Month: November 2012

The Age of Influence

Why only focus on conveying a message through your own social media profiles when you could be leveraging the social influence of your fans and followers to significantly amplify the effect?

It is now obvious that brand evangelists have enormous power to affect and potentially boost sales, however, the trouble is in determining who these key “influentials” are in the first place.

This is exactly the need that is being met in the online marketing realm through the use of social analytics such as Klout, a measure (between 1-100) of social influence based on a person, group or brand’s activity and audience on social networks. This tool has been hugely popular since it was launched in 2008, but is now being challenged by several startups such as Tellagence and Little bird who are differentiating their services by finding influencers in narrower categories and uncovering people who may have low Klout scores but whose social activity could actually lead to effects on sales.

By processing over 12 billion data points per day, these new influence models claim to be more accurate, thus making them increasingly appealing to marketers. Yet, if the goal really is to impact the bottom line then we need to be more strategic about how we’re currently using social media as a tool to achieve real results. These results may not materialize overnight, however, by staying on top of analytics tools such as these, we are not only saving time, but investing smarter to target those who really matter.

Reference: Finding Social Media’s Most Influencial Influencers

Tags Klout, social media

Comm 464

1 Like for a $50 Million Jackpot

Post author By Ali Birston
Post date November 11, 2012
No Comments on 1 Like for a $50 Million Jackpot

When it comes to incentives, nothing beats winning a $50,000,000 Lotto Max jackpot. When I stumbled across this particular post from Be Remarkable on my Facebook newsfeed I was struck with how simple, yet genius the idea was. Within seconds of seeing my friend had liked the post, I followed suit and made a comment in the hopes of sharing in the prize.

The concept was simple: purchase a lottery ticket and if it happened to be the winning ticket the money would be shared with fans who engaged with the photo. But most importantly, the call to action was strong and beyond easy for users: just like and comment on the photo and you could share in part of the $50 million jackpot.

Sounds simple, but the results were pretty remarkable. Within a matter of three hours they had well over 6,000 likes, close to 4,000 comments and over 250 shares. Not only is that alone impressive, but what strikes me as the most strategic part of the campaign is how many people it has the potential to reach. I had never heard of Be Remarkable (a community for BC Credit Unions) before an old friend happened to like it and it appeared on my news feed, which I’m sure was the case among many diverse networks of people all across British Columbia and beyond.

It just go to show that overcoming the barrier to engagement on social media really comes down to appealing to consumers’ most basic desires. Generic calls to action may generate responses from a select few active “Creators”, however, in order to foster engagement within the broader community of social media “Spectators”, a good tactic is to ensure posts are simple, but with a clear incentive.

Although I never ended up getting a share in the jackpot, I can’t argue the fact that this was hugely beneficial for BC Credit Unions in terms of awareness and social media buzz. However, if the true aim of social media is to generate genuine engagement and develop meaningful relationships with their community of users, then this just seems like a cheap bribe.

Tags Facebook, social media

Comm 464

We are ok. #Sandy

When it comes to crises online, usually brands want to avoid them at all costs; however, in the case of Hurricane Sandy, this was and still continues to be one major crisis where the power of social media needed to be harnessed to broadcast rather than downplay the situation.

Once power was lost in millions of homes on the east coast, there was little hope of staying updated through the traditional means of TV and radio, it was therefore up to social media to act as the connector and provider of reliable information. And boy was it put to the test.

On October 30^th alone, #Sandy had more than 4 million mentions with an estimated reach of more than 3 billion Twitter followers. “Hurricane Sandy” was also the top phrase on Facebook in the USA with the top 3 phrases including “we are ok”, “power: lost power, have power, no power”, and “damage.” Instagram also played a huge role in creating a live visual documentary of events with the photo-sharing site racking up over 10 pictures per second with the hashtag ‘Sandy.’

While unfortunately there were quite a few jokes and rumors flying around on Facebook and in the twittersphere, what stood out the most was the true power and ability that these platforms have to connect people especially in times of need. Each site served a unique purpose, with twitter accurately providing real-time updates, Facebook connecting loved ones, and Instagram sharing the reality through touching visuals with the rest of the world. Each came to the rescue in their own way and continue to contribute to fighting and braving out this horrific natural disaster.

However, is it only in times of grave need that connection and the spread of a message can happen at such a large scale? Clearly the potential is and has always been there, this was just somewhat of a wake-up call to either learn how to swim in this social space or get lost in the deep end.

References: Facebook, twitter abuzz with hurricane chatter

Facebook Becomes Nation’s Hurricane Bulletin Board: “We Are Ok” is #1 Shared Term This Morning

Social media follows Hurricane Sandy’s destructive path