here

Social Media Bulletin - 02.12.11

mike@harvestdigital.com (Mike Teasdale) — 2011-12-02T16:00:00Z

3 THINGS WE DIDN’T KNOW LAST WEEK:

Spotify Reaches 2.5m Paying Users

Spotify has announced via a blog post that it has signed up 2.5m paying subscribers, driven by its recent partnership with Facebook. The news comes following a report from Enders Analysis that said the subscription model would make Spotify profitable this year and predicted that it would hit 2.5m subscribers by the beginning of 2012. The report, released last week, said the growth in Europe would stem from partnerships with mobile network operators and internet service providers. The music service has gained traction through its tie-up with Facebook, which allows the social network’s users to listen to music with their friends and share their music through their profile, with 4m new members signing up within the first six weeks.

Persil Let Fans Vote For Their New Brand Ambassador Via Facebook

Unilever, the umbrella company behind Persil, are asking consumer whom they would to see appointed as a ‘stain ambassador’ for the famous laundry brand. They are asking customers to select who from a list of ten options, if any, they think could best represent that brand’s message that “getting dirty can be fun” via a Facebook VIP app. Potentials include celebrities such as survival expert Bear Grylls, rugby player Mike Tindall, Kim and Aggie, as well as kids cartoon character Peppa Pig and non-celebrity mums and dads. They are also offering consumers incentives in the form of “little extras” – such as money off coupons, prizes and loyalty points. The FMCG firm is also creating a Cif branded “alternative cleaning” guide using more than 200 cleaning tips crowd sourced via the brand site within the VIP app. It will be exclusively available to VIP members, who are being asked to help name it. Unilever launched the VIP rewards scheme in August as a way to encourage consumers to interact with 11 of its core brands and “help guide the future on the brands you love” by giving feedback on initiatives such as product launches, packaging and marketing campaigns. It used suggestions from VIP members to develop the PG Tips on-pack promotion magazine subscription giveaway in October.

The Sun Newspaper Pushes In-Game Advertising With New Facebook Game

The Sun has entered the social gaming market with the launch of Sun Football Legends on Facebook, which is set to incorporate in-game advertising. The game has a role playing format and involves players steering footballers through a series of on- and off-field tests throughout the day. The Sun is looking at partnering with sportswear, entertainment and lifestyle brands for opportunities such as stadium naming rights, shirt or boot sponsorship and movie premiere appearances. The Sun chose Facebook rather than its own Your View community page to launch the game because of the website’s mass reach and the level of targeting and data Facebook can provide. A media campaign to launch the game will feature digital display advertising across The Sun digital network, app presences on its existing social media feed and print ads in the newspaper. The Sun will also launch a targeted Facebook display campaign, which will be complemented by a long-term email campaign to the 1.2m existing players of its Dream Team football-based game. The game is free to play but Facebook Credits can be used to buy virtual goods and to progress to more enhanced game levels.

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CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK: IKEA – CATCH THE SWEDISH LIGHT

Ikea, famed for their creative social media campaigns return with ‘Catch The Swedish Light’, a clever online campaign which capitalises on the Swedish summer which is a slow sales time in Belgium for the worldwide brand. They created the campaign with an interactive YouTube game where the audience were challenged to “catch the Swedish light”. As you cannot do ‘frame-by-frame’ on YouTube people had to pause the spot in the exact moment when the light hit a product. In that unique frame, a yellow code appeared in the top right corner. You could then enter the code on their site, with the first person to do so winning that item. Ikea ran a total of 48 ads in this campaign. This genius use of Youtube and video social media was a great interactive way to get users engaging, as well as pick up awareness during a dry sales period.

View the campaign here

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APP OF THE WEEK: DOMINO’S PIZZA HERO

Domino’s Pizza has launched a new gaming app for the iPad entitled “Pizza Hero”. It is a semi real-time advergame which lets you play alone or against people worldwide to become the ultimate ‘Pizza Hero’. The aim of the game is to create a pizza by placing topping and ingredients whilst racing against the clock. You score is based on the finished pizza quality and how quickly you made it. The more you play and progress the tougher it gets. The real-world nature of the app is what makes it so forward and inviting for users to engage and compete with others. It is something tangible that you could actually physically make and that’s got an appeal to the realness of the gaming concept.

View the video here

Visit the app’s website here

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INFOGRAPHIC OF THE WEEK:

Social Networking At Work: Click here

Social Media Bulletin - 11.11.11

mike@harvestdigital.com (Mike Teasdale) — 2011-11-11T15:00:00Z

3 THINGS WE DIDN’T KNOW LAST WEEK:

Spotify Sign Ups Increase by 4m following Facebook Merge

Music services have seen a significant new sign up surge since integrating Facebook Open Graph in September. Facbook has announced early stats on the growth in users for the music services like Spotify that integrated with its Open Graph technology in September. Growths include Spotify gaining 4m new users since F8, and Deezer gaining 10,000 a day. The figures do not state whether the sign ups were paid or free accounts, but Facebook has seen the increase in interaction as a successful case study for the Open Graph. Businesses such as Vevo and Rootmusic, which do not require sign up processes, have also announced incredible growth results. Video service Vevo said it doubled its daily activity in one day following the posting of videos from Rihanna and Justin Bieber. Ticketing sites such as Ticketmaster and Ticketfly also said they had seen a return of between £1.25-£3.75 for every link shared on Facebook.

Google+ Launches Pages for Brands In UK

Google+ has launched its official ‘pages’ offering in the UK. Brands will be able to use the functionality of Google+ Pages, allowing people to recommend pages with +1, add brands into circles to keep up to date with news and updates and use Google+ Hangouts, allowing a brands staff to have one-on-one or group conversations with customers online. The initial launch brands include Burberry, O2, Angry Birds, Chelsea Football Club, Barcelona Football Club, Save The Children, Mail Online, Mumsnet and The Muppets, but the functionality is now open for all brands to set up a page. One of the key attractions for businesses is the link with search. Google has announced two ways in which the pages will be linked to its search functionality, first by including Google+ pages in search results, and second, the launch of Direct Connect, which enables people to follow a brand instantly. Direct Connect allows people to automatically follow a brand by typing a + before the brand name into search results. It is currently only on a small number of pages, including Pepsi and Toyota.

Facebook and Adobe Demonstrate the Monetary Value of A ‘Like’

The two companies are collaborating on Adobe’s SocialAnalytics tool, which aggregates conversations about brands on all social networks and measures them against business metrics such as revenue or brand value.

Facebook has given its API to Adobe so marketers can measure metrics such as the specific monetary value of each click of the Like button against certain content. Marketers can also determine which fans of the brand are the biggest influencers to others and have driven the most revenue to the company.?Adobe says it is the first tool that gives marketers a “causation” metric – rather than correlation – to assess the business value of social media campaigns. The tool also gives marketers access to data about the influence of other social media platforms such as Twitter and blogging site WordPress. Facebook and Adobe have also collaborated to create a “best practice” guide for marketers to measure and optimise the button on their brand pages and websites. It gives guidance on where best to present the Like button on brand websites and how to measure ROI from each consumer click of the button.

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CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK: ASICS - RUN WITH RYAN

ASICS launched this great campaign to coincide with their sponsorship of the ING Marathon in New York. The sports footwear brand installed a 60ft video wall at an American subway station and challenged passersby to race against a video of marathon runner Ryan Hall and his 6ft 10 stride length and 4:46 mile pace. The promoters even managed to rope in Hall to get involved and race against himself. This method of gamification is a great way to get users involved, and the gimmick of Hall racing against himself gives a strong PR spin on the campaign. The initiative works well to make the general public actually involved in the race, taking them further beyond the sponsorship.

View the campaign here

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APP OF THE WEEK: PARROT CARROT SAFARI APP

'Parrot Carrot Safari' is an augmented reality app which can be used alongside the new Australian kids book of the same name. The app “sets the book's characters loose in the real world” via your iPhone, and lets kids interact and extend book’s content.

The physical book tells the story of a bunch of interesting animals that rhyme, enhancing that, the Parrot Carrot Safari app lets kids find those animals through the binoculars of the Augmented Reality iPhone App, where they can run around the house on safari trying to catch and release all the virtual animals from the book.

The extension is a great way for authors to make some extra cash out of the book, as well as secure new sales from those interested in taking reading further with their children. It is interesting to see iPhone apps being used for such a younger generation, clearly showing how universal smartphone’s and advantages of their use can be to all generations. It is unrealistic to think that a child of this age will own their own smartphone, however such apps can still prove popular amongst families. The augmented pop-up books are a great idea to bring reading to life, and are sure to amaze children of this age making reading more fun, as well as improve sales of books which support the feature.

View the app here

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INFOGRAPHIC OF THE WEEK:

iPhone vs Android Social App Usage - view here

Social Media Bulletin - 28.10.11

mike@harvestdigital.com (Mike Teasdale) — 2011-10-28T17:00:00Z

3 THINGS WE DIDN’T KNOW LAST WEEK:

Former MySpace CEO says it was a mistake to keep the MySpace brand

Michael Jones has said to CNN money that the falling social network should have re-launched as an “entirely new brand”. Jones, who left the social network in August after it was acquired by Specific Media in the same month, said that a major marketing campaign wouldn’t have been able to change the outcome for the former largest global social network. He said: “We found that regardless of how much we improved the product or the marketing message, consumers’ memories about the brand were too strong to allow them to view MySpace with fresh eyes and an open mind. We could not escape their images of animated GIFs.” He went on to say that injecting more money into a massive brand campaign wouldn’t always prove successful – as experience with Yahoo’s $100m “It’s Y!ou” campaign.

Channel 4 Launches Facebook ‘Swap Shop’

Teenagers can swap clothes and fashion tips with their Facebook friends in an online community site promoting “sustainable fashion” developed by Channel 4 Education.

Closet Swap is a free site aimed at 14-19-year-olds. The app encourages users to upload pictures, tag existing Facebook photos and build an online closet, which they can share, swap and customise. Users can also send a “fashion SOS” from their phone to their Facebook wall to ask, for example, if they can borrow a “little black dress or pair of leopard skin heels” for the weekend.

The website is part of a campaign by Channel 4 Education, highlighting the debates surrounding sustainable and ethical fashion production and consumption. Earlier this year, Channel 4 Education launched Sweatshop, an online game in which players run an off-shore factory, getting to grips with managing staff, suppliers and sales.

Heineken Increase Social Media Investment

Heineken is to ramp up its social media strategy after its dual-screening app Star Player generated engagement times of over one hour. The brand will begin an international roll out of Star Player, which it uses to enhance its sponsorship of the UEFA Champion’s League via a mobile and Facebook app, this season. Floris Cobelens, Heineken head of digital media, said users of the app were engaging for well over 60-minutes during Champion’s League games on average, and that they were keen to roll it out to over 20 markets. Star Player, which was launched in April and is continuing to generate high engagement levels, according to Cobelens.

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CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK: REAL LIFE ANGRY BIRDS

The Real Life Angry Birds was a fun campaign brought to life by T-Mobile Spain. The purpose of the reality advergame was to raise awareness of the ever-popular Angry Birds smart phone game. The phone network giant recreated a life-sized installation of the game features – exploding pigs and angry birds included. Users were then invited to play on the game set with their smart phones controlling the actions they saw carried out right in front of them. The viral video generated over 5 million views in less than a week – clearly proving a big success.

View the campaign here

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APP OF THE WEEK: WE FEEL FINE

Not so much an app this week, but more so a cool site. We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion on a global scale. Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.

The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day. Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions like: do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans? Do women feel fat more often than men? What do people feel right now in Baghdad? What were people feeling on Valentine's Day? Which are the happiest cities in the world? The saddest? And so on.

The interface to this data is a self-organizing particle system, where each particle represents a single feeling posted by a single individual. The particles' properties – colour, size, shape, opacity – indicate the nature of the feeling inside, and any particle can be clicked to reveal the full sentence or photograph it contains. The particles careen wildly around the screen until asked to self-organize along any number of axes, expressing various pictures of human emotion. A great form of scraping insight and using your audience’s thoughts and feels for gain when reapplied back into your marketing objectives or targets.

View the page here

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INFOGRAPHIC OF THE WEEK:

Job Screening With Social Networks - click here

Mobile & Social

mike@harvestdigital.com (Mike Teasdale) — 2011-10-27T00:00:00Z

Background

Marketing has changed since the earlier days before Social Media. Customers now want all-access to sales information, customer services, and marketing teams. A way to give this feel of connection and involvement is through Social Media. Social Media provides direct interaction for a consumer with a persona or ‘voice’ from your brand.

Research shows experiences are more enjoyable when interaction with other people is involved. In regards to fulfilment, people have an urge for a social connection, as well as individual accomplishments. To create a successful campaign, it is compulsory to create “emotional connections”.

Audience

Contrary to belief, younger adults are just as privy to privacy as older ones. However they are aware of the value of their data and are happy to share their information or access to it dependant on what they are getting in return. With the correct rewards or incentives, you can manipulate or advertise any brand or product should they feel they will receive something from the way you do so. An example of this in the real world is that young Blackberry users will socially share their BBM pins for the need of social and personal gain. With social mobile media, if there is an incentive then this is enough to get people involved.

Perception

It has been discovered that although Social Media value is not always remembered specifically, it can be lodged into consumer’s memory for future context.

It is important to overcome a customer’s perception of a brand, or to dismiss any misconceptions they may associate with your brand. It is also important to relate to the customer so they see the service as a personal service, as opposed to generic advertising. In regards to a sales process, it is important to have consideration for your fan community and also in the way you raise awareness for them.

Social Media allows you to protect the bottom line with PR, social support, complaints, and insight. It also allows you to grow the top line with lead generation and social sales, social marketing and promotions, brand awareness, customer loyalty and rewards. There are two types of CRM systems:

- REACTIVE - Facebook, Twitter, General messaging, Social TV

- PROACTIVE - QR codes, Audio recordings, Check ins app, Other apps

Mobile Statistics:

- Use of Mobile Social Media has risen by approx 30% from 2010-2011

- 44% of UK users use the internet on their PC’s only

- 20% of UK users engage on both a phone and a PC

- Mobile Social Media is most used: 6-9pm, followed by 3-6pm; mostly used at home, followed by time ‘out and about’ or leisure time (outside of work)

- 22% of Mobile Social Media users “check in” using their phones – with the majority being 18-35 female skewed checking in at leisure destinations (such as cinema, malls, and restaurants).

- Only 3% of 220 (sample audience) made a purchases on a Mobile social network (the rest opted for PC)

- Research shows the time from search to purchase on a PC is 1 month.

- However on a mobile the time from search to purchase is 1 hour.

Key Points:

- Consumers who purchase on mobiles like to do so because they are always on, handheld, easily accessible, and might not have access to PC.

- Consumers who do not purchase on mobiles states reasons including that they do not want to be contacted, are dubious about security, and sometimes the costs.

- Consumers only accept Social Media on their terms in their own time. This means your marketing is most effective when a consumer is at home browsing as opposed to at their desk working.

- Customers are prone to social media referral from friends or family, however unwanted communication from a brand is interpreted as “harassment”.

- Portability is key – with this campaign the main objective is to drive foot traffic into stores

- The priority is to give fans a reason to engage (Proactive CRM)

- Incentives are crucial – prizes, unlocking the game to the next level, discount

Planning a Social Mobile Campaign:

- Know your objectives – what do you want to achieve?

- Know your audience – what do they want from you?

- Develop a strategy – which channels / opportunities? Focus on a few key platforms that align with your audience demographic

- Invent experiences that invite the creation of content that will migrate from one space to another

- Don’t go ‘all-in’ on emerging technologies – focus, test, and learn

- Stay true to your brand – do things that make sense

- Understand what success will look like

o Product purchase

o Brand engagement

o Define Key Perfomance Indicator’s

Important Facts for Building A Mobile Campaign (Paid, Owned & Earned)

- Buy Mobile Advertising: target mobile media for scale, reach, and speed

- Build Mobile platforms with utility: hire the best developers you can find

- Use external opportunities: Handshake, Foursquare, check-ins and messaging are all opportunities to earn credibility

Gamification

Gamification adds a layer of competition to reality to make life more fun. With social crossing over into people’s real worlds, consumers thrive on the addiction of competition, or feeling the sense of prize for rewards.

Consumers buy into arbitrary rewards (Boots, Sainsbury’s, Tesco’s club cards). Despite how minute the reward may be, the aspect of free gain entices consumers strongly – especially via social media. These types of rewards can drive a sense of addiction to acquire more rewards, therefore spend or participate more to gain these rewards.

This real life arbitrary rewards also translate to online rewards with things like gaming and social apps – offering users rewards and prizes for their use, amount of users they invite, or levels of a game they unlock. People also like to merge their reality with social rewards. An example of this is the successful Tonight London app – which aggregates conversations from Twitter to show people where they are, allowing sign ins, reviews, updates and collecting points for prizes for activity.

Reality social games such as Foursquare or Situationist (a social game involving challenging users to complete a set of physical reality tasks based on location) turn gaming from a online or social platform into your reality making your “boring” life “fun”. Even something as simple as “avoiding stepping on the cracks” is a minimalistic mental game people play with themselves to make life more exciting. Another successful example of bringing gaming into real life can be viewed with this bottle bank case study: http://youtu.be/zSiHjMU-MUo. People want bigger networks for games beyond their reality – the online success of Facebook’s Scrabble game shows this. They want to play globally and socialise with strangers, or at least compete with their online friends.

The key point to social media marketing is behind the rewards and incentives. They need to be entertaining, of personal value to the consumer, provide information or be of monetary value (where applicable), and also be useful. Gamification is a good way to merge these in a fun way for the consumer.

CASE STUDY: SUBWAY – Need For Feed

Subway created the Need For Feed online campaign to encourage users to visit their high street branches. Although initially only created as an online campaign, the success on this platform has now encouraged Subway to develop a similar app for a mobile campaign. The cost of creating the game for a mobile app is double that off an online app, so Subway wanted to trial the success online first.

The objective with the Subway mobile app is to drive footfall through actual stores. The game lets users “feed their friends” by launching missile sandwiches at their mouths. The more mouths you feed, the more points you accumulate. These points then turn into discounts which can be redeemed in store when signing in with Foursquare. This is a clever move which encourages you to invite friends, as well as share your location in a Subway store. Most importantly, their aim is to drive people “in the real world” directly into their stores to purchase food.

Interestingly, Subway stated that 40% of their traffic came through search, with the rest based on social mention and sharing.

The Theory:

- Engaging mobile users via the wall to play

- Prize redemption via scanning QR code in store on your mobile (15 times more effective than paper voucher redemption)

The Results:

- 30,000 plays spanning 185 days

- Avg playing time 9 min 13 secs

- Shared content viewed 70,000 times

- Drove additional 23,000 fans

- 70% voucher redemption

- Generated ongoing engagement

Conclusion

Social media “humanises” the web. It gives people a platform to air the personal voices, working for both recommendations and reviews of products. This is very important to consumers as they want a personal referral on products and brands to make an informed decision on purchases from a source they trust – their inner circle or people with similar thoughts and interests.

Social is a platform to give green lights from trust sources. Consumers are willing to take advice from family and friends. If your social recommendation is strong, people are more likely to invest or trust your brand online through the associated recommendation.

SEO Bulletin - 14.10.11

mike@harvestdigital.com (Mike Teasdale) — 2011-10-14T17:30:00Z

Infographics: the new frontier of linkbaiting

Images transcend linguistic and cultural barriers faced by text. There is no need for machine or human translation. It is a pure exercise to interpret the message transmitted by the image and eventually memorize it for later use.

After all, visual communication it has been one of the first methods used by ancient population to pass information. Just have a though on hieroglyphics or cave paintings in ancient Egypt about 5,000 years ago.

At that time they were paintings, today they are called Infographics.

Time lapsed, and we move forward from chalk to computer graphic. However, the principle is the same.

Unique, original images can attract the audience. They are not only high quality content for an interested readership, but they can be useful promotional tools for anyone interested in gaining more attention.

For this reason infographics (IG) should be part of any online marketing agency offering that stays abreast of the latest and greatest trends, and they can certainly became part of the SEO offering too in order to support link building.

You can further read / watch about this topic by clicking here

Google try again with realtime search?

Earlier this year, Google acquired the patents of a real time search engine started in 2009 called Wowd. Wowd works in a different way to the other search engines, and focuses on identifying new trends, news, and popular topics and pages on the Internet using a browser plugin… or at least this is what it is was used to do.

Infact, entering into Wowd web site, it is now possible to read the team decided to pursue new opportunities.

Google has been following where you browse and what links you click on as part of their search engine service in order to shape their result (personalized search). But with the Wowd approach it appears possible to look at those clicks to find new and popular pages on the Web.

It is difficult imagine in which way Google will use this piece of technology.

This could be an attempt for Google to restore the Realtime search shut down about a year ago (Does it really need again considering Google+?).

Or it could be even the case Google is trying to create its own application which they will provide to some panellist so to transmit anonymous navigation data for compiling stats and / or further contribute to the data aggregation provided by service like Google Trends.

I’m not entirely convinced about the latter case; in fact Google Toolbar and Chrome both automatically transmit this information to Google, which are topped up with other insight collected by Firefox.

As I don’t have any clue, I will dig around to discover as much as I can. So let’s stay tuned to see what will happen.

Social Media Bulletin - 14.10.11

mike@harvestdigital.com (Mike Teasdale) — 2011-10-14T17:00:00Z

3 THINGS WE DIDN’T KNOW LAST WEEK:

18% of online audience is mobile-only

Over 18% of people are accessing the internet via mobile devices rather than desktop access, according to Mobile Entertainment Forum’s Global Consumer Survey. The MEF study found that over 72% of respondents access the internet via their mobiles on a daily basis and that 18% used mobile as the sole method. For m-commerce, 82% reported using their phone to research or purchase a digital or physical product. Concerns over security were highlighted as a hindrance for further m-commerce activity.

Facebook ad effectiveness increases 18.5%

Facebook ad click-through rates have increased by 18.5% in the past quarter, according to TBG Digital who monitored over 255bn Facebook ad impressions. The research found that as the effectiveness of ads has increased, cost-per-click rates have fallen 10.8%, while cost-per-thousand impressions has increased by 7.1%. The increase in effectiveness is due to improvements in Facebook’s ad offering and the increased use of its Sponsored Stories ad formats. According to the company’s data, this type of advertising is also attracting brand spend that has traditionally been allocated to channels such as TV. Brand spend via Facebook had increased 6.7% to account for 53.7% of the agency’s total Facebook spend.

Two-thirds of marketers do not understand the term ‘gamification’

Two-thirds of marketers do not fully understand what ‘gamification’ means, despite 78% believing that customers are more likely to respond to marketing with a gaming element. The survey of over 100 marketers by marketing company Upstream aimed to uncover what marketers understood about the term “gamification” and find out the extent to which the strategy is employed by marketers in the UK. Once the term was explained, the research revealed 64% considered the approach to have the potential to improve relationships with customers. The research also asked what the best incentive is to reward consumers for engaging with their brand in game-like marketing campaigns; 34% said free products, 25% said cash, 24% said a high-value single prize and 17% said points.

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CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK: AUDI’S INTERACTIVE DRIVING VIDEO

Car brand Audi have launched what they call “the world’s first interactive YouTube driving experience” for their latest car model, the Audi A6. The interactive YouTube video allows users to use the indexing feature to control the video via their keypad numbers. This gives the illusion that users are actually controlling and directing the car. In theory, the idea sounds like a good, simple way of giving the user a sense of interaction – however the end result has proved not to be as slick or visually appealing as you would expect from Audi. Judging by the amount of dislikes to likes ratio on the page, the experience has not been favoured amongst fans. When changing directions of the car, the appearance is very slow and delayed. Audi would’ve been better to create an app instead of trying to piggy back of cheaper indexing. This error could cost them damage to their brands reputation, something that certainly does not represent the Audi driving experience.

Click here to view the interactive video

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APP OF THE WEEK: BLIPPAR

A free application for smart phones – giving users a magic 'lens' enhancing the world around them with virtual, instant information and entertainment.

Using the built in camera on your iPhone, Android, or iPad, Blippar recognises things in the real world and instantaneously provides you with digital connections, information, or interactive entertainment on your screen. It does not involve scanning or photo taking or uploading – you simple hold your screen (or hover it) over anything ‘blippable’ for an instant on-screen response.

You can browse the in-app catalogue, or look for products which support the app – usually sporting the ‘B’ logo on their product package, poster, logo, press adverts, and even building. Once in view on Blippar mode, the app will respond by providing either a web link, video, coupon, 3D product experience, or augmented reality game.

The app has been recently used in Tesco’s ‘Big Price Drop’ campaign. When used, the augmented reality print ads launch an animated version of the ad, and provide an extra level of interactivity helping you to find the closest store, view recipe ideas related to the products in each ad and other store information. Blippar is a imaginative new way for brands to offer messages, offers, and experiences to their customers. With gamification growing and being extremely successful, this method of user interactivity is a good way for users to engage with brands in a social reality. By offering incentives through the app, Blippar could prove to be a hugely successful platform for companies to drive users to their brands through reward and engagement.

Watch the app in action here

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INFOGRAPHIC OF THE WEEK:

Percentage of People With Active Profiles On Social Media Platforms - click here

Social Media Bulletin - 07.10.11

mike@harvestdigital.com (Mike Teasdale) — 2011-10-07T17:00:00Z

3 THINGS WE DIDN’T KNOW LAST WEEK:

Gumtree Launches Social-Media Based Daily Deals

Gumtree, which gains 13.7m visitors a month, are taking on the likes of Groupon (who recently launched a rewards scheme), LivingSocial (who due to launch similar), Amazon and Ebay by launching a ’unique’ daily deals service that will use social media to ask consumers to suggest the offers they would like to see. Gumtree Daily Deals will operate via their Facebook page and be the “first” service to consult its customers on the deals they would like to be offered. The service is currently already available in Brighton, Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast, but users will be able to vote on the site which other regions they would like to have the service.

Facebook Launches Further Range Of Tools for Marketers

Facebook are launching a new premium ad format and an expansion of its insights tool and measurements metrics. The new format is a bigger ad and is an expansion of its Sponsored Stories format, which uses friends’ interactions with brands in the ad creative. The ad format will aim to promote a piece of branded content as well as expanding to show which friends have already engaged with the brand or piece of content.

Facebook has also updated the measurement metrics visible to admins of a Facebook Pages. The Insights tool has increased from showing page Likes and impressions to also include metrics such as Friends of Fans, designed to show the maximum reach; People Talking About This, to show how many people have engaged with the brand across Facebook; and Weekly Total Reach, which combines the total exposure to the brand either via paid or non-paid activity.

Heinz Sell Personalised Products On Facebook

Heinz has launched the ‘Get Well Soup’ Facebook campaign which allows people to personalise cans of their favourite soups to send to friends and family. The campaign aims to tap into the tradition for eating soup when ill, letting people cheer up their friends with a customised can. It is the latest in a string of innovative uses of Facebook by the FMCG brand, which has previously launched a limited-edition Balsamic Tomato Ketchup exclusively on Facebook. The customised tins can be purchased for £1.99 via the official Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/HeinzSoupUK

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CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK: LYNX ‘SEXY RUGBY RULES’

Lynx serviced this marketing viral to gain some brand exposure during the Rugby World Cup. The men’s deodorant brand cleverly created this short 2 minute clip explaining the rules of Rugby – demonstrated by scantily clad women. Lynx, known for their direct tongue in cheek male-targeted approach (check out this interesting ‘Auto Romeo’ app: link- http://youtu.be/oZamCgC62iQ), keep their hot-blooded male demographic firmly in mind for this viral. The video fetched an impressive 300,000 views within the first three days of going live, and to date has accumulated over 1 million views. A clever way to involve your brand with current real world events without requiring big spends or tech savvy apps – just a good creative idea.

Click here to watch the video

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APP OF THE WEEK: LEGO: LIFE OF GEORGE

The classic LEGO brand has created this interactive game which involves the famous building-toy and your iPhone. The game master ‘George’ shows you a picture of an object on the app, which you have to recreate with LEGO pieces in real life, and then snap a picture of on the Playmat (which is sold as part of a LEGO game kit titled ‘Life Of George’). From this picture, a brick recognition system awards you points for speed and accuracy. You can also compete and play against other opponents.

This app proves to be a simple, yet innovative way of enforcing LEGO into the digital world of social media. This clever game is easy to play and addictive, giving users a live challenge to their favourite hobby – building LEGO! Having the option to compete with other users fulfils the need for social connection amongst gamers, and brings the old school activity into a current digital word. EyeCue - a vision recognition technology – is cleverly used here to make the game function (similar to face recognition technology in apps), taking gaming to the next level. George is also clearly proving popular as his Facebook fan page continues to grow.

Watch the video here | Purchase the app here | Become a fan of George on FB here

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INFOGRAPHIC OF THE WEEK:

Twitter History Infographic - click here