Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Second Screen Experience.

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Before I get started, here are some key points to take into consideration before I start explaining the potential in creating a Second Screen Experience.

– Massive adoption of Mobile Media (Smartphones/Tablets). More online/digital activity via mobile device, especially in developed markets. However in the developing world, its important because its the first time their being connected with the interactive space.

– In the US, over 50% of mobile users are smartphones. For ages 25-34, 4 out of every 5 phones sold is a smartphone. For advertising companies this is going to become a main channel.

– The Second Screen Experience: Approximately 80% of individuals who have tablets, spend significant amount of time in front of TV on their lap.

– Most of the focus of the 2nd Screen Experience is on the content. A lot of broadcasters are developing mobile apps to sync up their content.

With those points in mind here’s where I believe theirs untapped potential. There’s a potential to create a 360 degree type of experience that fully engages and interacts with the user at all points. A tablet would allow for the user to easily chat with others about what’s currently happening on the show (yes that’s being done, but not effectively), creating a much more social experience, allowing the user to customize or vote for the ending of the show, show trending topics related to the topic, or create an even more in-depth user experience through a viral portal.


Social Media is Commitment, Not A Campaign

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Crafting a Social Media strategy is all about the right mindset. You can’t get expect to hack it with a four week blitz. You’re in it for the long haul, which also means you can’t expect to see an results in the first week.

Social Media’s all about creating an experience around your brand, and creating a two way flow of conversation (relationship marketing) that allows you to interact and learn from your consumer. Below’s some tips from DreamGrow on crafting a Social Media Strategy:

1. What Do You Do?

Describe what your company does in a single sentence. Make it Understandable to a 5 year old.

2. Listen to the Conversations

conversation How to Create Your Social Media Strategy?

Now that you know what you are doing find out who’s talking about it. Find all the conversations that mention your brand directly or related to you in general.

3. Set a Goal

Why are you doing it? In the end you have to produce results and this is where you should write it down. In the beginning select just one and build your strategy to achieve that.

What gets measured gets done! Put a number on your goal.

4. Find Influencers and Communities

Go over the results you got from listening to the conversations and find who are talking about your brand. Who are having a following that might include you clients or prospects. Are there advocates who are really into your brand? Select the ones that you feel are the best match for your business and start monitoring them.

5. Who is Your Audience?

audience How to Create Your Social Media Strategy?

Select the target group that is most likely to be persuaded by your message.  Who are the people who have most to gain by what do you do (step 1). Don’t try to please everyone at the same time with the same message.

One important thing to remember is the 1-9-90 rule. Only about 1 percent of people participate actively, 9 percent comment and interact occasionally and 90% are lurkers who do not contribute anything to the conversations.

Remember What Got You Here

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“I wish Google cared as much about improving search as they do about being afraid of Facebook. Longer post coming. We need better search.” – Michael Arrington

This recent tweet by TechCrunch founder got me thinking about the very first blog I posted on about the battle (or lack their of), between Google+ and Facebook. I get that Google+ got into the social space to try somewhat improve it’s Search, but I think what Arrington is really trying to get at, is that so many companies forget to focus on what got them to where they are now, they began dispersing resources instead of focusing on their core competencies. Google needs to get back to purely developing the services that make them Google.

We see companies lose sight of the bigger picture by reactively responding to competitive threats, and trying to emulate or counter-act the threat by building out similar functionality or products. You have to look no further than Research in Motion, the company who started the BlackBerry Smartphones. In 2008, they were the #1 smartphone manufacturer in North America, and were world-wide renown in the enterprise environment as the best business side-kick. And now at it’s current place its going to be non-existent in 3 or 4 years. Now, I’m not saying you ignore competitors, but you’ve got to pick your uphill battles and sometimes find downhill battles. In RIM’s case, they needed to find their own identity instead of trying to match Apple’s. They became complacent in their position and developed the motto “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it”, and in such a fast paced innovative environment thats a sure way to end up on the losing end. RIM needed to focus on making its email client the best on any smartphone. Focus on BBM and how to make that more social and differential. And as a side thought, let’s be honest, the Blackberry Playbook was a pure competitive play against the Ipad, and its going no where fast.

And this thought process can be extended beyond the business world. Miami Heat coach Eric Spoelstra had this to say about Miami’s anticipated re-match against the Dallas Mavericks (who they lost to in the finals).

“You watch our Christmas Day game compared to the last two games, of the force and pace that we played with that day, it’s night-and-day different,” Spoelstra said. “We can control that. We respect the Dallas Mavericks obviously from last year . . . but right now, out of due respect, it’s about us, it’s about getting to our game, our identity.”

Find your Identity. Stick to Your Game. And Remember What Got you Here!

 

The Age of Privacy is Over

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This topic repeatedly finds its way to the top of any conversion when it comes to talking social media and online marketing. People are being tracked every time they’re online and, anything they decide to post on Facebook is sold to marketers for research and consumer behaviour purposes. And then the complaints begin.

“I don’t want Facebook selling my info, or where I’ve been on the web, or where I’m checking into” and personal pet peeve “I hate the New Facebook”. You only hate the new Facebook cause you hate learning a new system, but once you understand why its infinitely better, you’re perfectly cool with it. We’re hypocritical in that sense. We want companies to continually innovate, provide us with the most amazing tools to stay connected, and a user interface thats intuitive and easy to understand. Yet when change comes our way, via a simple new design, we throw our  hands up in the air in outrage.

But maybe that’s straying away from the issue of privacy. So here’s my take on it. Yes privacy is undoubtedly an important issue to keep in mind, but its soon going to be over. I think in the following generation, we’ll no longer hear complaints about where I’m checking into or what websites I’ve been on…because I think outside of jumping on the privacy bandwagon for the sake of it, we all want customization. And we can’t expect customization unless some of our data is shared.

Here’s my question, that no ones really be able to give me a clear answer on – “Whats wrong with having hyper targeted Facebook ad’s that I potentially may be interested in?” I’d be bombarded with ad’s anyways, so why not give me something I may be potentially purchase that’s based on my liked pages/websites.

Yes customization is scary and a tricky concept to grasp…its why MySpace failed (over customization). But the very fact that we’re able to so easily connect with others through social networks, for FREE by the way, we’ve got to understand that they need to have some revenue model to keep them in business and allow us to use their service…for free. Maybe if Facebook explicitly asked us to opt into sharing our data it wouldn’t be such a big deal? Thoughts?

Obviously this issue continues to dive deeper and spark more controversy every time its brought up but I think we’ll soon be at time where we understand that our data being shared isn’t the end of the world and that it in fact is beneficial to our ever hectic lifestyles.

The Problem with Location Based Services

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Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of location based services, and we know consumers are out there and many want you to find them. With the popularity of Foursquare, and recently Path, they’ve become potential goldmines for important consumer data – what they’re day to day activities look like, who they’re with, and where they visit on a regular basis. And yes, there’s still concern around privacy issues, but consumers are still demanding that marketers understand all of their daily contexts to make their lives easier.

However, my main problem with location based services is the very fact they aren’t contextualized and that they’re separate apps rather than a built in feature of a phone. What I mean by contextualized is that the phone should automatically notify me right as things happen, without me taking any actions. Instead of the phone simply being a caddy, it should really do the actions for me…scary but awesome! Here’s just two user scenario I’m thinking of:

“If I’ve got a scheduled meeting at a different location, instead of generic 10 min meeting reminder, it should notify me to leave for 25 minutes ahead due to a traffic accident along my route.”

“If Im at bar or restaurant, again that I’ve decided to let check-me in, it should automatically notify me of others within my social network, who i’ve subscribed too, that are also at that location.”

Secondly, once the privacy issues are dealt with you, you shouldn’t have to manually check-in to anywhere. With the new technology of geo-fencing, I should be able to walk into a location that I’ve opted into, and it should automatically check me in. Yes this requires GPS in your phone to constantly be running in the background, draining the phones battery, but as we continue to make improvements in that area I have no doubt that geo-fencing will be vital to the success of location based services.