January 30th, 2012
this is a guest post by Sundeep Kapur, his website is www.emailyogi.com, he’s also a Digital Evangelist for NCR.
Year over year the amount of content available on Facebook has increased dramatically. More brands are beginning to leverage this channel and while the number of consumers on Facebook continues to grow, it is going to get harder for brands to attentively engage consumers. Here are some key points highlighted in this report.
Successful brands need to focus on increasing interaction effectiveness with their consumer base. You do this by increasing the frequency of exposure, paying close attention to what is being discussed, and focused advertising.
Interactions with consumers will occur as you post and more than 70% of the interaction occurs within the first hour. So keep up your efforts on posting more often and monitoring right after you post versus posting and “going to bed.” Also, a post with a “question” tends to drive increased interaction.
Don’t forget that advertising does work. Your engagement rate can go up by 21% to 43% by knowing what to say, when to say, and of course how you say things on Facebook.
Brands have a significant opportunity to leverage social. The key to success is to understand how much of the social data is public, how to collect the data without alienating the consumer, and how best to quickly use the data that is collected.
Tags: consumer interaction, Facebook, focused advertising, sundeep kapur
Posted in Facebook | 1 Comment »
January 25th, 2012
In 3 days in Toronto, Canada, I’m excited to moderate a
panel on this topic, as part of Socialize Toronto, a conference on monetizing social media.
The geeks will talk about the Don’t Be Evil Toolbar, made by Facebook and Twitter folks. Or maybe the components of EdgeRank– the relative weightings of likes, comments, and posts. No black magic, complex formulas, or more software to have to master. But here’s what really matters– more newsfeed exposure and traffic.
So here it is in plain English based on actual research we’ve used on brands large and small:
- Post when your particular users are most likely to be online– not a generic rule of thumb. Hint: look in your web analytics to see, or consider when your TV shows air, stores are open, and customers are shopping. If you’re the NFL, you better be running Facebook ads when the Super Bowl is on to capture when fans are talking.
- Run Sponsored Post Story ads to amplify your organic postings. Odds are that only 5% of your fans are seeing your posts (the larger the page, the lower) and then only a percent of that are engaging with you (clicking like or commenting). The newsfeed is so competitive now, jammed with so much stuff, that you have to run ads now if you want to play. Sorry.
- People who are browsing Facebook are not interesting in shopping for Tide in the 150 ounce family size jug right then. But they are interested in something funny and perhaps a discount for later. So don’t spam them with your product offerings, sales, and traditional banner ads. Give them something worth sharing– look at your stats to see what is shared the most and do more of that.
- Do not apply SEO methods to Facebook– any more than you’d wear swimtrunks to a wedding. Don’t try to stuff your keywords in your posts, page titles, or other content. People don’t search on Facebook, they navigate.
- Actions speak louder than words– if you don’t build an open graph app that has actions (read, watch, listen, cook, etc…) you will get drowned out of the newsfeed. Posting alone carries little weight without ad amplification. Hey, Facebook is going public in June 2012 and they have to demonstrate revenue, right?
- Google+ is a lame social network right now– lots of Google users, but no traffic. Forcing users to click on +1 is not a strong strategy for brands yet. Maybe that will change in 6-9 months, if Google can apply social relevancy to their products.
We have an all-star line up for our panel, who will likely disagree with what I have just said. Be ready for an interesting panel!
Posted in Company Blog | No Comments »
January 18th, 2012
The BlitzLocal team attended the Facebook Mobile Hack event in NYC on January 18th and took some notes on the newest updates to the mobile platform.
Read here to see what the Facebook engineers had to say, and hear what has worked for several case studies.
Intro: Facebook Platform for Mobile
How has the web changed since the early days?
- Photos!
- Facebook tagging (social)
- Games
- Not focused on rendering the best graphics, but social aspect
- 200 million people playing games on Facebook Platform
- The rise of mobile
- Across all levels of mobile devices
- 350M users of Facebook mobile
- Twice as engaged as desktop version
- Social + Mobile
- Friends, Newsfeed, search, notifications, requests, bookmarks
- Photography, websites, music, communication, games, books
Web Apps (HTML5) Development: Matt Kelly & Vikas Gupta
- How to facilitate sharing with friends
- Problematic when sharing over different types of devices
- Apps don’t exist across platforms
- Hard to share content between them even if apps exist
- How can Facebook fix this?
- The social channels
- Requests: user to user direct messaging
- Make sure they are super fast! Almost real-time
- News Feed: one to many sharing with friends
- Posting, view on wall, view on news feed
- Open Graph: Lightweight, seamless sharing
- Wherever your app lives or works, Facebook distributes properly so there are no holes.
- Bookmarks
- m.facebook.com
- Gives users a specific spot to get back to your app
- Mechanism for engagement
- Native facebook for iPhone
- Payments
- Use credits to monetize apps
- Build social from the ground up
- Search, login auth, directed to app
- Social apps work everywhere
- iPhone, laptop, android, ipad, android tablet
- HTML5 works across all platforms
Native App + Open Graph: Aryeh Selekman & Christine Abernathy:
- iOS and Android + Facebook platform
- Open Source Native SDKs
- Developer app settings
- Fields to configure iOS and Android apps
- Linking and app distribution works appropriately if these fields are filled out correctly
- Single Sign On (SSO) login without typing
- Login with facebook button
- Understanding Native Distribution
- If an iOS or app exists, all requests/News Feed Stories/Timeline stories will link directly to native app (or apple store if not installed)
- On android, requests/News Feed Stories/Timeline stories wil only direct to your mobile web app
- 5 Best Practices
- 1. Build a mobile web app
- HTML5: distribution on m.facebook.com on all webkit enabled touch browsers
- native wrappers
- take advantage of SSO capabilities
- 2. Implement SSO
- 3. Implement requests for app discoverability
- Rate now, invite friends, send requests
- 4. Leverage existing friend graph
- Promote activity and interaction
- Re-engagement
- Push notification through native channels to let you know your friends joined
- 5. Get your app on timeline
- Open Graph and Mobile Apps
- One API – distribution to ticker, Timeline, newsfeed
- Allows you to define what people do in your application
- Reading, listening, watching, etc.
- 4 Steps to get started using open graph
- 1. Define your actions and objects
- 2. Design your Timeline aggregations
- Pictures, maps, represent actions and data that people send through
- 3. Markup and expose your objects
- Everything represented by underlying URL
- Where do objects live
- 4. Publish actions
Native Distribution for Mobile Apps
Case Study: PhoneGap
- Pattern
- Embed a chromeless browser in a native app
- Create a bridge between the browser and the native code providing access to native APIs
- Write a web app
- Package the web app with the native code and deploy to devices
- Write once debug everywhere
- Take note
- HTML, JS, CSS included in an app package
- HTML loaded on file:// URI scheme, no cross domain request restrictions
- Engineering wise, approach is simple to extend to new platforms
- Support Platforms
- iOS, Android, BB, webOS, Symbian, Windows Phone (mango), Samsung Bada
- Mobile first!
- HTML5: write native code easily, scale like an app so width is design width – no pinch zoom etc
- CSS3: webkit transformations
- The future
- Tooling
- WebGL
- Facebook, Linkedin, Walmart use case
- Continue polyfilling HTML5
Case Study: Washington Post Social Reader
- Coding for the futures
- Everything you write effects possible futures
- Architect for the foreseeable futures
- Short term futures
- Building mobile second
- Use mobile to rethink boundaries
- Roll mobile learning back into the webapp
Case Study: Thuzi
- Hospitality app
- Social by design
- Send invites, RSVPs
- Share great offers with my friends
- Provide reviews of the experience
- Capture the moment for a special occasion (Timeline)
- Local by design
- Dining is a local experience
- Find a local restaurant
- Invite friends, redeem offers, find out what’s happening
- Native by design
- Want to ensure you have access to the newest native APIs
- Want to have the fastest app possible
- Want to guarantee formatting correctness
- More choices for monetization – iAds, etc
- Many existing open source libraries and blog posts and tutorials
- Are not dependent upon plugins or other 3rd party series for push notifications
Tags: events, Facebook, Facebook Mobile Platform, Open Graph, Social media
Posted in Facebook, Learning Center | No Comments »
January 10th, 2012
At the Webby Awards, we are constantly monitoring social networking platforms to bring our fans our unique view into the ever-changing landscape of what’s happening online, in order to provoke and inspire by highlighting some of the most innovative work and trends on the Internet. One such trend that we’ve come across is what we call the “Golden Age of Complaining.” In this culture of dissatisfaction, everyone is an instant critic. Consumers are taking to platforms, such as Twitter, to air their disappointment with brands that have done a disservice to them.
Brands and companies have understood the importance of communication with their customers. Traditionally, in a somewhat antiquated means of communication, chagrined customers would call a 1-800 number or write (if you were even less technologically inclined) to express their displeasure with a company. With platforms such as Twitter and Facebook that allow for instant response and timely interaction, good brands and companies have created accounts on these sites that are staffed full-time by a customer service representative.
1. Responding requires a high-touch and thoughtful approach
Some great examples of brands that have taken to Twitter are:
- Airlines:
- Cable providers:
- Motor companies:
Engaging customers about their complaints is one of the best ways to retain brand loyalty and encourage their continued use. That being said, there is a right way and a wrong way of communicating with customers. There are two basic categories in which complaints fall: 1.“[brand] sucks” and 2.“[brand] help” – and knowing which to respond to is important. If a Twitter user merely tweets, “@Delta, you truly suck”, how is a brand supposed to respond? There is nothing in which to engage them with. However, if a Twitter user posts “@DeltaAssist traveling with an infant and had a confirmed seat on window but got moved to aisle”, it is Delta’s duty to respond to this customer.
However, one to three tweets should be the maximum for exchanges online; after that, the conversation should be taken offline by exchanging contact information. Sometimes, the problem can be resolved in just one tweet – for example: “@DeltaAssist: I’m sorry about your seat, please DM your confirmation # so we can check your next flight for you.” This takes care of the situation head on without going back and forth.
We’ve also noticed three great ways brands are responding to their fans on Twitter:
1. Take advantage of over-share
If you’re in NYC, you’ve probably eaten at a food truck or three. The great thing about many food trucks is their ability to be mobile – they are restaurants on wheels! Brands such as the Souvlaki Truck have created Twitter accounts to monitor what they’re fans are saying about them. We recently tweeted to the @SouvlakiTruck recently about missing their food – they used to be right around the corner from us – once they saw our tweet, they responded by offering a care package to be sent to our office. The following week we were all dining on their delicious Greek food. And because they were tuned in, the Souvlaki Truck was able to be proactive and garner 60,000 impressions from our tweeting our appreciation.
2. Reveal the human side of brand
Recently, one of our interns tweeted to his colleague that we were out of sweet potato chips and hummus. Another great brand @PretzelCrisps, took it upon themselves to offer their snack as a viable alternative that goes great with hummus. They engaged him and asked for mailing address. Sure enough, that afternoon, bags upon bags of Pretzel Crisps were dropped off at our office. By revealing themselves as real people behind the social media platform and not just an automated bot that responds, the Pretzel Crisp brand was able to create a relationship with a new customer.
3. Create personal interactions
One particular brand that has an interesting campaign on Twitter is Jell-o, which launched their “Pudding Face Mood Meter” in an effort to gauge America’s current mood. Jell-o is tracking tweets that contain smiling and frowning faces and are taking the opportunity to tweet to those users that tweeted frowning. While they are cued in to the collective American feelings at a current time, they are not making the interaction personal. It seems more insincere to tweet to someone who is having a bad day: “here, have a coupon for a free Jell-o pudding” as opposed to engaging the user if it’s appropriate to your brand message. This misguided effort to connect with new fans and the connection between the brand and the message they wish to convey is not obvious.
The few things we’ve learned from the culture of dissatisfaction are:
1. That even though consumers are increasingly venting on Twitter and Facebook, certain brands are proactively transform complaints into praise.
2. Brands can strengthen their existing customer relationships and create new ones by engaging the right way.
3. As long as you make it a good story – the word will spread itself.
Guest author David-Michel Davies (DMD) is Executive Director of The Webby Awards & the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences. He also serves as Chairman & Co-Founder of Internet Week New York. DMD has appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, and Good Morning America to discuss Internet trends and news, and he has lectured to audiences at a diverse mix of conferences and companies including Interbrand, Microsoft and the Institute for the future.
Tags: Facebook, reaching out, Social media, Twitter
Posted in Company Blog, Facebook | No Comments »
January 9th, 2012
Fast food establishments have been locked in a grueling social media war for several years now. A quick look at fan counts would suggest that McDonalds, thus far, is the victor. But the truth is others are catching up quickly (several competitors like Taco Bell and In-N-Out Burger are already beating McDonalds in fans per location) and McDonalds is constantly being forced to adapt and brainstorm new ways to keep customers engaged and coming back.
One of their latest attempts to capture their fans attention is a game on their Facebook page called “The Quest for the Golden McRib.” The Quest is no simple or cheap flash game but a highly interactive set of challenges that incorporates Google Maps and real world McDonalds stores. The game has loads of content and the mix of challenges will appeal to hardcore gamers as well as casual ones. When the gamer successfully completes a challenge they receive a collectable badge that they can either keep tucked away or post it to their wall to brag to their friends.
The social aspect of this has huge potential to revolutionize the way we Facebook. Gamification has begun, and you’ll probably be seeing a lot more of it over the next few years as others seek to diminish or negate the marketing edge of their competitors. Although The Quest is ultimately a rather silly game; (elves with butterfly wings and pirate hats, rapping eagles, etc.), games on Facebook are still in their infancy. You can see that advertisers are contemplating new and unique ways to keep their brands fresh in consumers’ minds. Ultimately, this is a win-win for everyone: the advertiser gets to speak directly to the consumer who is being entertained, as opposed to being forced to watch a commercial. As gamification is further utilized and perfected, expect games to become even more compelling, common, and social.
Blake Beier is an Analyst with BlitzLocal, and a big fan of games.
Tags: Facebook, gamification
Posted in Company Blog, Facebook | No Comments »
