Enter Hypersocial
Social Media has taken the Internet by storm over the past half-decade. However, most of the big-name sites such as Twitter and Facebook cover mass markets of users with extremely diverse interests. Marketers have access to the social mass, but continually struggle to get their message in front of relevant users. Even with the plethora of user info available, a marketer still pushes their message in front of as many users as possible in the hopes of catching the attention of a relevant eye. Today, we’re beginning to see a shift to sites (and more particularly apps) that are hypersocial, or niche social communities for users interested in one specific topic.

What are some Hypersocial apps?
Glad you asked. Lets take a look at some examples:

Instagram
http://instagr.am/
Perhaps the most well known hypersocial app, Instagram is an iPhone app for users who are interested in photography. People can take photos with their iPhone and then choose a vintage filter to make the photo more aesthetically appealing. It’s easy to share with Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr and looks nicer than your average mobile phone picture. People can leave comments on the picture through Instagram or the social network it’s been shared to.

Picdish
http://picdish.com/
Picdish is every foodie’s and Food Network lover’s dream. Users share pictures of their cooking or dining experiences with a foodie community. Those following can watch live as people cook exquiste meals. People can also zoom in to their favorite countries on the app and see what’s going on in their local areas. Everyone who cooks, whether beginner or professional, gets the opportunity to feel like they’re putting on their own Food Network TV show.

SixString
http://jointheheard.com/
The SixString App lets users ranging from novice to rock-star share sound clips, pictures and text with a guitar-centric community. Users can “applaud” clips, text updates, images and gear they like, and those who post can get feedback about their playing and build a fan base of guitar aficionados.

Pose
http://pose.com/
Fashionistas and fashionisters need their own outlet, too. Pose lets users share “poses” or different outfits, which can be tagged with different categories. Users can see other users shop in real-time and stay up-to-date on the latest trends. The app is used by many big names in the fashion blogging world such as Leandra Medine, most commonly known as The Man Repeller.

There are, of course, more – and that number will most certainly continue to grow.

What does hypersocial mean for marketers?
Hypersocial is a boon for marketers. There’s no more guessing involved in determining a user’s behavior or interests. Hypersocial opens the door to markets of dedicated users – that’s not only for the core products but also for complimentary goods. The audiences within these networks may not reach the heights of the general social networks, but for the majority of marketers, getting to their core consumer is best way for viral and word of mouth pass along. Don’t forget you heard it here first

www.6string.com | 323.465.6580 | @6StringMedia

Where's my hovercraft?

Google maps when I travel, Engadget for toys, the Sartorialist for fashion advice, and funny tweets from Thomas Lennon!! Online advertising powers all of this.

I've had a running conversation with Brad Berens for years, the gist of which is that even with the best targeting, nobody wants to be marketed to. To most of the world, advertising seems slimy.  I'm sure you've experienced the same awkward silence when you introduce yourself to someone new at a dinner, saying, "I'm in online advertising..." Heck, Weaver just wrote about this.

But it's not as simple as that. It is you, the online advertising community, that made Facebook, my iPhone, Yelp, and XKCD possible. Thanks to you I'm living in my own Star Wars. My love of the Internet is fueled by what you do every day.

I have worked in this industry for a long time and am ready to change gears a bit. I'll still be working with senior marketing execs via events and an online community, but this time the focus will be on video. I am excited to announce the launch of Videonomics(™), a series of road shows and a new online community that will help marketers navigate the merging of interactive & mainstream video. I'll be running the company, an offshoot of crowd-sourced video leader Poptent, working closely with Event Director and iMedia alumnae Nicole Healy. I hope you'll check out our website and attend one of our events.

Thanks to my iMedia team for the past 10 years…you are the best and I can't wait to see what you accomplish next! Before I forget: thanks to the world's greatest Wookie. (I'm talking to you, Haffar.)

And for what it's worth, I'm still waiting for the robots.

The reality of this new environment is that speed equals emotion. Logic gets left on the curb when messages are passed along in tweets and status updates.

What do these things have in common: Netflix, Bank of America, SOPA, Susan G. Komen for the Cure?

Answer: they've all got tread marks on their backs from social media protests.

The last six months have provided an amazing string of case studies on how protests movements are being changed forever by the speed and reach of social media.

Forget about organizing workers to gather signatures on a petition, or emails calling for a boycott of some company's product. Those are your grandfather's protest tools. Today's protests take shape in a matter of days, and the battles can pivot in a matter of minutes. Gone are colorful posters with catch slogans. Today the canvases are short emotional messages with hash tags or links.

So every company that deals with the general public, makes large donations to causes, or has a line of business that can be considered even remotely politically influenced needs to rethink its communications plan. If you don't have a disaster plan already on the shelf then this is your chance to prepare for being hit by a runaway train.

Let's use the events surrounding Komen for our example. If you've been living under a rock you can find a good summary of the controversy here (under the heading Relationship With Planned Parenthood). If we pick apart the past seven days we come away with six critical lessons.

1) No decision can be viewed in isolation. We live in a politically charged world with the extremes on both sides of the spectrum sitting on hair triggers ready to pounce on anything that will advance their cause. If you think your company, your products or your leadership is apolitical then you haven't looked closely enough.

Find someone, either inside your company or from a communications firm, who can see a grey cloud where you see a silver lining. Listen carefully to their scenarios for disaster. If you're lucky, time will prove these people wrong. But if they are right, you'd rather think through the threat now instead of when Brian Williams is talking about your company on the evening news. Which brings us to the next lesson.

2) Plan now for the worst. There will be no time to think later. Those people you see boarding up their windows ahead of a hurricane, that's not you. There's no forecast tool that will tell you that a storm will be on your door step in three days. If you have a good social media monitoring program you might get a couple hours notice. But no more than that.

You have to know what you'll do when all hell is breaking loose and there are protest pages popping up all over Facebook. Who will post online? Who is talking to the media? Who is authorized to post online? Are your employees clear on this, or do you have to worry about some well-intentioned staff member making things worse by attacking your critics?

3) React quickly, but deliberately. Now is not the time to disappear. This isn't going away if you ignore it. Remember the key to successfully participating in social media is that you are part of the conversation, and not just when it's good news.
Tell people you're sorry they're angry. You don't have to respond to every comment, but under no circumstances do you start deleting the comments you don't like. The only things that get deleted are comments with profanity or libelous language. And even then you explain why you hit the delete button.

4) Get simple and be consistent. This is probably the most important lesson of all.
If you can't summarize your position in 140 characters then go back and try again. The reality of this new environment is that speed=emotion. Logic gets left on the curb when messages are passed along in tweets and status updates. The only reason you're now in this crisis is because someone framed the issues in concise argument that appeals to the heart, not the mind.

Press releases and videos posted on YouTube are useful only if they provide simple, easy to digest context for your message. Part of the problem for the Komen foundation was that once it did respond, it tried to ignore the politics of the situation and attempted to defuse the situation by advancing several arguments defending its actions. Instead their actions amplified the rage by allowing critics to accuse the foundation of constantly shifting their argument, like a child caught in a lie.

5) Never counter attack. This should go without saying. But when you're watching your company, your good intentions, your life's ambition being savaged by thousands of strangers it's tempting to rally your supporters for a counter-assault. Stop. Open the windows and find a friend who will talk you off the ledge.

The absolutely last thing you brand needs is to become the rope in a tug of war between extremists. That will only prolong your suffering and assure destruction of everything you've worked hard to achieve.

Make sure every communication is devoid of emotionally charged words that characterize your attackers in a negative light. After all, when this is over you want them to come back and once again be your happy customers.

6) Remember your friends. This is the really frightening part of the new protest movement. When Komen came under fire, it tried to portray business as usual by highlighting its partnership with Energizer on its Facebook page. Critics seized on that to go attack Energizer for its support of Komen.

When you're in the storm make sure someone is talking early and often to your partners, affiliates and other friends. Don't let them learn what you're doing from the news or social media. In Komen's case Ford stepped forward on Twitter with perhaps the best message possible:

"We understand the emotions raised by the #Komen decision. Our desire is to focus on defeating breast cancer rather than on politics."

Ford even paid to make that a trending topic on Twitter, assuring that everyone talking about Komen saw the message. Friends like that are hard to find. Make sure you take care of them.

The rules are still being written for how to survive and thrive in this social-media driven world. But the past few months provide more than enough evidence that you can't wait for a text book to be published. Nor can you presume you're immune from the risks.

But it's not all bad news. For every controversy that's ripping apart a brand, there are hundreds of brands thriving from all that social media offers. The opportunities are too rich to live in fear of the new online environment.

The goal of this article is to make your job a little easier by helping you frame your digital marketing successes in a way that even the most skeptical CFO would want to support you.

The 20 most entertaining Super Bowl tweets

Funny stuff. Naturally, a lot of ad references.

Via @PublicityGuru

Input Error – Histories of Social Media

Just came across this site. I like both the content and the URLs implication: That social media may be a new term, but it’s a long-standing phenomenon.

Via @jonathansalem

Glam Media launches Foodie.com, a culinary site with a social network baked in

In the social media wars, what will most likely pull large numbers of people away from Facebook: A new general social network, or something more niche? I personally think the niche sites have a lot more to offer in terms of a more engaging experience. I think the big question will be how well they can integrate with Facebook, and then slowly siphon off traffic to their own properties.

Via @lizstrauss

Where To Find Budget For Content Marketing

Good content requires resources. Some of the challenge is simply identifying the diamonds in the rough, and knowing how to put the right polish on them. This is a good list of places to look into if you find yourself in need of ways to fill out a content calendar.

Via @heidicohen

98 Content Marketing Articles to Make You an Insomniac

Maybe a bit overkill, but given the increasing importance of the subject, it’s worth perusing.

Via @copyblogger

The Only 4 Reasons Agencies Should Care About Their Own Content Marketing

Content marketing is a rapidly-expanding part of the marketing world, so it makes sense that agencies should practice it for their own gain.

Via @jaybaer

Confessions of a Young Digital Media Planner

No matter what division of the agency or marketing department you’re in, this is a good reflection on where the business is headed.

Via @UpstreamDW

This is what the first half of the Super Bowl looked like on Twitter

Looks like the Twitter user base prefers Madonna to football.

Via @bdainton

YAN is an even bigger issue when combined with the fact that 88% of online buyers had at some point intentionally left registration information blank or used incorrect information when signing up for a new account, up 12% from 2010. Also, the expectation of consumers for brands to support Social Sign-On has increased significantly as eMarketer and Janrain recently reported that consumer desire for Social Sign-On has increased to 77% of US Online Buyers in 2011.

The importance of leveraging a single sign on authentication platform that is socially enabled becomes the key to unlocking a brands social CRM strategy. The reason for this is that Social Sign-On can lower the barrier of entry for a user, increase validity of data via the users social graph as well as increase stay rates.

According to recent research from Gigya, web users who log into 3rd party sites with Facebook's Graph API spend 50% more time on those sites, and view twice as many pages. Think about the impact to a Fortune 500 retailer with 50% increase in stay rates and how that may impact purchase frequency.

When it comes to selecting which service is ideal for your brand, Gigya also released information that shows that Facebook accounts for 61% of those social logins.

Where social sign on really gets interesting is when a brand leverages an OAuth solution, such as Facebook's Graph API. Instead of depending on a user to input a few sets of pre-determined data, you potentially have access to 180 data points to associate with the user. This includes the ability to access data tied to their feed, friends, activities, interests, music, books, movies, television, likes, checkins and more based on the users privacy settings.

This increases the probability of accurate subscriber data as well as the ability to append your proprietary questions on the back-end of the authorization of the user. Users in this scenario are more likely to share information as they are not repeating the information process. This also means that for a brand, the ability to build a robust profile around an individual beyond the standard data points such as basic demographic data and purchase history becomes a reality.

One of the more progressive brands when it comes to Social Sign-On is Nike.

Nike offers multiple options for authentication.

When you choose to login via Facebook, look at the data that Nike gains access to in one session...

A possible user scenario is as follows. Nike is about to become the uniform provider for the NFL in the upcoming 2012 season. Imagine if Nike had the ability to quickly scan the profile data of those who have authenticated via social sign-on and find team & athlete related Likes, game Checkin's from the last season (Timeline makes this even easier), team related status updates, etc... tied to the users NFL team & players of choice. They would be able to proactively target those users with highly targeted and relevant offerings around the upcoming seasons jerseys and other merchandise that the user would then be compelled to engage.

This solution combined with other integrated tactics would most likely net better results than engaging in a mass e-mail/traditional campaign. Moving forward, the brands that understand how to leverage the immense amounts of data that individuals are providing via their social graph and then create relevant & highly targeted outreach campaigns will be the brands that will capitalize on socially enabled commerce.

As e-marketer shows below, in 2012 $3 billion in goods will be sold via social media this number jumps to $14 billion by 2015.

The key to this trend is not just positioning products via social channels, but lowering the barrier of entry, mapping CRM & social graph elements as well as highly targeted, relevant and timely offers via social & traditional channels.

The brands that understand how to better integrate their CRM programs with Social Graph data to create robust user profiles that are then the basis for executing their marketing strategy will be the winners.

It should be noted that integration of SSO is a cross departmental effort and this is one of the primary reasons more fortune 500 organizations have not adopted this method. It will take visionary executives who understand the value of data integration to push SSO forward.

Follow @BlackFin360 via Twitter

Facebook is more than just a platform, it’s an experience – and it has changed the way we live our lives.

Marketers are looking to do the same – build connections with their consumers in a more personalized way. These marketers often look to agencies for advice on how to successfully engage and connect with their audiences on social networks like Facebook. What better way to show marketers how to leverage Facebook’s platform than by Facebook using itself as a marketing tool?

With the release of Timeline Movie Maker, Facebook as a brand is leading by example, showing marketers how to use Facebook as a platform to connect with people on an emotional level. Built in collaboration with Facebook and my agency, Definition 6, Timeline Movie Maker is designed with the user in mind, highlighting the most significant moments in his/her Facebook life into a one minute movie. By bringing their personal journey on Facebook to life through a customized cinematic experience, Timeline Movie Maker provides users with a preview of their Timeline, and how it tells their own story. This gives users a reason to update their profiles to Timeline early to make their own video and view their story.

This personalized video experience speaks exactly to the core of why Facebook users use this platform at all – to share their experiences. By highlighting a users’ most engaged content, it provides a snapshot into their story and creates mini movies that they can share with friends and family. Based off of Facebook’s introductory video, the Timeline Movie Maker is a strong example of how the combination of technology and marketing can produce stellar content that resonates with people.

Once a person has Timeline, the technology evaluates the person’s content they have shared, and then identifies the most engaging, relevant content and life moments to build a chronological story for their customized, shareable mini-movie. With one-click curation, a highlight reel of a user’s Facebook life is revealed seamlessly in a one minute video recap, creating a personal scrapbook of a person’s Facebook life.

Timeline Movie Maker is initially available in four languages including English, French, Spanish and German and will allow for five different music soundtracks from which people can choose to create their mini movie. People can also customize their music selection, images, videos or check-ins at the end of the first automated video view to truly see their personalized Facebook story unfold before their eyes after first viewing.

After creating my movie, I realized I need to wear shirts more often (in pictures)  and I've started a 40 day detox from drinking.  So what did your movie say about you?

Looking back to its inception, Paid  / Owned / Earned is really two things: 1. a classification system for media types, and 2. a relational model, describing how those media types affected each other. The relational model is actually the more valuable, less commonly seen version. Here's a version of how they can be visualized:

POEM envisioned Paid, Owned, and Earned channels as discrete entities: either you bought massive reach in a channel you controlled (paid), or you had the intern send out some tweets to your followers (earned), and these two initiatives had very different resource structures and, yes, budgets. But thinking of Paid vs Earned as unrelated in 2012 will get you booted back into the traffic department.

POEM assumed that each digital channel fit into a neat bucket. The new ad formats springing forth almost weekly from Twitter + Facebook blend paid and earned media opportunities, creating new ways to spend money and annihilate POEM’s neat "is it paid or earned?” distinction in a single stroke. Is a Facebook Sponsored Story from Nike featuring my friend who recently bought shoes considered paid or earned? How about a social stream ad with a funny tagline that I retweet to my friends? Or a rich media banner with a viral video and a share button? Paid / Owned / Earned distinctions don't make room for these new ad experiences that are becoming the leading edge of digital brand campaigns.

So as Twitter and Facebook become a much larger share of digital ad spend (which now exceeds 20% of media spend [1,2]), the old POEM no longer fits. It’s time for digital advertisers to create some new media classifications and relational models that can evaluate new hybrid models. Creating new vocabularies for this stuff enables more productive conversations about the value of advertising channels like Twitter and Facebook, and helps us sort out the wheat from the chaff.

Here then, is my humble proposal for a NEW framework for our new hybrid universe. It's an updated set of guidelines I've dubbed, "MASS," and it just might help us hold new hybrid paid/earned platforms accountable to a higher set of standards that end up making things more valuable for everyone. Here it is:

Measurable

• Can you track activity and engagement in the channel using trusted third-party verified tools?

Authentic

• Does the message rest comfortably in the customer's world, representing a clear and valuable position the brand stands for?

Scalable

• "I need 2 million mommy-bloggers tomorrow." Can this channel deliver that kind of reach without sacrificing targeting specificity?

Social

• Our world has become the web, and the web has become social. Ad solutions without social actions are just customer budget stolen.

The MASS framework is something we're trying internally at 140 Proof to help customers evaluate their branded digital and retool media plans to scale social. Is it perfect? Hardly. Does it shine a bright light into the most relevant bits of the most innovative ad formats on the market today? We are beginning to think it does.

I welcome questions, comments, slings, arrows, and remixes in the comments section.

[1] http://paidcontent.org/article/419-online-ad-spend-continued-to-surge-in-q1-google-overtakes-yahoo-in-disp/

[2] http://www.emarketer.com/PressRelease.aspx?R=1008432

I’ve worked with a variety of “forward-looking” companies over the years, many of which have had the “foresight” to hire a recent college graduate “native” to social media, and put them in the powerful position of representing the corporate brand externally. There are a variety of challenges inherent to hiring inexperienced, unproven talent for such a critical role: inadequate communication skills, inability to self-direct, lack of business or marketing knowledge or understanding of company history and culture. Younger talent also lacks experience in working with management (assuming they are given access in the first place) as well as navigating corporate policies and politics.  The cost of developing younger talent, regardless of potential and level of enthusiasm, can be significant in terms of time and money.

On the other hand, hiring a “seasoned” social media professional will cost dearly up front (possibly a six figure salary) and may bring other issues to the table, including predisposed thoughts regarding overall social media philosophy and process. Assuming you do get lucky and find an affordable, intelligent socially-savvy individual to fill the position, the role is typically so time-consuming that they are unable to take the time to stay on top of the latest social media tools, trends and tactics. More importantly, they may not have the bandwidth to identify & respond to issues and opportunities in a timely manner. Last but not least, the uniquely powerful role may foster a desire to build a build a fiefdom, resulting in a siloed and fragmented approach to social media.

There is hope, if not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, however. Many of the challenges inherent to hiring a Social Media Marketing Manager are avoidable. Consider turning the role upside-down, focusing on integrating social media throughout your organization, driven by a Social Media Evangelist. In the Evangelist model, the role is that of Chief Brand Officer/CMO/Editor-in-Chief/HR Director all wrapped into one. Instead of being the single voice for the company, the Evangelist manages the overall voice of the company, as created by employees at all levels.

Let’s make a quick comparison between the two roles of Social Media Marketing Manager and Social Media Evangelist. For starters, notice the “Marketing” is dropped, since the responsibilities expand well beyond marketing into R&D, customer service and sales. The other significant difference is the shift of responsibility of outreach from an individual to all employees. Essentially, the Evangelist is a director and less of a tactician. Here’s another way to look at it:

Social Media Marketing Manager Job Description:

• Develops and implements overall social media strategy
• Creates, optimizes, promotes and manages social media profiles
• Creates majority of content
• Primary voice of company
• Monitors social media platforms
• Provides reporting to management
• Responsible for keeping up-to-date on evolving tools, trends and tactics

Social Media Evangelist Job Description:

• Develops and manages overall social media strategy
• Ensures all corporate social profiles are properly claimed, optimized, promoted and managed
• Manages voice of company
• Manages content creation
• Trains employees to monitor & engage in social media
• Manages and analyzes reporting across company
• Responsible for keeping employees updates on evolving technology, trends and tools

As you can see, there are subtle yet important differences between the roles. One is an implementer and the other is more of a facilitator. There are a variety of benefits to this approach. For starters, the Evangelist can be promoted and developed from within the company, which is historically more affordable and efficient. The position relies less on intimate knowledge of platforms and audiences and more on common talents like management and organizational skills.

With an ability to hire mid-level talent to fill the role, the Evangelist position also allows for invaluable intimate industry or company-specific knowledge. The seasoned individual would be more likely to gain exposure to and support from executive management, as well as other key employees. With a distributed approach to content creation, this person would also have more bandwidth to identify and respond to critical issues and opportunities in a timely manner as well as stay on top of the latest social media tools, trends and tactics.

Start rethinking your current Social Media Marketing Manager job description. If you’re lucky (or smart) you may only need to redeploy your existing person with minimal disruption. More than likely, the existing employee would be more than happy with an opportunity to elevate their role within the company as Chief (Social Media) Evangelist.

Before you write me off as completely insane, hear me out. The key word here is media. I’ve been in print advertising, Internet advertising, advertising media, social media advertising and advertising research. I could say I’ve been in a lot of different media. But it’s time to consider the concept of one media. Not social, mobile, Internet, tablet and offline. One media! The properties that are most efficiently poised to embrace and feed this one media are, interestingly enough, newspapers.

Obviously the reason you would call me crazy is the plunge in newspaper print circulation. That’s one way that newspaper content is consumed, and yes, it is on the downturn. I’m going to give you three reasons that this is just a phase in the life of newspapers. These three reasons will show why I believe newspapers are the keystone of the future of media.

Content: One media will depend on two types of content: expert and user-generated. We all have enough user-generated content. But the complexities of global economics, the complete partisan nature of cable news and the ubiquitous nature of UGC are starting to show the need for something more. Everybody has a blog. But not everybody has expertise. Newspapers have the ability to combine both types of content.

Platform: Newspaper content can be served anywhere, anytime, anyplace. I can read the Los Angeles Times online, or in print, in the morning, check my New York Times alerts via mobile at the gym, and then check in with the Wall Street Journal on my tablet device as the market closes. I can comment on stories. I can share them. Look on your Facebook wall today and notice how many posts originate from a newspaper. Do I still sound like I’m crazy?

Commerce: Newspapers are just now starting to find creative and compelling ways to generate newfound, cross-channel revenue, from both local and national markets. Because they are the content, creative and expert engine, they are bringing multi-media programs to market that even include networking events, consumer based industry events (travel, cars. Etc) and other new-content products.

I doubt my thoughts are shared by a lot of Wall Street analysts. But I know they’re shared by a lot of brands, retailers and agencies. Print newspapers may not be preferred by all readers all the time but that doesn’t mean their content has been devalued in any way. It’s a new growth stage for newspapers. One media!

The fact that people accumulate friends and family members and then post and watch countless still images and videos feels very primal and tribal. We are exercising the passive aspect of our flight or fight instincts as we build our social networks.  Recent survey data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project suggests that individuals extend their introvert or extrovert tendencies and play out predictable gender roles in social media.

Twenty to thirty percent of Facebook users are “power users”. Like those people who call into talk radio shows, these individuals create the most content, post more frequently, like more aggressively and comment on or tag others pictures and posts often. Yet only 5% of the Facebook user base, do all of these things. For the majority Facebook is a more passive experience where they get more than they give.

The Pew folks found that  …

• 63% got a friend request but only 40% made one
• The average person hit “Like”14 times/month but was “Liked” by others 20 times
• Users get 12 messages, but send only 9
• Comments outpace status updates 2.5:1
• 35% of users were tagged in photos, but only 12% tagged a friend in their photos
• Women updated their status 3 times more often than men

There seems to be an emerging engagement dynamic that combines a consensus on courtesy, expected behaviors and the desire to watch, listen and see without too much of an investment of time or emotion.

The average Facebook user has 245 friends. The average friend of a friend has 359. Each person’s friend list is loosely connected. There’s a mere 12% overlap when friends are matched against friends’ friends. Yet 80% of friend requests were reciprocated and fewer than 5% of Facebook users “unfriend” somebody. We seem link ourselves to the more popular kids in the class and watch them do their thing. Facebook feels a lot like High School.

Facebook also appears to be a habit leading to addiction for a segment of the user base. Psychologist Wilhelm Hofman of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago wired up 205 people in Wurzburg, Germany and quizzed them 7 times a day for 14 days to see what they were doing and feeling.  He found that Facebook and Twitter are more addictive and harder to resist than alcohol or cigarettes but not as desired as sleep or sex.

Hofman speculates that the addictiveness is hard to resist because the cost (in time or emotion) is so little. “ Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of the high availability and also because it feels like it doesn’t ‘cost much’ to engage in these activities even though one wants to resist.” Resistance to the allure of Facebook degrades further as the day goes on accounts for strong evening and night usage.

It’s no surprise that as 50% of US Facebook users visit the site daily, 40% of women, polled by Lightspeed-Oxygen Media, admit to being Facebook addicts. One in three check Facebook before they brush their teeth or wash their face in the morning. One in four checks Facebook in the middle of the night or falls a sleep PDA in hand.

Facebook means you never have to be alone. Facebook insures you always have someone to talk to and something to see and react to. Facebook is so personalized that it borders on narcissism. On Facebook you can brag, rant, pose, emote, share, offer TMI and act out in ways that your real friends and family might not tolerate. And while many users voice privacy concerns about Facebook, a kind of cognitive dissonance is at play when people post all kinds of intimate thoughts, feelings and pictures.

It’s one of the very few experiences that almost always delivers on expectations. A Facebook session always includes something that each individual cares about. It’s much more reliable and friendly than most real friends. Facebook reaffirms connections to clan, tribe, class and community. Facebook might just be the antidote to existential loneliness.

The implication for brands is clear. Be human. Try to connect with each person individually. Tap the egocentric, the longing, and the sense of community, the feeling of inclusiveness that speaks deeply to us and keeps us coming back.

I was part of the eager pack that filed into bookstores to purchase the tome in hardcover. The lead guitarist of the Rolling Stones came up the hard way in life and in music. Soft cover would not do. Not for “Keef,” one of the hardest of hard rockers. The thought of waiting (no satisfaction there) for the soft cover, or purchasing an e-book version of Life, would have been unthinkable then and even today, at least for me.

Here’s why: On an e-reader, nobody can see what you’re reading. The legend and legacy of Keith Richards would tolerate nothing less than paying full price to lug the heavy book around, run one’s fingers through the pages, lingering on the glossy ones with photographs, and especially the one on the book-jacket cover: Keith’s care-worn visage graces the front, a flame exploding from the lighter under his cigarette, a skull ring prominently worn on the third finger of his right hand.

Like millions of others, I want to consume content how and where I want it, even if it happens to be print on a page. In case you’re wondering, I’m no digital newbie. My wife and I have worked in media and marketing our entire careers, and our household includes two teenagers and the following media-devices and platforms:

• 6 TV’s
• 3 iPods
• 2 Kindles
• 2 DVR's
• Hulu+ and Netflix
• Xbox and Wii
• 2 Blackberrys
• 4 iPhones
• 2  Mac laptops
• 2 PC laptops
• XM and Sirius satellite radio in all cars
• Various print subscriptions to newspapers and magazines

Which media platform any of us chooses comes down to context and mood. It’s more enjoyable and convenient for me to time-shift broadcast content to my iPad while I’m on the treadmill at home so I don’t have to blast the volume on the TV. Sometimes my wife or one of the kids likes to flop on the couch with the print copy of People magazine.

Marketers would do well to understand that an overconcentration of their media dollars into digital media isn’t a magic bullet because ours is not an exclusively digital world, but a multichannel one. Which platform a consumer uses at any time depends entirely on the context of the consumption, and nobody, not even teenagers, considers any of them “old” media.

In fact, according to the LEAP Technology Platform from NewMediaMetrics, for Females aged 18-24, out of 14 media platforms including everything from TV to social media to video on your cell phone or tablet -- magazines are the second most attaching media just behind TV. This demo is also more attached to hard-copy magazines than online and social media platforms:

Below are the media preferences (in order) of females 18-24, and the percentage of them that are highly attached to that medium:

• TV  -- 30.5 percent
• Magazines -- 25.7 percent
• Online -- 22.4 percent
• Radio -- 21.5 percent
• Social media -- 21.5 percent

But don’t take just take our word for it. What follows are just a few examples of media outlets and content providers embracing “unlikely” means to reach target audiences and why context should be part of media-spend allocation considerations:

• This week [Jan. 30], Reuters, the newswire service launched a glossy print magazine full of relevant news and analysis articles for distribution at the Davos economic summit.
• In December, the NFL, one of the most valuable of brands, sports properties and media franchises in the world, launched NFL Magazine in print with complementary digital access.
• Q, a U.K.-based music magazine, included a physical CD in its Oct. 25 issue on which artists such as Nine Inch Nails and Patti Smith performed covers of songs on U2’s Achtung Baby in support of the album’s 200th anniversary.
• Despite aggressive forays into streaming, both Netflix and Amazon are smartly keeping one foot planted firmly in DVD’s and hard-copy content.

Many people still tend to read physical newspapers and magazines when traveling or on lounging the beach. You needn’t “shut off” the print platform for takeoff, screen glare is never an issue, and it doesn’t matter if sand gets on it.

Starbucks' groundhog day line: "What if your coffee sees it's shadow today?"

Below is this week's Top Ten. You can click through to see any of the actual posts.

Our FREE Top Ten weekly report features the top post from each of the top ten brands on Facebook. You can either sign up or view the complete list of posts in our latest report, featured in the archives on this page.

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Doug and Richard were joined by Kristen D'Arcy, SVP of e-commerce and digital media at Oscar de la Renta, and Debbie Aho Williamson, eMarketer's SVP of e-commerce and digital media. The panel was split into three discussions focusing on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. All four gave their perspectives on an age-old question in digital media, namely: "Are these channels true drivers of marketing excellence or money pits of experimentation?"

Oscar de la Renta jumped into Facebook commerce, or "F-commerce," in November when it offered a perfume ring exclusively available on Facebook. Then, in January and February, it did the same with a pair of bracelets, doubling the sales for the two products. From now on, it's going to roll out products monthly that are exclusive to Facebook (then ultimately will sell them on the website.) For Oscar de la Renta, Facebook is a testing ground.

In case you, like me, had no idea that a "perfume ring" was even a thing, here's the ring in question.

Martha Stewart Living took a different approach, using social as a place to increase exposure to already-popular items.

Next up on the discussion block was YouTube. I've been following its "professionalization area" as Doug called it (check out this New Yorker article to get the whole story.) Kristen explained that Oscar de la Renta saw YouTube, "not as a place for us to house all of our content, but instead a place to drive awareness for our brand."

Interestingly, Martha Stewart Living's most popular video by far is "How to fold a fitted sheet" (here it is on another awesome lady's -- Oprah -- website). Much to my delight, videos like the following were also trafficking well, despite Richard calling the brand's channel "not highly trafficked."

Click here to view the embedded video.

No comment.

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And finally we came to Twitter by opening up a discussion about McDonalds latest Twitter snafu (remember the fake racist sign a few months ago? Get a grip Micky d's…

On this note, Kristen explained that Oscar de la Renta focuses on horizontal marketing, relinquishing control and trusting brand ambassadors to stand up for the brand. Richard agreed, saying that "Anything you do in the digital space is fraught with risk. Fortunately, Twitter has been a safe environment for us.

PLUS, Martha's personal Twitter account has already enabled her to become a thought leader in the space:

More than you can know, Martha. More than you can know.

Until the brand hit a dry point in the early 2000s, Dockers had been on a pretty regimented brand journey that thrived under the banner of "Men in Pants." The brand had fostered a message of being about how men related to each other, and the idea that young and older men alike really cared how they looked.

But that brand focus became fragmented around what Sey refers to as "The Lost Chapter" of the Dockers' brand strategy, when the company started to diversify into retail, accessories, women's clothing, and more -- and quickly lost its unique and pointed message to the male demographic.

Sey came on board shortly after, and at the time felt little connection to the brand. Jeans were considered the fashion leader of the day, creating massive challenges for the khaki pants maker and its dire need to overcome the "nerd" stigma that had developed against it.  So Sey went about creating a new category for Dockers, and with it, a new life for the brand.

"We needed to enliven an entire category and show men a different image of what the brand should mean to them," Sey said.

Sey's goals at the time included redefining the foundation of the brand and returning to the "Men in Pants" vision that had once so clearly resonated with consumers.

"It had to be all about the khakis," Sey said. "We wanted to be the best and most loved khaki brand around -- that men wore because they wanted to, not because they had to. We needed to bring love back to the category."

The approach she took was to get back in touch with the brand's higher calling, not in a cause marketing sense, but what they were actually offering to consumers, and how to harness the power of that connection to create sustainable attachment, brand loyalty, and engagement.

The hook, Sey said, was going back to the essence of the Dockers brand as a symbol of masculinity. At the time, Sey said, masculinity was in a sort of crisis; men were suffering during the recession. So the rebranding of Dockers became a call to manhood, which Sey said continues to resonate with that demographic.

"It's something all men want," Sey said. "It was an opportunity for Dockers to celebrate and encourage the modern-day definition of what it means to be a man."

The next big leap came just in time for the 2010 Super Bowl. On a very limited budget, Dockers  launched  "Wear the Pants," a long-term platform campaign that conveyed the brand's message and focus not just externally, but internally, and sent a meaningful message to the younger, more style-focused male demographic as well as the older, more quality-focused consumer.

The global ad play was a raging success that quadrupled Dockers' Facebook followers, doubled its sales database in one day, brought in millions of hits to its newly launched website, and blew Dockers' free pants campaign into a global frenzy as sales skyrocketed 240 percent.

According to Sey, the Super Bowl made Dockers a part of the conversation again and generated more talk within the digital space than any campaign launch Levi's had ever done.

"We were thrilled with the response," Sey said, adding that they managed the campaign primarily through social media.

In the past few years, Klout has quickly risen to social media stardom as a provider of analytics measuring a user's influence across social networks (primarily focusing on Twitter, Facebook and Google+). By measuring data from social sites, the size of a person's network, and other factors, Klout gives users an influence rating  (Score) on a scale of 1 to 100. Most Klout Scores are in the 20’s, and reaching the 30’s and 40’s tends to show a good amount of social engagement. This can create, as John Scalzi puts it, “status anxiety” and social insecurity, but the credence you put to what your Score says about you remains up to you.

Like any startup, Klout is still growing and developing. Even though recent adjustments and evolution have brought controversy, Klout as a measurement tool remains an interesting data point for social media users. Of course, the influence measurement is guided by the company’s own definitions and interpretations. Currently, Klout scores are determined by the following in terms of a user’s “ability to drive action”:

• Twitter: Retweets and Mentions
• Facebook: Comments, Wall-Posts, Likes
• Google+: Comments, Reshares, +1
• LinkedIn: Comments, Likes
• Foursquare: Tips – Todo’s and Tips – Done

Klout says that users can also connect Facebook Pages, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Blogger, Wordpress.com, Last.fm and Flickr accounts, though these networks do not impact your overall Score…yet. That last word is very important to keep in mind. Klout says, “The way influence is signaled online is constantly changing. New networks are born and new behaviors emerge overnight. The Klout Score will continue to evolve to support this change….and will always exist in a dynamic state of improvement.”

So what is missing? Klout doesn’t take private messages into context, nor can it measure influence between users in a network if their interaction is taken offline or onto email. That level of engagement is likely to carry many times more weight than conversations happening publicly on a social medium. Another missing piece relates to the importance put on the network size of an individual. Some advice we often give to PR clients when discussing media outlets is to keep the target audience in mind when setting goals for news coverage. The right trade publication with a circulation of 1000 readers has often brought in more new business for certain clients than a general newspaper with 10x that audience. The goal for online interactivity should not be the amount of content, but rather the quality of that content.

As Klout has grown, the data and measurements they pull from their users have added an element beyond the ranking and gamification aspects, and this is where they show the most potential from the marketing side of the equation. Using Klout as a resource to find experts in a distinct category has already caught the attention of some major brands. Agencies and marketers should also be looking at Klout as a directory, keeping in mind that the information being presented still needs to be evaluated rather than taken at Score value as a true recommendation engine.

What it comes down to is this: Klout is growing as an evaluator of the variety of social communities, but it is (self-acknowledging) nowhere near “done”. Those of us engaging with social media professionally (brand marketers, product managers, agency staff) now have another metric to consult with and take into consideration along with measurable KPIs. The fluctuations of an individual Klout Score, however, should be taken with a grain of salt. Use Klout as a gateway or marker in broader research, focusing on the content and conversations on a deeper level than a simple score.

Moderator Jeffrey Rayport, Operating Partner, Castanea Partners asked the participants to crystallize their paid content business strategies.

Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director, Financial Times, said the FT was essentially trying to create a business that generates more and more revenue from its content, and settled on a metered model that charged users when they hit a threshold of articles.

He also discussed how switching its mobile experience from applications to HTML5 was a risk, but it has ultimately paid off handsomely. Since the FT launched the app, its traffic from Apple devices is up more than 50%, he said.

“We feel although it was a gamble, we’ve put ourselves in a much better position,” Grimshaw said.

Paul Smurl, Vice President, Paid Products, The New York Times Company, told the attendees that they need to research the tolerance of their audience to pay for content. He echoed Grimshaw’s previous comments that the Times found that people were more than willing to pay for premium content.

Unveiling a metered system has not impacted traffic to the New York Times, remaining at 44 million global unique visitors, which is flat year-over-year.

Another interesting aspect to the unveiling of digital subscriptions is that it gives publishers greater analytics to understand what type of content their users prefer.
“You want to know where the oil is on your site better than others,” Smurl said. “It allows you to think [deeper] about average revenue per user.”

LinkedIn, as a social media company, took a slightly different approach. They made sure they weren’t impacting the experience of those who use the site for general networking, while locating a paid model for recruiters and other power users.

“We [looked to] creating paid opportunities that didn’t overall negatively impact the ecosystem,” Sutherland-Wong said.

And because a majority of users spend time on LinkedIn in a free capacity, that active audience provides an effective ROI for those who use the paid services

The panel served up plenty of evidence that online subscriptions have a bright future, with the key takeaway that publishers will find success with paid models by putting resources towards understanding their customers and paying attention to their needs.

This post originally ran on the OPA Blog.

I find that generally there are two types of blog posts about Google Analytics reporting: Analytics 101 and Analytics 401. Analytics 101 posts explain the simple, out-of-the-box dashboard reports that anyone can generate without really learning too much aboutGoogle Analytics. Analytics 401 posts push deeper- explaining processes for looking for more customized, specific data. But what about Analytics 201 or 301 – things that you can do out-of-the-box, with just a little extra effort to customize the data for your specific business needs?

The purpose of this post is to fill that gap for those who want to dive deeper into Analytics, but aren’t quite ready to install specific code on their site or create custom reports with 15 different metrics. If you didn’t understand that last part – this post is for you!

1. IP Address Filters

IP Address Filters are a must! By using these filters, you can exclude all visits from a specific IP address or IP range. This can include visits from within your organization or from partners/agencies that you work with. Enabling this filter will allow you to get a clear picture of behavior solely from the online visitors you want to be tracking. Unfortunately, filters only start working once you create them.

Note: Always have one profile that has no filters whatsoever. This provides you with a back-up profile that is capturing all website activity.

To Implement:

- Create a new profile under your website account. Be sure to give it an appropriate name so you know which filters you have applied to this new profile.

- Under your new profile, create a new filter, which excludes the IP addresses of the traffic you want to segment out of this profile. There is the option to select a specific IP address under the Predefined Filters or you can create a Custom Filter to exclude an IP range using RegEx. Don’t worry Analytics 101-ers, here is a cheat sheet for creating RegEx.

2. Advanced Segments

Advanced Segments are a great tool when you want to look at the website behavior of visitors from a specific source. Unlike filters, Advanced Segments work within your existing profiles for data that has already been captured. For example, if you enable Google Analytics tracking on links within an email, you can then look at the most popular pages from that email, the time these visitors were on your site, and whether or not any converted. Other advanced segments include visitors from online advertising, visitors with conversions who do not come from paid search, and visitors who viewed a specific page on a website. These segments will help you narrow down exactly how users from various sources are behaving to better understand which sources are most likely to engage with content and convert.

To Implement:

- On the top of your Analytics site, find the drop down for Advanced Segments and create a new custom segment.

- Choose the appropriate include or exclude option – source, goal completions, landing page, etc. Use the “or” and “and” options to create a more customized segment.

- Give the new custom segment an appropriate name, and apply to your report.

3. Navigation Summary

The Navigation Summary allows you to track the most common paths through your website. The more segments you use this for, the more likely you are to identify the site paths your visitors travel. For example, try comparing the navigation summary for visitors with conversions against all visitors to identify the pages on your site most likely to drive conversions.

To View:

-  Start by choosing the Landing Page option in the left menu of Google Analytics, and select the top landing page on the site – which will most likely be your homepage.

- Find the Navigation Summary: in the old version, select Navigation Summary from the right menu. In the new version, select Navigation Summary above the main graph on the page.

- Track the top viewed pages from each page to create a diagram showing how visitors travel through your site. Move on to the second most viewed or third most viewed pages should you find cycles in your traffic patterns.

- I use a scratch piece of paper for this process using arrows to create a flow chart showing the most common next page, the second most common next page, and so on until I end up with a diagram that looks like this:

4. Branded vs. Non-Branded Organic Search

Organic search (non-paid visits from search engine results pages) is essential for reaching new customers who may not know that your business provides the solution they need. However, many times organic search traffic is visitors simply looking for the name of the company (branded). Therefore, by comparing the number of branded organic search visitors against the number of non-branded organic search visitors, you can determine the reach of your company to people who are not already familiar with your brand.

To Implement:

- Create an advanced segment that includes organic search visitors AND excludes all possible variations of your brand name. Be sure to have each exclusion under AND not OR to ensure you remove all branded keyword searches.

- Compare this segment against the total number of organic search visitors to find the number of branded organic search visitors versus non-branded organic search visitors.

5. Annotations

Annotations allow you to mark up your Analytics data with important dates, events, etc. so that you can correlate specific marketing efforts with changes in website data. If you are using multiple profiles, be sure to include annotations on each profile as they do not transfer from one to the other.

To Implement:

- In the main graph on any page in Google Analytics, highlight the date of the activity you want to track.

- Select “Create new annotation…” and title the activity.

- After saving, a small comment box will appear on your chart indicating an event happened on that day.

Questions? Feel free to contact me @mynameisarden or email us at info@r2integrated.com.

The iMedia team has been talking with some very smart marketers in the interview studio. You'll see the videos hit iMediaConnection in upcoming weeks. Topics include new digital strategies for marketing toys and fitness products, interesting advancements in video and geo-targeting, the practicality of Pinterest, Klout and reddit, and much more.

Here are some of today's highlights, with iMedia's Bethany Simpson:

Neustar's Mike Blacker on the challenges and possibilities of geo-targeting

Testing out a possible teaser image... (you know, geo-targeting!)

The very smart Scott Roen, VP of Digital Marketing & Innovation at American Express

Doing some pre-interview research with Ian Gomar, CMO for Sporting Goods, Fitness and Toys, Sears Holdings Corporation

Ian is spearheading digital communities and new creative tools for the company's toy and fitness lines

Discussing the new Facebook timeline movie app with Michael Kogon, CEO & Founder of Definition 6

Poptent's Neil Perry talking about their Super Bowl ad for Dannon's Oikos Yogurt (the one where John Stamos gets head-butted!)

Fun in the studio, with Healthadnet's TJ Pingitore

Mark Naples from WIT Strategy giving us the low-down on Pinterest, reddit, and other influential social channels

And a special find... this is Rick from our media team, helping us set up and test the lighting!

Media reports late last week showed that the economy actually grew and 200K+ new jobs were secured to start off the year.  As a recruiter in digital media, this doesn’t surprise me so much. In fact, if you looked at digital media alone as an index of the strength of our economy, you’d be hard pressed to think America was suffering financially!

My firm is pretty darn busy helping clients staff up during these first few months of 2012.  And, because driving revenue is the #1 priority for companies in the digital media business, sales jobs are hot right now.  On fire. It’s February, which means year-end bonuses have been handed out and there’s a flurry of activity and movement. Account Executives, Sales Managers and the likes are getting calls left and right regarding job openings.  Some are good and some are, or could seem, kind of sucky.  The question is, how do you break through the clutter and convince the best in the business to choose you over the other guy?

Here are my top five suggestions on how you can do just that…

#1 – Develop a Positioning Strategy

I’m sure your marketing team has done a bang up job creating presentations and other collateral that clearly spell out the advantages of investing in your company for your customers.  Why not share this with any internal and external recruiters you are working with so they can properly “sell” your company to potential employers?

#2 — Evangelize Your Company

Tell candidates how much you have grown.  Use numbers that show revenue and employee growth.  Tell candidates that this is a place that people WANT to work and prove it thru data.  If you’ve got a staff longevity story, share it.  If people are apt to get promoted, show statistics or give examples.  If the positions you are filling are all add-to-staff, sing that story out loud.

#3 — Share Unique Benefits

Do you offer a dry cleaning stipend?  Three weeks vacation at the very start?  Half-day Fridays in the summer?  Think about the various perks that your company offers and make sure to use them as part of your pitch.  As our society grows, our employees want a better work/life balance.   Promote the fact that you take care of your employees, beyond the expected paycheck.

#4 – Show Respect

Even if you interview someone and you know they are not right for the job, show some respect. Remember, that person has a life and a place on this planet, just like you.  Plus, he or she may be very well connected in the industry and could spread some pretty nasty things about your company.  If they feel really snubbed, they might even tweet or turn to Facebook, where they could lambast you in front of hundreds of people in the business. Be nice. Even if it hurts.

#5 — Show some Empathy

When you’re hiring, you’re also busy with every day job responsibilities.  It can be really difficult to stop and just focus on the interviewee when you sit down.  Try not to make the candidate wait too long after your scheduled meeting time.  Remember, he’s taking time out of his regular job as well to meet with you.  Close your door, turn off your cell phone and don’t take any interruptions. Better yet, meet the candidate outside the office so you KNOW you won’t be distracted. Show the candidate that he or she has your complete attention.  I can’t TELL you what a difference this will make in having someone great WANT to come and help you be successful.

Carpe diem

Jane Ashen Turkewitz is Client Development Director for TalentFoot Executive Search and Editor of LetsTalkTurkeyBlog.com.