With news of a new mp3 store circling the web, and the lingering question of brand pages coming back into light, let's take a look at where Google+ is several months down the line from it's introduction.
If you look back at this Ad Age interview from July, you can see that Google+ was in the process of running a beta program for companies, however at this date only a very select few branded pages do exist. This week, Mashable asked some ad agencies to imagine their vision of a Google+ branded page. What do you think of these imagined designs?
Perhaps the more important question is, Will brands even want or need to be on Google+ by the time the brand pages are launched to the public? Is Google+ an effective way to interact with fans?
On October 14th, it was reported that Google was shutting down their "Buzz" service as Google+ quickly eclipsed it in popularity. However, there is some question that the network is truly growing fast enough to make it a real competitor in the social space. (For example this listicle in PCWorld explores 5 reasons Google+ may be failing to grow. Even as early as July, reports were citing a drop in traffic after the initial buzz wore off. But, not to get too cynical too fast, the service did see a jump in September that kept the service growing faster than Facebook. (Chart: Google+ Hit 10 Million Users 50 Times Faster Than Facebook - Technology - The Atlantic Wire). This study by Polaris Marketing Research Inc. and its data collection partner SSI also shows that the network will continue to grow.
And maybe it will, maybe a new music store will bring users back to the platform who dropped off after the new-and-shiny wore off, still it doesn't seem like a good sign when even Google's CEO seems to have gotten over the buzz.
Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com
Monday, October 24, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
How Do Trending Topics Pick Up Steam
The Holy Grail of Twitter awareness comes in the form of the 10 Trending Topics that appear on most peoples home profile screen (unless you have it filtered by city in which case your topics are going to be slightly different from the worldwide default).
If you’re looking to use Twitter’s Trending Topics to give your latest campaign a little push, you might be out of luck. These topics reach the eyes of millions of users, but could be one of the hardest clubs to infiltrate in the entire web.
But let’s at least take a look at what gets them started and who is responsible for making them take off.
General Popularity
When you are talking about Trending Topics you are talking about a global (albeit very United States-centric) consciousness. This is not a small community concerned with a single topic, Twitter attracts every type of online user and as such their Tweets are equally as diverse.
Until an algorithm change by Twitter earlier this year you could expect that whatever was a popular thing worth mentioning would be a trending topic; and it would stay that way for a long time. Credit goes to Justin Bieber, who rose from the Internet-celebrity ranks to become a bonifide superstar in the real world. But once he was there you couldn’t scrap the teen heartthrob off Twitter’s sidebar.
With Twitter’s algorithm change the topics are forced to be of recent popularity and topics that have trended before are rarely seen again. But that doesn’t mean that popular culture still doesn’t hold a permanent stake on the trending list.
Popular News Events
With Twitter’s main purpose being an online extensive of real-world conversations it is no surprise that popular news events will naturally become Trending Topics.
And even with Twitter’s demographic statistics, National news stories are still a major concern for all groups. You can bet news to be a constant on the Trending list.
Large Networks
The most curious Trending Topics are the hashtags that seem to spring from nowhere and elicit action from other users; the #CoolestMovieLine and #MyGirlfriendLikesMy type hashtags.
These tags seem to appear naturally and really get people involved in the conversation; a marketers dream come true! But just how do these work?
If you click on any such hashtag and search through the people that are tweeting them on Twitter you can scroll back to the beginning. You can see the first group of people who started using the tags. And more often than not these people will share a lot of similarities; they might show the interest in the same things in their tweets, they will be high volume tweeters, they will have a decent amount of followers, and they will usually be black. But who are these people?
They are huge networks of people that really grabbed hold of Twitter and made it their own. As first adopters interest waned, this group chose it as their new favorite Internet community. They made lots of friends, they participated A LOT. And the Truth or Dare style hashtags were their idea as well. And unless you are part of the group (which could take a lot of time being involved in the Twitter community) you aren’t going to influence their hashtags.
Twitter Celebrity
The question of how to become a Twitter celebrity is often answered with, “Be a real world celebrity first.” Consequentially the question of how to start a Trending Topic can be answered in much the same way, “Be a Twitter celebrity.”
There are countless examples of Twitter accounts with 100,000 and over followers simply starting a trend by asking for their followers to play along. It is that simple.
If you’re looking to use Twitter’s Trending Topics to give your latest campaign a little push, you might be out of luck. These topics reach the eyes of millions of users, but could be one of the hardest clubs to infiltrate in the entire web.
But let’s at least take a look at what gets them started and who is responsible for making them take off.
General Popularity
When you are talking about Trending Topics you are talking about a global (albeit very United States-centric) consciousness. This is not a small community concerned with a single topic, Twitter attracts every type of online user and as such their Tweets are equally as diverse.
Until an algorithm change by Twitter earlier this year you could expect that whatever was a popular thing worth mentioning would be a trending topic; and it would stay that way for a long time. Credit goes to Justin Bieber, who rose from the Internet-celebrity ranks to become a bonifide superstar in the real world. But once he was there you couldn’t scrap the teen heartthrob off Twitter’s sidebar.
With Twitter’s algorithm change the topics are forced to be of recent popularity and topics that have trended before are rarely seen again. But that doesn’t mean that popular culture still doesn’t hold a permanent stake on the trending list.
Popular News Events
With Twitter’s main purpose being an online extensive of real-world conversations it is no surprise that popular news events will naturally become Trending Topics.
And even with Twitter’s demographic statistics, National news stories are still a major concern for all groups. You can bet news to be a constant on the Trending list.
Large Networks
The most curious Trending Topics are the hashtags that seem to spring from nowhere and elicit action from other users; the #CoolestMovieLine and #MyGirlfriendLikesMy type hashtags.
These tags seem to appear naturally and really get people involved in the conversation; a marketers dream come true! But just how do these work?
If you click on any such hashtag and search through the people that are tweeting them on Twitter you can scroll back to the beginning. You can see the first group of people who started using the tags. And more often than not these people will share a lot of similarities; they might show the interest in the same things in their tweets, they will be high volume tweeters, they will have a decent amount of followers, and they will usually be black. But who are these people?
They are huge networks of people that really grabbed hold of Twitter and made it their own. As first adopters interest waned, this group chose it as their new favorite Internet community. They made lots of friends, they participated A LOT. And the Truth or Dare style hashtags were their idea as well. And unless you are part of the group (which could take a lot of time being involved in the Twitter community) you aren’t going to influence their hashtags.
Twitter Celebrity
The question of how to become a Twitter celebrity is often answered with, “Be a real world celebrity first.” Consequentially the question of how to start a Trending Topic can be answered in much the same way, “Be a Twitter celebrity.”
There are countless examples of Twitter accounts with 100,000 and over followers simply starting a trend by asking for their followers to play along. It is that simple.
Frank Anderson is a social media and tech analyst. He also works on email exchange hosting with WebHosting.net.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Join us for three complimentary webinars on Naming, Voice of the Customer, and Targeting
As part of IIR's ongoing marketing webinar series, we'd like to invite you to join us for for “Choosing a name with confidence using new research techniques” on Thursday, October 27, 2011 from 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT
Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/381109592
Use priority code MWS0043TwitterBlog when registering
Selecting the right name for your product or service is one of the most important decisions a company can make – yet many traditional naming research studies create more questions than confidence. Can we risk something abstract? Does your category call for a name that is literal? In addition, what does well in brainstorming or qualitative might not pass muster with a broader audience who may be rating a name purely on appeal.
With this webinar, BuzzBack invites you to learn new techniques for naming. Through case studies, we'll demonstrate how you can integrate online qualitative techniques with scores and quantitative metrics to understand:
• what your name communicates and why
• visuals and imagery associated with the name
• emotional reactions elicited
• how memorable your name is
Featured Speaker: Brendan Light, SVP, Research & Development, BuzzBack Market Research
Plus, on Thursday, November 3rd, join IIR and Autonomy for “Understanding the Voice of the Customer: How to Effectively Gather and Leverage Customer Insight from Multiple Channels to Deliver a Superior Customer Experience”
Voice of the Customer is not just about surveys anymore. Customers are interacting with your brand through multiple channels including the website, retail store, contact center and even social media. You have to understand all of these multichannel interactions collectively to develop a complete Voice of the Customer.
Join us on this webcast and learn how you can easily gather and leverage data from all customer touchpoints to deliver a superior multichannel customer experience. Learn how you can easily:
• Collect real-time customer insight across channels
• Discover and act upon emerging customer trends
• Deliver a more personal and targeted customer experience
• Increase customer loyalty and reduce churn
Register here: https://cc.readytalk.com/r/dfkvlnr43efw
Then, on Tues, Nov 15, 2011 at 1:00 PM EST join us for ”Targeting: How to Effectively Reach the Unidentified 90% of Your Audience”
Targeting works. There is no question that by aligning content to known segments, marketers can dramatically increase conversion rates and maximize revenue. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of your overall audience is known. So how do you effectively reach the other 90% and boost your marketing revenue exponentially? Data offers a potential solution, but also adds a problem. More data doesn’t mean more insight. In fact, it can lead to more confusion. However, by developing a conceptual understanding of your data, you can use your marketing initiatives to generate truly actionable insights and create smarter segments for greater success.
Find out how to discover high value segments and the best way to optimize against these segments over time to maximize response. Learn how you can efficiently leverage insights from all your marketing channels to transform the effectiveness of your initiatives for the highest return on spend.
Speakers:
Mallika Chakravarti, Subject Matter Expert, Autonomy
Annie Weinberger, VP Marketing
Register here https://cc.readytalk.com/r/va5mqstr90z3
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Future Trends in Social Media
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the IIR Future Trends conference. In addition to two full days of inspiring speakers, the conference kicked off with The New Social Currency Summit. Trends covered during the summit included the following:
Gamification:
From Cuisinart to Recyclebank, Gamification continues to be a huge marketing trend. Cuisinart connects with a new generation of customers through baby photo and recipe sharing contests as well as through their new Facebook game Cuisinart Memory Master. Meanwhile, Recyclebank encourages green behavior by rewarding recycling with points that you can redeem towards a charity or for rewards. In both these cases, the companies are building a strong online community through fun.
Fame/anonymity:
Richard Wise of Mirrorball informed the crowd that 26% of american teens expect to be famous by the time they are 25 years old. In a world where it's possible to be "internet famous" in a flash if you simply compose the right tweet or upload the best youtube video, this is hardly surprising, but will there be a backlash against the age of over-sharing?
The Social Business:
Jim Newswanger of IBM talked about the ways that IBM has approached social by allowing their employees to become online experts and human voices for the brand, and the ROI of doing so. (To learn more about IBM's social guidelines, you can actually view a presentation on it here.) By creating an environment that embraces social interaction, they've actually fostered an environment that is more welcoming to innovation in general.
For more coverage of the Future Trends event, including in-depth coverage of each of the sessions mentioned by guest blogger Aaron Keller, visit the Front End of Innovation blog here.
Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com
Gamification:
From Cuisinart to Recyclebank, Gamification continues to be a huge marketing trend. Cuisinart connects with a new generation of customers through baby photo and recipe sharing contests as well as through their new Facebook game Cuisinart Memory Master. Meanwhile, Recyclebank encourages green behavior by rewarding recycling with points that you can redeem towards a charity or for rewards. In both these cases, the companies are building a strong online community through fun.
Fame/anonymity:
Richard Wise of Mirrorball informed the crowd that 26% of american teens expect to be famous by the time they are 25 years old. In a world where it's possible to be "internet famous" in a flash if you simply compose the right tweet or upload the best youtube video, this is hardly surprising, but will there be a backlash against the age of over-sharing?
The Social Business:
Jim Newswanger of IBM talked about the ways that IBM has approached social by allowing their employees to become online experts and human voices for the brand, and the ROI of doing so. (To learn more about IBM's social guidelines, you can actually view a presentation on it here.) By creating an environment that embraces social interaction, they've actually fostered an environment that is more welcoming to innovation in general.
For more coverage of the Future Trends event, including in-depth coverage of each of the sessions mentioned by guest blogger Aaron Keller, visit the Front End of Innovation blog here.
Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com