Image Courtesy of Robert Scoble: http://bit.ly/zA3mdT

Everyone has heard about Facebook’s formal IPO by now, and if not… then that’s why you’re probably here. Long story short, Facebook wants to sell its shares to the public. They want to raise $5 billion, which in time could be worth a whopping $100 billion.  That’s a whole lot of Facebook Ads. To put it in perspective, the search engine king, GOOGLE, only raised about $1.2 billion and is now worth more than $190 billion. Now, the question you’re probably asking yourself is: What does it mean for me?

That’s a good question, and I’ve compiled a few thoughts about the matter.  First and foremost, let’s start where you’re more likely to see the first biggest impact.

Boost in Ads

For users:  Facebook’s S-1 filing revealed that 425 MILLION active members access their Facebook profiles through their smartphones. Currently, users don’t receive ads on their mobile devices, and with Sponsored Stories being rolled out again, users are going to begin to get a few more posts in their newsfeeds from brands they like.

For brands: Brands have “mobile” imprinted in their marketing plans for 2012, so having Facebook rollout a mobile marketing capability falls nicely within marketer’s overall strategies. Not to mention, there are more than 350 million active monthly mobile users across 475 wireless operators worldwide (44% of total active users), where 300 million are using Facebook’s mobile app. People who engage with Facebook on mobile devices are TWICE as active as people who only use it on their computers. With 91% of US citizens have their mobile phone within reach 24/7, it goes without saying that being able to market on mobile will allow brands the opportunity to connect with their fans anytime and anywhere, eliminating geographic limitations. Keep in mind, marketers will now be challenged to deliver highly engaging and relevant copy, as these ads will be shown mostly to people who already “Like” their pages, so if messages seem intrusive or irrelevant, they may opt-out of your messaging by un-liking brand pages.

Virtual Currency/E-Commerce

For users: Nearly a sixth of the world is active on Facebook and they expect to reach the 1bn user mark by the end of this year. As Facebook’s active members grows ever nearer to the billion users mark, Facebook is becoming a social staple in people’s every day schedule. So much in fact, that users have become more comfortable sharing their personal information with the service, and have even begun to make purchases through the site. Users have already started to use Facebook’s Credits for social gaming, accounting for 15% of Facebook’s revenue in 2011. It will be no surprise that brands and Facebook will become more integrated and combine debit/credit transactions into Facebook credits, which will be a lot more convenient and portable throughout the Facebook site.

For brands: Having Virtual Currency may have the potential to enhance e-commerce solutions for some businesses, and will help create a marketing hub that will not only be used to share news and market products, but will lead to direct purchases within the same environment. Additionally, leveraging the social aspect of Facebook newsfeeds and “Like” button will actually help add monetization to the technology, including the new Social Apps.

These Social Apps will continue to build on the hundreds of thousands of businesses and their social products within the platform.  These products will help contribute to Facebooks’s revenue, and with this new investment opportunity, expect Facebook to continue developing ways to better enhance the technologies and user experience. This not only helps build Facebook’s revenue, but also helps breathe life into great commercial potential for brands around the world.

Power Influencers

Users: As power users and bloggers become mini celebrities within the social space, they can expect to be targeted for their social power. Brands will become less reliant on traditional media, and rely a lot more on social discovery.  This goes without saying, that practically any user with the commitment and talent can become a potential power user. This is the driving principle that helps power Pinterest, Twitter, and Youtube.

For brands: We’re already seeing instances of companies build products around big influencers , such as Nikon, ShoeDazzle, and BeachMint. Targeted key influencers will prove to be a cheaper alternative than traditional media, and may prove to gain more authentic organic growth for communities, as well as a great way to drive awareness for new products.

In Conclusion

With Facebook’s IPO, the social network giant is going to experience the pressure to increase revenue for investors, so expect to see a few of these changes:

• An increase in Facebook Ad spending and costs, so be sure to allow a budget for these.
• Increased focus on their Social Applications platform, so look into getting a good development team that will best utilize Facebook apps for your brand using the new technologies like the latest Open Graph to help get your brand’s name and applications on your fan’s timelines for their networks to see.
• An expansion in Facebook e-commerce with a focus on Facebook Credits to become the official currency within the platform.  Early adopers should look into migrating parts of their sites to see if Facebook ecommerce would work for their brands. If you don’t have the budget for a custin application build, you might look into a storefront application solution such as Payvement and/or Highwire.

In the long run, Facebook will put a lot more emphasis on engagement within Facebook, which will have to benefit users’ experiences, as well as make it worthwhile for marketers to continue to invest time and money into the platform.  Do not get too caught up on building the quantity of fans, but more building on the quality of the relationships between your consumers by providing them useful, relevant, and engaging content.

Last week Facebook officially rolled out Timeline for all user profiles. The new Facebook Timeline allows users to show off who they are, what they do and where they’ve been – essentially turning their profile into an online scrapbook. There is still no official word from Facebook when Pages will transfer to the new platform, but it is anticipated to happen in the near future.

So what are some of the new elements of Timeline?

User profiles now consist of a cover – a wide space (849 x 312 pixels) to place a unique image that best represents the user. It is now the first thing people see when they visit a friend’s profile. As in the past where changing the profile image has defined one’s page, the user now has the opportunity to make a bigger visual statement of who they are.

Continue reading “What Facebook Timeline could mean for brands” »

By: Heather White-Laird, VP, Creative Strategy

It’s nothing short of meteoric. Google Plus took only 16 days to reach 10mm users. Facebook took over two years to reach that many fans. And now that G+ is open to anyone, their new user base is estimated at 43 million. Experian/Hitwise stated that last week, visits to G+ increased by almost 1300%, elevating it from no. 54 to no. 8 on the Hitwise Social Networking and Forums Category.

Worth The Wait

At the launch, brands were upset that only individuals could create pages—(except for two beta partners, Ford and Starbucks), however they will see three clear benefits from the long wait.

1. There is a very large audience already familiar with the platform, and in fact, these early adopters are a highly influential group.
2. Google has been tweaking the platform and features over the past couple of months creating a better user experience overall, with increased functionality, including the addition of games.
3. The platform is very stable and able to handle large amounts of traffic.

Content Propagation

There is no doubt that Google, which owns over 65% of all searches, will drive synergy between a brand’s content and their search results, resulting in efficiencies for content propagation. Google+ profiles as well as content entries will be appearing in search results, along side standard results. Facebook search results will continue to return only the profile link as their content is behind a “walled-garden” which is exclusively the property of Facebook.

However, G+ did borrow the ability of tagging content off of the main site in a manner similar to Facebook where users can “like” external content. G+ has added the +1 tag for interactions on external websites, thereby increasing the visibility and relevancy of the site for users outside of the network, and there has already been widespread adoption by sites and users.

Continue reading “Google + Brand Pages: Coming at the Right Time?” »

2012 Republican Presidential Candidates – Twitter Share of Voice

In one of our previous blog posts (What’s In A Word?), we mentioned that social media has given people a voice.  But has it also become the voice of the people?

We used Radian6 to analyze tweets over the last 30 days to see which 2012 Republican presidential candidates are leading the pack, and which are getting left in the dust.   Not surprisingly, the current front-runner of the GOP primary race, Texas Governor Rick Perry, has the lion’s share of mentions on Twitter with a 40% share of voice amongst the candidates and three times the number of mentions of one-time front-runner Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

Whether these tweets will translate into votes remains to be seen.

A group of bloggers were recently invited to LifeLock^® headquarters for our exclusive blogger “Lunch & Learn” with LifeLock executives and CEO Todd Davis.

The bloggers arrived in Tempe, AZ on Wednesday, checked into the hotel, and had time to get to know each other before dinner with LifeLock executives. Over dinner, the bloggers learned about the company and the identity theft and fraud protection services they offer for individuals, families and businesses.

Thursday morning, the bloggers visited the LifeLock Headquarters where they enjoyed breakfast and heard stats and stories about identity theft protection from Wayne Ivey, Law Enforcement Liaison for LifeLock. Wayne shared details on how bloggers can protect their families from identity theft and the many ways identity theft can happen including music or file-sharing  programs, SMS-text messages, online shopping, data breaches and cyber thievery through advanced viruses, spyware and malware. Following lunch, bloggers toured the LifeLock^® Contact Center, a 24 hour/7 day a week home of more than 350 member service agents.

Continue reading “Bloggers get secure at LifeLock® Headquarters” »

What happens when a frog, a pig, a bear and a Gonzo decide they’re going to use social media to promote their latest cinematic venture? First, there are multiple YouTube videos:
 

Then there’s a Facebook page with >700,000 Likes:

And nearly 47,000 followers on Twitter despite just 216 tweets:

It’s only July, yet fans are eagerly anticipating more viral spoofs and online promotional goodies to come before The Muppets actually premieres on Thanksgiving Day. Think you’re ready for the worldwide Muppet domination? Well, ready or not, it’s already here! The marketing machine behind this old-school brand has taken to social media like a pollywog to water.

The Internet and social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have changed the way movies get marketed. The Muppets Movie has several social media assets pushing out unique and relevant content and it doesn’t look like it’s about to slow down. Disney has created sites on Twitter, YouTube and several Facebook pages all pushing new and engaging content to whet the appetites of Muppet-crazed fans.  In fact, several of the videos on their YouTube page have reached over a million views and the videos have only been out for a couple of months. The movie’s Facebook page has over 700,000 fans, while Twitter has close to 50,000 followers, both of which are driving this massive audience back to the movie’s website and e-commerce sites on Amazon and FAO Schwartz. Now that’s a well thought out campaign.

So what’s the lesson here for social marketing? Well, Kermit said it best in the movie’s promotional trailer: “The Muppets have always been about artistic integrity and not cheap tricks.”  It appears that the marketers behind the movie’s campaign took this message to heart and created content that was smart, funny, engaging and relevant to audiences of all ages. All this high-quality content combined with savvy social tactics has led to a re-ignition of the brand, all while extending its legacy to new generations of fans.

Summer’s here, which means one thing in the music industry – festivals! Every year during this time, festival-goers look forward to the pleasure of being in a sea of sweaty music fans, grooving together to their favorite artists on stage, live. There are plenty of music festivals all over the world, but one in particular has changed the way fans experience festivals through the help of Social Media:  Hello, iTunes Festival.

Apple’s annual music festival is held in London during the entire month of July. That’s right, 31 nights of music and with the help of social media, iTunes has changed the way music fans are able to watch their favorite artists on stage. And the best part? Every ticket to the concert series is free! You can win a pair of tickets to any performance by entering the prize draws on www.itunesfestival.com or simply watch the live shows from the convenience of your computer, or via the iTunes Festival app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. And if you miss a show, you can watch past performances anytime on the festival’s site.

Continue reading “iTunes Festival Gives Fans a Way to Be There for Free” »

 In an attempt to match Apple’s always innovative marketing strategy, Toshiba is collaborating with Intel to launch a groundbreaking interactive advertising campaign.  On July 25th a series of short episodes starring actress Emmy Rossum will appear on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.  In the series Rossum is trapped in an ominous room consisting only of a Toshiba Satellite laptop with an Intel Core processor.  She relies on Real Time user-generated posts to supply clues which she will then use to escape the room.  The posts facilitate active engagement in the storyline, allowing direct interactions between viewers and characters.

Ideally the project will appeal to a younger demographic unfamiliar with Intel and Toshiba products.  The film is a unique way to draw new attention to the companies by utilizing the popularity of social media.  Attracting viewer participation is innovative, but the campaign’s success is contingent upon drawing a strong association between the film and the brands themselves.  If Intel and Toshiba wish to increase sales as a result of this film, they must exhibit unique features specific to their product in each episode.  The project will undoubtedly draw an audience through social media participation, while the companies watch closely to measure how this attention translates to an increase in product sales.  Mark your calendar to watch “Inside” on July 25th, and help guide Rossum to freedom.