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Measuring Brand Experiences In Social Media

socialmediaBiz — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:50:10 +0000

What if a company was able to segment how their market perceives their product by each brand experience? Wouldn't such an ability to segment enable a company to guide product development by keeping tabs on the pulse of the marketplace, and how a company is measuring up to the competition in the market place? To illustrate, let's use the example of a webinar software company, where the company might have three brand experiences its identified the company wants to succeed within the marketplace, those brand experiences would be a) easy to use, and b) how the company explains how to present a good webinar, and lastly c) how the webinar company integrates web 2.0 technologies into the product like twitter (twebinars). Using social media monitoring technology the webinar software company would be able to determine the volume of conversations around each brand experience...

Dear United, Here's Your Chance For Awesome Reputation Management

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:04:17 +0000

Dear @UnitedAirlines, As you are well aware, @DaveCarroll has released a well-produced music video about lousy customer service that he experienced. The video is thought-out, witty, satarical, and (most of all) it strikes a chord with the average consumer. In the rare case you missed it: United Breaks Guitars. Now you and your C-level executives may have woken up that morning and felt the entire world was against you. Not only do you have a major public relations fiasco that needs to be dealt with, but it is happening in the worse possible economy when consumers are already timid about traveling by air for their summer vacations. This is truly a headache of the worse kind for any traditional PR firm. But, lucky for you this isn't a traditional public relations crisis. You actually have an opportunity to turn this single experience into one of the best case studies of online reputation management in internet marketing history. I'll explain how...

Enterprise Friendly Social Network Dashboard PeopleBrowsr Launches Real Time Search

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:26:31 +0000

PeopleBrowsr, a desktop and web browser-based dashboard for social networks, is adding a real-time search functionality that would let users make filtered searches into conversations on Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed. Launched at TechCrunch’s Real-Time Stream CrunchUp, the search engine is particularly useful to brands and companies looking to have insight into the conversations about their businesses taking place on the social graph. Designed to unearth conversations around particular keywords, the search engine also offers further filtering options. Search results can be filtered by topic, geography and authority...

Simmons Beautyrest Running Video And Photo Essay Contest On Facebook

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:46:59 +0000

The title of this photo submission: “Why I desperately need a Beautyrest” - mattress, that is. Mattress maker Simmons Beautyrest has partnered with social media agency Votigo to announce a Facebook video and photo contest designed to encourage customers to generate content and then get their friends to vote for their submissions...

SAP Social Media Guidelines 2009

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:43:16 +0000

SAP recently announced a new set of Social Media Participation Guidelines and an internal forum to help employees make the most of new social media channels such as Blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. In the spirit of Web 2.0, and like other organizations such as Intel and IBM, we would like to share our guidelines with the community...

Is Consumer Trust Online Misplaced? Can Brands Do Anything To Change This?

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:36:58 +0000

We've all done it. In our decision making process to purchase something of fairly high value such as a holiday or fancy gadget; or when we think about a purchase that requires a long term commitment such as a mobile contract or gym membership; we ask trusted friends for their opinions and experiences. It's human nature. We're doing our best to eliminate any risk, whether this be associated with cost or contract catches, anything really. We're after value for money and want to hear about any experiences, warts 'n' all. Based upon the information we gather from these trusted sources, we make what we feel is the best decision for ourselves...

Defining Social Media ROI Once And For All, And Understanding The Action-Reactive-Return Narrative

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:28:41 +0000

This post is the continuation of a discussion started on Marketing Profs’ LinkedIn group on July 7th. (If you don’t yet subscribe to the group, consider becoming a part of it.) Let me start today’s post with a confession: Like many people in the business world, I have abused the term “ROI” from time to time. Yes, I admit it, even I have used “ROI” as a relative term on a number of occasions in the past. I’m not proud of it, but there it is. Here are some examples of what I am talking about...

Use Twitter To Blow My Mind

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:22:55 +0000

Marketers: Consumers Just Aren't That Into You

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:17:43 +0000

If marketing were dating, we marketers would be the loneliest guys and gals at the dance. Our shortcoming certainly isn't our level of desire nor the amount of effort we dedicate trying to connect with those in the dating pool--we are lavish with our cash, we obsess about how we look and what we say, and we study our potential partners so thoroughly that we often know more about them than they know about themselves. So, why does it go so wrong so often? Why don't the objects of our affection return our calls? It doesn't take Abigail Van Buren to diagnose that marketers suffer from the same problem so common to jilted suitors: You cannot build a relationship with someone else by only caring and talking about yourself...

It Takes A Village To Measure Social Applications

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:48:31 +0000

Have you been lured in by "Texas Hold'em" or "Mafia Wars"? This week I was analyzing a branded application on Facebook using three different data sources: Facebook's native analytics, Google Analytics and Atlas. One could merely use Facebook's native analytics platform for tracking app usage, notifications, installs and uninstalls, but you can also glean a lot more from the canvas page than you might think if you creatively use your Web analytics tools to mine some of the data...

Why Twitter Can Do More Harm Than Good

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:45:38 +0000

Here's a question: When was the last time you went to a meeting, read an article on marketing, or attended an industry event that didn't feature the ubiquitous t-word -- Twitter? Twitter is everywhere. And everyday, there are new and even greater resources on how to exploit this emerging tool. Look here, here, and here for a quick sample, and you'll get an idea of how keen marketers are to find out what Twitter can do for their brands. So, what's wrong with Twitter? Is this one of those "Twitter-bashing" articles? Have the haters finally caught up with microblogging? Well, before you punch out a 140-character alert and a TinyURL link to this article, consider this (hopefully) rather obvious point: Twitter is not the only game in town when it comes to disseminating your brand's message...

Econsultancy’s Take On Social Commerce Trends

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:16:39 +0000

This is the final post in our three-part blog series with Rebecca Lieb, Econsultancy’s Vice President of North America. Econsultancy, the UK’s leading source of insight on digital marketing and e-commerce, has been a partner and resource to Bazaarvoice in the UK for over two years and is now launching its US office in New York City. Here, Rebecca shares her thoughts on research and e-commerce trends. Read the first post on growing the new US office and the second post on monetizing Twitter and social media...

Where Social Media And Shopper Marketing Merge To Reach Moms (Q&A)

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:15:18 +0000

Social media and shopper marketing are probably the two hottest areas in the marketing industry. Now Mars Advertising has combined them by snagging John Andrews, a former senior manager of emerging media for Walmart and organizer of its ElevenMoms mommy-blogger network to lead a new unit, Collective Bias. Collective Bias looks to create communities of moms (not unlike Walmart's ElevenMoms) as a combination consulting firm and marketing conduit for marketers -- initially including Campbell Soup Co., Colgate-Palmolive Co., Hershey Foods and Yahoo. In an interview with Advertising Age, Mr. Andrews discusses some of the details...

A Day In The Life Of A Twintern

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:15:06 +0000

Most people measure the workday in hours, but for a new crop of employees—interns in charge of their companies' Twitter feeds—the day is measured in tweets. "I try to get in at least 10 posts a day," says Alexa Robinson, 22, who started work as Pizza Hut's first official "twintern" in June. Robinson spends much of the day on the free microblogging service Twitter sending out messages about special promotions, responding to customer complaints, and trolling Twitter for mentions of Pizza Hut...

Social Media Monitoring Service Collective Intellect Gets $3 Million More

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:29:56 +0000

Collective Intellect, a Boulder, CO-based provider of social media monitoring services for businesses, has raised another $3.1 million in funding, according to an SEC filing just filed (embedded below). This adds to the $9.6 million it has raised in two previous rounds, from investors such as Grotech Capital, Appian Ventures, Croghan Investments and Crawley Hatfield Capital...

Microsoft's New CRM Accelerators Embrace Social Networking, Web Portals

socialmediaBiz — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:08:56 +0000

Microsoft will release free CRM Accelerators for Microsoft Dynamics CRM that allow the enterprise to pull data from social networks such as Twitter, centralize sales management across multiple channel partners through a common Website, and integrate Dynamics CRM with Web portals. Microsoft has been heavily promoting its Dynamics CRM throughout 2009 as an alternative to Salesforce.com and other cloud application companies...

5 Steps For Successful Social Media Damage Control

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:58:15 +0000

I spent many years of my career in the hospitality business and the first rule of thumb when dealing with customers was, “if a guest had a positive experience, they’ll tell 3 people and if they had a negative experience, they’ll tell 10.” That same idea holds true in the new media world, except the numbers have grown exponentially. Instead of it being 3 people – it’s 3,000, or instead of 10 – it’s perhaps 100,000. The numbers aren’t meant to scare you. But what should you do when something goes wrong? Our goal, of course, hasn’t changed – work to increase the number of positive comments written about your company, product, or service and take care of those who have negative experiences. But, how do you make that happen in the social media world? What steps to you take to keep negative social media damage to a minimum?...

CoTweet Now In Public Beta; Get The Same Twitter CRM Tools As Big Brands

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:28:46 +0000

You may know CoTweet as the Twitter CRM tool used by BestBuy, JetBlue, and Ford, and if you’re a business Twitter user with multiple people managing multiple accounts, then you’ve probably been dying to try it. Now you can. Today CoTweet, formerly open to just a select group of companies, is announcing its public beta launch, which means you can have immediate access to the same business-centric tools for Twitter account and tweet management as the big brands. You may remember from our previous post that CoTweet’s web-based application is ideal for multiple account management for multiple users...

Guest Post: A Brand's Largest Social Media Obstacle

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:47:21 +0000

Would you believe me if I told you that most of the time the reason a social media campaign fails is because of a single obstacle? What if I told you the brand itself was the reason? Interestingly enough, a brand's point of view, and culture can be sabotaging their online marketing. I've made a pretty bold statement, saying that brands shoot themselves in the foot, but why? The first is the stereotypical follower brand. These brands enter the social space because their competitors are. Without a real reason for connecting with consumers, the brand has no drive to foster their relationships. Most of these campaigns are lackluster and fall apart after a few months...

Facebook Helps Brands And Personalities Transform Visitors Into Fans

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:43:46 +0000

Facebook Connect is connecting people across the social graph to fresh content and furthermore it’s channeling outside Web events into individual lifestreams. Essentially, Facebook is solidifying its position as not only your primary social network, it’s also a emerging as a central hub for your attention, updates, news, promotion, and enlightenment. Now, Facebook is extending its network to the World Wide Web, allowing brands and personalities who have or will host Fan Pages to embed a widget version of the page directly into Web sites, other social networks, social networks, and blogs. This builds a bridge between the 200 million strong Facebook network and outside visitors to strategically concentrate on promotion and community building...

Who Uses Social Networks And What Are They Like? (Part 1)

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:41:10 +0000

A new study by Anderson Analytics looks into the demographics and psychographics of social networking users on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn with a goal of providing marketers with information about users' interests and buying habits as it related to their their network of choice. The end result is a detailed look at the profiles and habits of social networking users on the web today. Some of the study's findings echo things we've already heard. For example, Facebook users tend to be old, white, and rich. MySpace users are young...and fleeing. Other info is new: Twitterers are more likely to have a part-time job, LinkedIn users like to exercise and own more gadgets...

How Will You Respond To A Customer Complaint In The Age Of Social Media?

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:35:22 +0000

In the good old days, if you dropped the service ball, no one really knew. You might get a letter to the CEO but your secret was your secret. Today if you drop the ball, as Dell did back in the day with a leading blogger such as Jeff Jarvis - you could risk a genuine devaluation of the brand. But I bet that you thought that just regular customers could still be put off and no one would know. Well, it’s a new world out there and even regular folks can make your life hell and get pay back...

Back Up The Bus – The Changing PR Timeline

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:32:09 +0000

Before I got involved in online marketing in 1994, I helped manage political campaigns. In those days, the formula was pretty consistent. You targeted different voter groups with direct mail, radio and TV. Then, with about two weeks left in the campaign, you brought out the big guns and dropped a big TV and direct mail bomb on your opponent. A few years ago, Arizona (and many other states) began to allow vote by mail. In Arizona, you can now cast your ballot in any state-wide election as much as 8 weeks before election day. Thus, almost every day is election day, and as many as 50% of votes are now cast early. This of course has fundamentally changed the nature of campaigning in the state. Messaging must be earlier and more consistent, and you can’t keep your powder dry for the end. You have to run hard from day one. Social media has changed the game for public relations in exactly the same way...

Yet Another Social Media Release Primer

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:31:00 +0000

I wouldn’t have thought I’d be writing a Social Media Release 101 post, given the volume of content already out there dedicated to the topic. But given Dan’s question (which leads me to believe there must be a lot of other people have the same question), coupled with developments with the Social Media Release Working Group, it’s worth revisiting the basics. The notion of the SMR has sparked a lot of opposition, mainly from people who think the press release is dead and that the SMR is a lame attempt to bring them into the social media era when they should just be scrapped and replaced with more SEO-friendly alternatives or social conversations (depending on whom you listen to). In fact, there has been a significant amount of debate over the merits of the SMR, all of which seems odd to me, given what the SMR really is and what it was designed to achieve...

Forget Social Media, SEO And PPC Is Where The Money's At

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:24:15 +0000

Social media has grown like a weed on the consumer usage front but when it comes to revenue, social media hasn't yet found enough friends in the form of advertisers to cement its place as a digital marketing staple. According to Forrester Research, however, that will all change by 2014. As our own Meghan Keane detailed, spending on social media marketing will grow to over $3bn by then, up from an estimated $716m this year, Forrester predicts...

Beyond Advertising: A Strategic Path To The Digital Consumer

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:09:48 +0000

Today, the distinctions between advertising and marketing have blurred. As communications increasingly become digital, every contact with a consumer is an opportunity to simultaneously impact your brand while also driving action. New forms of communication must therefore combine the ROI-characteristics of direct marketing with the brand characteristics of traditional advertising. With digital consumers increasingly in control of their media experience and advertisers shifting their expenditure to more interactive, measurable formats, companies must move beyond traditional advertising to combine the granularity of targeting and measurement with cross-platform integration...

Moonfruit's Twitter Push Provides Cautionary Tale

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:07:07 +0000

Marketers looking to leverage Twitter beware: the company will only let you rig the system so much, as one brand recently discovered. Moonfruit, a U.K.-based company that offers free Web site building tools, saw a great opportunity to raise brand awareness on Twitter. The company last week kicked off a sweepstakes, giving away 10 MacBook Pro computers to Twitter users that include the #moonfruit tag in their tweets. (The sweepstakes ended on July 7.) The campaign worked, maybe too well...

Is Social Network Advertising Ready For Primetime?

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:03:21 +0000

Let’s get the bad news out of the way. As a result of the poor economy and various difficulties at MySpace, paid advertising on online social networks in the US is expected to fall 3% in 2009. But the drop will be short-lived. eMarketer projects that US marketers will increase their social network ad spending 13.2% in 2010, to $1.3 billion...

What Your Favorite Social Network Says About You

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:00:24 +0000

Do you Twitter? Then you are more interested in sex than the average Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn user. Like LinkedIn? You're more likely to watch soap operas. Favor MySpace? You're probably not into exercise. Which social network you favor says a lot about you -- and you might be surprised just what it says. A new study by Anderson Analytics is helping identify users' likely interests, buying habits, media consumption and more for marketers. The survey studied the demographics and psychographics of both social networkers and non-users and found that "there are definite data-driven segments in the social-networking-site market, both for non-users and users," said Tom Anderson, founder and managing partner...

How I Tweet- A FAQ

socialmediaBiz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:57:29 +0000

This is a blatant ripoff homage to Guy Kawasaki’s FAQ on how he uses Twitter, only this way, I’ll explain how I use Twitter, including answering some questions I tend to get more often than others. These answers might change as time goes on. As they do (and depending how lazy I am at fixing it) I’ll just try to update this post...