what's now and what's next in social media marketing
Social media ad revenues are expected to grow to $11 billion dollars by the year 2017. Facebook alone is expected to make close to $1 billion from its mobile ad revenue in 2013.
Salesforce.com put together a helpful infoG detailing the allocation of the social ad spend. Enjoy.
Building on their attempts to get into commerce, Facebook is testing a feature that lets users create “wishlists” by clicking an “I Want” button. The test includes seven retailers: Pottery Barn, Victoria’s Secret, Neiman Marcus, Michael Kors, Smith Optics, Wayfair and Fab.com. The feature, which Facebook dubbed Collections, could help Facebook play a bigger role in the online commerce market by encouraging users to buy flagged products for their friends directly from online stores.
A Facebook spokeswoman said the company does not receive a fee when someone purchases a wishlist item on Facebook from a retailer’s site.
The Collections feature will gradually be offered to 100% of its U.S. users and will be slowly rolled out in the UK next year. Unlike Facebook’s existing “like” button, the feature that Facebook is testing will showcase the “liked” item within a user’s Timeline profile page.
To-date, Facebook has not had much success in the commerce arena. The social network’s attempt at direct-purchases through the site failed miserably with GameStop, Gap, JC Penney and Nordstrom’s storefronts being shut down almost as quickly as they launched.
I think this could find some success, particularly when built into Facebook-organized events like baby showers and engagements/weddings, where gift registry is common. But, if the wish list isn’t tied to a specific event, I’m not sure how effective it will be in general. After all, how often do people buy gifts for each other “just because”?
I’ll keep an eye out on this for you. In the meantime, let me know what you think – would you share your wish lists on Facebook?
There is always a big risk when you hang your promotional hat on a paid-for hashtag.
McDonald’s learned that lesson earlier this year when they asked Tweeps to share their stories to #McDStories. Negative tweets about the fast food chain took over the interwebs ranging from comments about being high while eating McDonald’s to throwing up the food, prompting the New York Observer to remark that “some stories are better left untold.”
Wendy’s fell into the same trap last year, paying for the exclusive use of #HeresTheBeef. I will just let you imagine what Tweets that hashtag prompted.
Well, it seems The Campaign to elect Governor Romney didn’t get the memo. After paying $120,000 PER DAY for the use of #AreYouBetterOff, the GOP was clearly expecting a resounding “no” from Twitterers to support their campaign message that President Obama has not improved the economy.
Instead, #areyoubetteroff was combined with the word “yes” more than 1,800 times in its first 24 hours, while it was only paired with “no” around 600 times during the same time period.
And, since then, the yes/no ratio has been an embarrassing 5 to 1.
To make matters worse for the Romney campaign, their original hashtag has already spawned rebuttal hashtags like #iambetteroff and#betteroff which, as you can imagine, are full of examples of how Americans say they are better off and how they imagine they’d be worse off under a Romney/Ryan presidency.
It’s important to remember social media is not a controlled environment. It’s the wild west and open-ended questions can really bring trouble. It’s best to think like a trial attorney when creating your hashtag strategy and never ask a question unless you absolutely know what everyone’s answer will actually be.
Anyone who knows me knows I am the world’s biggest movie nerd. As such, I am a big fan of the SyFy Channel’s show “Face Off” in which make-up artists compete to create the most stunning SFX characters in just two days.
And, if that isn’t cool enough for you, the way the network is leveraging social media could set the stage for all future programs.
They call it SyFy sync and the idea is simple enough. As you watch tv with your iPad, Droid tablet or other digital device … which let’s face it, we all do … the app will automatically detect where you are in the show and deliver exclusive content, contests, trivia, videos and chats. And, the best part is, it doesn’t limit the conversation to the SyFy Channel’s web site. With key plug-ins, you can easily see feeds from Facebook, Twitter and GetGlue so you can engage with fans where they are.
This second-screen content was created by Syfy producers, using the the related-content syndication specialist, WatchWith (formerly RCDb). Using the Mac-based program Showrunner, a time-based metadata editor for creating and syncing a metadata layer with video assets, the screen looks like a simple version of Final Cut Pro that allows you to add an event to the show’s timeline. The next version of Gloto’s Apple/Android app will use audio from the program to trigger content recognition, allowing use during re-broadcasts, or when playing back from a DVR.
“From the beginning, we were clear about our creative goals for the sync experience: the content needed to be additive and not duplicative. No simple re-use of assets across screens was allowed,” said Matthew Chiavelli, SyFy’s Digital VP of emerging platforms. “This approach drove us to create fresh, fun, interactive content and deliver an application that is truly enhancing the experience for viewers. This is the kind of creative commitment needed to produce a great sync-to-broadcast experience, and something our close relationship with show production allowed us to create.”
As a viewer and a social media marketer, I can say the approach works. I’ve said before that the future of Facebook is social TV, but with truly integrated content like this, that so easily lets you leverage the communities on other key SM channels, I may revise that sentiment to state the future is superb content that is seamlessly synced to Facebook, Twitter and other sites.
Of course, Syfy already has a history of interacting with its audience, with shows like “Ghost Hunters” employing concurrent web playout offering camera feeds that show viewers wouldn’t see on the live broadcast. So, it will be interesting to see if Sync is added to this year’s live Halloween show.
Either way, well done, Syfy! I can’t wait to see what you think of next!
This has been a strange couple of weeks for Twitterers.
First, we had the idiotic PR mistake from a British Boutique who didn’t bother to Google “Aurora” before saying the trending topic must be about a dress they sell instead of the massacre of innocent people.
Then, we had an Olympic hopeful expelled from competing in the Games for making an equally stupid racist Tweet about her fellow competitors.
And, now, someone who most certainly should have known better, a Wall Street Journal editor topped them all with a terrible Tweet about the three men who died shielding their girlfriends from gunfire during the tragic Aurora shooting.
James Taranto, who writes the “Best of the Web Today” column and is a member of The Journal‘s editorial board, Tweeted:
As you can imagine, the reaction was not favorable for the seasoned journalist.
“Wow. Apparently, you have no soul,” Twitter user @dennholt wrote in reply.
“you sir are disgusting. How dare you!!!,” tweeted @txLSUgirl.
Mr. Taranto responded with an article entitled Heroes of Aurora: A mea culpa for an errant Tweet. In the article, Taranto explains that he and his colleagues had been discussing the stories coming out of the Aurora tragedy and “We intended this to be thought-provoking, but to judge by the response, very few people received it that way. The vast majority found it offensive and insulting.”
He then goes to to explain that his intention behind the Tweet was to inspire these women “who owe their lives to their men” to “live good, full, happy lives.” Sort of the “earn this” moment from Saving Private Ryan.
Now, I can understand the sentiment, truly I can. And, I’m quite sure not a day will go by in these womens’ lives where they don’t think back with gratitude and grief over the sacrifice their boyfriends made.
But, the communication of that “earn it” concept failed miserably, made even worse by the fact that a journalist – a professional communicator – said it.
And, it got me thinking. In this day and age, we’ve all said things online at one point or another that have come back to bite us. I know I have. But, it’s stories like these that only serve to remind us: words matter. What we say and how we say it matters. And, not just when we are promoting a product or crafting a story around a brand. Every day, every thing we say has an impact on someone, somewhere.
I can still – to this day – get choked up over the words of bullies from my childhood or beam with pride over the first time my mom and dad told me how proud they are of me. Words matter.
Today, when our thoughts are broadcast to the world the moment they occur to us, we should take greater pains to take a moment and think about what we are saying. We should take the time to think about how it will be received by others.
The folks at Chick-Fil-A have seen the power of their words in the past few days as boycotts break out across the country. An Olympic athlete had her dream of competing crushed because she didn’t consider how important her words are. A PR pro in the UK was likely fired for not researching the context of her words before using them. And, an editor’s intention was completely lost when he failed to find the right phrasing for the idea he wanted to express.
Words matter, y’all. So, take the time to value them and respect the power they wield.
With that, I leave you with a quote from Margaret Thatcher taken from the movie Iron Lady:
