We’ve been talking a lot about Facebook this week. The site hit 500 million users on Wednesday and has become a sheer force in our digitally obsessed society. Earlier this spring Facebook made the “Like” button universally available across the world wide web, not just on their own site. Brands and businesses have incorporated the “Like” functionality into their own websites to visually demonstrate customer support. While there was a great deal of buzz about the expanded reach of the “Like” button, there has also been a storm brewing around the concept of a “Dislike” button.
I for one would like to see Facebook add a “Dislike” button. If I can express my support for something so easily, why can’t I express my opposition or distaste? There are nearly 3.2 million people that agree with me who belong to a Facebook group called “Dislike Button.”
There are a few obvious reasons why Facebook has held off: first, there is potential for bullying and hurtful use of the proposed “dislike” button. While I would like to think Facebook users are capable of using the “dislike” button wisely, I am sure there are users that would be abusive.
A second reason is highlighted in a new column by Mashable founder and CEO Pete Cashmore for CNN. In his most recent column, Cashmore explains that the “dislike” button opens door for users to negatively impact the brands and businesses that use Facebook for marketing and promotions. He writes:
“Facebook will never add a Dislike button because it would damage the company’s relationships with brands, businesses and web publishers — these groups are essential for building both web traffic and ad revenue.”
While Cashmore makes a strong point that Facebook does not want to alienate the primary source of its revenue, Facebook has also been known to respond to strong user feedback.
Who do you think will win this debate? Are you on team Like or Dislike?
Old Spice has launched a new social media campaign using Old Spice Man, who is actually former NFL player Isaiah Mustafa.
Following a successful television commercial campaign which began during the Super Bowl, Old Spice took Mustafa to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and is now making personalized videos.
Hustafa has already made videos for social media personalities such as Kevin Rose and AdventureGirl, and is also replying to specific tweets from various Twitter users. One person even asked Old Spice Man to propose to his girlfriend.
While this social media campaign has already attracted a lot of buzz, it’s still a very new initiative that is quickly building momentum. There is no doubt that Mustafa will be in high demand for personalized videos going forward, and Mustafa recently told ABC News that he can product 100 videos a day, with help from Old Spice’s advertising agency.
This campaign should be a launching pad for other businesses looking to capitalize on social media, and it would be a surprise to see other companies follow suit (such as the Miller High Life guy).
Infographics are quickly becoming a media and public relations industry buzz word / topic. Why you ask? Two major reasons. As corporations continue to shift into their role as media companies and content curators, they’re realizing the opportunity to package interesting data to the media and consumers in new ways. More importantly, media organizations and editors are now focusing on finding new ways to engage their readership. Infographics happen to solve both of these problems by packaging data in a way that makes it both engaging and easy to read.
A few weeks ago I sat down with Sam Whitmore of Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey for Racepoint Group’s video newsletter to discuss how brands and agencies can leverage infographics and why they’re becoming the “new slide shows” for media outlets desperate for engaging content. While Sam cautioned that infographics aren’t B-roll (most media outlets like to play a role in building them), he did pass along some interesting insight into how PR practitioners and marketers can leverage the media’s interest in this new category of content.
For more insight on infographics, along with the latest news and trends in marketing, PR and communications in the technology space subscribe to Racepoint’s “The Point: Tech Edition.
The state of California is currently considering a license plate advertising initiative that could help close the state’s massive $19 billion deficit and add yet another distraction for drivers.
State lawmakers are considering a proposal that would display advertisements on rear license plates while cars are stopped. When they are moving, the numbers and letters on the license plate would re-appear.
This would allow the state to create a new revenue stream – but not without some skepticism. Even though California has outlawed using hand held devices while driving, commuters are still faced with heavy traffic during their morning and afternoon commutes, and are likely using blue tooth to conduct business and personal calls. License plate ads would add to the distractions and could result in some displaced anger and/or accidents.
Some commuters may also feel slighted that they will not reap any financial benefits from advertisements occurring on their cars, which could drive increased vehicle advertising.
How would you feel about having one of these license plates on your car?
Last night Racepoint Group hosted an event about social media and its return on investment (ROI). As social media continues to become a larger focal point in public relations and marketing campaigns, it’s critical to understand how to articulate it’s value to clients.
Last night’s event centered around a panel discussion with three social media experts: Larry Weber, Chairman of Racepoint Group, Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics and Mike Volpe, VP of Inbound Marketing for HubSpot.
After Larry Weber’s opening remarks, Qualman shared how he first dipped his toe into the digital space by sending a company-wide email instead of the standard hard copy memo. View his story here:
Volpe was up next and shared with the group the origins of his marketing career and the way tracking and reporting on ROI is evolving. Watch him provide tips here:
The evening was full of tremendous ideas and recommendations. The five big takeaways from the panel were:
1) Social media is not about technology. It’s about human interaction. It’s about sharing information and making connections. People who are intimidated by the technology aspect of engaging in social media should not view the applications as a hurdle. It’s simply the current mechanism to maintain relationships and reach out to new people.
2) When it comes to tracking social media, its important to focus not only on the quantitative (number of followers, number of re-postings) but also the qualitative. We need to take into account engagement and tone. Qualman said, “If social media is so trackable, we should just have robots running things. The human element is necessary here.”
3) Everyone and anyone can be a content creator, a publisher, a media property. As we shift away from traditional print and broadcast media, both we and our clients have the opportunity to get innovative and create and distribute our own content. Additionally, content creation should not be isolated to the PR and marketing staff. Volpe shared that, “50% of HubSpot employees have written posts for the HubSpot blog.”
4) Although much of PR and marketing is based in the written word, we need to start thinking more visually. We need to tell stories through pictures and videos. We need to make our content more authentic and dynamic.
5) On a personal level, Volpe stated, “The new resume is what comes up in Google when I type in your name.” As digital and social media continue to play an increasingly vital role in our PR and marketing efforts, we too have a digital and social persona, and that is now what employers are most interested in.
Thank you to Erik Qualman and Mike Volpe for joining us at Racepoint Group last night and providing such pragmatic, realistic, useful and inspiring guidance on the social media ROI frontier. Be sure to follow @equalman and @mvolpe on Twitter for real time updates on their social media adventures. You can also view all the live commentary during the event with the #smroi hashtag here.
For years now, start-ups and technology disruptors have been trying to change the television viewing experience. Mark Cuban was hypothesizing about the death of channels, with the introduction of Internet TV in the United States in 2005. However, other than a lot of visions and aspirations the market hasn’t really caught on. Change you see, doesn’t really apply to the television industry. After the “Golden Days” of television that saw a man walk on the moon the industry has been set in decades of stodginess with little or no change — innovation shifting to bigger and better things, with all eyes eventually falling on the Internet.
However, with the introduction of Google TV today, which joins the likes of Apple, AT&T and Microsoft in trying to champion Internet Protocol Television(IPTV), there may finally be enough momentum to trigger the Internet to TV avalanche. An avalanche that some analysts believe will lead to million global IPTV subscribers by 2013.
The innovation desperately needed in the television industry is replication of the Internet innovation in search and discovery that has occurred over the last decade. And, there’s probably no better company to replicate that than Google. With more video content and channels available than ever before before, watching and searching for video content between siloed channels, cable and satellite operators just doesn’t make sense. It’s a closed structure that would be like searching and enjoying the Internet without, well, Google.
Of course the introduction of this type of technology on pre-boxed televisions from Sony and others could also mean the holy grail of television advertising, which Google is really interested in. Advertisers have been seeking and gaining access to millions of consumers shifting to the Web to enjoy video content and technologies including personalization and speech-to-text solutions have enabled them to target these consumers with targeted advertorial better than they ever could through televisions. If “Googling” goes to the tube, these technologies and Google’s own AdWords’ system will be right behind it.
Since unveiling its play into mobile advertising on April 8 with its iAd platform, questions have circled around how Apple will implement advertising on certain applications and how much ads or campaigns will cost for brands and media buyers. However, MocoNews.net is reporting today that “CPMs (on the iAd platform) could wind up being triple what marketers are used to paying for banners, and double the price of a current video ad on mobile devices.
The cost and appeal of reaching consumers through the iPhone, iPad and thousands of apps on Apple’s App Store could finally drive mobile marketing into a “big” business. Analysts have already been bullish on mobile coupons driving the fledgling mobile ad market this year. In fact, a new study from Borrell Associates sees mobile marketing growing into a $57 billion market by 2014. Coupons and the iAd platform alone, could make for a watershed year in 2010.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple will “charge close to $1 million for ads on its mobile devices this year and perhaps even more to be among the first brands featured (on the platform).” While some would think this limit would deter most advertisers, big name brands like Nike (who Apple is using in demoing with other media buyers) seem excited about the opportunity to reach consumers within application engagement on Apple’s line of mobile devices (video above).
Yesterday in San Francisco Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg rolled out some big plans for his baby at the company’s 8th developer conference, f8. After combing through all the tech round ups, here are the major take aways:
Facebook global domination, one thumbs up at a time: The most notable announcement at f8 was that Facebook’s “Like” feature will now be available on any website that wishes to add the cheery sign of approval to its site. You can indicate your favor for anything on the web – a song, a recipe, a celebrity gossip post – all with one click.
While many support this web-wide expansion, others have strong concerns. John Sutter of CNN writes, “A consequence of these “like” buttons will be that your friends’ Facebook profile photos will start showing up all over the web. If you see your friends’ smiling faces online, it’s an indication that they have clicked a “like” button on the website you’re visiting. In a way, they’re recommending it to you.”
While those concerned with privacy issues are shrieking and scrambling in horror, marketers are smiling and planning ways utilize this public display of brand loyalty to move the sales needle.
Log in, plug in: In addition to the “Like” feature on websites outside of Facebook itself, the company is also going to allow sites to show Facebook user preferences without needing to log into that specific site. For example, if you frequent the music site Pandora, you will be able to see your friends’ music preferences based on their Facebook music preferences. Miguel Helft at the New York Times dives deeper with Pandora CTO Tom Conrad:
“It makes it really, really easy to ring your friends into Pandora and discover the music they’re experiencing,” Mr. Conrad said. Mr. Conrad started listening to a band and a picture of one of his Facebook friends who likes the same band showed up. With a click on that picture, we were able to see all the other bands that his friend also liked.
The features also allow Pandora to know which bands users have included in their Facebook profiles and begin playing music from those bands. That makes it easy for Pandora to begin playing music for new users without requiring them to type in their music preferences.
“Pandora is finally social,” Mr. Conrad said. And he said that Mr. Zuckerberg deserved all the credit for the changes. “You get a personalization with no clicks, and that was Mark’s idea.”
My friends and I already share Pandora station and Grooveshark playlist recommendations and this takes out the need for a third party mode of sharing. Tech and social media guru Robert Scoble tweeted this morning to his 121, 500 plus followers:
@scobleizer: OK, I’m sold on the new Facebook stuff. The new Pandora is FREAKING AWESOME.
So what does it all mean? In his keynote address at f8 Mark Zuckerberg explained, “The Web is at a really important turning point now. Most things aren’t social, and they don’t use your real identity. This is really starting to change.” This new expansion of Facebook preferences into the broader web begins that transition from stagnant to social on the broadest of scales.
These moves are not altruistic, of course. Facebook is opening the door to a whole new set of tactics from marketers and promoters, as well as increasing new opportunities for their own revenue stream.
Jon Swartz of USA Today wrote, “If successful, these functions could help Facebook gain valuable insights about millions of consumers and help it sell more advertising in its escalating rivalry with online ad leader Google.”
You hear that Google? Mark’s coming for you.
Former Fortune writer and author of the soon to be released book The Facebook Effect, David Kirkpatrick, summed it up best in a tweet today:
@DavidKirkpatric: Facebook’s f8 yesterday represents a sea change for the company–now the world clearly sees the scope of its ambition.
Twitter is finally taking the first step to monetize its service on Tuesday by launching an advertising platform called “Promoted Tweets.”
Co-founder Biz Stone officially announced the move this morning on the Twitter blog, citing that the company will start running “Promoted Tweets” from companies such as Starbucks, Best Buy, Sony Pictures, Bravo, Virgin America and Red Bull at the top of Twitter.com search results. So as an advertiser, what does your money on “Promoted Tweets” buy you? Similar to Google’s ad sense, it will buy you the top search result for certain keywords that you’ve bought. But that seems to be about it. Other than clearly stating that the tweet is sponsored, it will take on the same characteristics of a typical tweet on the micro-blogging service.
According to @Biz, “Promoted Tweets will also retain all the functionality of a regular Tweet including replying, Retweeting, and favoriting. Only one Promoted Tweet will be displayed on the search results page.”
Similar to Facebook, Twitter also seems to be taking measures to ensure that the “advertisements” do not take away from the Twitter ecosystem. Therefore, “Promoted Tweets must meet a higher bar—they must resonate with users.” If users don’t interact with a “Promoted Tweet” (by replying to it, favoriting it, re-tweeting it, etc) the “Promoted Tweet” will disappear.
It will be interesting to see just how useful the tweets are for advertisers and brands, who associate much of their success on the Twitter service to engaging with fans one-on-one. Will a simple text based search ad on the top of a Twitter.com search result provide additional value?
Twitter COO Dick Costolo will address the new offering in further detail today at the AdAge Digital conference.
Tiger Woods makes his return to golf this afternoon at the Masters. Ending what seems like an eternal wait for golf fans, a media circus, casual bystanders and the few sponsors that stood behind him. His tee off at 1:42 p.m. ET will signal the next step of his rebranding from the downward spiral he initiated on November 27 in a car crash outside his Florida home.
After months of silence, Tiger and co. began the rebranding on February 19 in a heavily-controlled and choreographed apology. They took no questions and although they signaled that a return to golf wasn’t imminent, word spread a few weeks later that Tiger Woods would return at the Masters. They followed by making Woods available for exclusive interviews with Tom Rinaldi of ESPN and Kelly Tilghman of Golf Channel. Questions were vetted and once again Tiger managed to say something without really saying anything at all. Only this Monday at the Masters did Tiger address questions without parameters from a throng of reporters. To be fair, he answered every question and finally seemed genuine.
Galleries around Augusta, who’ve been following Tiger through his practice rounds this week, have marveled at his interaction with fans (something that has only occurred during disputes with them in the past). Jim Nantz, who will call the Masters on CBS, is already calling Tiger a changed man.
Folks may be getting a little ahead of themselves. As I’ve heard several pundits rib on Tiger’s camp over the last couple days “A Tiger doesn’t change his stripes overnight.” Perhaps, Nike understands that. In an ad created by Nike creative partner Wieden + Kennedy that began airing on Wednesday night, Woods stairs speechless at the camera. Not appearing as a new man but someone who seeks understanding. The only voice heard is of his late father Earl, who eerily addresses Tiger’s scandal without his own knowing.
“Tiger, I am more prone to be inquisitive, to promote discussion. I want to find out what your thinking was. I want to find out what your feelings are. And did you learn anything?”
This certainly isn’t a remake of the Nike’s “Hello(again) World” Tiger ad, but a controlled message to viewers that tries to establish that Tiger is listening to his father and learning from his own missteps. Then again, nothing that Tiger has “accomplished” over the last 6 months has been awe inspiring enough to say “hello” again.
Let’s remember that Tiger’s image has been controlled since becoming a pro. During his first news conference in August 1996 to mark his pro career, he casually said “hello world.” Those in attendance and at home found it endearing. Until of course, it was revealed to be the headline for his Nike campaign that hit television sets across the world days later.
This ad from Nike is no different. Although it may draw controversy for using his late father’s voice, it stays in-line with his message to reporters and fans over the last few weeks: staying true to who he is as a person, strengthening his practice of Buddhism and introspection. This is who Tiger, and his team, want him to be during this transition period. When he has recaptured his greatness on the course (and he will), it’ll be time to say “hello” or “he’s back.” Now is not that time.
It’s shortcoming is simply that it’s another advertisement. A one-way message. It has always been with Tiger. He seeks the same control for his image that he has with a seven iron in hand at Augusta. Unfortunately, that’s not possible, especially in today’s 1,440-minute, Internet news-cycle. Fans will ultimately determine if and when Tiger is a changed man and no matter how many ads he throws their way, their words will count more than his or his late father’s in determining the future of his brand.
