Just wrote a post on Twitter’s custom timelines and got inspired on a different angle, so here’s another post!

What will custom timelines do for search on Twitter? Will Twitter prove to be a competitor to Google, when it comes to search?

Personally, I get most of my news update from Twitter and the idea of being able to read through a timeline of Tweets and get an idea of the big picture sounds awesome.Especially since some of these Tweets would likely have links to relevant articles. This would be preferred to Google searching it all, because results on Google are based on algorithms, whereas the custom timeline would be a handpicked, socially curated list of events (through tweets). I like the idea of reading articles that were found to be the most informative/useful based on social opinion, rather than algorithms.

Should Google be scared? And will Twitter potentially nail search? I mean sure, they had hashtags before, but its incredibly different to get the whole story through a hashtag search (it’s super messy, no chronology and no way to know which are the most relevant tweets). Custom timelines on the other hand may be able to give Google a run for its money in a way that it might not have intended!

Last week, Twitter unveiled it’s new feature: custom timelines. This allows users to curate tweets around particular events in a way that they are easily organized and accessed, though you will need Tweetdeck to use the feature.

I see so much potential in building communities through this feature, particularly when it comes to harnessing UGC and intrinsically rewarding brand followers/advocates.

Let me offer an example to convey my point. Lululemon had its first SeaWheeze event this year. What if they incorporated custom timelines on Twitter for the 2014 event and documented the entire event, as experienced by participants and supporters in a timeline? That is, only posts from followers. This, along with Twitter’s recent capability to show full images in feeds (similar to Instagram) allows for a lively and authentic curation of the event. And the best part? All of it is earned content, housed neatly in an owned channel. Synergies FTW!

As for the community building aspect, people who have their tweets selected would likely feel a deeper sense of belonging to the brand, which is always positive. Their tweets also don’t “die” as the newsfeed updates, giving a greater sense of importance to them.

Excited to see how brands leverage this new feature!

Last August, Mashable released a list of the 10 most engaged brands on Facebook. Coca Cola was at the top of the list, which is not very surprising. Other toppers included Samsung Mobile, Disney, Walmart, NBA and Bud Light.

But here is someone who I would NOT have expected to see on this list: Intel! This was a pleasant surprise as I deferred that it would likely be consumer packaged goods and retailers, more than anything, that would make this list. Intel is the world’s largest semi-conductor chip maker and predominantly operates B2B by providing technological components for computing products.

Despite this, Intel wisely does not ignore it’s indirect market of consumers. By extending further and including a more holistic view of its entire customer base (businesses and consumers), Intel is able to build a much stronger brand and play this strength strategically. Think about it this way: if Intel is all the hype amongst end users (consumers), it is likely that corporations that make products that require semiconductor chips (e.g. PCs) will have no choice but to buy from Intel in order to satisfy their consumer demand. 

Coming back to the Mashable article, I can see that one way Intel builds brand with its indirect customer base (consumers), is through it’s Facebook page! Intel has a huge following on Facebook of over 23 million likes, and according to Mashable, a lot of these users are engaging with Intel, or at least enough to deem it the sixth most engaged brand on Facebook. It’s content strategy is awesome and shows a clear understanding of the types of consumers that appreciate Intel. Intel creates a lot of it’s own content which emphasizes  quirky, geeky but fun facts that demonstrate Intel’s technological expertise in a human way. Some of my favorites are posted below, directly sourced from their page.

Clearly, a lot of time and money is invested into this content creation strategy, but this seems to work well for Intel and other companies could definitely take notes. Social media is a huge opportunity for B2B corporations as it allows them to humanize their brand and find a way to resonate with their indirect, but ultimate customer base.

*Note – Intel also operates B2C with its various product lines, but what it is know for, more than anything, is microchips, hence the perspective on this piece that Intel is in the ranks of a B2B firm.

It’s a known fact that cause marketing is incredibly effective, when used well. However, the magnitude of harm it can cause when employed in an anything-but-noble fashion is much greater. 

An example here would be Kellogg’s recent “Give a Child a Breakfast” campaign in which it promised “1 RT = 1 breakfast for a vulnerable child”. While this campaign may have been rooted in genuine intentions, unsurprisingly, it did not resonate well with consumers.

Yes, this was a pretty stupid error of judgment on Kellogg’s part, but it’s nice to see that they were quick to respond, pretty much within the day. Of course, in this day and age you would expect any major brand to employ social media triage and have a crisis strategy in play.

Furthermore, after apologizing a second time, they did receive some more positive sentiment in replies showing that there is a lot of merit in simply being real. Consumers appreciated Kellogg’s ability to admitting to fault and not trying to “shift the blame”. Though, in the digital era, you’d be hard pressed to effectively sweep something under the rug, and this is forcing brands to become more (willingly) transparent.

To wrap up, maybe this wasn’t the most thought out marketing campaign, but at least Kelloggs was able to monitor conversations, sense the crisis and respond appropriately before the whole thing blew up. 

Main point: If you plan to engage in questionable marketing tactics, consider having a clear response strategy in place, to mitigate the damage it can cause. If this hadn’t been the case for Kellogs, the backlash could have been even further amplified

Did you ever wonder whether the creators of all the different apps out there ever did so with clear intention and a well thought-out business plan?

I am currently in the process of writing a business plan for a mobile app for the course New Enterprise Development, and all my research has led me to believe there are 2 success factors of a mobile app:

1.Quality/utility – Bluntly put, the app needs to be a good app. It needs to offer some level of utility to users and it needs to function well.

2.Marketing – Understanding what the conversion funnel looks like and the consumer’s decision making journey can pay dividends if you tailor your strategy this way.

Now, let’s focus on point number 2, assuming that 1 is a non-issue. 

How many app developers employ the conversion funnel when thinking marketing strategy? By employing the funnel approach and using this as the crux of the marketing strategy, developers can maximise the number of downloads their app gets upon launch.

With a well though-out emarketing plan consisting of predominantly social elements (Twitter, blog, Facebook, Instagram, etc.), it should theoretically be possible for marketers to get potential users of the app pretty far down the funnel (in this case, all the way down to intent) before launch (maybe during development) so that once they do launch their app, conversion rates have been driven up and a pool of users are eargerly awaiting downloading the app.

Of course, this may not work for all apps (e.g. games), but consider a database app that provides some sort of information or service. In this case, marketers can benefit from building up a sense of following through social channels and establishing their image as a thought leader or expert in the field of question. The main point? Marketing should begin months before launch with the aim of ticking off at least “awareness” off the list, if not “consideration” and “intent” as well.

Big news today: Snapchat refuses an offer by Facebook for 3 billion dollars. General sentiment seems to be that they’re nuts since 3 billion is a sweet deal.

Here’s what I’d like to know: what is Facebook thinking by trying to acquire Snapchat? Sure, Snapchat is a competitor to Facebook in the sense that it offers users an alternate messaging service, and it would make sense to try to “internalize” this competition. But, Snapchat and Facebook are miles apart in their positioning. You post something on Facebook, it’s pretty much permanent. Snapchat is the total opposite with its self-deleting feature on all images/messaging. What this means in terms of usage is that people are far more conservative with what they post on Facebook as compared to Snapchat. I mean, you don’t see people sexting on Facebook, right?

Imagine if Facebook had actually acquired Snapchat, and consider Facebook’s reputation for pretty much having zero regard for privacy. What would this do to the Snapchat user base and user patterns? As a Snapchat user, how comfortable would you feel, knowing that Facebook owns the platform? (Maybe this depends on whether you are of the sexting type or not.)

Fairly open ended blog post here, but I’ll end off with a few more questions to inspire deeper thinking:

1. Is there a business fit between Facebook and Snapchat?

2. Do we care if there is a business fit between Facebook and Snapchat? i.e. Are internet users smart enough to realise who owns what, or are they somewhat ignorant about this?

3. What do we think of Facebook’s strategy of becoming the “P&G”, “Unilever” or “Kraft” of social media, in terms of owning several platforms or, brands? This works for CPGs, but will it work for social media?

I worry that Facebook being associated with Snapchat (through ownership) would just have a negative effect on the growth of Snapchat due to poor business fit and they may not be able to pull off owning multiple social media brands, at least not if they are trying to grow these platforms. This is largely due to the fact that things are pretty darn transparent in the digital age, internet users are smart and there would likely be backlash from Facebook owning Snapchat, in terms of usage trends.

Alas, this leads me to a possible explanation to Facebook’s rationale in posing this 3 billion dollar bid: their strategy (being an internet giant) is simply to SWALLOW the competition and, they believe by buying Snapchat (and letting it die) they save 3 billion dollars lost through (threat of) competition, in terms of NPV.

This is pretty much the only way to rationalize why Snapchat would refuse the offer – perhaps they can smell the fear and are leveraging it for a juicier offer in 2014.

All speculation for now, but let’s see how this plays out!

A couple of classes ago, we spent a significant amount of time trying to identify influencers for our clients. Glad we did that exercise, but coming across this article (Why Online Influencer Outreach is Overrated and How to Fix It), I wonder if we missed out on advocates, and prematurely went straight to the influencers.

This article draws a distinction between the two simply stating that influencers are those with large audiences and can help drive awareness around an idea whereas advocates are those that truly have passion for an idea and share it for no other reason, thus having ability to drive action. Generally speaking, while awareness is desirable, in an influencing campaign, action is more so and is what actually marks true influence. And let’s be honest here, advocates have more legitimacy than influencers. I mean, you’re more likely to believe Pepsi tastes good because your friend told you rather than because Britney Spears sang about it, right? Anyway, the article goes on to advise that you should start with advocacy and then find an audience (via influencers) to truly promote the kind of action you’d like to see.

Now here’s my two cents: for amplification purposes or to promote some kind of action, yes, my feeling is that an advocate’s role has higher weight because it’s more legitimate and authentic. But, in terms of crisis management or response to negative sentiment, influencers might have higher weight simply because they have larger audiences and news would travel like wild fire through their networks. This being said, the two parties complement one another and are both important when it comes to monitoring social media, so it’s important to see how both fit in to the picture.

Check out these profiles below (sourced from another article by the same publisher) to get an idea of how an advocate differs from an influencer. Click on the image to make it bigger.

Facebook, Twitter, Google – these are all websites that we as users get to enjoy for free. So how do these boys make money, if we’re not paying anything for their services? Advertising, of course! But this no longer refers to internet giants simply selling media space on their online hubs, these guys are selling something a lot more valuable – consumer’s real thoughts and feelings. As TechCrunch puts it in this interesting article, think: “Word of mouth, sponsored. Trusted recommendations, promoted. Reviews from friends, endorsed.”

Again, this is a great example of convergence of media – taking earned media and letting marketers pay to augment the visibility (and overall potential) of this media. For example, say Mary likes Nike’s Facebook page. Nike can then pay Facebook to sponsor this story and boost its visibility on newsfeeds or have it come up in the sidebar, encouraging more of Mary’s friends to take similar actions. This is a lot more valid than simply buying media space on Facebook because consumers are more likely to listen and be interested when they see their friends, or people they know are too.

If we look at all these social media networks, we see the key to monetization is in the data, i.e. everything we as consumers say and do on these websites. To some extent this is used for more effective targeting (see my blog post on Lookalike audiences), but as seen above, we’re shifting more towards this new model of harnessing what’s true and authentic in all the positive actions consumers take towards your brand (earned media) and boosting it with ad dollars (paid media) for the world to see.

To me this means advertising that is more real and relevant in the utilitarian point of view, though the implications behind privacy are a whole other ethical debate.

Earned media is where it’s at because:

1. It’s the most valuable (we all know that word of mouth is the most effective form of advertising)
2. It’s free! No need so spend ad dollars to get your message out because your loyal consumers are doing it for you.

And how do we get earned media? Quite simply, by creating ideas worth sharing.

This being said, its rare that a company would generate a significant share of earned media on its own without some convergence or integration with either paid or owned media.

Here are some examples of marketers doing it right and really leveraging their own media to gain a large share of earned media.

 “I’m sorry” video – In 2009, O.B. tampons went missing from store shelves due to a temporary supply interruption leading to a national outcry. When the tampons eventually came back, O.B. was armed with an apology song accompanied with a cheesy video of a handsome musician serenading the audience on his piano.  Even better, the song could be customized to the viewer – before watching the video the viewer is asked to type their name in and then see it appear all throughout the song (tattooed on the singer’s arm, written across the sky, etc.) in an over the top, but incredibly charming and uplifting video. While the apology video no longer runs, you can see the video below to get a sense of the campaign. Imagine your name in place of “Heather”!

 “Booty Break” interactive website – When L’oreal launched its new line of Vichy products, CelluDestock, it launched it through its “Booty Break” campaign which featured an online interactive website of different men stripping down to their boxers and allowing you to select a man (and watch them shuffle down a line as you evaluate each booty before picking one) and then clicking buttons like “wiggle”, “dance” and “flex” to truly enjoy their bootys! While bootybreak.com is no longer accessible, you can check out the teaser below to get a sense of the concept.

By spending the money upfront to create creative media, both L’oreal and O.B. were able to capture a huge portion of earned media. Both of these are great examples of how to tactically converge owned and earned media to get an attractive return on your marketing initiatives!

Now I’m sure a lot of us have seen Marina Shifrin’s video on Youtube where she quits her job through an interpretive dance on the pretext that her boss cares more about the quantity of views on a video rather than quality of content.  This video has been up for about a week now and its already got over 13 million views. And I can’t help but say that I think it’s brilliant!

A few days after it came out, New Media Animation (the company she was resigning from) responded with a parody version. It was the same song, same style, but the aim of the message seemed to be rather defensive: “We are a great company to work for and we want everyone to know that we are hiring”.

Did they do a good job of responding? Sadly, I’m going to have to say no! And the key issue here is that they really just weren’t listening and while they were quick to respond, I fear that their response was more harmful than it was helpful. If you see the comments in their video, there’s a lot of negativity and way more dislikes than likes.

Marina states off the bat in her video that NMA is a great company to work for and was simply trying to make a point about how to make good videos by focusing on content. Yes, it was still rather embarrassing for NMA, but she did make the point – her content led to 13 million views in a week whereas NMA’s videos rarely make it to a million.

So what would have been a better response from NMA instead of stating they were an awesome company and were now hiring? Maybe something that simply said: “We heard you Marina, you made a good point and we are thankful for you bringing this to our attention”. Their current response seems a lot more personal and lacks class, originality and wit.

Wonder if they even have a crisis response strategy because if they do, it either isn’t a good one or they just did not apply it well here! I’d be worried abour reputation if I was NMA.