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Engaging the Social & Mobile Customer Through Stories

Q: What’s the most valuable asset for your brand on social platforms?

A: Consumer driven conversations reinforcing your brand.

Over the past few years, we have had the opportunity to shape hundreds of consumer engagement marketing programs together with our clients in this evolving space of social marketing. We’ve created some big wins and also learned together along the way. The services delivered started with strategy, page and community building, and the development of consumer-centric experiences, apps, and campaigns, which were all measured and iterated on. These are all things brands will need to continue to embrace; however, it’s time to evolve and recognize how all of these help drive one key thing – stories in the social ecosystem.

People rely on their friends to make decisions. You already know that and the numbers show it. A Like, Tweet, +1, Share, and Comment all generate a rich library of social distribution about your brand, known as earned media. Social experiences and apps that are designed around a brand’s products and services give consumers the opportunity to share these valuable stories with their friends and give the brand more control over the messaging and distribution of the earned media.

So how do social apps, websites, mobile and .com approaches evolve to take advantage of this opportunity? Continue reading »

Coca-Cola Asks The Design Community To Reinterpret Their Logo

This Coca-Cola contest is running over at Blank You Very Much. Design will be featured on a limited edition T-Shirt and the winner gets 5k in cash.

Certainly a marketing driven promotion, and I don’t expect a new logo to be incorporated (a la eBay).

Usually, you don’t change what is working. Take a look at Pepsi and Coke branding over the years. You’ll see how history has proven for Coke to keep the logo relatively unchanged for the past 100 years and remain on track with what works. Of course, with the exception of New Coke (but that’s a whole different story.)

My favorite part of this will be reading the design communities backlash on Coke for their decision on promoting crowd-sourced spec work. It happens every time, but unfortunately for those stuck in the past, times are a-changing.

Leadership Qualities Infographic

Well put by the Center for Management and Organization Effectiveness.

P&G Engagement @ Scale: Countless Little Interactions Enable Scale In Social

Behind every amazing athlete is an even more amazing mom. This is the clear message that is, and will continue to be, presented by Procter & Gamble during the course of this year’s London 2012 Olympic Games.

The problem faced by the largest global marketers in the social space is how to effectively leverage their global footprint, consisting of tens or hundreds of millions of consumers across markets and platforms, to successfully roll out an impactful and measurable campaign at scale. Smart marketers are addressing this problem head on by blending three separate disciplines – Social Program Design, Social Story and UX Architecture, and Social Technology Delivery – into one unified approach, by working with only with best-of-breed partners that can deliver end-to-end solutions at scale.

To get into the spirit of this year’s program, take two minutes and watch this amazing video, which touches on Procter & Gamble’s theme of calling the world to take the simple action of saying “Thank you, Mom.”

For those of you who watched the video – take a few moments to dry your eyes. You need those Puff’s tissues because of this emotional connection that is innate in most of us based on the role parents, specifically mothers, play in the development of us as human beings. The spirit of this video is what is being translated into Procter & Gamble’s social initiatives; to let individuals be the ones creating their stories of thanks for their mothers, and for mothers as a whole around the world.

One of the solutions for this year’s “Thank you, Mom” initiative involved providing each Procter & Gamble local market around the world the opportunity to engage their consumers in a lightweight manner through social channels. The ask on the consumer is easy – simply open your heart, provide a message thanking your mother and share this message across your network. It’s these opportunities for lightweight interactions that will create countless conversations in social to get the big marketing message across for Procter & Gamble this year. The “big idea” is now deeply rooted in sustained, simple interactions around stories. To deliver optimal results, social programs and experiences can no longer be designed without marketers having an intricate understanding of how to leverage social technologies and the art & science of storytelling through the Open Graph. The social experiences that deliver business results are those that are framed so that the interactions that happen within the experience result in lightweight stories that propagate widely and deeply throughout the social graph. Never before was this possible at such a massive scale, but Facebook, through its brilliant marriage of owned, earned, and paid media, now enables us to deliver engagement at scale in a measurable manner.

Stuzo | Dachis Group was there from day one, working hand-in-hand with Proctor & Gamble, Facebook and a variety of leading agency partners to bring the program to life. A set of managed services from codified UX guidance, to Open Graph Object and Story architecture, to the development of a scale-advantaged technology solution, with real-time optimizations and ongoing measurement dashboard build and analysis were provided by our dedicated team to deliver optimal business outcomes. The result was an experience that lived on Facebook, with data integrated on a social microsite, and connected with various YouTube channels. The experience enabled consumers to engage with the program across social channels so that they could include their very own ‘thank you’ to the important mothers in their lives. Consumers can create their ‘thank you’ using text, photo, video, or their computer’s webcam, and then post it simultaneously to mom’s Timeline and into a public gallery to be shared with the world.

Organic “thank you” stories flowing throughout the social graph, resulting in earned media turning to paid media and vice-versa, generating outsized amplification and business results for Procter & Gamble. Localized versions of the Thank You, Mom experience were deployed to dozens of individual markets’ Facebook pages, from the US to the UK, from Russia to India, to Japan and Latin America , and virtually everywhere in between – delivering a heartwarming scale-advantaged, global social activation for the largest global marketer during the worlds biggest sporting event. This is Engagement @ Scale.

This post was originally published for the Dachis Group Collaboratory.

54 Pearls of Marketing Wisdom = $1,000 To A Great Cause

HubSpot and Who’s Blogging What recently worked with 26 marketers in the field to discuss social media, mobile and upcoming trends in the marketing space. Through our contributions of time (and text) to this, Doctor’s Without Borders received a $1,000 donation from HubSpot. A very great cause and happy to have been a part of it. Download the PDF to check it out.

Key Takeaways from the Facebook Marketing Conference: Timeline, Stories, & Marketing Products

This post has also been featured on the Dachis Group Collaboratory and Stuzo Insights.

“If the original Facebook was the first five minutes [of a conversation] and the stream was the next 15, what I want to show you today is the rest –- the next few hours of a deep engaging conversation.” – Mark Zuckerberg, f8 2011

On September 22, 2011 we were presented with some groundbreaking platform updates and partnerships, which would shape the way we engage in social channels as end users, technical solution providers and marketers. Notably, a major release at the time was Timeline for Facebook users.

Working in the area of brand marketing, I find this quote from that release rings just as true with the announcement of the the brand Timeline and new products at fMC (Facebook Marketing Conference) in New York on February 29th.

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, opened the event by sharing some moments in which connections through the Facebook Platform have had a dramatic impact on government, family and institutions.

Chris Cox, VP of Product, echoed Mark’s original sentiments in his keynote today – this time expanding from the f8 presentations, discussing how the Facebook evolution more directly relates to brands and marketers.

Mike Hoefflinger, Director of Global Business Marketing at Facebook, delivered a compelling keynote, which gave a deeper overview of the platform changes and clearly marking Facebook’s positioning going forward from today. His delivery addressed the major announcement that Timeline is now available for brands and is “the richest, most customized marketing canvas we’ve ever built.” The point he clearly presented is that more and more Pages are going to become “mission control” for businesses to engage with consumers across all areas of the platform. We also received an overview of the new advertiser solutions to help brands achieve scale across the platform being offered from Facebook which we will provide an overview of later in this post.

Brand Pages Product and Timeline Updates

Below are some of the updates being released as part of the new brand pages product. This includes an entire page redesign and functionality updates, giving brands Timelines.

- Friend Activity is now surfaced on a brand’s Timeline. If someone likes or comments, stories of how your friends engage with the brand are surfaced. A more relevant and personal experiences can be delivered for each user of the page by being able to see how their friends are engaging.

- A new views and apps section helps users navigate to other parts of your page. “Tabs” which were formerly on the left hand side of the page have been replaced with the ability to select “views” across the top of the page. The photo application always shows as the first app option, and the page owner can control which other 3 immediately show to users in the same row with a custom designed icon. In total, through an expanded list option, up to 12 views can be surfaced to the users.

- The composer now provides the ability for brands to “pin” a story. These pin anchors posts at the top of the page by default for 7 days, unless refreshed. Marketers are still encouraged post frequently through their content strategy, while having one main story featured throughout the course of the content calendar.

- Page posts can be “starred.” Starring makes a post go full width across the Timeline to prominently feature the story. Posts can also be “hidden” from the public view, but still visible in the admins Activity Log.

- Milestones are now an option in the composer. Page owners can add an event, with a mandatory photo to feature relevant or key moments in the brands history. These have a larger story format and help highlight defining moments.

- Page owners can now change dates on posts to populate and manage timeline.

Brands can now assign a Cover Photo to show at the top of their Timeline. This large creative canvas area, set at 851×315 pixels provides an opportunity to create an immediate visual impact. It’s important to note that there are policies for brands related to how to use the platform and the Cover Photo, which includes limitations on using this creative area for promotional messaging and certain calls to action. The profile picture still exists, and is the consistent representation that is used when the brand icon is shown throughout the platform.

There are also a handful of updates when it comes to administering a page as an owner. These include the “Activity Log,” which can be used to manage Timeline and posts to control Timeline content. Also announced is a new “messaging” option for users to connect directly, and privately, with page owners to create a one-on-one dialogue. User Insights management and notifications options are also enhanced in the administration area.

As a page owner, you can preview and push your Timeline live at anytime. Note that your page will automatically roll over to Timeline, if not performed manually, on March 30, 2012.

New Advertising Products

“This is where marketing on Facebook is going to feel like the rest of Facebook.” – Mike Hoefflinger, Facebook’s Director of Global Business Marketing

Continue reading »

B2B Social Media Marketing Strategies and Case Studies

I often get asked “What are some good examples or case studies when it comes to social in the B2B space?”

It’s easy to rattle of the great examples and social engagements in the B2C space. B2B marketing in social requires a slightly different lens on Social Business to engage your prospects and retain (and grow) your existing customer base. It carries over many of the same tenets and methods of engagement as seen in B2C social web marketing, but with an extremely strong focus on first understanding who your prospects are, identifying the target audience and analyzing how they are leveraging social at their organization (both as an individual and an employee).

Implementing also requires training and in some cases retraining of existing internal sales staff to shift they way in which they create a sale over time. Sales organizations need to use social to capture long tail opportunities – enabling their employees to become marketers, listen (facilitated with the use of the right tools), and implement strategies in which they engage their prospects. Today, it is easier than ever to find a lead as many prospective customers have begun signaling their social accounts for business purposes and using platforms and the web to help make purchase decisions. An implementation could be as simple as a sales organization listening in and engaging on LinkedIn Answers. It can also be as a comprehensive integration including staff training, toolkit roll out and a shift in overall sales strategy identified from an internal social media center of excellence.

Below is a list of some quick hits worth checking out to see how different organizations are working within this space.

Continue reading »

Program Identity Design: Strategically Creating Social Experiences

This post was published by me originally on the Dachis Group Collaboratory.

Social Design is a product strategy model that places users at the core of an experience. It allows products and brands to scale by incorporating a user’s trusted communities, driving conversation and creates a strong sense of identity through the experience. This is a model that Facebook has popularized in the development of their own platform by thinking from the inside out.

So, how do we leverage similar modeling and incorporate it for brand marketing initiatives? In this post we are going to explore the strategic approach and thinking which takes place to make proper Social Design decisions for a social branded experience.

Marketers now have a tremendous and evolving opportunity to leverage communities such as Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms from the outside in. By developing experiences with this strategy users are still at the epicenter, however, marketers can now tap into the existing community users have already built to provide experiences on these platforms which nurtures the users identities even further through a social experience. When executed appropriately, this approach provides a valuable experience to the user, brands they engage with and the related social platforms.

Have you used Spotify, Nike+, Flipboard or TripAdvisor? If so, you have engaged with a product leveraging this model. Here’s a quick reason why:

Spotify is connecting friends around music. But why is it so successful? One of the key tenets to their product model is allowing users to feel more open to share and provide the tools to do so by connecting the experience directly to a user’s Facebook network. Immediately upon registration, as a user, you are surrounded by your friends and can engage immediately around your common musical interests. This all happens instantly based on the user’s existing social identity. Connections with the Facebook real-time ticker affords the application the opportunity to share users’ musical interests in a frictionless manner and further curate their identity and connections.

Nike+ has likely popped up in your news feed as you see a friend complete a staggering 7-mile run before (some of us) have even had our first coffee. In Nike’s product strategy there is a focus on providing users the opportunity to easily tell their story, aggregate and share experiences over time. Through charting, mapping and connecting users around their shared interest of exercise, it allows the user to continue to build their identity, share, and engage around a common activity.

At Stuzo | Dachis Group, when we engage on branded social experiences, we identify which projects will benefit from this outside in approach. Be sure to check out our post on Program Identify Design for more behind the scenes information on how we make some of these key decisions along the way.

Let’s take a look at a recent launch for the upcoming People’s Choice Awards where we can see in action the Program Identity Design framework. This will provide a tangible demonstration on how we executed on a Social Design plan. For this program, we engaged early on during the show’s planning to concept, design, develop and manage the social experience.

The Program Identity Design process began on day one during the discovery phase of this program. The ultimate goal was to provide an authentic user experience which would generate conversation, brand amplification and personalized engagements by incorporating key elements of social platforms. This frame and the strategic thinking helped us ensure we were meeting business metrics, one of them being driving total votes and engagements via social.

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PhIMA Panel: Making Social Tangible [Speaking Event]

I recently had the opportunity to speak and moderate a panel on Marking Social Tangible for the Philadelphia Interactive Marketing Association.

The evening’s panel was called “Making Social Tangible,” with the goal to provide the audience and organization members with key tangible guidance, demonstrations of work, and feedback on how they can take action on scaling social at their organization.

The panelists brought their A-game as we made a key piece of the evening case studies and demonstrations of work relevant to audience questions. Day to day I often work in the Fortune 500 space, where we are working on strategies and engagement models to scale social at the enterprise level. Evenings like this always provide great value to me personally, as a diverse audience of 200 people, enable us to discuss first hand the challenges and opportunities for businesses at multiple stages in their social business efforts. Representatives from Fortune 500, Pharma, Financial Services, all the way to marketers focusing on small retail business – enabled us to quickly realize the state we are at in social today. There are early market movers and adopters who are working on integrating social fully into the marketing mix, and still some businesses trying to figure out social. Due to the gap in integration of social across such a large audience, there could have been 15 follow up panels, discussing the different lenses and approaches required due to the diverse business sets. A key takeaway when you have such a broad spectrum of social business participants, is that there is not a one model fits all solution for social media integration.

Continue reading »