Posted by Guillame Foutry @ June 19th, 2009 in Social Marketing

The June session of the Facebook Developer Garage in London took place yesterday and as the title of this post suggests the core topic was gaming: how you can use games to invite people to interact and to engage with your brand/website through games on social media, but more generally, through games. A couple of things kept coming up during this event, regardless whether it was from the speakers or chats with other participants.

When Iskandar Najmuddin from Nudge explained the recent innovations on the network (vanity URL; Facebook currency; verified apps and new directory; the bug tracker system; real time search; release of the API for events), the one thing that struck my mind was how Facebook is still completely obsessed with Twitter. After the recent changes made to the newsfeed, they now concentrate on real-time search and have launched an “everyone button” that makes your updates completely public.

However, yesterday I understood the complex that Facebook has as I began to spontaneously mention Twitter games and realized how responsive people were. I guess if I was working for Facebook, I would be a bit annoyed that Twitter got mentioned all the time.

But getting back to the heart of the topic, here is what I feel were the most interesting points brought forward by the different speakers:

• Sokratis Papafloratos, CEO and co-founder of TrustedPlaces, explained how his company used games to attract people on the website and to create word of mouth around their business. He took the example of the Beerdex, a game they launched a couple of months ago that invites people to indicate price of beers wherever they know it. It ended up bringing traffic to the website and engaging people in a unique way. He explained that these games last for a couple days maybe weeks and then they have to renew them to entice new potential users.

• Karl Bunyan, a developer from SocialCash, detailed his work on one of his Facebook applications, SoccerStars. One of the points that seemed highly important to me is that, you must give people a reason why they have to share it with their friends. Even if users tend to share things with their network, they don’t do it in a spontaneous manner, which means you have to build a reward system or any form of incentive that will push them to do so.

• Sam Mathews, founder of Fnatic and gamer himself, put forward the fact that “you need to keep it fresh”: regardless what your game is about, you have to bring new dimensions and original elements to it in order to keep users engaged.

• Holly Gramazio, game designer for Sandpit, explained that one of the points she has to consider when creating an event is that people get bored easily: they are annoyed if they play a game that seems too common or if the rules are too complicated to understand, so you need to find a balance between novelty and simplicity.

Overall, what comes up from this Facebook Garage event is that games are a powerful way to reach and engage people, but that the same rules apply both online and offline: be creative, place the social element at the heart of it, bring novelty as much as possible but keep things simple.

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ June 19th, 2009 in 77News

This week’s issue of PambiancoWeek was dedicated to the international fashion trade show, Pitti Immagine, and one of its pieces featured a mashup of the various social media marketing activities renowned fashion brands such as Dimensione Danza, Miss Sixty, Athletes World are currently implementing as a way to increase  brand awareness and maximize internet exposure.

Click on the image below to read more on this article or refer back to our articles about Dimensione Danza and Athletes World to learn more about their social media initiatives.

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ June 18th, 2009 in New Media Tips

Blogs, viral marketing, communities, forums, chats, social networks all fall under the same category- word of mouth marketing. These are all techniques that can be used to engage with current and potential customers as well as to get people talking about your products.

You can consider it both a marketing strategy as well as an interactive customer service strategy that works for gauging feedback and opinions together with earning customer respect. It’s a great and useful way not only to come a step closer to them but also serves as pathway to humanizing your brand by listening.

What are some ways in which you can use word of mouth for your brand or business? On one hand, you can leverage social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google together with many other social media platforms. Social media is very efficient to help you understand your audience by engaging with potential customers and open conversation while closely listening to them and their opinions. Online tools can also help you get an idea of what is being said about your brand on a daily basis.

Being transparent with your target audience is also important for building trust and remain a credible source of information. When engaging customers, be clear, respond honestly and participate openly to dicussions and blogs.

Do not forget to monitor your results. Track both offline and online conversations for word of mouth can take place anywhere. A high ROI and a sales increase are your final goals, therefore, regurlarly reviewing your marketing strategy and communication approach to meet your customer’s needs is a must. Extremely valuable information and ideas can be extracted from these activites that can lead to new and improved products made specifically for your target market, which can easily translate into sales!

Lastly, encourage word of mouth in the workplace. As I previously mentioned, word of mouth does not only take place online, you’ll be surprised to know that a lot of it comes from daily, face-to-face conversations amongst individuals or phone conversations. However, these should not be considered as two different set of activities. Offline word of mouth and online word of mouth go hand-in-hand. You can use online word of mouth to generate offline activities and vice versa.

Keep listening and sharing with your audience. The more connected you are to them, the better and the more brand endorses you’ll gain over time.

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ June 17th, 2009 in Media News

Earlier this week, Google Mexico and the Mexican government signed an agreenment to promote archaeological and historical sites in a bid to revive tourism following the swine flu epidemic, according to the Press Association.

Considering Google’s many, many… many talents, will the revival of tourism in Mexico be feasable? yeah.

The plan is for Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History to provide Google Mexico with information, images, videos and facts to help the Mexican tourism industry bounce back. They will profit from tools such as Google Earth and Google Maps which will link Google users to the various virtual tours of some of Mexico’s most renowned museums as well as rotating videos of the country’s major landmarks such as the pyramids and other ancient ruins.

The Mexican government has also placed its bet on a YouTube channel called INAH TV where all kinds of information regarding Mexican sightings, museums, galleries, ruins, ethnic information and exhibitions will be available to 85% of Mexico’s entire internet population of Google users.

Other initiatives such as the online contest dubbed ‘Let’s put Mexico on the Map’ have been designed for college students to simulate some of Mexico’s most prominent landmarks using Google’s 3D animation software, Sketch Up.

This is yet another example of Google’s great potential and how the search giant can be leveraged to best suit your needs, regardless whether you’re a marketer, a company, or an individual. Take the aforementioned agreement as an example, although it is presented from a macro perspective, the same ‘principles’ used by the Mexican government can be applied in conjunction with any online marketing  strategy, adding or substracting a few instruments here and there.

What’s interesting though, is that a country such as Mexico looks to Google to bring tourism back on track following the outbreak from a few months back.

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ June 16th, 2009 in Social Marketing

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of posts on the phenomenon of social networking coming to its end and predictions about Twitter becoming obsolete.

One problem about technology (and everything else in general) is that once something is expected to be ‘the next big thing’, it doesn’t actually mean it will retain its fame forever. Studies such as that from the Participatory Marketing Network are already pointing out some of the ‘flaws’ networks such as Twitter are presenting. However, we’ll just have to wait and see.

I really enjoyed reading an article on this month’s edition of WIRED by Kevin Kelly dubbed The New Socialism where he claims that the popular social networking platforms existent today are a vanguard of a social movement, nothing to do with Karl Marx’s idea of socialism though. Instead, in his article, Kelly uses the term socialism because technically it is the best word to describe a range of technologies that rely for their power on social interactions.

Kelly doesn’t believe this socialism is an ideology, rather it is a spectrum of attitudes, techniques and tools that promote collaboration, sharing, cooperation and collectivism, which in turn represent the hierarchy for sorting through this ‘new socialism’ scheme defined by media theorist Clay Shirky.

In today’s world it’s practically inevitable not to be connected to anyone and everyone, 24 hours and day, seven days a week. Think Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube. In his article, Kelly runs a comparative table of the old socialism (the ideology) and the New Socialism (the cultural movement). Some of the comparisons he highlights include the idea that while old socialism centralizes authority among elite officials, the new socialism distributes power among ad hoc participants. This meaning, we are all community, we all work together towards a common goal.

It continues by saying that in a socialistic regime, there’s forced labor in government factories whereas the new socialism encourages volunteerism Wikipedia-style. Wikipedia or wikiness is one significant example of collectivism.

Freedom of speech is also a big issue in socialism, one that we know is entirely controlled by the government. Anyone who violates this, will be harshly punished for criticizing major leaders in public.

The beauty of today’s socialism: Real-time Tweets and RSS Feeds and the opinions of individuals being published on the Huffington Post.

Posted by Guest Blogger @ June 15th, 2009 in Other Marketing

We are proud to present this week’s 77Lab guest blogger, Paul Turner. Paul works on International Sales for Right Media, the world’s largest online advertising Exchange. As part of this role, Paul has worked with prospects and Exchange members in the UK, Italy, Netherlands, Ireland, Russia, Poland, India, Israel, Australia, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. The job involves working with current Exchange users to help develop compelling monetisation strategies and to improve knowledge of performance marketing. When he’s not talking about the benefits of using an Exchange, Paul relaxes by watching his favourite football team lose!

Recession. Downturn. Redundancies. It’s fair to say that the news couldn’t be more depressing – frankly it can make you want to give it all up and live in cave for a year or two! But I prefer to take a more positive view. From an online advertising perspective I honestly believe that the opportunities presented by new technologies couldn’t be greater. Working in the Ad Exchange space I get to see first hand how open, efficient technologies can be used to not only reduce friction in existing business models but also to create (and sustain) new models entirely.

Let’s be clear – fundamentally changing a business model to align more closely with market trends isn’t something that happens everyday. But the world of online advertising shifts so rapidly that those who merely attempt to maintain the status quo are already ‘behind the line’. So often we see businesses whose model is entrenched in ‘the old way’ – in online that could be as far back as 10 years or as recent as last week.

Technology enables us all to change and adapt – eventually the momentum and weight of change forces us to sit up and take notice but it’s those companies who see the trends early and remodel accordingly who will find themselves positioned at the head of the game.

In our market, specifically the trading of display inventory on Advertising Exchanges, this ‘change’ manifests itself in a number of ways. More and more we’re seeing Agencies and Publishers wanting to build Networks, whilst the traditional Networks are increasingly differentiating through a combination of data and bespoke technology. Whereas before the barriers to entry were too high or the inefficiencies too great, the new open technologies of today have created a level playing field where intelligence, data, market knowledge and technical expertise wins out.

The days of winning because you’re the biggest, oldest, most established haven’t died out entirely but increasingly more nimble, technology enabled competitors are gaining market share where before they wouldn’t even have made it through the front door.

It’s still early days and many of the companies who have already made the shift remain ‘under the radar’. However, as the market inevitably evolves it is these companies who are well placed to capitalize, often at the expense of traditional, more well established players. A positive approach in this time of great negativity could be the difference between future success or failure.

Posted by Guillame Foutry @ June 12th, 2009 in Social Marketing

Any anticipation of what the future will be like is always a projection of the fears of the present. The movie industry is a perfect example of that, from Terminator that pictures machines eager to annihilate the human race to The Day After Tomorrow that portrays a global environmental catastrophe due to human carelessness. So let’s try to imagine (in a less dramatic way) what Facebook could be like in 2020 by consciously projecting our fears.
Facebook is your home (well, it stormed into your home)

Facebook has long overcome Google (what is Google?) as the preferred homepage for internet users, but it is also your home wherever you go. On your mobile phone, on your kitchen TV, your bathroom mirror. Everywhere. Facebook has become the giant network that no one can escape: emails have disappeared; Facebook is the universal Open ID and you do not remember what a brick and mortar bank is as they went bankrupt (I know, again) due to the competition of FB.

Profile for life (and more than that…)

Facebook has already dealt with the problem of users who passed away. But in 2013 they go beyond that by creating a Facebook cemetery where you can build a monument for your beloved one. Facebook takes care of you, from the cradle to the grave.

You do not know your Facebook rights (but you feel like a turkey on Thanksgiving Day)

They have changed the TOS (Terms of Service) so many times that you have no idea what you are entitled to and who owns the content. What you know is that advertisement has invaded Facebook, which does not prevent the network from charging you for it. And you pay for it as you are completely trapped: you have been on the platform for more than 15 years, so you have put a lot of information on the network, so it would be too painful to move elsewhere. And there is no elsewhere anyway.

Mark Zuckerberg world domination attempt (Darth Vader is back)

The CEO of Facebook is completely megalomaniac in 2015 (rumors say he’s always been) and uses all the information on the network to set up a giant blackmailing program on the economic, political and cultural rulers of the planet. By that time, Facebook will have more data than the CIA or any intelligence service in the world.

Facebook Refuzniks (the resistance)

As Facebook has become so pervasive over the years, a minority of people have refused to use it, becoming the new outcasts. They organize themselves and forge alliances with survivors of the previous Facebook wars with Google and Twitter. They discover the most efficient way to fight the dark force: showing to the rest of the world the true meaning of friendship and remembering people the importance of physical interactions, like it happened in Wall-e.

Of course all these ideas are too exaggerated, but this is the point of projections isn’t it? And what are your fears regarding Facebook and social media in general? By the way, in case you did not know, there are several predictions that the world would end in 2012. So we might not live long enough to see all these things happening.

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ June 11th, 2009 in Social Marketing

A recent survey by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has demonstrated marketers are dedicating most of their time and focus to consumers, thus decreasing their marketing activities on traditional media.

The survey was conducted online this past April with the participation of the members of ANA which include 400 companies and over 9,000 brands.  The report goes on to say that over two-thirds of marketers have shifted their efforts to more short-term, efficient strategies to help them achieve faster results during the economic downturn.

The report also discussed how marketers are looking to increase media spending, particularly in the areas of brand building and the use of  social media.

The activities most likely to be increased in the current economic environment are:
* Pricing deals (47 percent)
* Social networking and word of mouth activities (26 percent)
* Public relations efforts (23 percent)

More concrete results touching on the social media landscape were discussed on Brand Republic following a study conducted by Datamonitor on The Rise of Social Networking and Emerging Channels in Customer Service which does a great job in explaining how the rise in social media use can positively impact customer service and enhance the interaction between the brand and the consumer.

Ian Jacobs, senior analyst for customer interaction at Datamonitor and also the author of the research, made strong emphasis on the importance of making consumers feel they are taken into consideration and that brands actually care about them and the valuable feedback they can provide.

He also mentioned companies such as @MountainView, @WholeFoods and @VirginAmerica, which have all proven to harness social media, which in turn has generated excellent results for them. Not only through customer interaction but also through the use of online contests, coupons and special offers.

You can read more about these particular brands and their social media initiatives here.

Both studies show clear evidence that marketers are increasingly interested in customer care and building brand equity with a sole focus on the consumer. They’ve also come to realize that through the use of consumer- generated media to generate feedback from consumers, marketers can assess the impact of their brand marketing campaigns to quickly gauge brand equity, brand loyalty and customer satisfaction.

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ June 10th, 2009 in Search Engine Marketing

What do pages at the top of Google have in common? Good content.

Marketers are always looking for the best ways to optimize their websites. Before getting into the details of things we can already think of a list of activities to achieve this, for example: URL structure, meta tags, website architecture, keywords in the URL and web content, relevancy, etc.

But before we get into all that, we must turn our attention to content. Google loves content and good content is key to website optimization. It’s very important that you understand who your target audience is when building your website in order to cater your content based on that target market.

In most cases, you have the audience who is looking or needs something in particular, but is not sure what. Then there’s the audience who knows exactly what he/she wants who will go straight to the place where they can find it.

First thing they will do is run their keyword search on Google, land on a specific website, and boom! purchase is made. It is much easier to appeal to a person who already knows what he/she wants because all they do is execute their search using the exact keywords and land on the right website.

Those who are hesitant are harder to convince, therefore, good content is required. Having the right content, a good selection of keywords and clear website strategy will definitely get you a high position in Google.  Some main aspects to look at: keywords, keywords, keywords.

It is important you review your Pages or landing pages against the keywords from search. Study all the possible keyword options, from the most relevant to the least, including stem variations of keywords, and review those generating high bounces or more conversions and make your modifications accordingly.

Also, revise your content thoroughly together with your site navigation as to guarantee a better website experience for your users. This will lead your audience to your final objective. Offering useful information will lead to a call-to-action, this in turn will generate more leads and most importantly, increase sales.

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ June 9th, 2009 in New Media Tips

There are many important online marketing strategies that can help you be successful with optimizing your business on the web. Some of these include building a marketing plan for your site and your business, issue press releases, case studies, monthly newsletters, white papers, corporate blogging, participate in forums and engage in social media; build branded Pages, personalized channels, etc.

How can can you optimize your company’s website to perform well on social media sites such as Twitter? How can you take advantage of the power of Twitter and use it to  generate traffic and build brand equity? Here are some tips you can use to guide yourselves:

1. Keyword Research: you must understand the language your potential customers speak and use. This means that you should be able to determine what are the common keywords that your potential customer usually uses for their search queries. This is important to be able to send a clear message to your target market and increase web traffic with the use of key terms. You can use tools such as the Google Keyword Tool to help you.




2. Branding yourself through Twitter: Branding is vital for any business and this social platform is a useful tool to reach your audience. A great way to attract your audience is to set up different accounts, each one catering to a specific market, sector or interest. This will help maintain consistency in your message and engage better with your audience.




3. Build relationships: The more the better and the quicker you’ll rise to the top. The more followers you have, the better the reputation and the more users will trust you. It’s important to build relationships and make connections with other tweeps in your industry to generate more follows.




4. Be creative, engage and interact: Twitter is a microblogging site, therefore, it’s a place where people meet to exchange ideas and information on any given topic. Leading off interesting conversations and introducing stimulating topics and content that contain relevant keywords is definitely the way to go.  The 140 character limit is clearly a challenge, however, this serves as a good opportunity to get creative and gain people’s attention. Talk to everyone, ask questions, interact…in the end, you will see positive results.

What do you think, will the hype of Twitter ever subside?