DOUG SCHUMACHER

experience designer + writer

strategy

3 signs you’re a success on Facebook

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I know, it seems like the only time I post here is to say I’ve posted something somewhere else. 🙁

But I thought this article came out well, and there are some good, insightful reports on some of the top brands on Facebook. Starbucks, Skittles, Disney, Oreo, Red Bull, etc.

The complete article is here:

An example of one of the charts, showing the average monthly engagement rate figures for the top brands on Facebook, is below.

And of course, you can see all this data and much more for your brand and industry when you check out Facebook content strategy tool Zuum.

 

Creativing :: Stunning infographics, the future of Web content, and NASA explores Flickr

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

50 most stunning examples of data visualization and infographics | Richworks

Fantastic selection of work. This is a must see for anyone in marketing. (Thx to John Durham for the link.)

The Rise of the Anti-Facebooks

I don’t see any of these as having a real chance of unseating Facebook, but it’s a good read comparing their strategic approachs. Diaspora is the most interesting, as it’s open source. So many other platforms are moving towards open source, and as Facebook’s big strategy is to be a platform and not a destination, they could be vulnerable to an open source movement. Especially given the increasing amount of data they have on people (e.g., Places).

“The Social Network” Movie Launches a Facebook-Themed Website

I really like the simplicity of this site. I don’t get how they’re comparing this site to a social network site, but it’s well-done none-the-less.

Flickr: NASA on The Commons’ Photostream

Like the Library of Congress putting a lot of the National Archives photos on Flickr before. While the pics have been available on the NASA site, it’s nice to see them moving to a common online photo site. As a Flickr user, I’m glad to be able to see these pics up in my rotation of photos by contacts.

Facebook Awarded A Social Search Patent

The patent is for “ranking search results based on the frequency of clicks on the search results by members of a social network who are within a predetermined degree of separation”. Interesting that the patent was filed in 2004. They were focused on that very early on, and the vision is still holding strong.

Apple – iTunes – Ping: Social Network for Music

I’m pretty underwhelmed. Of course, social media and open anything aren’t really Apple’s things. But really, there just isn’t any depth of content or relationship to the conversation or the connections.

Chatroulette’s Relaunch Is A Bust | paidContent

Even if the ChatRoulette URL proves to be dead, the idea of randomly connecting with strangers via video will surely surface somewhere else, probably more closely aligned with a specific interest group.

The Future of Web Content – HTML5, Flash & Mobile Apps

Uncovered this article from earlier this year. If you’re not familiar with Jeremy Allaire, he’s had a great career charting technology trends and making products that address the changing needs. His take is that of a seasoned technologist who’s seen a lot of things come and go. Bottom line is, there’s still a lot of tumult in the industry (witness the h.264 pending usage royalties in 2014) and a clear vision of the future online content platform probably won’t emerge for at least a couple of years.

Checkmate iPhone App Uses Background Location for Automatic Checkins on Foursquare

Given this works wtihin 50 meters of a business, that means a lot of potential checkins when people are just walking past. I can’t imagine how that’s good for Foursquare.

8 Crucial AdWords Reports For Measuring Success

A good set of campaign metrics to follow that provide a well-rounded view of performance. This is a good read for people outside SEM who aren’t overly family with campaign analytics

Creativing :: Virtual booze on Facebook, tracking through RFID bracelets, and the Web of Intent

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Virtual Drinks on Facebook Become Real With Bartab

I really like this idea, and can imagine there’s a lot of room for liquor brands to get involved, and even other brands that don’t involve kids, autos, or operating heavy machinery. Being one who enjoys buying a friend of drink, I gave this a quick try with what I think was a free first $1. Very clean, simple interface. The only issue I saw was very limited bar selection. But if this builds any steam, that will be a temporary issue

Fujikyu Highlands: “Guts” – Metal Potential

Simply an absurdly funny commercial, from Japan.

Coca-Cola Marketing Event Tracked Facebook Users Via RFID

One of the smoothest applications of new tech I’ve seen. Through the use of RFID bracelets, kids were able to post to Facebook by simply flashing a bracelet. For example, if a photo took their picture, they could flash the bracelet and it would auto-tag them in the pic. The real proof is that over the course of the day, there were 35,000 updates, although only 650 kids could be in the part at a time. Whatever the total visitors was, that’s a lot of checkins in a given day. And at that rate, Facebook user’s biggest problem will be sorting through their friend’s updates (which some would argue is already a problem

Thousands Of Facebook Users Fight To Rescue Dogs

A good example of how a seemingly small emotional element can drastically change a message. We’ve all seen animal rescue ads. But this one goes a big step further, by both giving us a look at an endearing animal, and secondly, telling us that this dog will be put to sleep tomorrow if you don’t do anything. Hard hitting? Yes. Effective? I’d bet on it.

Location-Based Text Message Ads Get a Major Boon

This type of things has been brewing for a while, but The North Face is doing a good job of adding relevance to the SMS notification system by factoring in user preferences. This also gives them additional data on their customers, which could be worth the cost of the program. A lot of companies have tried to nail SMS and failed, which has certainly tainted the industry. But the sensitivity TNF seems to be bringing to this could help shift things in another direction. Ultimately, brands will build or lose their reputations around how they handle situations like this, so it’s good to read the details of how they’ve structured this program. And all of that said, the experience seems to be down right now (that, or Mashable provided a bum link). This also points to another flaw in so many campaigns. Nowhere on their site or Facebook Page are they promoting this program. Again, could be due to technical issues, but if that was the case, they’d just offer an explanation instead of nothing

iTunes may be more social starting next week

Maybe it’s naive, but i’ve been surprised it’s taken Apple so long to go wireless with iTunes synching. At any rate, if Apple takes music social, the potential is obviously enormous.

Seth’s Blog: Sell the problem

Funny that advertising how-to’s always emphasizes benefits and solutions. Of course, a little negativity also goes a long way. Just ask a politician.

Google’s realtime search: fun times for neurotic searchers

As Gary Vee once said, the most interesting thing about Twitter is Advanced Search. This is like Twitter search, only with Google. Which IMO takes a large bite out of the value of Twitter search alone (unless, of course, your interest is limited to Twitter). Thinking about all the buzz around Twitter activity for timely events like the World Cup, it’s not surprising that there’s both interest in this type of search, and that Google will be putting a lot of effort behind it.

Trailmeme and the Web of Intent

As online content explodes in quantity, a growing concern is how people will parse all the info. When the Web started, it was enough to have a simple directory (Yahoo). Then, we needed to find random information at a given moment (Google). Now, we need to figure out how to piece together and extract a story line out of the mad influx of information we get every day. Perhaps it’s not surprising that a mega-brand like Xerox is taking up this task. In particular, check out the Scamville example, and when on that TrailMeme, look at the “View map” button on the lower left. Of course, the ongoing challenge for brands will always be figuring out how to insert themselves into the content stream in a way that doesn’t detract from the user experience.

How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro: An Insider’s Confession

Ran across this old article. It’s a fascinating look at how Facebook adscams are going down. It also serves as a good dissection of key industry tactics and technologies.

Creativing :: Facebook goes location location location, Hysterical ChatRoulette spoof, and stock footage you haven’t seen (and would want to)

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

“The Last Exorcism” Viral Campaign Spooks Chatroulette

This is really well-done. I presume the prank is real, i.e., the people on the other end of ChatRoulette aren’t staged. For the record, this was done a few months ago, but this production is much better: Here’s the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMG8FT1TKkw

CriticalPast.com: Stock video site with great archival footage.

Just about anyone can use a stock photo site with fresh content. (Where else can you find footage of Richard Nixon playing piano at the opening of the Grand Ol’ Opry in 1974.)

How Coca-Cola Could Bring Pop Appeal Back to MySpace – Advertising Age

The headline is certainly a grabber. And music does seem to be MySpace’s only bullet left. But I think it’s because Facebook hasn’t spent real effort in the area. And they might not until MySpace or someone else demonstrates real opportunity. Then they’ll move in and do the same “Netscaping” that they’re taking to the location-based industry. Facebook has the user data — even their data on personal musical preferences surpasses MySpace. My guess is that if they rolled out a monetization model for music-related apps, they could sprint past MySpace in music pretty easily.

Facebook Places: What It Is, What It Isn’t, And Why It May Change The World | Forrester Blogs

A good detail on the Facebook Places launch. Facebook is wisely taking the platform approach, vs product, emphasizing a partnership relationship with the current field of location-based services. The also provide a lucid example of what these location checkins can mean emotionally. Their example: Imagine your children visit a beach in 20 years, and find out that’s where you and your wife exchanged your first kiss. That should have brands like Hallmark licking their chops. This idea of driving routes and hiking trails becoming flush with new reference points and notations holds a lot of promise for brands to make rich contributions to people’s lives, if done correctly.

Mashable Poll Results: Will You Use Facebook Places? [POLL]

This is my screen grab after taking the poll (my answer was YES, given I’d already used it). I’m a little surprised it’s not higher, but am guessing there’s some blow-back from current fans and early adopters of other location-based services. And for people who say they see no value in it, I’d just give it time.

Foursquare Experiences Record Signups After Launch of Facebook Places

Interesting headline in the wake of the Facebook Places launch. However, the article pinpoints what has to be the real story here. That Foursquare is drafting a lot of the buzz the Places launch has generated, as it’s hard to find an article about Places that doesn’t also mention Foursquare. It certainly indicates the value of press, even if it hasn’t been favorable to Foursquare regarding the launch. As the saying goes, write whatever you want, just spell my name right.

Facebook Mobile: 100 Million and Growing

Just a perspective on the launch of Facebook Places relative to the current crop of location-based services. Keep in mind that, as I reported last week, less than 1% of people use location based services more than once per week. Foursquare, the media darling of location-based services, has 3 million users. Facebook has 100m as of last Feb. Probably way more now, given the growth trajectory stated here. So for those asking how will Places impact the existing LBS companies? For future users who will be joining the LBS fun, Facebook offers a more familiar interface, an app they’ve probably already installed, and a place where most of their friends already are. Simplicity, familiarity, and mass penetration. I’d hate to be competing against that.

Shopkick Teams With Best Buy To End Fake Retail Check-Ins

This challenge for brands using Foursquare is very real. The checkins can be easily gamed. And while that’s fine when friends are fighting over the mayorship of the local dive bar, when brands start to spend big money on coupon-driven campaigns, millions of dollars can be at stake. Shopkick is offering a tighter grip on the situation. The technology behind this is quite clever. The Shopkick app picks up an inaudible sound emitted from their in-store device which tells them the user is actually in the store.

The CMO’s Real Conundrum « iMediaConnection Blog

If advertising is about understanding your customer, then every agency person should spend a lot of time studying CMOs. This is a good overview of the recent Accenture report on the challenges facing CMOs in the digital age. It also reflects the findings from the May 2010 article in BusinessWeek on what CEOs really want from their ranks: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2010/id20100517_190221.htm

Creativing :: Twitter the movie?, Mafia Wars goes guerrilla, and the future of the Internet is ‘things’

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Zynga Runs Guerrilla Mafia Wars Campaign In Hermosa Beach, CA

I like the use of QR codes in this game. I scanned it off the blog image using I-nigma on my iPhone and it had no trouble reading and taking me straight to the site. QR codes have made a lot of progress in the past couple of years.

Advertisers flocking to Facebook: eMarketer – Yahoo! News

Facebook’s taking a page from Google’s playbook. There’s a lot of money in automating the ad process, even if it’s small amounts from a lot of advertisers. Or perhaps especially if that’s the case.

Twitter Movie Trailer:  Rated Awesome

Very well-done parody of the trailer for the Facebook movie, which is here if you haven’t seen it. http://www.thesocialnetwork-movie.com/

Where Else in the World Will Kids Think to Put the Web? [VIDEO]

Interesting that when kids 6-12 were asked about what they want from technology, it’s to better connect them with the physical world. And they’re the ones who should be most comfortable with technology. Refreshing.

China Moves to Dominate the Next Stage of the Web

Interesting that while a recent survey of kids pointed to a future demand for bridging the technical world with the future world, and here China is setting themselves up to the the future of the Internet of Things. Pretty telling. A great stat at the end of this article, too. Earlier this week it happened for the first time that there are now more objects connected to wireless data plans than human subscribers.

Facebook Pages Become Customer Support Centers

There’s been recent buzz online about Facebook’s — and social media in general — ability to function as a customer support resource. Scalability is often at the core of the discussion, but then, customer support has never been any more scalable outside of social media. The objective for customer support technology is always to provide helpful information as fast as possible. Ideally faster than calling and talking to a CS rep. Facebook’s big advantage is familiarity. Even within an app, people may feel more comfortable using it to gather information versus a site visit. So speed and relevance will be the litmus test for this new CS tech, Parature.

Behind the Scenes of MTV’s Twitter Jockey Competition [VIDEO]

Twitter seems more like a content channel than a media platform. While arguably still outside the mainstream compared to most media vehicles, it has a large user base that wouldn’t be considered early adopters of new technology, while at the same time many traditional early adopters find little use for the service. In that sense, it’s a source for the truly influential to get those first bits of information across a range of subjects that most new techs never scratch the surface of.

Whrrl: Living In Foursquare’s Shadow

As my use of Foursquare continues to flatten, I’m interested in what’s next for location based services. Whrrl is the one I’m checking out lately. It’s more complicated than Foursquare, but offers extended value in the form of community. I guess those badges are wearing off, and if I wanted deals, I’d go to Groupon. Right now, my network isn’t to a point where I’m really getting the value, but as Whrrl is adding 2-3,000 users per day and I live in a fairly early adopter area, hopefully the value will emerge.

Gowalla CEO: Sorry Mobile Web: Users Prefer Apps

Start with this quote from the CEO: “Many people perceive the web as source for content rather than a source of services. An app puts the illusion of packaging around a web-delivered service so people feel like they are buying functionality, not merely visiting a site to perform a function or access content. This subtle perception not only explains why apps are popular, but it might also be a clue as to why folks can charge for apps while still unable to monetize their web-based services.”

While marketers are typically focused on building website experiences — for reasons ranging from cost to seo — there are distinct advantages to building apps. For one, once an app is installed, you have ongoing awareness every time the user scrolls through their apps. We all know how easily bookmarks get lost in normal web browsing. That has to increase 10x for a mobile experience. But well beyond that, there’s the perceived value of an app that the CEO is talking about. It’s packaged.

Fact: Most People Have Never Heard of Location-Based Apps

The harsh reality of leading edge technology is that it’s often very difficult to reach a mass audience. This study shows that less than only 1% of those surveyed use location-based services (LBS) more than 1x per week. Not the rate at which you can build a market. This leaves brands with two options at the moment. 1. Determine if you have a key influencer group using LBS and if so, plan for a ripple effect. 2. Do something to generate word of mouth buzz that extends well outside the LBS user group. Unfortunately, neither option is a high-odds play.

Creativing :: What Steve Jobs should say, kings of YouTube, and dissecting the Old Spice campaign

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

If Jobs doesn’t start this press conference with “Look at your CEO now back to me now back at your CEO now BACK TO ME” he’s missed a trick.

How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made

A good overview on how the campaign was created. It’s interesting to see user generated components kicking in, which is mentioned towards the end of the article.

Skin Lightening Facebook App Sparks Controversy

Have to say I think this issue is blown out of proportion. Maybe it’s because in Venice Beach all I see are people trying to darken their skin.

Seth’s Blog: A hierarchy of failure worth following

An excellent distillation of where to take risks, and where not to.

Chatroulette Rolls Out Local And Custom Channels. Top Channel: “Sex”

Shocking!

5 Non-Profit iPhone Apps You Should Know About

A few mobile apps from the non-profit sector. My pref on these is the simplest one, the Salvation Army “Bellringer”. A nice way to reenforce a strong brand icon.

Queen Rania of Jordan takes to TwitVid to Promote Her Country [VIDEO]

While the contest info delivery vehicle, the video, might be what you expect from a Royal, the underlying promotion has a nice feel of global inclusiveness. Swap two people from your country with two people from somewhere else in the world.

YouTube – Most viewed videos

With the recent Justin Bieber / Lady Gaga ‘most viewed’ showdown, I was curious to see the 100 most viewed vids on YouTube. Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority seem to be music videos, interspersed with baby’s laughing, people dancing, and allusions to sex. The view counts are also interesting to note. The top vid has 245m views. The 100th: 40m views. That’s a pretty precipitous drop, and if you consider that 2 billion videos are viewed every day on YouTube, it’s really a long tail play with a huge majority at very low view counts.

Is Social Media Failing to Produce Business Leads?

This pulled select from the article says it all in regards to shifting marketing forces: Former President of CBS News Andrew Heyward wrote in the Harvard Business Review last year that “every company is a media company,” summarizing the idea that marketing is shifting to an environment where advertisers need to produce compelling content in order to succeed.

Creativing :: Tweet of the Week, Fake Steve Jobs on the iPad, and Seth Godin taking his own medicine

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

I like to imagine Jonathan Ive and James Dyson — tank-topped, schnapps-drunk, and enthusiastically slap-fighting over who’s fancier.

Official Google Blog: Search is getting more social

Sometimes a video is worth 1,000 blog posts. This one does a great job explaining the immediate appeal and potential power of their social search. In personal tests, I didn’t find it all that, but then neither was YouTube on day one. But the potential is screaming obvious. And I found it a glaring reminder of how far ahead of everyone Google is in search. Tried Facebook search lately? It feels like you’re dealing with a big, dumb, AI terminal. As my network and the topics it covers expands, this could be a remarkably powerful focal point for searches across anything from a restaurant to a good doctor. Google’s biggest obstacle here is Facebook blocking their content from Google search. If I were to pick a winner at this point, I’d say Google because this is far more advanced search-wise, and I like the idea of the net they’re casting going well outside one site (although Facebook Connect could be just as effective).

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : Tablet Part Two: The true significance of the Tablet

The blend of humor and insight at Fake Steve Jobs never fails to inform and entertain. It’s been said before that the iPad is the newspaper industries last hope for survival. And this post delves into how Jobs wants to redefine the multimedia experience. I also like his unrestrained assault on the Kindle. I’ve always been a big fan, but this week has really exposed it’s vulnerability, imo.

The iPad’s Threat to Advertising – IABlog

Think iPad will save the publishing and ad industries? Here’s a good contrarian viewpoint.

Unhappy Hipsters

The captions Dwell Magazine never published. Funny parody.

Has Twitter peaked? – CNN.com

If I owned Twitter, I’d be far more interested in the overall usage stats than just uniques. I understand the importance of uniques for overall growth, but reading most of the complaints, it’s not that the service offers no value, but rather it’s the perceived lack of filtering. People will eventually figure out lists, and other ways of filtering the data. And Twitter’s open source approach should continue to ensure that a very large community of developers and entrepreneurs will continue to find new ways of expanding Twitter’s utility. That said, you never want to see your unique’s dropping 😐

CQ: The Test Of Your Potential For Cross-Cultural Success – Forbes.com

On the surface, this may seem like one more way to have to compare yourself to others. But I definitely think multi-culturalism is pretty lost on much of the US. Even in the advertising world — where we tend to think of ourselves as pretty open and aware — we’ve seen enormous blowups from ads where no one bothered to consider that anyone outside of their own cultural boundary could have access to the communications. This is worth a read.

Seth’s Blog: Why write a book?

Seth Godin certainly takes his own medicine. This is the announcement on his blog for his latest book. Not crazy hype. Not even a small cover shot of the book. Just an intriguing headline — which surely stopped a good percentage of those who’ve ever thought about writing a book — followed by his usual thoughtful way of viewing things below the surface that stops most people. And all very consistent with his brand.

Vanishing Point motion artwork | The Glue Pot

Motion artwork video from visual artist Takuya Hosogane. There isn’t much info here or on his site about the methodology, so I’m assuming it’s all directly his design work, and not generated algorithmically through the sounds.

Charlie Simpson, 7-Year-Old, Raises $160,000 For Haiti

Shows that you don’t have to be a major corporation to generate buzz in social media. You just need a great story.