Found Results
Posts tagged 'social media'
The following posts are associated with the tag you have selected. You may subscribe to the RSS feed for this tag to receive future updates relevant to the topic(s) of your interest.
Subscribe to the results feed
Posted on January 15, 2010
The Power of Online Conversations: Are You On Team COCO?
BY LAUREN MAYNARD
Here's a look at a noteworthy online conversation that's been everywhere this week. By now we all know about NBC's very public fumble with their weeknight talk show hosts. I'll admit that I don't actually watch The Jay Leno Show or The Tonight Show (this of course is the exact reason that NBC is having issues in the first place). I have, however, been fascinated by the way this has spread online.
Supporters of Conan O'Brien have joined forces to (loosely) create Team COCO. This team has some major traction, and it's all because Conan O'Brien's core audience is a group of Facebooking, Youtubing, non-traditional TV watching 20-somethings like myself. What I find most interesting is that the online conversation, one large enough to effect a sea-change in the world of late-night, is being held almost entirely outside of the reach of Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno and NBC.
What has everyone else done?
Take a look at the I'm with COCO fan page on Facebook which currently boasts:
- over 161,000 fans (that's roughly 8% of his Q409 average viewers)
- 2,516 links
- 648 fan photos
- 38 active discussion
- 3 rallies
Even google search appears to be on Team COCO.
Share this blog post
Posted on December 22, 2009
Social Media: Joining the Conversation Is Not Good Enough
BY JASON CORMIER
Social media experts are commonly asked where the market is going, or, "what do you believe the future of social media is?"
I notice most offering answers are quick to disclaim "we are all learning, and nobody is really an expert" - then reasonably expound upon topics such as the integration of customer relationship management (CRM) within social media, online monitoring tools, Facebook, ROI models, etc.
All worthy topics of discussion, but as one who will be humbly referring to himself as an expert among many, the topic I'm bringing to your attention now is that of brands starting conversations. "That's it," you say? "What's so meaningful about that? Isn't that what they are already doing?"
Well, I'd say most are not. There is certainly a lot of listening going on - but many companies engaging in conversations about their brand are predominantly reacting, or at best, joining conversations (not starting them).
Cluetrain Revisited
10 years ago, when the Cluetrain Manifesto book was written, marketing and communications pros were introduced to what is now a core principal of social media: Markets are conversations.
To many in our industry, "markets are conversations" has become cliché - a standard phrase used in every presentation describing or introducing social media. And over the years, additional catchy phrases, theories and practices have sprung from this principal. Even the name of this blog was inspired from it in 2006… as was the bolded statement below...
It's Easier to Join a Conversation than to Start One
Most of us recognize how and why this statement is true - but in the context of social media strategy, I say it enables companies to rest on their laurels.
I'm not devaluing the importance of contributing to existing and often well-established conversations about your world. Your 2-cents (or at least your presence) is a required variable in the credibility equation. But let's face it, if you want to be a leader, just joining conversations won't cut it. At some point, you must also start them.
What's Next
Tomorrow, I'll be posting an introduction to what we at Room 214 refer to as the Conversation Maturity Model - a simple point of reference illustrating the path from listening to leading. I'll also offer some top line consideration on the value of starting a conversation.
Share this blog post
Posted on October 14, 2009
Avoid Ocean Boiling: Four Tactics for Better Social Media Monitoring
BY BEN CASTELLI
"Boiling the Ocean" - a bit of jargon used here at Room 214 to help illustrate the problem many companies have when first venturing into social media monitoring. Many find that there is an overwhelmingly large amount of noise when trying to identify relevant conversations about their brand or industry, often due to a very broad approach to searching for online content.
Recently we have had several clients, partners, and friends ask our advice on how to get started with efficient social media monitoring and there were a couple of common requests:
- Basic but scalable for more advanced monitoring once comfort levels grew
- Easily shared with other individuals in the organization and easy to learn
- Affordable - no budget for an advanced social media monitoring tool such as Radian6.
- Ability to monitor real time conversations across multiple social media platforms including blogs, forums and twitter
To accomplish this list of asks "on the cheap", a one tool solution wasn't an option and a strategy that integrated several tactics was needed. There are dozens of monitoring tools available and selecting the right tools often adds to the complexity of starting a monitoring program. Below is a mix of tools that we have recently proposed and implemented to better monitor relevant online conversations and help companies get started in the first phase of a social media marketing campaign: Listening.
1. Filtrbox
For: Blog, Forum, Mainstream News Monitoring
Filtrbox analyzes online content and uses keywords to filter results. We set up Filtrs with keywords based on themes and included negative keywords to exclude irrelevant traffic. After several days of monitoring and adjusting the keywords we were able to receive a consistently relevant stream of blog, forum and news posts/comments. We then configured daily email alerts for all posts that met our filtr criteria (forwarded to the entire internal team). As an added level of reducing volume of posts, you can raise the FiltrRank to exclude lower quality sources. As a next level of reducing volume, we recommend identifying who the top influencers are for you company/industry and enter their RSS feeds to monitor them specifically.
2. Hootsuite
For: Twitter Monitoring
When it comes to Twitter monitoring it's gotta be real time. While Filtrbox does have real-time Twitter alerts, for up-to-the-second monitoring and particularly engaging we recommend a Twitter client such as Hootsuite. In Hootsuite, we set up multiple tabs each containing multiple columns to better organize relevant conversations by brand, industry, co-workers, Twitter keyword searches etc... We also compiled a list of all known online influencer Twitter handles and created a group on TweepML so the internal team could easily follow known influencers and organize them into a column in Hootsuite to track them. Another benefit of Hootsuite is that you can login from any computer and multiple users can access the same account.
3. Google Reader
For: Discovering and Monitoring Influential Blogs
Google is our RSS reader of choice for its ease of use and many options for starring/sharing. For this project we had a list of known influential industry blogs and competitor blogs that our client wanted to track. We simply compiled all of the RSS feeds from the blogs and entered them into an OPML file generator. We then had each team member import the OPML file which automatically adds the blog subscriptions to your reader, versus having to add them one at a time. Google Reader also helps you indentify new blogs to subscribe to via the Browse for Stuff link. This is a great tool for searching via keywords and identifying blogs with the most subscribers.
4. Delicious
For: Additional Monitoring, Tagging, Sharing and Collaboration
Delicious is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing and discovering web bookmarks. We set up a new Delicious account and recommended the internal team sign up for individual accounts and install the Delicious tool in their browser. We then set up specific tags and trained team members on how to tag relevant posts. Team members could either subscribe to the specific tags in their own Delicious account or subscribe to the feed in their Google Reader to see all tagged content.
The combination of the above 4 tactics was key to a successful, comprehensive monitoring program, i.e. the sum was greater than the parts. After implementation and training on each system, companies were better able to integrate social media monitoring into their busy daily schedules because for the most part, the content was coming to them. This greatly improved awareness for internal teams and identifying opportunities for engagement became much easier.
It's important to note that the stream of content you receive is rarely perfect right off the bat and some tweaking is required. However, a little diligence in the first few days really pays off in delivering an efficient monitoring system with less noise.
Do you have a favorite mix of monitoring tools? Let me know.
Share this blog post
Posted on October 13, 2009
Case Study: A Facebook Story
BY WENDY HOFSTETTER
The following statistic is my new favorite conversation starter for family, friends, clients; heck, even strangers: 78% of online U.S. households are now on Facebook. It's no secret that this social media community has taken our population by storm. But this isn't about my love affair with Facebook; it's a success story for business.
Numerous brands have adopted Facebook as a way to interact with their fans and push products or services. Some do a great job and some just throw up pages with the hope that they'll be a success. We have found a way to go beyond what standard Facebook pages offer, and provide our clients with a unique Facebook experience. Here's a recent example of how we have accomplished this feat.
The Task
Take our existing Facebook pages for Travel Channel and make them more viral, more informative, more interactive, and more targeted.
How We Did It
In order to make the Travel Channel pages more viral, we took advantage of the sharing functionality accessible through Facebook's API. We built a unique left-hand sidebar for every featured tab, which enables visitors to share specific content with their friends. We also included share buttons on video and blog posts to allow users more flexibility when suggesting content.
We made these pages more informative by featuring content frequently requested by fans. In this case, that content was episode information for each show. We created a custom tab with information on when an episode would air and provided links back to TravelChannel.com for pictures, travel guides, and episode descriptions.
The pages became more interactive through our custom polling application. If you use Facebook, you know how popular polling is within the system. We took this concept and created a tab where users can tell us what they think about recent episodes. This application also provides Travel Channel with a way to gather feedback quickly from viewers.
Finally, we strategized to make Travel Channel's pages more targeted. Brands are all about gaining new fans on Facebook, but they often neglect to tell users why to become a fan. We solved this problem by creating a landing page where all non-fans would land. This tab includes a welcome message, an overview with information about the show, and a call-to-action suggesting they become a fan of the page.
The Results
It's all about meeting business objectives, so here are the results of the re-design. In addition to the four objectives I listed above, our goal was to increase traffic back to TravelChannel.com. Within one month after re-designing their show pages, traffic has increased significantly and Facebook has become a top-referring source for the site.
Do you have a Facebook success story? I'd love to hear about it!
Share this blog post
Posted on August 20, 2009
Do Some Good - Its Easy
BY BRANDON WHALEN
So you've got 10,000 Twitter followers. Your Facebook page is blowing up. You have a huge following and you are feeling pretty good about yourself. You have built up a great community and you have spread your message, but you are also sitting on the power to create some real positive change.
I am inspired by Mashable's latest effort, Summer of Social Good. They have made it quick and easy to donate to some great organizations and they have harnessed the power of their influence to encourage their readers to do some good.
Honestly, this is something we should all be doing as marketers in the social media realm. You may not have the cash on hand to donate, but you can easily use your influence to inspire some of your followers to donate their time and money.
I thought up a few quick and simple ideas on how any business can do some good through social media:
1) Run contests that encourage people to volunteer. (ex: We are giving away a Macbook Pro. The first person to volunteer 30 hours at the Denver Rescue Mission gets the prize.) Twitter contests are getting pretty popular. If your followers are willing to re-tweet a message or leave their house for a scavenger hunt, certainly you can get them to volunteer for a nice prize.
2) Get involved with sites like http://www.snapimpact.org or http://www.globalgiving.com and find something that inspires you. Encourage your online communities to go and check out their content and possibly donate to a cause.
3) Build relationships with local non profits in your area (only a google search away). You can help them by simply tweeting a link to their site every day, or giving them space on your wicked cool Twitter background.
Your followers are donating their time to read your updates, interact with you, and support your efforts. It is just as simple to donate some time to do some good in the world.
Share this blog post
