Masters is over...

The thought of no more study for a while certainly makes the summer look better knowing that i'm not going into Semester 1 at the end of it...

Why I like social media..FB

I thought it fitting to close this journey with MKF5601 with some thoughts on why I use social media from a professional point of view and how Facebook has changed the landscape for the Club I work for.

In my current role the I have made a commitment digital /social marketing. Our customers will 'Google' it before they purchase it, so the Clubs digital presence is going to be our first point of contact - first impressions always leave their mark.

Our digital strategy extends across paid, owned and earned media. Facebook is our most important channel in social media even though we also run a Twitter feed, an RSS, YouTube and the 'traditional' News letter.  That said, Facebook is a key pillar of the customer engagement piece and how we continue to manage that is business critical now that we have an engaged audience.

As a marketer, life before social media was a one way conversation (90% of the time). Now a two way conversation is taken for granted, its no longer an opportunity down the road, but a reality every day. Something that wasn't possible at this level less than a mere 4 years ago is now the cost of admission for a successful brand.

I know we haven't mastered Facebook and I don't think anyone can claim to the fact that they have. Online communities are an evolving platform, literally changing every day with change being the only constant. What this also means is that the brands involved in social media are also learning, changing and hopefully building a relevant relationship with the customer.

One thing is for sure, I'll be participating and watching the constant evolution of the social media space.

Google taking over TV media buys now?

Google is now giving advertisers buying TV spots through the company access to data that informs its search ad buys with a new product called Search Triggers.


The program will let advertisers adjust their buys if search data shows a new trend emerging. thsi would allow a grill manufacturer might increase their media buy  if searches for “grills” spike or if other related searches, like “barbecues” increase. This a featuer that cant be replicated or offered by a tradtional media buying houses and huge innovation in tactical media planning.

According to Google, agencies are already using search data to make informed decisions about their TV buys, but Google hasn’t linked its Google TV Ads to search data before.  Previously, Google TV Ads let advertisers bid on slots related to what the advertiser was selling.

Google TV Ads, which launched in 2008 with the idea to create a solution for advertisers modeled on Google’s successful AdWords format. This will be the driver that advertisers subscribe to as more customers turn to broadband TV based viewing and allowing a targeted media buy online. If advertisers can get real time search data to then upweight their media at appropriate times then the media spend will become more relevant to the audience. Brilliant innovation!

Can gaming drive fan development?

Sports marketing is a passion of mine and I’m always fascinated by how other categories innovate and develop strategies for fan development.  The NHL’s L.A. Kings will become the first pro sports team to add full game elements to their website and social networks, the team announced recenlty.

Game elements, or “gamification,” is bascially adding a game-like experience to a non-traditional source – in this case their website and the Kings are creating “The United Kings Family”. Fans will be able to earn points by watching videos, posting on the Kings’ website, sharing news on social networks like Facebook and Twitter and participating in a variety of other online and offline activities. 

Users earn online badges and trophies while working their way up a digital fan leader board. Earning points will also unlock exclusive rewards such as signed merchandise, personalized messages from the players, behind-the-scenes videos, private arena tours and more. In affect its all of the things you can’t buy that the fan is being rewarded with – the ultimate experience and fan engagement through digital media. 

Adding gamification is a little confusing as sports teams often have dedicated fan bases. So is Gamification a legitimate tool for engaging a new audience? If the category is working on fan development, is this a strategic move to develop a new fan base?  If users can make a brand like the L.A. Kings feel more personable, fill seats and move merchandise even when the team isn’t doing well then it would be measured as a success.

The gamification layer is certainly a first for pro sports but while the Kings may be the digital guinea pigs, I expect to see gamification growing the engagement of social media and sports organisations.

Social Media - the generation sales team

Has social media become more of an influential channel for business purchases globally, ahead of face-to-face meetings, client entertaining or traditional trade advertising in most markets?

A global survey conducted by GlobalWebIndex, 2011 reported that when it comes to leading influencers; “Conversations with people from a company/organisation on a social network” ranked a score of 15%, bench marked against other channels.

The second ranked motivation was “direct mails”, 13%. Among senior decision makers – those at senior manager level and above – conversations were level with “sales presentations”, both scoring 16%.

Conversations online now outrank advertising, direct mailings, webinars, conferences and corporate events while “Branded communities created by the company/organisation” are seen as more influential than corporate events / entertainment the report suggested.

As of June 2011, global figures show that: 39% of decision-makers had used a micro-blog in the last month versus 22% for the average internet user and 60% had used a social network versus 50% for the average. And despite an already high level of social networking, usage is increased from 41% to 60% over the two years surveyed.

The research was based on interviews with 17,425 purchase decision makers in 27 markets from July 2009 to June 2011, across 14 categories and five different sizes of company. GlobalWebIndex.

Social media is opening doors for sales forces as customers now have the ability to engage and interact with brands before they transact. Are the followers on your companies Twitter page now your sales team ‘warm list’? Can you observe behaviour of your customers through social allowing a more targeted approach and sales strategy? A modern day sales team now adapts to the new tools at their disposal.

Job anyone?

What I have noticed lately (and maybe its the fact that I'm studying social media) is the increasing demand in the employment section for "Social Media" jobs getting posted - not just by SME's but blue chip and Fortune 500 companies.

Something that I will take from MKF5601 is that beyond the understanding of marketing principles that are applied to all channels (including social media), what is the bench mark for a 'social media' expert or specialist? Will my 1000hrs logged on Facebook contribute to the skill set or do I need a blog with a specified number followers regardless of the content to be considered an expert or what about that I'm a published Wiki contributor? Or is it my understanding of the category that the position works within more important - with some exposure to digital channels?

There is no doubt that I have picked up more 'tech skills' studying a social media subject, but will that make me a subject matter expert? What got me on thinking is the job posted below demonstrates the skills that are now needed to apply for a job in 'social media'...what will they be in 12 months time or 2 years?

http://jobs.mashable.com/a/jbb/job-details/583966?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mashable%2Fjobs+%28Mashable+Job+Board%29

No more evening News on TV?

Nine News has just added a new nightly bulletin offering with the launch of its first iPad application targeting consumers who browse news on tablets later in the night.

 This a is a big shift for a News TV broadcaster to deliver their News specifically for a digital audience. It definitely displays a lever of understanding of their customer when they look to deliver their product on what could be described as a competing platform. Commercially Channel Nine need to sell media space and delivering the News on alternate platforms could/will dilutes current offering when you reduce the viewership.

 The app will feature a special bulletin that will become available on the app at 8.15 pm. It will allow users to become more involved in the news process with the ability to send photos, videos and news tips directly to Nine’s newsroom.

The app, which is already available on the iPhone, is Nine’s first for the iPad and the seventh to be launched by ninemsn. Hal Crawford, ninemsn’s head of news, said: "Nine Newsbreak on iPhone has been downloaded more than 300,000 times and shows people have an appetite for video news, wherever they are. Our research tells us tablet users want more video, and they are tending to watch it later at night - this iPad application and evening news bulletin are a good fit to that trend." (B&T, October 10, 2011)

“Tablet usage ramps up around 7pm and peaks at 8pm. It then spikes again at 10pm, which we can assume is people checking the news headlines last thing at night or when they go to bed." According to Nielsen 11% ofonline Australians have watched TV or movies on a tablet device. Mark Calvert, Nine’s director of news and current affairs, added: “Second screens are a game-changer. We believe we can grow our overall audience through this, reaching additional viewers who might not catch our scheduled TV bulletins. The massive uptake for our iPhone app has shown us the way. Now the iPad takes our news and current affairs offering on to a whole new level.” (B&T, October 10, 2011)

When will broadcast News be more popular via the web than via the FTA channels? Will the current Generation Z  or the Net Generation be the driver for web driven content as the Gen X'ers and Y's slowly get on board? How do you want your news delivered? By the paper boy? Does the next generation paper boy just throw a USB stick or memory card at your front door which you simply download on the way to work ?

Numbers, visits, UAV's, who is leading what?

Its more topical than ever right now, is Facebook on the way down, has Google + cracked the code and migrating users not unlike what Facebook did to MySpace?

Rather reading every second article that has appeared in the last week on who has the upper hand I went looking for some user stats to offer some clarity to the changing landscape…

According to figures compiled by website socialmedianews.com.au from Google Ad Planner and checkfacebook.com more than ten million Australians visited Facebook, while the number of people visiting the Google-owned YouTube fell by 100,000.

Facebook remains the most popular social media website with 10.4m unique Australian Visitors (UAVs) last month.

YouTube attracted 9.8 million UAVs, down 100,000 on the previous month, Blogging platform Tumblr increased its number of unique Australian visitors in July to 1.5 million a rise of 600,000.

StumbleUpon has overtaken Digg as the most popular book-marking site. 

Does the Social Media PR machine do a better job of migrating users than the actual sites themselves? Or is that Social Media sites understand the power of pop culture and can harness it better than ever before?

Number of Unique Australian Visitors
1. Facebook – 10,436,860
2. YouTube – 9.8 million (down 100,000 on June 2011)
3. Blogspot – 4.6 million (down 1,000,000)
4. WordPress.com – 2.1 million (down 200,000)
5. LinkedIn – 2 million (steady)
6. Twitter – 1.9 million (steady)
7. Flickr – 1.5 million (steady)
8. Tumblr – 1.5 million (up 600,000)
9. MySpace – 930,000 (down 70,000)
10. StumbleUpon – 150,000 (steady)
11. Digg – 140,000 (down 20,000)
12. Reddit – 100,000 (steady)
13. Foursquare 63,000 (steady)*
14. Delicious – 59,000 (down 17,000)
15. Gowalla – no data, May 2011 was 9,500*

The evolving social media landscape

The first Facebook users, who drove the worldwide success it is today, are reportedly turning their backs on the social network  (TrendStream,  Global Web Index, B&T 16/08/11) .

The major global research study has found that US college graduates are showing signs of Facebook fatigue and using it less often in certain areas.  

While total usage of Facebook continues to grow due to its popularity in emerging markets, in developed economies such as the US, UK and Canada there have been significant declines in terms of active participation with the site such as status updates, sharing content, messaging and installing applications. 

The Global Web Index which looks at the way consumers use the internet based on 100,000 interviews in 27 key markets found that in the US in June of this year, the number of people that messaged friends and joined a group in the last month was down 15% and 10% respectively since the first wave of research in July 2009. This trend was even more pronounced with the under 30 US college graduates – the first group that ever used the social network.

Microblogging and social networking are the fastest growing social media activities, up 62% and 40% from July 2009 to June 2011 respectively, spurred on by increased use of mobile, according to the research.

I think the data over the next 12 months and the take up or adoption of Google+ will offer a more definitive understanding of this data. The current changes to FB are part of the product evolution, no different to the product improvement we see in other categories or products. 

The innovators and early adopters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_lifecycle) will welcome the change (if they have not already jumped ship to Google+),  how long will it be until the old FB is forgotten and we accept the features as the norm? I look forward to seeing how long it takes the majority of the population to accept the new changes? Is there a predetermined model for adoption in the social media space? 

One thing is for certain, anyone outside of an innovator or early adopter find it hard to accept change... http://socialmediafun-daiz.blogspot.com/search/label/Facebook

When the conversation goes ....

I thought it would be pertinent to share this with the group, as you dont always get it right but that is a matter of opinion in this case. Social media drove several conversations, I have highlighted some more 'notable' ones below.

For the opening of the Caulfield Carnival last weekend the Club promoted on course food & beverage offerings - key strategic iniatives for the Club are race day attendance and driving the punter out of the TAB, off the couch, out of the pub and back to the course.The PR machine prodcued good results before the meeting and we created a lot of conversation on and off line about the direction the club had taken.There were a suite of initiatives that we took to market, but the ones listed here had the more amusing respsones...

One of the oncourse food offerings was 3 party pies for .99c. 

Some Tweets that brought a smile...for reference I'm MRCTrackNews. These tweets are from radio personalities and sports journalists.

Can you make it viral?

Picking up on our recent class conversation and similar events at work about companies/brands asking for viral campaigns and requesting ad agencies create a 'viral campaign' for them left me reminiscing about the great viral campaigns that I had seen or heard about.

Big Warnie - a well executed and integrated campaign when 'social media and viral' were still the latest buzz words. First of the five part series here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ-7MsY54j8
Stats on the campaign here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGTCtd0ZSLU
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2006/cricket-australias-big-warnie/

Who can forget Carlton Draught? 162,000 downloads in the first 24hrs which climbed to over 500,000 before the week had finished;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH3GH7Pn_eA

Reading RoniJ latest blog; http://ronij-openroad.blogspot.com/2011/09/dark-knight-risesand-goes-viral.html had me dig deeper into what I think was one of the defining moments in 'viral marketing' - The Blair Witch Project.... I think anyone with an interest in marketing has read the story of how the horror movie, The Blair Witch Project was made for $22,000 and grossed $248 million at the box office, by generating massive pre-opening "buzz" online long before the public even knew they were reading about a movie.

The chat sites started picking up rumors of three college kids who were lost in the woods while on a film school project investigating stories about a witch. The kids were never heard from again but their camera was found. The film inside was restored, revealing horrifying sounds in the night woods....

It was a hoax, but for a time many on the chat sites were believers. But what is truly remarkable was how the hoax took on a life of its own, even before anyone heard that the supposed film found in the woods was coming to theaters. By the time the film was released, it had built up fever-level anticipation.

This brings me back to my original point of brands wanting viral campaigns - as these three guys who brought you The Blair Witch have formed a marketing company called Campfire http://campfirenyc.com/. They specialize in creating viral marketing campaigns which they refer to 'story telling', which I would call generating content...

That said, their work includes the Audi campaign called "The Art of The Heist," which lit up web sites, blogs, cell phones, message boards and even had  real-world stunts. The results were better than Audi could ever have hoped for, with 2 million hits on their web site, 4000 test drives and 75% more dealership leads.

Viral marketing is not a disease, but it is "buzz" (the 'old school' water cooler conversation) that spreads from one person to another by becoming a topic of conversation - its WOM for the digital age...

I thought the .com boom was 10 years ago?

Group buying website, Cudo, is on the market for over $60 million less than one year after it was launched by Nine Entertainment Co and Microsoft for the initial amount of $800,000.

The website, which has supposedly generated profits of more than $500,000 per month for the Nine/Microsoft partnership, is reported to have gathered interest from American group buying sites Groupon and Living Social, and the Seven West Media-Yahoo! joint venture, Yahoo!7.

The move comes as the partnership also reportedly plans to slash its 35% stake in the online comparison website, iSelect, which is valued at more than $500m.

Online retail models now come in all shapes and sizes in the modern global village, especially against weaker dollar economies. Media giants like Nine/Microsoft look to dominate the digital space and own the platforms, but when will traditional retailers innovate to move beyond the simple product transaction and develop their own online shopping model to protect their market share of the consumers wallet?

Is Email Dying?

The email hit my inbox with the subject line; Professor quits email for social media (and no its not Wags)... The sender thought that he had stumbled onto the next wave of the 'social media' revolution and wondered  if I had come across the article - which I hadn't, but it definitely got my attention.

http://reesenews.org/2011/06/02/professor-quits-e-mail-for-social-media/16193/

I agreed it was an interesting read and challenged conventional means of communications, but I think it also reinforces the need for a sound channel strategy in relation (to my work) and using the right channels for the right audiences.

Where I sit, we have different objectives to what the Professor is trying to achieve and his motivations appear to be driven largely by his ability to talk/communicate with undergrads and professional colleagues without the hassle of 100 emails - basically looking at more efficient ways to talk. As he points out, his undergrads communicate on various platforms and by his reckoning rarely on email. So why talk to them that way if that’s not how they communicate? I couldn’t agree more with his approach if this in fact true of his ‘audience’.

I think the key take out from the article is that “Jones’ goal is to maximize all the available channels to demonstrate alternative uses for promoting communication”. This comes back to our (my work) channel strategy and how we speak to our customer segments - underpinning our comms objective is to speak to a mass audience and not one single channel will deliver across all segments. We have members who are not even on email and will only receive comms from the Club via ‘snail mail’, our Young Members on the other hand respond to last minute SMS blasts that tickets are still available to a function, the most cost effective communications channel we used last year was Google Search – 8 times more cost effective than digital display but they both sold the same amount of tickets. My point here is that we need optimise every channel to get the best results and not rely on one to deliver the result – not unlike what the professor is wanting to achieve and optimizing how he communicates.

Social media will be one of the channels that we go to market with for the 2011 season and with the launch of a new website we have a robust communications platform to work with. Tactically Twitter and FB offer a live broadcast for commentary and deliver instant messaging that ‘traditional’ media channels are not capable of, what we do, say and deliver through these channels is part of the broader communications strategy for the Club. 

My two cent 'response' to the email was that the strength in social media for the Club is delivering an on course experience/product and having a global community talking about their experiences with Caulfield (or whatever the venue might be through their social networks). Don’t get me wrong, we can use social media to deliver live commentary, talk about an event coming up, spruik a competition but the true power in social media is that its word of mouth marketing delivered to a global community from trusted sources – we couldn’t buy that out come even if we had the means to.

The the marketing focus for the club is directed at the on course experience for our customers and what we can offer them. Through the use of social media channels the strategy will be to push/promote as much ‘user generated content’ about the upcoming Carnival, the preview race days, the competitions  and the new on course offerings as much as possible.

What did surprise me about the article was that the Professor wasn't the only one moving off email and I wondered what impact it would have on my professional and personal life if I trialed this myself - if only for a month...