by marty-collins on February 4, 2010
I’ve slowly become addicted to FourSquare, a location based social network. The only part that is strange for me is when I explain it to my friends and family that are not digital media geeks like I am. I start by saying “ see, you can ‘check in’ and tell your network of friends where you are.” But then I realize it’s not really my network of friends but more my work people and fellow digital media geeks. It reminds of the days a few years ago when I tried to get my sorority sisters, who live all around the country, on Facebook with me. I would say “see, we can update each other every day without having to do the round robin email chains.” They were slow to see the beauty of Facebook but now they are fanatics and literally update multiple times a day.
Location Based Social Networks are where Twitter was 18 months ago, a small but rapidly growing community of mostly tech trendsetters. According to ReadWriteWeb FourSquare is up 3x in the last two months. They require a smart phone with GPS which is around 12% of the US cell phone users. People earn points when they check in and different locations give different values depending on how many times a person has been there and if it’s a new location. A person becomes ‘Mayor’ if they are the person that checks in at a location the most. I’m Mayor of my hair salon. This is all good fun but what is really interesting to me is the value it creates for marketers. Here are just a few of the possible ways a marketer can begin to think about using Location Based Social Networks:
- Driving to retail. An idea we’ve been playing around with is a program Windows could create that encourages and rewards consumers for checking in at a retail partner. I spoke to a major automaker yesterday that was visiting campus and encouraged them to think about how local dealers could offer incentives to get consumers to check in a dealership. The biggest hurdle for car dealers is getting people into the showrooms and this could be a fun way to reward and build incentives for customers.
- Deliver location specific offers. This is a great opportunity for local shops. Hotel Max in downtown Seattle is a current promoter on FourSquare. Anytime I check in downtown FourSquare pops up a ‘specials nearby’ option that sends me to a drink promo from Hotel Max. A great way for Clearers, Restaurants, Nail salons, Hotels, etc to drive people into their shops. There isn’t an advertising platform yet on FourSquare, how it works today is the biz dev person programs in select offers. As these networks get more pressure to make money look for this type of promotion to be a win/win opportunity for advertisers and users.
- Reward enthusiasts. I’ve checked in a few locations that offer special discounts to the current Mayor of their location. Great way to reward regular customers. A coffee shop could even make a competition between regular customers posting the current Mayors picture and changing it out as the Mayor changes.
- Rich customer behavior data. A bit further down the road I can see a place where the data being collected by these networks would bring a lot of value to advertisers not just to advertise for their own brands but to cross promote and target potential customers by their consumer behaviors. Imagine a car dealer targeting buyers by their shopping habits; Toyota interested in Walmart check in and Mercedes interested in Whole Foods check ins. Obviously a generalization (I know lots of bargain shoppers that drives Benzes) but you get the idea. The information check ins reveal about a person’s likes and habits is incredibly reach for marketers and makes the promotion offers more relevant for the shopper.
I spoke with FourSquare a week ago. They are just starting to think about their longer term revenue model. They are very focused on keeping the experience pure and rewarding for the users. But as we know with where Twitter is right now, that only lasts for so long. In order to sustain a business there has to be some sort of money coming in. Watch this space, we are certainly planning for it.
by marty-collins on January 6, 2010
I’m helping our Media team put together a list of emerging media companies; companies developing new ways to connect and market to consumers. Thanks to those on Twitter who sent in suggestions. Keep them coming to me @SeattleGirl.
I’ve broken the list out into 5 categories; mobile, search, social, display and video/tv. Some of the companies aren’t necessarily new to media but are taking a different approach from traditional CPM. If you are an emerging media company please add your company in the comments section, or tweet me.
Mobile
Textplus
AdMob
SyBase 365
Acuity Mobile
Search
Social
Appsavvy
AdNectar
Zynga
Technorati
gWallet – virtual currency
Display
Video/TV
Zooppa
Katalyst Films
Ivi.tv
Hulu
by marty-collins on December 29, 2009
Most bloggers right about now are publishing their predictions for 2010. A few good ones I’ve seen are from JiWire and MediaPost. Rather than offer my predictions I’m going to focus on what challenges I see for Brand marketers in 2010 as Social Media continues to make headway in Marketing plans. [Caveat: These challenges are from the perspective of a large, global company that has complicated organizational structures. A smaller brand may be closer to partner groups and cross group collaboration may not be as big a struggle.]
1. Mergence of Paid and Earned: New opportunities arose in 2009 that combined User Generated Content (UGC) with media dollars (more detail here). The challenge for me as a Social Media Strategist is I don’t manage any media dollars. I know that my community content is well received and often times has higher click through because of it’s relevance to customers. If this content is compelling in the social space it should be just as if not more compelled for paid media. At Microsoft that means me reaching across multiple groups in other organizations to get my UGC integrated into a media buy. Likely people on the media buying team aren’t as well versed in social media content which requires me to sell my case against other content they would historically feature in a media buy.
Another kind of media buy is on the Social Networks like Facebook, MySpace and YouTube (maybe Twitter in 2010, who knows). A great way to increase fan base on Facebook is engagement ads, likewise Sponsored videos is a great way to expose content on YouTube. The challenge for a social media team is I don’t have media dollars to amplify the impact of my earned media.
2. Mergence of Earned and Owned: In 2009 we worked with the Windows.com team to integrate social conversation into Windows.com. We’ve had some early successes such as the Social Media Hub we launched with the Windows 7 launch. We still struggle to get better integration with the content team. As with the media buying team, the web content team doesn’t have experience integrating Social content.
3. Audience vs Channel: Social Networks allow brands to amass very large audiences (millions if you are lucky). This is a good thing for volume but makes strategic messaging challenging. Windows has different types of audiences that respond differently to particular messages; a technology buff is jazzed to hear about the newest tip and trick but a novice may be more interested in the basics and a conversation that is too technical could turn them off.
One thing that I didn’t mention was measurement. I think 2009 was the year of measurement. Our Social Media team understands how to measure our engagement activities and to put value on them. We have a dashboard we report to execs every month that shows our impact in regards to marketing reach.
Social marketing in 2010 will mean groups reach across the isles with PR, customer support, product planning, advertising, sales, media buying and other groups to truly realize the impact social conversations can have on a brands marketing and future innovation.
by marty-collins on December 14, 2009
I attended an interesting conference last week called DigiApps. I was attending as a speaker but was also very interested in the content and conversations. The discussion was meant to cover all types of applications but the truth is most ‘cool’ applications today are made for mobile, with a lot less emphasis on Facebook applications. Two years ago everyone wanted to build a Facebook app but the continual evolution of the Facebook platform has made app discovery very difficult which means the value of the Facebook app is decreased.
Mobile apps are broken out by plaform. Most mobile apps today are build for the iphone, with a lot more interest in 2010 on building for Android (Google’s platform) and Blackberry (Rim’s platform). Windows Phone also has an app store. There were two big take-aways that may seem obvious but you would be surprised how often marketers miss the boat on these.
1. Make sure the app is of value to your customers. Great examples of valuable apps are Fandango and Pizza Hut. Fandango allows a customer to search movie times from wherever they are by accessing the GPS in the device. A customer can also purchase movie tickets right from the app for participating movie theaters and forgo waiting in line at the theater. Pizza Hut’s app allows customers to place a pizza order right from their phone. This app was in direct response to their number one customer complaint, long wait times on the phone.
Make sure whatever app you build has utility for your customers. There was an example given of an app that markets towards young women learning to apply makeup. The app loaded pictures of super models for girls to practice putting makeup on. The app would have been a stronger value prop for the customer if girls were allowed to upload a picture of themselves and apply makeup. Most young women don’t relate well to super models.
2. Make sure the marketing plan includes promotion. This is definitely not a ‘you build it and they will come’ situation. There are literally hundreds of thousands of apps in the iphone store. If the marketing plan does not include promotion it is highly likely the app will go undiscovered and not deliver the marketing value the brand was hoping for. AdMob shared some interesting data about how app users discover new apps. Over 40% of new apps are discovered through Search. The second most used discovery tool is Mobile advertising, followed 3rd by peer to peer recommendations. Several case studies showed how an effective mobile advertising strategy would work. A brand may need to only advertise the first few days. Advertising for a day or two can drive the ranking of the app far enough up in the library to be better discovered by searchers. A small advertising investment to jump start the discovery of the app leads to a stronger likelihood of viral pass-along.
What I found really interesting is brands that are creating 
apps they charge for; creating a new revenue stream. The most expensive example of a brand charging for their app is Virgin Atlantic. They have an app called “Flying Without Fear” that gives people afraid to fly answers to their biggest concerns. Virgin charges $4.99 for this app. Another example is Kraft, their app called “ifood assistant” costs $0.99 and gives recipe ideas. I’m not sure why a consumer would pay for this app when there are lots of free app that do the same thing. I love the Whole Food recipe app, which is free.
Another kind of app that may make sense for your brand is an experience app. Prius has built a very cool app called “Prius Experience” that lets a person experience what a test drive in a Prius would be like. If your product has a longer purchase process like a car or a computer an experience app may be the way to get prospective customer to experience your product.
Lots to think about. It’s important to note mobile apps are not broadly used, a brand should do the research to make sure their target audience is using mobile apps before they build one. The best way to promote apps is through mobile usage. One exception is if a brand is big enough, like Pizza Hut, it makes sense to promote the app through existing advertising to increase awareness. A URL at the end of a TV ad can do this. Short of getting Apple to put your brand app in their TV commercials marketers need a marketing plan to make the apps work for them.
by marty-collins on December 3, 2009
This week Windows is kicking off two new music programs designed to let our customer experience and share music online and offline.
First, we’re hooking up with LiveNation to bring you Section 7. It’s a way you can score exclusive music discounts and even free concert tickets. Just enter the weekly sweepstakes and you could win some killer music deals. Be sure to follow Section7 on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or through the Windows 7 gadget.
Secondly, a few months ago, we teamed up with ReverbNation on MySpace and gave away a ton of music for free. The program went off without a hitch, and we managed to give away over a million songs from over 1,000 artists. If you missed out, I have good news.
We’re simultaneously launching Playlist 7, which is another way you can grab some free music from emerging artists. We’re working with ReverbNation again on this, so we’re excited about all the new songs to give away.
Just click over to http://reverbnation.com/Playlist7 to get started. We’ve got a lot of free music to give away, but there are special benefits for our fans on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Each week, there are new “Featured Artists” whose songs will be available for a free download right on the home page. Our fans and friends will help us decide who gets featured next week, just by downloading their favorites.
Check out the site for more info, or just head over there and start downloading songs. It’s about time you got some stuff free, right? Oh, and nothing says “awesome homemade gift” more than a mix CD. Stay tuned for other great free stuff from Windows soon.
by marty-collins on November 19, 2009
I had a couple of really interesting meetings this week with two companies from the Bay Area; Meebo and Technorati. I was pleasantly surprised by both meetings. What’s most interesting to me is how both companies are offering a product that merges earned and paid media. This will continue to become a much more interesting space as brands start to realize that earned alone is goodness but earned combined with paid (real dollars behind it) can make a good thing great! The challenge will be organizational structure. I would imagine most brands are organized similar to Microsoft. I work in the Windows Business Group and manage our social media activities and community engagement. Media buying for Windows is done out of our Central Marketing Group because media buying is best done in bulk – better prices and negotiation leverage when bought in bulk deals.
Meebo isn’t new, they’ve been around for several years. What’s new is what they are offerings for brand marketers. Meebo is ‘instant messaging everywhere’ according to their website. They offer a toolbar for sites like Cafemom.com and Justin.TV. Rather than being embedded in the browser like other tool bars, websites partner with Meebo to add the toolbar to the bottom of their page. It stays persistent as the user scrolls down. The toolbar allows anyone to bring their social graph with them to other websites. You can sign in using your Facebook, Messenger, Yahoo, MSN, Aim, GTalk or other accounts. Practical application is Marty is on Justin.Tv and can chat with her Facebook contacts without having to be on Facebook. Websites want to add social functionality but no one wants to ask a user to create yet another social network. Meebo allows any website to enable social sharing with a person’s existing social graph.
The second thing Meebo is offering brands is a persistent ad module on the toolbar in the lower left. They claim this location is ideal because it stays persistent when a user scrolls down. I haven’t seen results data yet on effectiveness of the ad but the functionality is cool. The brand can put any content in the 900×400 unit that opens up from a click on the ad unit, including a Twitter API or other social content. Old Navy is running a Twitter feed through their Meebo ad on Ellen Degeneres. This is an example of how a marketer can build great social content on the networks and add exposure to it with a media buy in multiple networks.
Technorati has also been around for awhile and up until this week I thought they were still a giant blog aggregator. Turns out they are getting into the media business as well. They have created their own ad network made up 100% of social media properties. They definite themselves as “the largest ad network that focuses on social media” with approximately 500 sites – roughly half blogs and half niche social networks or communities with a reach of 113 million unique visitors per month.
They have also created a ‘social content’ ad module that can be run on the Technorati network or outside the network with a separate media buy. You can see a Verizon execution of this module on Technorati’s homepage. The ad module is basically a smaller version of our Social Media Hub. It can pull multiple streams of content from social sites, blogs, Twitter, YouTube, etc and turns it into an interactive ad module. The great thing about the ad module is users will engage with it because they don’t necessarily recognize it as an advertisement. It looks and IS dynamic content rather than an ad.
Next steps for me are to sync with my media buying team and partner on strategy to leverage my social goodness with their dollars.
by marty-collins on November 12, 2009
Windows did our first Facebook reach block buy on October 22 for Windows7 launch. Our goal for the reach block was to increase the Windows fan base and drive awareness for the launch. Turns out we have evidence the reach block did both.
1. Grow fans; Windows saw a 100% growth in fans in the first few days after the buy. And since the fan base doubled, reach on Facebook has exploded. There is more activity, more fans posting on the Wall and more mini-feeds getting the Windows message. We count each engagement on Facebook as an impression because the viral nature of Facebook allows lots of fans to see activities on the fan page.
2. Awareness for launch. Facebook now partners with Nielsen to deliver a Brand Lift Campaign Effectiveness study. The results are very similar to what a traditional market research study would show; Were the ads effective in landing the message? What was recall? etc.
The methodology for the research is pretty simple. Data for each brand/custom metric is collected via discrete 1 or 2 question surveys delivered to eligible exposed/control respondent on the Facebook homepage. The Windows reach block was targeted at 18+ US users. There was a portion of the demographic held back from seeing the Windows ad. They served as the control group. Control and exposed groups were asked the same questions the next day.
The results looked like this
The campaign proved successful in driving ad recall, aided awareness of Windows 7 and association with the campaign message. What’s interesting to us as a Social Media team is this type of advertising appears to have a double whammy – increase friends on the social network AND create awareness for the campaign with people that aren’t a part of the Windows Facebook fan community.
An area of growth for this type of measurement is measuring influence. As a marketer what I really want to know is what influencers are being reached by my advertising message. If I can target the influencers with larger audiences then I can get more for my investment. I expect Facebook and Nielsen will be working to get at these very valuable nuggets in the coming months. As a first step Nielsen has done some analysis of brand lift by number of friends, but that there is much more to be done.
From my position as a brand marketer this type of data helps me understand my investment and tell my story to my exec audience – it cannot be understated how important this is.
by marty-collins on November 3, 2009
Google had an interesting announcement the end of last week, Google Social Search. Social Search “helps you find more relevant public content from your broader social circle.” The basic way it works is a user, Marty, authenticates (signs in) with her Google ID. Once she does that her searches become more relevant based on what her social circle is saying.
Watch a quick descriptor here:
I’ve said for awhile the next evolution of the social web is connecting the multiple data sources we all contribute to everyday. My friend Elliott is going to search for a restaurant in Seattle when he comes to visit me and can find what his network of friends have said about restaurants lately in Seattle. This is more valuable to him than searching Yelp because he doesn’t know all the people on Yelp. A practical application for this would be shopping. I was looking for a new book this weekend and checked the Amazon top sellers as well as NY Times top seller list. But imagine knowing what my circle of friends recommends, that’s even better. 
#1 challenge I foresee is Google Social Search doesn’t pull Facebook data. Facebook is the #1 social network site in the US so it’s tough to have a robust social search without including Facebook. Twitter is included but Twitter isn’t necessarily my 1st degree of friends. Twitter has lots of people I’ve never met but find me interesting, and I find them interesting. But it’s not the same social connection as Facebook. Facebook are my peeps. Facebook doesn’t let this information out, yet.
In my opinion Facebook is becoming more and more like Amazon. Amazon is great for shopping but it’s biggest value is the data it holds, all that information about people who like this would buy that. You bought this so you’d like that. Amazon doesn’t make that information transportable so people come back to Amazon because they have their preferences built in. Facebook is holding that same power. Twitter has taken a different approach. Most people don’t even go to Twitter anymore to post updates or read newsfeeds. You can do it from many different applications, client and mobile. It’s a completely open social network. Of course they don’t make any money as yet, but that’s a different story.
My initial impression of Google Social Search is a good step at making Search more relevant to me, which we all want. Getting the biggest social network sites to free their data to make a really rich experience is a different story.
by marty-collins on October 21, 2009
Today in concert with the Windows7 launch the Windows Social Media Team is launching what we like to call the Windows7 Social Media Hub. It’s a place to see what our customers are saying about Windows 7. It pulls and displays content tagged with Windows 7 from Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, blogs and the Windows Facebook Fan Page..
Since the release of the beta in January, Windows7 has had millions of customers testing and helping shape the Windows 7 experience through their comments and feedback. This hub is meant to highlight continuing conversations and give people insight into why Windows 7 is different and provide a place for them to learn more. If you want to participate in the Hub, go here and see what tags we’re searching for.
Below are FAQ’s to help explain the process:
How do I get my content into the Hub?
Content is pulled in through publically exposed APIs and looks for Windows7 keywords. Once that content is picked up, it goes through moderation.
Why are you moderating the feeds?
A few reasons:
- Moderation allows us to sort the conversations into categories like gaming, or media so they’re easier for readers to find and navigate the heavy amount of conversation.
- This is a family site- we’ll remove any obscenities, spam, or other inappropriate content.
- We want the conversation to be focused on Windows7, not industry debates or sales promotions. We are making an effort to screen out any ‘gamers’ of the system trying to promote their own agendas.
That doesn’t mean we’ll only include the good stuff and take out the bad. If there’s content that helps people get fair information about Windows 7, we’ll include it- even if it doesn’t put Windows 7 in the best light. We are focused on authentic, relevant information for customers.
The other note about moderation is that we have a team of humans who are going through the content. Those humans can’t possibly keep up with the millions of pieces of content that will come in over the next few weeks. If you don’t see something on the Hub that you posted, it’s very likely that it wasn’t moderated for content, but that it’s in the queue somewhere.
Where do we get the Total Posts Counter?
We’re using a tool called Looking Glass to pull in the content from the APIs. Looking Glass is a social media monitoring tool developed by Microsoft (currently in BETA). The math from the counter uses the following logic:
1) Looking Glass counts all of the content that it pulls in
2) We create a real-time minute by minute average of that content
3) The counter then increases at that average rate for that next few minutes until Looking Glass recalculates the next average.
The counter was started on October 20 and noon pacific time.
Let us know what other questions you have and we’ll answer any that we can.
