Creating “buzz” around your product, business or event is the demand from clients to all social media marketing strategists. The common question is, can you take or produce a piece of content and make it go viral?” Can you wave your social media marketing wand and make everyone want to read it? Can you also use the same trickery and create traffic for our website?
For many, these practices are this magical event that must be forced upon the viewer or reader so that everyone will talk about “their thing.” However, buzz isn’t an event, but a reaction to a process. That process doesn’t start with a video on YouTube, but with a marketing strategy that encompasses social media and word-of-mouth marketing both online and offline.
Social Media Explorer highlights a few tactics to get you started when you begin to consider developing your social media strategy:
In the era of media fragmentation, your target is multitasking between TV, internet, mobile, in-game, instant messaging, social network… So what the F*** is the best strategy?
Let’s play with your ROI…
Media planners are now reacting and preaching a bowling strategy with a ‘360° approach’: Each media is a bowling pin and your two bowling balls are the communication investment waves you have to reach your target. If you’re lucky/agile you’ll hit it at the right angle to get a strike or at least a spare.
But if you’re not… you’ve just killed no birds with two stones!
;-)
What about a cool pinball game?
Size does not really matter… you can still have fun with smaller balls!
The pinball (your investment) is way smaller but the goal of the game is radically different too. Its no longer about a linear ’shoot’ but rather a surprising continuous game. Some of the tools (flippers, shaking the machine) are under your control, others react themselves (bumpers, ramps…) and help you if you play the game well to increase your score.
The goal now is to develop non-linear strategies, and to keep a small ball going and going, bouncing around everywhere giving you unique opportunities like extra balls and jackpots.
I recently received a link to see what type of lover I am. I jumped to the gun immediately, as expected. I mean, who isn’t curious about those big issues in life. So, after filling out an extensive 5 question quiz that comprehended issues such as my favorite time of the year, I submitted my answers and eagerly expected my answer. It was then that the application asked me to send the quiz to 15 friends in order to see my answer. And that’s what I did. It was only then that I realized that I received the quiz via the same mechanism – somebody wanted to see what type of lover they were and innocently forwarded the quiz to 15 unsuspecting victims.
The truth is that the Facebook system for applications is ground-breaking in many senses – it allows companies and individuals to create applications related to certain content and that engage with the users to a certain extent. But they only work if the users have an incentive to push the application onto others in their social network. Therefore there are two ways – either the application is that good or there is a mechanism that makes the user has to send an invitation. Continue reading ‘API Spam – or The API Virality Patterns’
After reading an article making an interesting paralism between a movie and a web 2.0 symbol, I couldn’t help but to sit and think about it. Web hits are becoming more and more a way for Brands to evaluate a site’s performance. Although true to a certain extent, aren’t the Social Media websites acting towards these results in the same way that the TVs’ effect of creating a public opinion did on their audiences?
Yes and no. In my opinion, Social Media has given birth to a new form of Marketing, specific to each of the Webstartups it’s related to – Digg-Marketing, Reddit-Marketing, etc… – as each has its own specificities. This Marketing, while attractive as a way to add visibility to a Brand, promotes false results as the results that are on top of a page in one day vary, which originates a huge influx of visitors at one moment and a big pitfall in the next. So, in one way, the Social Media websites are shaping the apprehension of the online public opinion to a certain extent. But, there are two variables that differ from the original effect that the TV had – time and interactivity. People might be curious to check a link that is on top in Digg, but the truth is that in the next hour, he’ll be back to check the new number one link, almost forgetting about the original one – information overload syndrome. And there are instant comments – people refute and approve the information in real time, thus shaping and steering information towards a common ground with online audiences.
The bottom line is that Social Media is indeed acting as a opinion shaper, but only towards a certain extent. Yes, it is important for Marketers to acknowledge these tools and their effects, but it isn’t a good strategic pillar to focus on them for pure brand awareness – it will only originate the desired brand awareness if more people actually create links related to the same topic. If it’s a single interesting link, it will definitely create a lot of traffic, but only in a 1 hour maximum time slot.
Part of Orange Unlimited campaign, a web-page that never seems to end, an addictive crazy little world of never ending doodles, mini-games and interactive animations including breakdancing monkeys, musical chickens and of course where would you be without a guitar playing pot-plant! Building upon the seemingly never ending scrolling page of endless wacky character the site communicates the campaign message of limitless free text messages, by encouraging us to follow the never ending rainbow of fun found in its online, print and television campaigns.
If you’ve been paying attention to what is going on online, the new keyword is “OpenSocial“. Recently announced by Google, OpenSocial opened its doors to developers on November 1st, and believe me, it does deserve the websphere hype it has been generating.
Essentially, what Google did was provide a common set of APIs for social applications across multiple websites by tapping into 3 distinct sets – member profiles, social graph and member activities. Unlike the Facebook case, that uses FBML (Facebook Markup Language) in it’s APIs, requiring every developer to invest yet again in learning a language to develop a Brand presence in another Social Network, OpenSocial allows developers to use JavaScript and HTML to create apps for Social Networks. Of course, at this stage, the participants are “scarce” – but by no means unimportant! With names such as MySpace, Hi5 or LinkedIn for Hosts (the place where the Apps can be used) and ILike, Slide or Flixter for Developers (the companies that develop APIs for the OpenSocial library and key Facebook App developers), there is definitely an alarm ringing for Brands to check it out. During the initial release of OpenSocial, several examples were presented. Continue reading ‘OpenSocial 101′
Every movement has a counter movement. It has been true for political, cultural or sociological movements throughout time. It is normal for it to happen as it is as innate to human nature – we can only see black because white exists. In movements this happens naturally – it’s a natural evolution. And, as in every other aspect of society, this applies to the Internet.
The clash that the engagement on the Internet causes in various factions is noticeable. People who defend the web, who are against it, who are indifferent, and who simply don’t have an opinion. The fact is that the Web has given birth to a whole new level of interaction between users, as it has evolved from a mere channel to the stature of an era changing tool – the engine of digital philosophy (more on this coming in a future article). But, to focus on the main point of the article, one of the most important tools that appeared on the web is the Social Networking Websites. I will not rant into the importance or characteristics of SNW, as each of their aspects deserve an article on their own. I’m going to focus on a more sui generis subject – the counter movements of social networking. Continue reading ‘Social Network Profiling – Another Side, Another Story’
It’s Monday, it sucks, i know. I’m gonna help you start the week right with 1 minute and 30 seconds of pure pleasure. The new Cadbury “commercial”, featuring a really moving gorilla playing… oh wait, just watch:
So what’s the link between this hilarious movie and chocolate i hear you say? Because, as you noticed, there is no chocolate shown in the commercial. But we can assume that the guys in the white and purple brand’s marketing department knew what they did when they wrote a £9m cheque, the biggest spend on chocolate in many years. Especially when you know that the client behind this, Phil Rumbol, is responsible for the amazing Stella Artois campaign, and that it was written by the guy who made the Sony Bravia ads (Balls and Paint).
I invite you to read this article in today’s Independent, allowing you to take a break from my poor English. Feeling lazy? I understand, you’re still hangover from the weekend. The quoted paragraphs below make a pretty good job at summarizing it:
People don’t want advertisers droning on and on about their products any more; they want to be entertained. “Cadbury traditionally did well-built ads for the interruption age when consumers had an implicit media deal with advertisers. In exchange for free TV they would allow us to interrupt their programmes with commercials,” says Green. “The nation has a massive soft spot for CDM and it is deeply embedded in the national psyche. For a brand that is so well known, it’s arguable whether the old style interruption advertising model is the best model for the future. So we are trying to engage more genuinely with our audience.”
But there is a product message in there too. In fact, the entire commercial is a product metaphor. “Chocolate is about joy and pleasure. For years Cadbury has told us that it was generous, through the glass and a half strap line. We thought, don’t tell us how generous you are; show us. Don’t tell us about joy; show us joy.”
That’s just what the campaign tries to do. “We’ve created a branded space in which Cadbury’s can be generous in bringing joy,” says Green. That may sound like adman’s blather, but it a sign of an important philosophical shift in the way that advertising agencies are beginning to approach their work.
Oh and since being remixed is a pretty good form of flattery, especially on the web, don’t miss this one, it’s almost funnier than the original! Now let me grab some more chocolate before going to bed.
The TrendWatch is the collective postings of some of the FullSIX Group’s designers, strategists, and consultants on new media and marketing trends. It is meant to be an impromptu think-tank, and is a way for us to share theories and beliefs about how we think communication and connectivity is evolving.
We work for The FullSIX Group; a leading full service marketing agency with digital DNA. From our 15 international offices with over 600 employees, we constantly embrace and encourage innovation to make integrated marketing and communication campaigns that are more accountable and efficient for our clients.
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