I logged into Starbucks' wifi this morning and was presented with the below screen. I find it fascinating that Starbucks has an ad for "full behind-the-paywall access. Free." This strikes me as very much an industry term that is neither: - well known - consumer friendly, or - flattering for the content providers (WSJ, ESPN, USA Today, NY Times)
Agree? Disagree?
Editor’s note: Guest contributor Andrew Machado is the founder of Open Home Pro, which empowers real estate agents to give their clients a new type of experience when shopping for a home with just an iPad. Open Home Pro is a Dogpatch Labs Palo Alto company. As I read Joseph Puopolo's article regarding the WWE/The Rock and Social Media this weekend I was taken aback to see one key name missing from the article...Amy Jo Martin. She carries with her 1.2 million Twitter Followers, has beaten breast cancer and most importantly she's humanizing brands.
Amy founded Digital Royalty which works with great brands like Fox Sports, Nike, but most importantly people like Dwayne Johnson, Shaq and Dana White to improve their social media presence. Her team has developed some extremely clever uses of social media over the years and I wanted to highlight three of them.
1. Hunt For UFC
Over the last few years the UFC has not only grown it's business ($465 million in ppv revenue in 2010), but if you look up their CEO on Twitter @danawhite you'll see he is insanely active on twitter. Nearly 12,000 tweets from him. To put that into perspective that's nearly 2x my Twitter volume and 3x Ryan's.
Why is he so active? Because Twitter is a platform that allows Dana to not only grow his business but it allows him to "humanize his brand".
My favorite of their social media strategies is #hunt4UFC where they give away UFC merchandise and tickets in random locations simply by having Dana tweet out clues about where they are hiding. The video clip below is especially powerful. You get to see what happens within 60 seconds of the tweet hitting twitter.
2. Shaq's Retirement
A lot of people saw Shaq's original video on Tout detailing his retirement. In fact over 500k of you watched it within the first 3 hours, but of course the real magic behind all of this was Amy who is seen in the video above with Shaq before he drops the video.
My favorite part of Shaq's retirement was not only did fans find out first, but he leverages social media to remove the red tape thats usually involved in an announcement like this. Instead of seeing a press conference clip on Sportscenter, fans got to hear it first from the man on an overcast day in Miami.
3. Team Bring It
Wait didn't I just see that t-shirt on Facebook. I uttered these words to myself as I watched The Rock roll on out to the WWE ring on RAW wearing his Boots To Asses shirt we had seen previously that morning on his Facebook page.
Previously and probably my favorite of The Rock's social media innovations was when he took to YouTube to do a "shoot" interview about John Cena to increase buzz about their rivalry. It's filmed in a way that feels real, raw and resonated with viewers (500,000k). It's 11 minutes of pure unedited bliss.
As brands continue to adopt great tools like Instragram, Tout, Facebook and Twitter they'll need to continue to find innovative ways to leverage each platform. Social Media presents brands with an entirely new, more visceral way to interact with their customer.
Be innovative. Be real. Humanize your brand.
Can you tell that there is a sale?Can you tell it's Black Friday? Even though this is a screenshot from Sunday evening? Fascinating that there is no product displayed whatsoever on the page. The entire page is a promotion for various offers: 20%, 30% and 50% off. I have to imagine the promotion would convert better if product was part creative...
I love Evernote. It's one of the few products I use daily and on every device I own. I also love their homepage because it is super simple and focuses on two single actions: learn and download. Evernote's homepage is broken into four sections:
1. What is it. This has three simple parts: capture anything; access anywhere; find things fast. If you use Evernote, you'd agree that that's a great, simple overview.
1A. Download. The focus is the Download Evernote button which is front and center and the only actionable button on the page.
2. Group Pricing. The base is a suite of three modules that again promote learning. Here, Evernote wants to alert users that the product is both for consumers and businesses / teams.
3. Video Overview. More learning.
4. Social. This does a few things. First, it demonstrates that Evernote is massively popular - which enhances brand / familiarity / willingness to download. For instance, I am 1 / 150,000 Facebook fans. Second, it allows me to follow Evernote in-line (continuous marketing opportunity for Evernote).
Amazon finds a promotional ad unit they like... and they stick to it. I've written before about Amazon effectively selling the "buy / create once, access anywhere" tagline. It's simple and it speaks to: Amazon being more open / compatible than most, and Amazon's content being portable - 'don't lose content you've already purchased'
Here is the promotion for the Kindle Cloud Reader - meaning purchases are accessible via browser, app, and Kindle. And the Cloud Reader itself is accessible anywhere the browser is ... in other words, everywhere:
And here is Amazon's Could Player unit:
Here is the original Kindle promotion:
I've written a fair amount about how publishers should be better leveraging Twitter, Facebook Subscribe, and social products... and even tailored it to verticals like sports. Here is an example of good work by ESPN and their new Grantland property. It's applicable to any publisher who is a network of content producers and/or sharers... and that is the majority of all publishers.
While this is a visual example of how to connect your content producers / sharers, it is also a reminder for brands to think of themselves as a connected network of individuals whose job is, in part, to be part to build the larger entity. This in turn drives more traffic to the overarching brand and builds the individuals beneath.
How it works:
First, Grantland is a new brand / destination (85k followers) operated by ESPN and managed by uber-popular Bill Simmons (1.5m followers). Grantland content is produced by a variety of ESPN personalities, celebrities, etc... and many pieces of content are collaborations between multiple voices.
When content goes live on Grantland (and it does several times a day), all associated personalities promote it. But they do it in more effective way than just retweeting @Grantland33's post. Someone will announce the article and include the collaborator's Twitter handles. Those users then reply in a conversational - but still promotional - manner.
The result:
- Grantland and it's contributors are actually followable... if everyone was a circular retweet, this would not be the case. - Grantland got itself off the ground by leveraging larger voices like Bill Simmons and ESPN's top-level brand - It in turn promotes its contributors - Who in turn promote their associates and their brand - Everyone wins as followings grow and content is effectively shared
This is how I have been finding news articles (Facebook + Washington Post Social Reader).And this is how I have been finding new music albums (Facebook + Spotify). The screenshot below is of a particular article that appeared in my Facebook Ticker twice within a 30 second span.... this isn't rare. In fact, it's common. And it is a demonstration of why you should be taking advantage of the Ticker... today, before others do. It is a huge opportunity to:
- increase awareness among a social graph - improve findability (articles, artists, time sensitive content, etc) - cluster popular content / topics within the core feed - drive traffic from the Ticker / Feed to Canvas Apps - take advantage of the first mover advantage that Washington Post and Spotify are seeing... get in the Ticker before it gets too crowded!
More reading:
8 Quick Thoughts on Facebook’s Big Week. September 25, 2011 – 7:37 am | 25 Reactions
Ahead of Facebook’s F8, Changes Galore Roll Out September 21, 2011 – 8:18 am | 5 Reactions
“So Far Facebook Has the Best Follower to Click Ratio”, Kevin Rose September 20, 2011 – 2:47 pm | 11 Reactions
Facebook Subscribe: Opportunity for Publishers & Online Voices September 15, 2011 – 7:57 am | 9 Reactions
Almost exactly two years ago, Facebook introduced a series of new ad units around gifting, polling, liking, etc. Two years later, here is a view of the new Facebook Bud Light campaign - which is an expanded unit and includes several social functions.... think of it as a miniaturized fan page: the unit contains / enables all of the core functionality a page does. The single sponsored unit contains: - Your friends who like the the page - A link to the advertiser's page - Related posts - A link to the advertiser's album - A larger-than-normal photo from the album - Expandable likes and comments - A like button - Ability to comment in-line
More functionality & features often means more business & complexity. And as Facebook continues to roll out features, the experience can be crowded. To Facebook's credit, the site is remarkably clean considering the long list of features it needs to include. Below is a screenshot of my normal Facebook web experience - and then an overlayed mapping of what each page portion is. The takeaway is: there's a ton of stuff here and it's time for a true Facebook browser and web app.
