I’m an avid NBA fan, and it’s pretty easy for me to draw a basketball analogy for almost anything – so why not brands in social media? Like your social media strategy, a basketball team can’t be a one-trick pony, it must have a good general, it can’t be soft on defense, it’s got to have a little sizzle, and it’s much better when it’s got an arena full rabid fans and a group of dedicated cheerleaders with at least one t-shirt gun (okay, maybe the t-shirt gun is just basketball). And just like basketball where everyone plays on a 94′x50′ court and a 10′ hoop with a 24″ rim, every brand in social media gets to engage on a level playing field; everyone has access to all the sites, techniques, tools, and so on. Let’s get to the jump ball.
1. Lack of Depth: Your brand can’t be a one-trick pony. Great, you post discounts, that’s key; it’s like having a great post-up center like Dwight Howard. A coupon code is more likely than anything else to end up as a conversion, just like a lay up or dunk by your big-time center. However, a team that only has a great center will never beat a well balanced team. Take the Orlando and Houston teams of the mid ’90s. Orlando featured a young and talented Shaq, while Houston also had a dominant big man in Hakeem Olajuwon, plus a slew of great specialists, like Clyde Drexler, Kenny Smith, Sam Cassell, and Robert Horry. Houston, no surprise, steamrolled Orlando in the 1995 NBA Finals. A social strategy is much better when it features a slew of engaging components.
2. Floor General: Your social strategy has to be, well, strategic, and it must have a leader. Who is your team’s leader? What do they bring to the court? Are they a facilitator for the rest of your social team, like a Jason Kidd or a Steve Nash? Do they lead-by-example, like Tim Duncan, execute everything efficiently, and do anything their team asks of them? Or is your social strategy leader someone who is more concerned with personal branding and is a distraction in the locker room, like a Stephon Marbury?
3. D-FENSE: No social strategy can live purely on offense (just look at how far the Phoenix Suns get every year). If you’re going to be conversing and engaging with your customers, be prepared not only for feedback, but for backlash. You have to be able to play defense without sounding defensive. Solve people’s problems without making them feel like they’re a problem. Respond to as many shots as you can, and be helpful and friendly.
4. The Hot Sizzle: What’s your spark? What separates your brand from everything else your customers see on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube? Is it a zany contest you have once a year? Is it the famous flashmobs that you host in cities around the world? Here’s where you get creative – let’s see that inside-out crossover into the reverse windmill dunk!
5. Passionate Fans: Social media isn’t your pay-per-click, it isn’t your email program, and it’s not your direct marketing campaign. Your social strategy is your All-Star Game; it takes the best of all your other efforts and gives your fans a forum to discuss those efforts. How loud are your fans? Then add in your cheerleaders – your high-level community influencers – give them a t-shirt gun, and see how amp’d up your Facebook fans and Twitter followers get!
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The upcoming Facebook change seems like small potatoes – changing the term Facebook “Fan” to the more vague “Like” – but in reality, it’s a negative switch for 400 million Facebook users, and the only one benefiting is Facebook. This announcement comes (yet again) in the wake of a rival’s innovation announcement: Twitter’s @anywhere explained at this year’s South By Southwest (SXSW). The @anywhere initiative is a very ambitious play to make Twitter more ubiquitous by essentially integrating “tweet this” functionality across all major web properties. The Fan-to-Like initiative is designed to do much the same thing; Facebook wants to be able to have little “Like”s everywhere, which are much more conducive for spontaneous engagement than the heavier commitment-sounding “Become a Fan”. As a matter of fact, studies show that Facebook “Like”s are clicked three times more often than “Become a Fan”s – which seems like it makes perfect sense because the number of things that you can “Become a Fan” of (only a couple thousand brand pages) pales in comparison to the number of things that you can “Like” on Facebook (comments, videos, pictures, almost anything – virtually infinite).
It’s obvious that the switch from “Fan” to “Like” is a boon for Facebook engagement both across the Internet and within Facebook itself, but it’s also a benefit for Facebook as far as marketing and advertising. Now they can expect higher traffic from Facebook ads because (again) people are more likely to click a “Like” than a “Become a Fan”. Additionally, Facebook will love to build all kinds of case studies showing how great engagement is now that they’re using a loaded metric. Why? Because it will get more companies building Fan pages and buying Facebook ads. And the beautiful dance continues…
Who is the only party that this change is bad for? Only the 400 million who actually have to use the thing. Facebook has spent the last few years with a “Like” button that has a clear meaning – very simply, that you like something. They have spent roughly the same amount of time defining behavior around the term “Become a Fan” – that is, that you would like to opt into receiving messages (many of them promotional) from a brand and have information about that brand appear in your news feed. By pulling this veritable bait-and-switch, they are going to end up with either a lot of pissed off Facebook users, or a lot of Facebook users who decide to filter out the promotional messages from these brands in their news feeds. Unfortunately for Facebook, neither scenario results, at least in the long run, in more ad sales. By making this opt-in process less distinct, all it will do is create more noise; something we can all do without.
My point is that no major web company of the 21st century – not YouTube, not eBay, not Amazon, not anybody – has ever gotten to the top or flourished there by doing things that benefit only themselves. As Google just found out, based on the backlash from Buzz, when users feel like they’re…well…being used, you’re going to have some ‘splainin’ to do.
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If MillerCoors’ new craft beer, Colorado Native, isn’t extraordinary in taste, it certainly is extraordinary in packaging. Following the strategic footsteps of Blue Moon (another MillerCoors label) which seeded the brand through word-of-mouth and allowed consumers to feel as though they “discovered” the beer themselves – the same feeling that encourages them to talk up the brand to their friends – Colorado Native is banking on sharing and interactivity among local beer geeks.
As reported by AdAge, this new microbrew is the first product to feature SnapTags on its packaging, which allows the brand to interact with their customers directly. Once the customer has opted-in via a mobile picture message of the SnapTag, Colorado Native contacts them with Colorado trivia and questions that enable the brand to sculpt the content and messaging that it sends to that individual consumer. How great is that? I can tell MillerCoors exactly what content I want to consume, be it beer facts, coupon codes, contests, whatever, and they’ll listen! Other brands, like Unilever, have included SnapTags on their ads, but this is a new level of consumer interactivity.
Let’s think of some other products that would be naturals for SnapTag labels and packaging:
1. Trek Bikes – You’re at the bike shop looking for a new mountain bike, you pause in front of an awesome new shiny 9 series, click a picture of the SnapTag, send it to the number on the label, and start receiving questions like “when’s your next major bike trek?” (depending on the answer, you may offer them a promo), “what was the last mountain you conquered?” (send them content about mountains in the area), or “what bikes have you owned in the past? (is this the right bike for you?).
2. Barnes & Noble – You’re walking down the historical-fiction aisle (people still go to bookstores right?), snap a picture of the tag, and send it to the number. Now you’re answering a couple questions about the books you read, the authors you like, and who you’re shopping for, and voila, you’re discovering new books, similar authors, perfect gift ideas, and maybe even a discount a week later.
3. Footlocker – You’re trying on that sweet new pair of Nike Huarache basketball sneaks and send a picture of the SnapTag on the basketball shoe section to the designated number. Footlocker asks if you play mostly indoors or outdoors (for cross-sells), asks if you saw the All-Star game (and sends you some highlights of the dunk contest), sends you a notification when that new Huarache goes on sale, and enters you into the Footlocker sweepstakes for two tickets to the NBA finals.
Any other ideas for cool SnapTag packaging implementation? Let’s hear ‘em!
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Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like while there has been a lot of great publicity about foursquare – all the high-profile partnerships they’ve been signing, teaming up with bing’s maps, huge usership increases, etc. – there’s been a ton of negative sentiment surrounding the location-based social networking service. I suppose it shouldn’t be unexpected; this seems to be some people’s reaction over and over again. The ultimate utility of social networks and Web 2.0 applications isn’t always as slap-you-in-the-face obvious as other technology. Oh you like bread? This is a toaster. It warms up your slices of bread. Brilliant! See this Garmin? It lets you know where you are anywhere in the world. You’ll never get lost again. Genius!
It’s 1995. Classmates.com? You can be online “friends” with people that you went to school with. Oh…uhhh okay.
It’s 1999. This Blogger thing? Just write, like you’d be writing articles for the paper. Yeah, you’re probably right. Nobody’ll read it.
It’s 2003. MySpace? Yeah, kind of like Classmates. Trust us, you’ll get it.
It’s 2004. Okay, how about Facebook? See? Yeah, you’re getting it.
It’s 2005. YouTube? You watch videos online. No, no, not like how you watch TV. At all. Don’t worry about it.
It’s 2008. What’s Twitter? Tell people what you’re doing. Yes, anything. No, not about the sandwich you just made. Try to keep it interesting! No, wait, you don’t actually care what Ashton is doing, do you? You do? Ugh, fine. Let’s carry on.
It’s 2009. BrightKite, Gowalla, and foursquare? You want me to “check-in” online where I am in real life? What the heck is the point of that?? Oo I know! I’ll be the mayor of my house! Of my office! I’ll be on top of the world! No. You’re missing it again.
Sorry for that impromptu timeline, I was feelin’ it. So the point is that the cream rises to the top, and people talk about these services and accept these web-based apps because there’s a good reason. Classmates, MySpace, Facebook? People wanted to keep in touch. Blogger? People felt empowered when they could self-publish in an instant. YouTube? Ditto, except with video. People really liked sharing video. Twitter? People publish so quickly, and from anywhere, that their stories become the real-time news. Foursquare (et al.)? People pinging their locations and giving their city a pulse, creating a whole new social dynamic. For example, ‘Hey, Jed just got to Rittenhouse Square, and I’m right around the corner! Maybe I’ll go say hi because we haven’t hung out in a while. Or maybe that bastard owes me ten dollars. Or maybe the bartender at the restaurant I’m at gives a free beer with a check-in. Or 10% off the bill for the mayor. I’m definitely checking in for that.’ I’m rambling. The point is…
People enjoy a few things in their social networking. 1. Clarity – preferably only one task, like talking to friends, watching a video, etc. 2. Publishing – we will publish absolutely everything, we love it, just keep the process simple. 3. Rewards – how many friends do I have now? how many people have bookmarked my channel now? how many badges do I have now? Foursquare does all of these things, and has a better business model than Twitter, or Facebook, or even (dare I say?) Google, for that matter. People not only enjoy connecting with other people through social media, but they seem to prefer doing it with people they’re friends with in real life. Meaning locally. Meaning social media is built for small- to medium-sized businesses with a strong local brand. Yes, Coca-Cola has a million gillion Facebook fans, but they don’t buy cokes on the Facebook page, and they certainly don’t know your name. The Facebook page or your local pub or favorite shoe boutique, however, will talk to you, and might even have a picture of you on the Photos tab from some event. You bond with them. And on foursquare, those small- to medium-sized businesses can see how many times you’ve showed up that week. They can say ‘Hey! Come in again and we’ll show you that new pair of shoes we just got in!’ They’re not just advertising to you, they’re connecting with you in the real world, which goes without saying (but I will anyway) is a hell of a lot more powerful than a PPC ad for “belt sander”.
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Jed Singer – Socialight Media
Jed Singer is an Engagement Associate at Stuzo in Center City Philadelphia. The views and comments in the Socialight Media Blog are those of Jed Singer and not necessarily those of Stuzo.