February 13th, 2010
Social media is an amazing medium that has allowed businesses of all kinds to connect with customers in a direct targeted real way. While it’s great it’s not a panacea. Social media isn’t a band-aid.
Social media is only as helpful as you are. What do I mean by this? As an addition that amplifies your original business efforts and customer service it is amazing. Once it starts taking center stage over your original efforts that’s when you run into problems. That’s socialwashing.
The icing on a cake may taste amazing but if the actual cake part is horrendous no one is going to eat it regardless of how tasty the icing is. If your business operations are shoddy and your customer service is flagging there’s only so much social media can do. There’s also only a certain amount of time you have to fool people that everything is alright with your sleight of hand magic tricks.
The danger comes into play when your original supporters – your evangelists – abandon you because you become too obssessed with social media and lose sight of your most important customers needs. It’s a sad day when you as the customer realizes that you must part ways with what has come to be a good friend.
A good friend isn’t someone who ignores their friend’s basic needs and is only cares about fun. That’s a fairweather friend. That’s exactly what socialwashing is.
Tags: business efforts, business is business, fairweather friend, sleight of hand magic tricks, taking center stage
Posted in business, featured, social media | No Comments »
January 7th, 2010
Click on “Settings”, scroll down to the bottom to “Linked Accounts”. Click on crap. Boom. You’re now able to access Facebook when you’re signed in to other services. You’re welcome.
Posted via email from db’s digital branding database
Tags: email, Facebook, Google, login, Myspace, social media, social networks, Yahoo
Posted in featured, social media | No Comments »
December 8th, 2009
Is Facebook promoting Google’s Gmail Connect service as a way to get more users onto Facebook? Or is Google taking out ad space to promote their connect tool? More than likely it’s an internal Facebook effort as the logos of Yahoo, AOL, Windows Live and Gmail are all represented in the ad. So why now?
As
Mashable and
GigaOm both report
Facebook’s growth is slowing. As they both point out
Facebook has refocused their
strategy by eliminating regional networks in place of a global focus and added new products such as
Facebook Lite and
Facebook Touch Mobile. One thing is for sure – the users
Facebook already has aren’t going anywhere, as there are no clear alternatives to the
social network behemoth (at least in the US).
The question on my mind is this – will
Facebook start creating ads to start pulling in your
Twitter and
LinkedIn friends to your
Facebook network? They’ve created a fan page post to
Twitter tool so it’s not that far of a stretch, especially concerning the strength of their
network. Only time will tell but this is a move that
Facebook would clearly
benefit from if they implemented it.
Posted via email from db’s digital branding database
Tags: ad space, AOL, aren, behemoth, clear alternatives, Connect, database, download, effort, email, Facebook, fan, fan page, focus, gallery, GigaOm, global focus, Gmail, Google, growth, linkedin, Lite, Live, logos, mashable, mind, mobile, mobile one, move, network, one thing, page, place, point, post, question, regional networks, report, service, space, strategy, strength, stretch, thing, time, tool, Touch, twitter, US, way, Windows, Yahoo
Posted in branding, featured, social media | 1 Comment »
November 10th, 2009
A strong brand pays attention to details. A smart brand connects with the connectors in memorable ways that may not be readily quantifiable. A savvy brand knows that there are many factors involved in making something a hit or miss. Motorola is all of these and more when it comes to Droid.
On Android day, Cake Group put together an amazing event for Motorola’s Droid release. Their efforts went beyond the day of with connecting with various influencers beforehand to seed articles after the fact.
The branding brilliance comes into play with the attention to details. Customized shortened urls were created just for the event:
Press Release for Droid: http://bit.ly/MotoDroid
Link to Droid specs/product info: http://bit.ly/MotorolaDroid
Pictures from last night: http://bit.ly/MotoLaunchParty
The invitation was elegant, simple and overall top-notch:
What really set them apart was Motorola’s use of Foursquare in a relevant and timely way:
If that wasn’t enough, the piece that pulled it all together was the fact that the launch party took place in Morimoto, the famous Japanese restaurant. MoriMOTO, MOTOrola - very slight but very intentional and very effective.
With Motorola the attention is in the details. At every turn there was a robot, or droid, to reinforce that we were there in fact for the DROID launch. By the end of the party none of the robot droids were left, as they were almost as coveted as the DROID itself. Another small detail was the DROID branded photo-booth downstairs, which came with props like a giant inflatable 90’s-era cellphone and a raygun, as well as an alien backdrop.
Attention to details doesn’t stop after the party: I have it on good authority that Cake Group also added tips to every Verizon store on DROID day (11-6-9) to clue people in to the new Motorola DROID. While Foursquare may not be completely mainstream yet one thing is for sure – the people that ARE using advanced social networking services are the ones who are buying these new mobiile computing “phones”. With the proliferation of these advanced communication devices it’s only a matter of time before everyone is using one. Until then we have companies like Motorola and Cake Group who are using branding purposefully to guide us along the way.
Tags: android, attention, authority, backdrop, brand, brilliance, Cake, cellphone, clue, computing, day, detail, downstairs, droid, droids, end, event, fact, Foursquare, giant, giant inflatable, Group, influencers, info, invitation, japanese restaurant, launch, launch party, link, mainstream, mobiile, Morimoto, motorola, networking, networking services, new motorola, night, none, party, photo booth, Pictures, piece, place, play, Press, product, props, raygun, release, restaurant, robot, seed, social networking, something, store, thing, top notch, turn, Use, verizon, way
Posted in branding, life, social media | 1 Comment »
October 26th, 2009
A necessary and brilliant move, Apple has added suggestions to their receipt to give a valid call to action. The only problem is the suggestions are based on what others who bought my selections also bought. While this is helpful in giving more suggestions I’d actually like suggestions based on what I bought that’s relevant to me.
Semantic technology may still be in it’s infancy but relevancy can be given based on many other factors. I personally don’t need an app to view my pet pictures on my Mac remotely (Clarus), a separate app to read a blog (Pali Research), and I certainly don’t need to track my neuroses (SymTrend). If Apple knew me they’d know that I don’t have a pet, am reading my blogs via my6sense now and have overcome neuroses long ago.
Tagging is a very simple technology that is successfully implemented by many brands. Foursquare has taken descriptive tagging to another level by crowd sourcing this task and rewarding for levels of input. If the ‘Give Work’ app was properly tagged it would’ve been able to suggest other apps that are similar in the social good, social change categories and crowd sourcing categories. I would even accept most recently added app suggestions, most popular in category, or even what other users in my area downloaded [which they can do because they have my address].
Suggestions are a step forward but these aren’t enough for me. For now I’ll keep archiving my iTunes receipts so I can search through my download history, as Apple doesn’t allow you to do that easily. If apps like my6sense can learn my preferences then surely a large company with vast resources like Apple can figure out how to do the same.
Posted via email from db’s digital branding database
Tags: action, address, address suggestions, app, Apple, apps, area, aren, blog, blogs, brilliant move, call, category, change, change categories, Clarus, company, crowd, database, doesn, download, email, Foursquare, history, infancy, input, iTunes, level, Mac, move, neuroses, Pali, pet, pet pictures, problem, receipt, receipts, relevancy, Research, Semantic, sense, simple technology, step, store, Suggestions, SymTrend, tagging, task, technology, the, vast resources, Work
Posted in branding, featured, social media | No Comments »
October 23rd, 2009
Facebook recently released a touchscreen optimized interface for phones such as the iPhone and android models. It’s interesting that even though Facebook is one of the most downloaded social networking iPhone apps that Facebook is still continuing to optimize the mobile web on many different fronts.
Considering they just launched their newly redesigned homepage in a more streamlined newsfeed focused way it makes me wonder if this addition is within their overall brand vision for their user interface and user experience.
One thing I DO like about the new Touch interface is the Phone section (Also notice the new notifications red icon in the upper left corner). It focuses on who you can call, as opposed to the mobile interface which focuses on all your friends and pointing out who has their phone number listed with a phone icon.
What do you think about the differences? Not enough? Too much? What other changes should be made?
Posted via email from db’s digital branding database
Tags: android, brand, branding, email, Facebook, iphone, iphone apps, mobile interface, mobile web, models, network, networking, notifications, phone icon, phone number, social, social media, social network, social networking, social web, touch interface, touchscreen interface, user experience, user interface, Web 2.0
Posted in branding, social media | No Comments »
October 23rd, 2009
Checking my Facebook fanpage updates I came across this update:
It basically says fans aren’t actually allowed to have fanpages anymore. Essentially what has happened is that fanpages have been cannibalized by brands as an official outlet for them over groups.
Why is this important?
- It takes away your right to create, share and enjoy something socially with others
- It enables a brand economy over a social economy
- It adds a layer of authenticity for brands allowing them to protect their interests
- It shows Facebook’s commitment to monetizing by looking out for brands
So if you want to make a fanpage for an established brand (personal or professional) the party’s over. Unless it’s an officially sanctioned fanclub run by the brand you’re out of luck.
Also important, there’s a three week authentication grace period.
P.S. If you look in the upper right corner I find it pretty apropos that Facebook is asking me if I know about Slash and want to be his fan, therefore I dub this technique of Facebook cutting fan fanpages as being ‘Slashed’.
#ChatPack P.S. This one’s for you Brett, as I know you’ve run into a similar situation with Mr. Easton Ellis’ people.
Posted via email from db’s digital branding database
Tags: authentication, authenticity, brand, Brett, ChatPack, Checking, commitment, corner, database, dub, easton ellis, economy, Ellis, email, Facebook, fan, fanclub, fanpage, grace, grace period, layer, luck, Mr. Easton, outlet, P.S. If, P.S. This, party, period, right, share, situation, Slash, Slashed, social economy, something, technique, update, week
Posted in branding, featured, social media | No Comments »
October 13th, 2009
Most brands in the social media space want to be able to define Social Media Return On Investment (smROI) and for good reason. They’re putting in money to the medium so they should be getting more money out of it ideally. In this respect there is NO difference between traditional and social media measurement. Here’s why:
In both mediums there are intangibles such as word of mouth and message internalization. These two factors are the strongest influencers that your customer will encounter. Generally speaking brands don’t measure the effects of these factors with the exception of the NetPromoter Score .
So why are people freaking out about measuring social media’s effectiveness? One word: money.
Let’s relate smROI back to traditional ROI in advertising. Companies advertise in magazines, newspapers, commercials and all other sorts of media outlets yet there isn’t a particular outlet that will tell them that someone bought their product or service based on advertising. Sure there’s a targeted audience there based on subscribers and media consumer demographics but unless you’re polling people at point of purchase on exactly why they bought your product then you can’t actively tie outreach to purchases. So why do companies invest money into these channels? Because there’s an audience there.
The problem with social media is that the audience isn’t built in like traditional media. You have to build up a following all on your own. Your message is competing for attention along with tons of others. That’s no different than traditional where there are many channels, magazines, newspapers and ads.
What HAS changed are the channels of communication. Instead of big media corporations dictating what the consumer consumes now the power is in the hands of the consumer. Whereas before consumers were able to choose anything within a limited confines now they have almost an unlimited pool to choose from online.
For you as a brand nothing has changed except the venue. Think of your customers as the new big media corporation. They’re deciding the programming, they’re cancelling shows, they’re greenlighting the content and syndicating your show into perpetual prosperity.
In part 2 I’ll go into the different types of measurement you can do in social media to further define smROI for your brand.
Tags: advertising companies, advice, audience, business, channels of communication, commercials, communicating, confines, consumer, consumer demographics, consumers, core values, good reason, influencers, intangibles, interactions, knowledge, marketing, media corporations, media measurement, media outlets, media space, mediums, message internalization, mindshare, NetPromoter, NetPromoter Score, outreach, point of purchase, return on investment, selling, smROI, social media, social media return on investment, social media ROI, Value, venue, word of mouth
Posted in analysis, business, featured, social media | No Comments »
