To clarify, HootSuite didn’t pay me to write this post. I am recommending their service simply be’cuz I’m a happy user. I’d like thank my fellow co-worker Sarah Gay @sarahgay for introducing the tool to me. This note is written for all the social media community managers who are deep in the trench managing multiple social network profiles for their company.
Without further do, here are the 10 WHYs:
1. Multiple social network profiles, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn All-In-One
I coach and work with many brand social media managers, one of the questions I receive frequently is “how do you jiggle multiple social network profiles at once?” With HootSuite, you no longer need to waste time “sign in, sign out.” One account login will give you access to viewing multiple Twitter feeds, the Facebook news feed, your Fan Page wall and your LinkedIn Network Updates without ever leaving the application. AND, you can update all of them at once if you’d like, just make sure you select the correct profile(s) before you hit the “send” button!
2. Multiple editors, different levels of control
Want to invite a few others to tweet with you but keep the Twitter password to yourself? If you are the ultimate keeper of your brand social media properties, you can simply add “editors” on HootSuite while maintaining control of the profiles. Basically, there are two types of users on HootSuite – level 1 “admin” is the account owner who can add/remove social network profiles and invite other users to participate on selected ones; level 2 “editor” is capable of tweeting & viewing but has no visibility to the social network credentials. I find this feature very useful for organizations that feature occasional guest Twitters or event reporters. After they are done chiming in, “admins“ can easily remove the “editor” access.
Second time reading the “Tribes” after almost a year. It’s still a quick inspirational read just like the first time. This book is more about the “why” less about the “how” & “what.” Despite all the rants & criticism, I’d still recommend it to all the social media enthusiasts especially those who intend to lead new movements in their organizations. The eight takeaways below are simple concepts that I found worth spreading…
Management≠ Leadership
Management is about manipulating resources to get a known job done. Managers know exactly what they need to deliver and they are given resources to do it at low cost. Managers manage a process they’ve seen before, and they react to the outside world, striving to make that process as fast as cheap as possible. Great leaders create movements by empowering the tribe to communicate. They establish the foundation for people to make connections, as opposed to commanding people to follow them.
A Must Watch Forecast by TrendHunter, these top 20 Consumer Trends shall keep all the designer, marketer-types going back for more.
20. Tangible Personalization – Last year, we saw personalization entering the phyical realm with personalized bobbleheads, custom dresses and crafts. This year, the credit crunch is accelerating this trend with a shift away from luxury products and a desire for personalized gifts.
19. Unservice Forward – Thinking businesses are getting customers to service themselves. From nightclubs and pubs where you serve your own beer to self-serve hotels, unservice not only saves you money, it lets customers get a sense of independence and creative control.
Over the past two years, the most powerful broad trend in media is fragmentation and while mass media remains, it is becoming a smaller and smaller proportion of the overall media landscape. Audiences have become fragmented – and they have more choices in a fragmented media landscape. Today, our informed customers aren’t happy to blindly consume what mainstream media is feeding them. Instead they want: participation, openness, conversation, community, connectedness & all of that in real time!
The upcoming year we will see increasing opportunities because of this world of fragmentation and the proliferation of media channels. Along with the continuous technology advancements, LOCATION is becoming more important than ever. In 2010, I think there are 3 “hyperlocal” trends that will grow and re-shape the social & mobile business -
1. Local advertising becoming ubiquitous
WHY: Advertisers have been constantly evaluating and experimenting with new models to bring more relevancy and context to the online ad kingdom. After behavior-targeting & social-targeting getting their debut in 2009, location-targeting advertising models start to emerge. There is a future in hyperlocal, and advertising certainly is a big part of it.
WHAT TO EXPECT: New ad-generating application such as Place Local will get more traction as it automates the ad creation, sales and management. Since local restaurants, retail outlets and entertainment venues are the most popular search categories, we will see local business owners jumping on the bandwagon first. As more companies seeking to take advantage of the growth in local ad dollars, more widgets and apps will be available, creating location-based ads will be easier than ever.
2. Local media replacing big journalism
WHY: Traditional news organizations faced cutbacks or closures in 2009, by contrast, small and local publications are doing pretty well by serving niche markets. Although the market is smaller, the community is much tighter. Additionally, Twitter just bought Mixer Lab in an effort to pinpoint the locations of people posting messages on its service. Biz Stone believes that when current location is added to tweets, new and valuable services emerge – everything from breaking news to finding friends or local businesses can be dramatically enhanced.
WHAT TO EXPECT: Those who understand the fragmented media landscape and know how to reach customers cost-effectively will thrive. Highly entrepreneurial sites that are a blend of community-building and a focus on tech expertise such as Oakland Local will look to fill the gap in news content. On the Twitter side, location-aware tweets will simply be the main source of future breaking news. Remember how Twitter beat CNN on reporting the plane crash over Hudson River? Expect the real-time location-aware updates to substitute big journalism, very often.
3. Local on-the-go searches
WHY: As we know, the majority of smartphone owners in North America are the younger consumers. According to Forrester’s latest Technographic survey, Gen Yers and Gen Xers are 4-5 times more likely to perform local searches than Boomers and Seniors. Those GPS embedded devices have enhanced the mobile search experience tremendously.
WHAT TO EXPECT: In 2010, GPS embedded handsets will become a necessity while mobile-based local search process will continue to evolve. More web 2.0 sites will translate into the mobile channel; more mobile apps will incorporate maps/destination-search function to extend the usefulness of their core offering. More attention on the location-based social networks and mobile games Foursquare & Gowalla? You bet, their service is proving to be more useful by the day. The possibility is endless!
As the location-battle rages on, what you do you keep an eye on?
Do people actually look at ads on social media sites? Marketers face the constant challenge of keeping up with and understanding consumer search behavior. Social networking sites offer opportunities to develop a relationship between brands and consumers, display ads and search. But a lot of confusion over the effectiveness of advertising on social networking sites still exists. An eye tracking study conducted on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube by a digital marketing company reveals trends about the way people interact with paid ads in social media sites. The study hopes to alleviate some of the mystery.
Oneupweb found that not only do people spend time viewing paid ads on social networks, but they often looked at the ads more quickly once they landed on the search results page. For example, 65% of participants engage with sponsored ads within the first 10 seconds of their search. Often times, the path eyes scan the page often does not follow the order of the search results. Contrary to expected behavior, sponsored ads were looked at before the 3rd or 4th result. The Oneupweb study indicates similar behavior was observed throughout the YouTube search. The participants engaged with the sponsored ads in the process of completing the search task. Twitter does not support sponsored ads but the study still observed users’ search habits on Twitter as it has become an essential social marketing channel. About half of survey participants revealed they were satisfied with their brand search on Twitter. Many liked that they could find the most current opinions about a product. If you would like a PDF copy of the study results, access it here!
Okay, we’ve established that there’s not blindness toward ads in social networks, people still look at the ads. But do they click on them? Unlike searching on Google, the interaction with content in social media sites is very different. Many marketers including myself believe that opt-in advertising works best, while behavior-based campaigns and randomly generated ads are far less successful. In my opinion, this notion still holds true although the end users are becoming more acceptable of sponsored ads on social sites. Niche targeting and relevancy are the two areas advertisers need to focus on more when they try to apply their brand campaigns to those new environments. Will targeting based on niche, geographic location, interest, lifestyle & social graph be the future of advertising? Certainly! Will “engagement ads” change the game of online advertising after Google’s creation of “contextual ads” (judge the quality yourself)? Sooner or later. As of now, there is still a lot left to be desired!
This multinational fan-based crowdsourced music video had just made my day! I can’t begin to imagine how much coordination it takes to synchronize all those webcams all over the world. It’s eye-opening and jaw-dropping guaranteed, take a look yourself.
For more info on the artists and lyrics, please click here.
Started in December 08, global banking giant HSBC started offering passengers at Heathrow’s Terminal 1 a chance to select magazine articles on topics they’re interested in and have them bound into a hardback form they can take on their flight, according to Springwise. The concept was pretty simple: as travelers enter the enclosure, they are handed a hardback magazine cover. They can then pick and choose from a large selection of loose-leaf articles arranged on the kiosk’s shelves. When they’re done, a staff member at the ‘binding bar’ neatly binds them into the cover to create a personal magazine.
Although this pilot marketing campaign was HSBC trying to promote its Premier banking package, it was definitely a laudable initiative heading in the right direction. As the world becoming more personalized – companies realize they would have to provide customized experience one way or the other. They might not be in charge of the content production, but there is an increasing demand in customization and curation that’s waiting to be fulfilled.
I sincerely hope such perks will roll out to other places around the world in the near future.
