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an UPFRONT MEDIA publication ISSUE 24 August 2011

In this issue:
The Number One Least Asked Question 2 in Social MediaWhy? HOW TO: 3 Utilize Social Data More Effectively 5 case studies of location based 5 marketing for businesses 5 Best Practices for 6 Beauty Brands on Facebook Random facts, humor 9 more...

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The Number One Least Asked Question in Social MediaWhy?

July 6, 2011 from Mashable

The number one least asked question in social media is also the most important Asking why in all aspects of business and life in general is unexploited. Day in and day out I help businesses understand the opportunity that lies within new media, not because of Twitter or Facebook. I do so because opportunity is pervasive in the hearts and minds of consumers everywhere. We just have yet to really understand for what reason. Report after report, post after post, conference after conference, I am inundated with examples of social media success. Except success is difficult to assess, unless we look at the numbers, sentiment, clickthroughs, and outcomes. Rarely do I see studies, although they are out there, that ask the social customer what they value and why. In 1964 Marshall McLuhan proposed in his book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, that the medium is the message. His observation was that the medium, not the content it disseminates, requires attention and study. He believed that the medium shapes society based on the characteristics of the medium itself. As Twitter, Facebook, et al. cultivate a dedicated egosystem and supporting culture, McLuhans theory is still valid. In an era where information is democratized and influence is equalized, the message is now also the medium. There are prevailing cultures unique to each social network. What you create for Twitter is different than what you might say in Facebook and certainly not at all how you would say it in Google+. Thats the point. What you say defines not only who you are and what you represent in each network or medium, but it also influences the society at large. What does your profile or presence say about you? What does it say about who you are in each network? How does it signify the value you introduce into your networks? The Anti-Social Business Im often asked to research systems and processes to make social media participation cost efficient and scalable. When I ask why, the response is not necessarily a surprise nor is it a real answer, we need to operationalize social media. we need cost efficiencies. In reality, many businesses syndicate rather than engage. A Tweet could find a new home on the Facebook Brand Page,

which is then linked to Tumblr, and, well you get the idea. There are management systems that facilitate one-to-many publishing and thats not necessarily a bad thing. One update to rule them all right? Only when the update is deemed valuable by the community at large. Social channels do not represent syndication opportunities as much as they offer unique touchpoints to engage with different groups of stakeholders. Theyll tell you what they want, in fact many already have. But, are we listening? Are we asking the right questions? Are we introducing what we learn into our strategies moving forward? I want to come back for a moment to the question of why. Why are businesses engaging in social media? Let me ask this question again because its important. Why are businesses trying to be social when to date, most have made a business out of being anti-social? The voice of the consumer is in risk of falling upon deaf ears as businesses explore operational efficiencies before they can get the answer to why customers want to engage with them in social networks. First and foremost, its not to get information nor is it to build a community with the brand. Customers are far too practical and distracted to invest their time in the long-term for such reasons. It starts with asking customers what they want now and over time so that we can answer why were investing precious time, resources, and passion into social media. It comes down to value. It comes down to experiences. People appreciate when theyre heard and in turn, when businesses intend to deliver exceptional experiences. Why do you think it is that people line up for Apple products when theyre released? Lets take the iPad for example. What is it about that iPad that people must have over all of the other tablet alternatives available? Why is it that people pay 2-3x more for an Apple Macbook than those running Windows or Chrome? Why do customers buy from Zappos instead of Amazon.com? Or, why do people love or go out of their way for Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts over every other brand? Each question has a unique answer, but many share a common theme, each company delivers an experience thats worth having, investing in, and sharing over and over again. It comes down to people, the 5th P of Marketing. Knowing who they are and what they want is enlightening as it affects not just the other 4Ps of product, place, price, and promotion, but also defines the
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user experience. It brings the why to life. Truth be told, we cant have meaningful discussions about becoming a social business if we dont know why doing so is advantageous to customers and ultimately to the business itself. So, lets start with a simple exercise to get us on the right path. Try taking the place of your customer for a moment. Take some time to think about and answer the following questions, then revisit your social strategy for the year and see what it is that you would change and why. At the very least, youll have the reasons to justify a new pilot, direction, or plan. The Top 10 Questions Customers Are Asking You in Social Media 1. Why should I like you on Facebook? 2. Why should I follow you on Twitter 3. Why would I value the experience? What would I take away? 4. Why would I want to stay connected over time? 5. Why would I choose to engage your updates in my social stream over those of my real friends? 6. Why would I tell everyone I know to follow you? 7. Why would I share your content with my audience of peers? Of the worlds 4 billion mobile phones in use, 1.08 billion are smartphones. 8. Why would I decide to invest my time and express loyalty in your network and not mine? 9. Why should I care if you dont care about my needs, experiences, or questions? 10. Why should I come back? Answering these questions will also help you answer an important question to move forward in any meaningful, longterm direction. This exercise unlocks an important ingredient in any customer-facing business strategyempathy. Once we truly hear our customers we are inspired by the empathy that develops simply by being human. Again Why are you investing in a social presence? Why are you trying to become a social business? Why will you succeed where others cant? Certainly brand affinity plays a significant factor in all of this. But, what if brand affinity was an hour glass. Taking it for granted suggests that time could run out. Continually monitoring and turning it when needed ensures longevity. And thats what this is all about. Social is not a means, nor a means to an end. It is an enabler to do something purposeful, meaningful, and valuable. Your customers will tell you. The reality is that attention is what it is. And as a result, brands must earn relevance today and every day. And it starts with answering a simple question why?

HOW TO:
July 27, 2011 from Mashable

Utilize Social Data More Effectively

Last year, American consumers posted more than a billion opinions about products and services online, according to data collected by my company. With peer influence playing such a prominent role in consumers purchase decisions, its no surprise many interactive marketers are tapping into that influence via viral marketing programs and influencer outreach. However, the vast majority of marketers ignore the staggering volume of social data all this influence creates. And those who do study social data typically use it for the wrong reason: to measure the brand impact of their marketing campaigns. Social Data Is Often Based On Small Sample Sizes With so many opinions posted online, you might assume it would be easy to find a reliable sample of data to analyze for brand impact. But even popular consumer brands often find it difficult to collect usable social data. For instance, I recently reviewed a listening report for a global sporting goods brand one that sponsors leading teams and athletes around the world

build social data into marketing programs - and not to use it ... as a tool to measure those programs

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and has strong brand awareness. I was surprised to see that the brand was mentioned in social media only a few hundred times each week in the U.S., and less than 100 times each week in other key markets around the world. To make matters worse, the low quality of many social sentiment analysis tools reduces sample sizes further. When listening tools cant decide whether comments are positive or negative, theyre usually labeled as having no sentiment. Three-quarters of the mentions for this brand were tagged as such, leaving less than two-dozen weekly usable posts in some markets. If you asked your market insights team or your survey provider to analyze 25 consumer survey responses, theyd tell you its impossible to find statistical significance in such a small sample. The same standards must be applied to social data as well. Social Creators Arent Necessarily Representative of Your Audience Although most online users today engage with social media, that doesnt mean the consumers who post social content offer a representative sample. In fact, 20-year-olds are twice as likely as 40-year-olds to be what my company calls conversationalists people who post status updates on Facebook or Twitter. And theyre three times as likely to be what we call creators people who post blogs or videos online. If youre marketing a product targeted primarily to younger consumers, you might find that the people posting in social media look something like your audience. But for many marketers, thats simply not the case. Social Data Usually Measures Extremes driven by individual experiences that theyre bound to be polarized in nature. If I waited in line at the bank for 20 minutes, I may fill the time telling Twitter that I hate my bank. Conversely if I get a free upgrade on my flight, I might post about how much I love my airline. Perhaps these are useful customer service data points (and they definitely influence other consumers), but theyre not a reliable gauge of overall sentiment towards your brand or campaign. Valuable Ways for Marketers To Use Social Data So if you shouldnt use social data to measure brand impact, what is it good for? Lots of things. Whether you or your company works directly with social media or not, you should be using social data right now to:

Develop your messaging. If you want to create messages

that resonate with your audience, you need to know what it cares about. For instance, companies are using private listening communities to craft their marketing messages. And increasingly, companies are using data from public social media as an additional marketing guide.

Source your creative. We know that consumers trust what they hear from other consumers more than any other source of information. So why not use listening platforms to identify positive social content that can be included in campaign creative? Ive even seen UK bank First Direct use social sentiment data in an outdoor advertising campaign. few staples in your online media plan the sites and networks that consistently perform for you. But social data can help you find new sites to add to your buy. For instance, when Microsoft found that people were talking about its computers in forums dedicated to fishing and cars, it quickly added those sites to its plan.

Improve your media plan. You probably already have a

Identify your key influencers. According to our studies,

Ever notice that most online reviews are either very positive or very negative? Its not your imagination. Our data shows that most social influence posts are extreme in nature and it happens for two reasons. First, consumers are simply more motivated to post opinions online if those opinions are strong. If I dont have a strong opinion, I probably wont take the time. Thats why nearly three-quarters of customer ratings on Amazons ten best-selling books are either 1s or 5s, and why very few reviews fall in between those extremes. Second, so many posts about products and services are

consumers in the U.S. create more than 500 billion peerto-peer impressions about brands and products per year. Social data can help you identify (and then reach out to) the most vocal and influential of those consumers, either individually or by finding the forums in which your brand will have the most influence. versation about your products (or get involved in a negative one) unless you find those conversations first. Listening platforms can help you quickly find both the good and the bad so youre in a position to react.

React to your consumers. You cant fuel a positive con-

The key here is to successfully build social data into marketing programs and not to use it, like most companies, as a tool to measure those programs.
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5 case studies of
July 28 2011 from Simply Zesty

locatioan based marketing for businesses

Location is still a major buzzword in social media at the moment, as the initial hype around Foursquare, Gowalla etc.. died down and was replaced by even bigger hype with Facebook Places. Its one area that many companies still find difficult to adapt to, largely because the userbase is still unknown. Its a fairly advanced social technology that requires investment to make it work, but do the numbers justify the effort and spend? I take a look at 5 case studies of small and large businesses to see how location based advertising is being used, and whether its driving real business value. Sandwich shop advertises lunch specials Showing how small businesses can use specific location tools to market themselves and gain case studies, The Columbus Sandwich company is a good example in direct targeting through location services. The company owner, Lad Dilgard, used a specific location service : Seven Lunches, which is a mobile app that shows you daily specials from restaurants and cafes nearby, helping you get the best deals and the best information. Now while this is a fairly niche app without a huge userbase, for The Columbus Sandwich company, it provided the right kind of audience that they needed to target. They used the app to share their daily specials and made sure to train their staff on how to use the app, to ensure it was used across the company. Its a good example to show that sometimes the best tools might not be the biggest, but the ones that can deliver very targeted customers, and cost-effectively (or even for free). Subway join location based texting service Showing that location services arent just about apps, Subway in the UK has joined a campaign led by O2 called You Are Here. The campaign works through targeting users on a location basis, depending on what retailers/businesses they are near. For users that are currently opted in, when they are near a Subway store, theyll be sent an MMS to alert them, and vouchers can then be redeemed by scanning them with your mobile in the store. The campaign has been introduced to experiment with an easier way to track vouchers that are distributed. It shows that SMS/MMS still works as a marketing tool, but can be brought up to date by integrating with location services. McDonalds & Facebook Places McDonalds in Singapore has just launched a campaign to coincide with Singapores national day, using Facebook Places. The campaign is run through a microsite that shows how many people have checked into McDonalds restaurants around the country. They set an aim of 46,000 checkins, in celebration of Singapores 46 years of independence. The

aim is that when the target was reached, a special surprise will be revealed, and people can keep up to date with the checkins so far, via the microsite. They have now tracked over 50,000 checkins, unlocking the special deal. This is a high profile campaign for McDonalds, as the online element has also been supported by billboards and TV advertising, showing that theyre taking social seriously :

72% of all social network users access their social network sites daily while they are travelling.

Chryslers location-based sponsorship A good case study for showing location-based advertising, Chrysler experimented with in-app advertising, in a partnership with JiWire, who launched an app to allow users to find wifi hotspots across the country. The ad launched by Chrysler gave a complete in-app experience, allowing users to browse through the model and specifications without having to leave the app to do so. The in-app ad was accompanied by homepage sponsorship of the JiWire app. While this campaign didnt directly utilise a location based app in the more traditional sense, it showed smart advertising by partnering with an emerging app that targeted people with a popular trend : location marketing and services. Level up your Burrito This is an excellent campaign, combining 2 popular trends : location based services and daily deals. Boloco ran a campaign with SCVNGR, who offer a location based app that combines challenges for users. In the promotion, Boloco took advantage of a new aspect of the service, which rewards customers for repeat visits. One of the most common problems business owners experience with daily deals sites, is that its great for driving a rush of customers to your business, but the majority of these are often just deal seekers who never returns again. In Bolocos campaign, they wanted to reward frequent visitors and also encourage repeat visits. While an initial offer through SCVNGR might offer the customer $10 of burritos for $5, they would then get the option to level up on their next visit, and get a better offer say $30 of burritos for $10. This is a great way of encouraging customer loyalty combined with location services, showing that theres a real monetary value in location marketing, providing you run it smartly .
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5 Best Practices for Beauty Brands on Facebook

Aug 1, 2011 from Mashable

Among luxury and personal care brands, beauty brands a category that, for the purposes of this article encompasses cosmetics, fragrance, skin and hair care brands have emerged as among the most digitally savvy. This is partly because of beauty brands relatively long legacy of ecommerce, says Maureen Mullen, chief researcher at luxury think tank L2. Brands such as Clinique have been vending their wares online since the late 90s, well before comparable brands in categories such as fashion, travel and jewelry, to name a few. Although beauty brands continue to invest heavily in traditional advertising and their own websites open any womens magazine and youll see plenty of makeup ads and a fragrance sample or two Facebook is playing an increasingly central role in their marketing, ecommerce and customer service strategies. High-end brands such as MAC and Lancome emerged as early leaders in the space, accompanied by what Mullen describes as truly powerful integrated campaigns from mass brands owned by P&G (CoverGirl, Olay, Pantene) and Unilever (Dove, Tresemme, St. Ives). Their investments, says Mullen, have made the entire industry recognize Facebook as a powerful CRM tool. Another thing beauty brands have done well, she says, is addressing both global and local markets through Facebook, a perpetual challenge for any global brand. Weve spoken to several leading beauty brands in the space and collected their thoughts and advice for you below. 1. Focus on Engagement and Community, Not Sales Although several companies are beginning to experiment with what is being called F-commerce (a.k.a. ecommerce on Facebook), most leading fashion and beauty brands agree: At present, Facebook is a platform for engagement and community-building, not sales. We dont look at the platform as a sales or promotional channel, says Guillaume Jesel, SVP of global marketing at MAC. MACs Facebook Page, which boasts more than 2 million fans, is instead dedicated to sharing content that furthers its branding, entertainment, engagement and awareness efforts.

In addition to a packed content calendar, MAC takes pains to cultivate a sense of community on its Page. This means, first and foremost, responding to questions posed by fans, whether its a request for makeup, career advancement tips or customer service inquiries. The Page also furthers community development by frequently spotlights fans who are the most active or have achieved the highest scores on various apps.

In one of its larger Facebook campaigns to date, the company invited fans to enter for a chance to be transformed by MACs creative team and shot for an upcoming campaign that will appear in materials in stores and online this fall an effort that not only makes existing Facebook fans feel valuable, but will bring tangible awareness of the companys Facebook community to everyone who visits MAC counters and its website as well. Although MAC has refrained from adding shopping capabilities to its Facebook Page, it has leveraged Facebook to enable MAC fans to shop together through an on-site instantmessaging service, which can be activated by logging onto maccosmetics.com with their Facebook logins. Hair and skincare brand Aveda, on the other hand, has begun exploring some options for F-commerce, although engagement remains the number-one goal, says Digital ComUPFRONT MEDIA | PAGE 6

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munity Manager Annalise Kaylor. The company is looking to launch a tab that makes product ratings and reviews immediately accessible to visitors and also offers some shopping capabilities. Aveda will also post product usage tips and encourage fans to share tips with each other. The conversation moves from the brand to fans to fans and other fans, Kaylor explains. Instead of promoting a product from our viewpoint only, it provides fans with something useful in a truly authentic voice. (Cosmetics brands Bare Escentuals has been particularly successful in getting fans to talk to each other. 97% of the content on its Wall is from user posts, according to Mullen, and much of it product use suggestions from fans, below.) Scott Jones, a 26-year-old research scientist at MIT, invented the modern cecullar voicemail system over a pizza in 1986. panys marketing team is continually monitoring the types of posts that drive the most engagement in terms of Likes, comments and shares. She notes that the kinds of updates that perform best are those that tap into the knowledge and opinions of fans. She recalls two posts in particular: One that asked the community to name and describe their favorite salons, and another that asked users to name their 10 favorite products from 2010. For those types of updates, we might have upwards of 600 responses, Ostrom says, adding that its important to show users that the brand is listening by synthesizing their responses in follow-up posts.

Unique stories about the brand and its employees also perform well, she says. Last summer, one of Avedas retail locations in California adopted a sea lion and sent information and photos over to corporate, who in turn shared it with Avedas entire fanbase. The comments were amazing, and we ended up showing a video of the sea lions release, Ostrom recalls. The stories that show how employees are engaging with the community and the environment really allow our visitors to engage on a deeper level with the brand.

Despite other companies decisions to launch tabs that replicate the shopping experience of their ecommerce sites on Facebook, Kaylor expects that Aveda will continue to lead customers to check out on aveda.com rather than on the Facebook Page, as the company sees no clear benefit in doing so. Marisa Thalberg, VP of corporate digital marketing at Estee Lauder Companies Inc., agrees she believes the best approaches will be those that complement rather replicate brands existing ecommerce sites on Facebook. 2. Develop a Content Calendar As with other channels, Facebook has become a central part of the promotional calendars of many major beauty brands. Rachel Ostrom, executive director of global marketing at Aveda, says that Aveda didnt have a regular content calendar when its Page first launched in July 2009, but her team now plans out content one month in advance to accompany product launches and promotions at its salons. The com-

MAC keeps fans engaged by constantly changing up the form of its updates, which includes a mix of news flashes and visual content (both photos and video), apps and games. Although the form varies, the focus is always on the topics at
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the center of the MAC brand and community: makeup artistry and trends, pop culture and social responsibility, Jesel says, emphasizing that the content is inspired by the collections and not centered on the products themselves. As a brand weve made the decision to use Facebook as a platform to share engaging content that is inspired by a collection, not to use Facebook as a promotional outlet or vehicle to push specific products, Jesel says, citing two features launched earlier this year to promote Macs Quite Cute and Surf Baby collections. For the former, the company released a game called Cute Pinball, which attracted more than 30,000 players and an average play time of more than 12 minutes. For Surf Baby, MAC launched a tab profiling three professional surfers. Photos, video and copy were released over the course of three weeks in the form of journals. Among the brands we surveyed, each posted between three and five times per week on average. Its important, Kaylor and Thalberg both stress, that Facebooks geotargeting capabilities are utilized so that fans get content relevant to them. (Theres little point in announcing a new product line to ones entire fan base if the line is only launching in the UK, for instance.) Its likewise important to make sure that certain targeted users are not overloaded. If a local market is receiving an unusually high volume of updates, the company will modify the schedule of its global updates and vice-versa, Kaylor says. 3. Rewards Fans With Exclusives Several of the brands we spoke to noted that their Facebook fans tended to be their most loyal and engaged customers and, as such, make excellent recipients for rewards and sampling programs. Avedas most recent sampling campaign was held in May the company gave out 20,000 sample packs containing shampoo, conditioner and smoother. Recipients were given information and a video to watch before filling out a sample request on a Facebook tab. After the 20,000 samples were gone, fans were invited to come into nearby stores and salons to pick up their samples. Sampling campaigns on Facebook are effective not only for increasing awareness about a product launch, but also for increasing a Pages fanbase and getting valuable feedback. After fashion label Oscar de la Renta gave away 25,000 of a recent fragrance launch a supply it exhausted in a mere three days the brands Likes grew by 40%. Roughly 5,000 sample recipients also filled out a follow-up survey about the scent. Sampling as a concept is old school, but with a traditional sampling you dont get to hear what people think, says Erika Bearman, Oscar de la Rentas director of communications. I think that the ability to collect feedback on your product is an important advantage to Facebook as a marketing platform, she adds. 4. Integrate Across Other Channels When running any kind of Facebook campaign, its important to bring the rest of a brands marketing channels into the mix to maximize total reach, and to bridge online and offline experiences with the brand. A multi-channel Covergirl promotion of a new natural luxe line of makeup proved particularly successful when it launched this January. The makeup company ran TV ads prompting viewers not to head to covergirl.com or their nearest Walgreens, but to log in at facebook.com/covergirl, where fans could sign up to be part of the Covergirl movement, get free samples and upload videos of themselves sampling makeup. The commercials, which garnered 8,000 Likes on the first day of airing alone, were accompanied by Facebook ads featuring spokesmodels Taylor Swift and Queen Latifah, catapulting Covergirl into the number-two spot (in terms of Facebook Likes) among beauty brands on Facebook, says Mullen. When Aveda launches a Facebook promotion, such as the Show Off Your Curls contest it held in February, the company sends emails to its existing customer base to drive them to a dedicated Facebook tab, and it posts promotions in-store and on aveda.com. A recent Checkin for H20 campaign earlier this summer also integrated Facebook Places and Foursquare. Although Aveda is active on a number of other social networks, including YouTube and Twitter, it considers Facebook its central hub. 5. Provide Customer Service Support Questions posted on Facebook walls are as important as any question asked at one of our counters, and so we strive to be fully and individually responsive to these, says Thalberg of Estee Lauder Companies Inc., whose portfolio of companies includes MAC, Clinique and Aveda. Mary Kay, a brand that has been much applauded for the offline customer service it provides through its network of independent beauty consultants, likewise emphasizes that its important to provide the same level of customer service on Facebook as elsewhere. For Mary Kay, its all about creating an online experience that mimics the offline experience weve always had, says Yvette Franco, VP of U.S. marketing at Mary Kay. And thats fitting advice for any brand on Facebook, really.
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Humor

INTERESTING TO KNOW Living Social Tackle Groupon With Innovative London Cab Campaign
Aug 4, 2011 from SimplyZesty Living Social who run daily deals but are not as well known as Groupon are having to come up with lots of creative ways of getting their message out in order to get people interested in their deals site. One thing they are not short of is a large marketing budget and their latest campaign using a London Cab to have a little fun was a great way of getting the message out there. Not only was the cab fully branded with their logos on the outside but when normal passengers entered the car were told that they could either continue to their normal destination or spin a set of virtual dice to be sent to a new location where they would get to try one of the daily deals available on the site. Most users were shocked at first and you would have to imagine that there was a lot of video editing done to make sure everybody looked happy and didnt jump out but the people who did accept the deals all seem to have had a great time doing very random things. The campaign is smart because it gets people using deals that they wouldnt normally consider and actually enjoying them and probably talking about them to friends and suggesting the site to others.

Incredibly Smart McDonalds Campaign Gives Away Free Money

Aug 5, 2011 from SimplyZesty Mcdonalds didnt grow to become and internationally known brand without having a brilliant marketing department and their latest campaign from Canada shows just how creative they are. The promotion was around their $1 drinks and involved a giant ice sculpture embedded with over $4000 dollar coins in the shape of the iconic golden arches. The sculpture was then assembled in the center of Alberta in a prominent area and left there for users to enjoy as they saw fit. As you can see from the video plenty of families, children and even the odd dog got involved in trying to free the money and the feature would have provided a huge emotional attachment to the brand for many. Even though this is a small local campaign there is no doubt that this video will get featured all over the world on marketing blogs and that is the market that Mcdonalds will be aiming for with this particular stunt. These stunts are simple enough to put together and the big international brands like Coke have made them a trademark and it is easy to see why. Who doesnt like getting some free money even if you do have to chip it out of a massive piece of ice!!

1.1 billion international tourist arrivals is estimated to take place by 2012.

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