Posts Tagged ‘facebook’
Poll: Will Facebook Places Kill Foursquare?
Thursday, August 19th, 2010New FREE Download – Social Media Marketing Kit
Monday, June 7th, 2010Social media sites like Facebook & Twitter offer a platform for brands to directly connect with their consumers. While brands have begun to adopt this trend, many marketers are still wondering what really works in this space. We’ve put together a handy kit with tips and best practices to adhere to in order to get the most out of any social media campaign.
Learn how to get started, gain a following and continue to engage that following with Strobe’s Social Media Marketing Kit. This convenient download includes our Strategic Thinker’s Guide to Marketing through Social Media, our Strategic Thinker’s Guide to Achieving Promotion Objectives and tip sheets on how to run engagement campaigns on Facebook and Twitter. The advice in this packet will show you how to analyze and improve any current campaign, and is helpful whether you are a social media novice or a more advanced user.
Click here to download your FREE copy now!
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The New Group Dynamic
Thursday, January 28th, 2010We are learning so much about the group dynamic these days. I mean the REALLY BIG group dynamic…What does it say when a record amount of money is donated in a record period of time during a time of economic uncertainty?
This seems NOT to be about party politics or religion, but about humankind displaying a reflexive reaction to the tragedy in Haiti. Thanks to all modes of digital communications, people can direct their giving immediately, by texting, tweeting, posting, through e-donating and e-buying. And these channels, being what they are, provide an immediate accounting of this flood of goodwill. As of this writing, The Red Cross alone has raised $147 million in the US, including $25 million from text messages. That needs to sink in… $25 million (and counting) in two weeks, raised by individuals, reacting on impulse and TEXTING their donations, $10 at time. And that does not take into consideration other channels and organizations, such as this past weekend’s “Hope for Haiti Now” fundraising concert which donated funds to Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti Foundation, Oxfam America, UNICEF, the United Nations World Food Program, the recently formed Clinton Bush Haiti Foundation, as well as the Red Cross.
The channels to communicate and contribute are as unfettered as they could possibly be for our time. If 9/11 was the opening chapter of technology-driven news, and the Tsunami (2004) and Hurricane Katrina (2005) relief efforts demonstrated how the internet could serve as a viable donation response channel, then perhaps the earthquake in Haiti is the event that will mark the coming of age of social media. During the past two weeks, “Haiti” has been a consistently trending topic on twitter and ever-present on facebook statuses worldwide. People all over the globe are using social media and mobile channels to come together and help others in desperate need. Never have so many offered so much, so quickly. Over the next weeks and months, we will learn whether or not governments and corporations can mobilize as quickly as the masses that have surged to support the relief effort.
The stories of death and destruction continue to mount in what surfacing as one of the singularly most horrifying natural disasters in history. That our society is attempting to respond in equal magnitude, through untested channels is a testament to the human spirit, and a reason to have unbounding hope.
Free Download: Guide to Social Media Marketing
Friday, January 15th, 2010It’s been predicted that 2010 will be the year in which social media becomes mainstream for marketers. Facebook and Twitter have experienced a lot of growth in the past year, and are quickly becoming staples of well-rounded marketing campaigns. If you’re not already planning on joining or enhancing your current strategy on Facebook and Twitter in the coming months, now’s the time to think about it.
Strobe’s new Strategic Thinker’s Guide to Marketing through Social Media offers tips and best practices for planning, executing and analyzing a social marketing campaign. Learn how to attract and engage a following and discover tools to measure your success. Download it here, free!
Facebook & Twitter & Blogs… Oh My!
Friday, December 11th, 2009Implementing a Social Media Policy
The hot topic of the PMA Law Conference this year was social media. It was a hot topic indeed, in light of the recently published FTC Guidelines concerning the use of testimonials and endorsements in advertising and social media, as well as the new Facebook policies put in place the day before the conference. Naturally, many questions arose throughout the conference discussions. One overarching concern for marketers about this topic is “How do we protect ourselves and our clients in this ever-changing environment without inhibiting the creative use of these social media marketing tools?”
The take away is basically this: create a social media policy for your company.
HOW DO I KNOW IF MY COMPANY NEEDS A SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY?
Is your company or brand leveraging social media in their marketing strategy? Has your company created a fan page on Facebook or established a company account on Twitter? Maybe your employees are tweeting about the company on their personal accounts. If so, then it’s time to consider creating a social media policy, a tool to help your employees navigate the social media jungle.
WHAT IS A SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY?
Like any good set of terms and conditions or Official Rules, a social media policy will outline what information should or shouldn’t be posted to any social media platform in order to avoid violating the FTC Guidelines. It should apply to any employee, agency or blogger who posts information (that can be attributed to your company or product) to any social media site; including their own or the company’s blog, Facebook fan page, or Twitter account.
In short, the new FTC Guidelines cover all advertising messages including product reviews, endorsements and testimonials, hosted on blogs and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Compliance with the FTC Guidelines is all about disclosure. So, bloggers, and in some cases your employees (or agencies, or even your mom, if she likes to brag!), who make these “endorsements” must disclose the material connections they share with the Sponsor. This way, consumers are aware when the author of a review/testimonial has been paid or received free product in return. Your social media policy would outline how your employees, agents and bloggers should conduct themselves when talking about your brand and products on the web.
WHAT SHOULD A SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY DO?
- Provide guidance and training to those people who are involved in social media for your company.
- Make a reasonable effort to monitor your company’s social media platforms including blogs.
- Make sure you have reserved the right to remove false statements when identified or anything that is posted that you think could be problematic.
- Train all people involved in social media for the need to be truthful. Stress the need to provide honest & truthful opinions to avoid false advertising claims.
- Instruct your people to disclose the connection to your company (whether they are employees or bloggers provided with free product).
- Instruct your people to respect all Intellectual Property rights.
- Explain that all statements made must be verifiable.
- Require sponsor approval if bloggers wish to run a contest.
- Limit employee social media direct messages (may be considered email and fall within CANSPAM).
Make sure the social media policy is reviewed by marketing, HR, legal, PR departments and your advertising agency so you have everyone’s input.
WHY A SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY?
While not fool-proof, a social media policy will help steer those in your company to walk the right path when it comes to sponsored messages and testimonials on social media, and having one in place may determine whether or not an action will be brought against your company, should an infraction of the FTC Guidelines occur.
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P.S. - Don’t forget to play our Merry Memory Game for your chance to win an LCD HDTV or an iPod Nano! It’s a great off the shelf solution that can be quickly customized for your holiday marketing campaign. Good luck!
Blogs & Social Media Bring Change to 30-year Old FTC Regulations
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
The Federal Trade Commission announced this week that it is changing its regulations regarding sponsored testimonials online, and not surprisingly, the web has been a buzz ever since. The original FTC ruling about sponsored endorsements from 1980 is designed to protect consumers against fraudulent advertising and applies to television, radio, print and later, email. Beginning December 1, 2009, the scope of this regulation will be expanded to also include blogs and social media platforms. Why is this such big news? Well, the proposed changes will affect four important and vocal parties involved in the marketing process; consumers, bloggers, celebrities and companies, by making sure that any paid endorsements online are made known to the public. While that’s a significant change, the ruling spotlights an issue that will have a widespread impact on our industry.The fact that the U.S. government is imposing regulations on blogs and social media means that it now considers both to be legitimate channels of mass communications. If you’re reading this blog post, you certainly get the importance of the social web, but this is a wakeup call for marketers still unsure of the validity of this channel.
What this means for brands & bloggers
In a phrase, no more under the table pay for play, everything will be out in the open. It is not an uncommon practice for companies to send influential bloggers free product (or cash, trips, etc.) in return for a positive review on their blog. However, the blogger is currently under no obligation to tell the readers about the transaction, although some do. Under the expanded FTC guidelines, bloggers and social media users must disclose any paid relationship with a company (this includes freebies, not just money) so that consumers are aware. The same situation applies when brands reach out to social media users to post sponsored content on sites like Facebook and Twitter. It should be noted that sponsored blogging/posting is still allowed, so long as it is indicated as such, just like the accepted practices of marketing through traditional media channels
Another new issue addressed by the FTC is the practice of creating entirely fabricated blogs and personalities so that a brand can falsely feed advertising content through the voice of a supposed customer. Now, companies will not be allowed to mimic user-created sites to mask advertising messages from their audience.
What this means for consumers
In keeping with the FTC’s mission, the reason for all of these new rules is to protect the consumer. Consumers have to most to gain from these new changes, the more transparency there is in product related blogging and posting, the more educated they will be. Similar to the “paid actor” disclosures seen on television commercials, it will be much easier to distinguish a paid blog post, wall post or tweet from an actual opinion.
What this means for marketers
This is not bad news. The same regulations already apply to television, radio, print and email and marketers have been abiding for almost 30 years. Marketers now will have to be smarter and more creative with their social media marketing campaigns as well. As good marketers, we should always want our consumers to be well-informed about our products and services. The proposed FTC regulation is intended to level the ethical playing field and weed out those who are abusing these channels. Many brands will continue to thrive in our online social space, the point is to be here and do it right. Those marketers still skeptical about Web 2.0 applications need to recognize, as the government has, that social media and blogging are maturing into viable and impactful communications channels.
Social Media Hastens the Adoption Cycle & Twitter vs. Facebook for Marketers
Friday, October 2nd, 2009I’m on my way home from some successful meetings in Austin, Texas and finally find a moment to catch up on some trade tidbits, in this case, from IAB Smartbrief, and wouldn’t you know, there’s not one, but two items worth pausing to consider. The first calls out Nielsen’s recent survey that “Time spent by users on social media, as well as marketers’ spending in the segment, have posted strong growth over the past year.” Now isn’t that sort of
a “duh” moment, especially if you’re paying any attention to that space, either as a user or a marketer? And it’s my guess, that if you’ve found your way to this blog, then you’re paying attention. Nielsen is simply validating what we’ve seen and experienced, but I do think that in this report, there lies the revelation of a new trend.
In great part, traditional marketers have historically been slow to adopt new channels for their marketing…well, at least slower than the pace of consumers adopting that same channel. Why? Quite sensibly, they are looking to spend their money “where the eyeballs are.” So the migration of marketing spending from radio to television (in the 50s) network TV to cable, from offline to online, from DM to email all happened after the wave of household penetration of each medium had achieved a majority. However, in each case, the migration happened faster than the one before it. (Are we moving at a faster pace? Nah, that’s just your imagination…). The term Web 2.0 was coined in 2005 (?), and yes, you can find articles each year between then and now that tout it as “the next big thing”. The fact is, until last year, the critical mass of the population had not discovered this mutation of its beloved web, and it’s liberating addiction (there’s an oxymoron for you…). What strikes me about this latest digital (r)evolution is that marketers are getting there quicker.
“Users logged 17% of their online time on social networks and blogs in August, compared to 6% for the same month in 2008, and ad outlays in such venues over the same period jumped 119% to $108 million, according to Nielsen.”
That’s an 11% increase in consumer activity in this arena vs. a 119% increase in advertiser involvement. Hmmm. Is that the marketing treadmill I feel speeding up?
The second article talks about consumer receptivity to marketing messages. It seems that consumers are more prone to interact with marketers on Twitter than they are on Facebook, (or any other social network, for that matter). This time, Interpret tell us that;
“Nearly one in four Twitter users surveyed had either reviewed or rated products online in August vs. 12% for users of other social nets…” (That means TWICE as likely to enter the conversation on Twitter),
“and one in five Twitterers were apt to look at company profiles or click on ads or sponsored links, compared to 11% and 9%, respectively, of non-Twitter users.” (Again, that looks like 20% vs. about 10%, or TWICE as likely.)
If you remember, some of the earliest marketing stories about Twitter spoke of brands like JetBlue and Comcast and Zappos responding to consumer complaints via twitter, in what must have shocked those twitterer as a truly personal and timely concern on the part of the brand. Could it be that brands were getting to the party early? Are these actually marketing success stories that predate the population of users on Twitter reaching critical mass? It’s just a thought on my part, but maybe consumers got there after the twitter landscape had been painted as an arena for brands to converse with their users. That might account for consumers’ predisposition to this channel as one through which the ears of the marketers can be reached. Frustrated? Got a complaint? Not happy with a trusted brand’s ad? Just tweet it and see what happens.
New Kids on the Blog
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009The buzz about social media has grown to a dull roar and we’ve been listening. Truly, social media does facilitate relationship-building and interaction faster and more easily than email and traditional communication channels. So, if we are already on Facebook and Twitter, why go long-form and “old school” with the launch of a blog? Surely, the newest technology must be the best. Well, yes and no…
The difference between blogs and social networks is the difference between publishing and sharing. The blog platform is intended for content publishing, while social media sites are designed for content sharing. So far, we’ve been good sharers, passing along articles or sites we found interesting and useful to ourselves and other marketers. Now, it’s time for us to be givers. Now you’ll hear Strobe’s voice in the discussion, giving you our take on current events in marketing and elsewhere, and sharing our experiences as we continue to immerse ourselves in the marketing and promotion side of social media. We’ll also introduce you to all the wonderful folks that work at Strobe.
Our first lesson came about when a few months ago we decided we needed a blog. Should we jump immediately to a free site like wordpress.com or blogspot.com, or should we take the longer route and integrate the blog with our company website using wordpress.org software? We learned that blogging can enhance search rank if tied to your existing URL. This is why our new blog’s home is right here on strobepromo.com.
Look for us to be focusing our attention on utilizing all three platforms (Facebook, Twitter & this blog) to publish and create content to engage our fans, followers and readers in what we feel will be a robust and well-rounded dialog about promotion marketing in this digital age.
