I’m not ashamed to admit that I yell at my television. Although it is an exercise in futility, it’s somehow cathartic. Luckily, now I have an audience to share my admiration or disdain for characters, story lines and acting live on Fox during reruns of Fringe and Glee using Twitter. The commentary will be displayed at the bottom of the screen and is moderated but will include cast and producers comments, potentially adding something new to the dreaded rerun.
This tactic has been used by many major news networks like CNN, but this is the first time Twitter will see itself on a major television network during prime time. Twitter is seeing a mainstream level of adoption that is beginning to give it more credibility, though some people would have you believe Twitter is 40% blather. Fox will benefit from additional value being added to their reruns and capitalizing on the potential to get viewers involved in something they enjoy.
WikiTrust, a new feature that will place a bright orange background to text that is deemed untrusted by Wikipedia, is now available for registered users and will help keep information accurate on over 3 million articles. As time progresses and the article is viewed and edited, the background will slowly change to white. This will have an interesting affect on parties who attempt to edit, omit or lie about any damaging, hostile or embarrassing information about their article of interest due to its obvious visibility when tampered with. Crisis managers and brazen editors with special interests be warned.
An eMarketer study says that 52% of social networking users have become a fan or follower of a brand online. Interestingly, 46% of respondents said they had made a favorable comment about a brand or company on a social networking site, and only 23% said something negative. The idea that users are seeking out their favorite companies and brands is an interesting departure from the “build it and they will come” or traffic direction through advertising approaches that so many companies seem to adopt. These connection points with brands are important because they are an avenue to deliver coupons, drive trials, increase store traffic and to get a response.
Local Twitter trends could become the next big thing, once Twitter launches geographic location in Tweets. Mapmash’s Local Twitter Trends currently only has about 250,000 followers, but has an incredible growth opportunity due to Twitter’s 23 million users. I have high expectations for this service and could see it as a great promotion tool for companies offering sales, throwing events; or for personal use to find popular activities and locations or other interests in real-time, within your city. Highly recommended that you bookmark that one.
Augmented reality! Your soon to be favorite buzzword, is quickly making headway, but where does social media fit in? Yelp, a review site which allows users to rate and share the experiences they’ve had with local businesses, was the first to offer augmented reality in their iPhone application in a hidden feature (you shake your iPhone three times). The feature, called Monocle, uses your camera and GPS and as you pan around your environment, business listings show over top of the actual cityscape on your iPhone screen. The businesses that appear are then linked to Yelp profiles and offer a 5 star rating system and filtering options.
All of this content is user generated and anchored to a specific location. Using a similar strategy you could create a variety of potential for users to engage in an assortment of technology enriched activities. For instance, you can see a store’s sales by simply aiming your phone at it, or find a Facebook friend in real-time with geographic location, or see where people are Tweeting from, or if you’re a real estate agent you can show listings and pertinent information of a home to your customers just by having them point their phone at the home. An interesting idea would be to provide a way for street artists to tag and display their pieces so people can find them and also finding out recent news about the location you are in by news stories published in that location. Some seriously cool potential to see the world in a whole new way; for marketers and consumers alike. Check out this video to learn more about Monocle.
I’m a big NFL fan, but am dismayed by the NFL’s announcement that they are planning to modify their social media policy to limit social networking use by players, coaches, officials and the media. The NFL said that it will let players, coaches, and other team personnel use social networking during the season but they are prohibited from doing so during games, 90 minutes after games and until all of the post game interviews are completed.
I cannot understand what the NFL thinks it is protecting itself from. There is a massive amount of real-time game data available about the game already on the NFL web site, whats the harm in some colorful 140 character play-by-plays from your favourite player. Truly a disappointing idea from a technologically and seemingly social media savvy organization (the NFL has almost one million followers on Twitter) that should realize that engaging users with their favorite teams and players using social media helps to reinforce a firm commitment to, and love for, the game of football.
Social networks comprise 21% of all American display advertisements, says a new Comscore report. Once Twitter joins the fray, that number will surely increase. TechCrunch made an observation about the trend appearing within Facebook for traffic to be directed from one area on Facebook using an advertisement for a fan page, into another and in doing so monetizing the content. A pay per click (or even per impression) campaign utilizing various parameters can help add fans to your page and make your content reach a much larger audience. Now the reach of Facebook helps you acquire new fans instead of doing it organically from your central site. Truly a brilliant idea.
Matt Brennock wrote a strangely accurate, albeit odd, article on what marketers can learn from online dating over at Advertising Age. Conversely, the Wall Street Journal’s Mark Bauerlain thinks technology is ruining the face-to-face relationship skills of Generation Y and leaving us unequipped to understand the intricacies of bodily cues, nuances of verbal conversation. Oh, and don’t have the ability to carry a conversation and maintain eye contact. Quite the conundrum, although I’m going to have to call shenanigans on Mr. Bauerlain.
Not only is it complete conjecture, there is no real way to prove that this supposed ’silent fluency’ has failed to be adopted. Perhaps the rate at which we learn is now far beyond the capacity of a Luddite, or maybe kids today are just awkward or full of too many chemicals from an older generations failure to consider the repercussions of their manufacturing practices. I don’t really expect much from someone who wrote a book entitled “The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future.” Sounds like an irrational fear of youth to me with some ineptitude added on for good measure.
Ford is certainly the leader in Detroit, not just because it avoided bankruptcy restructuring, but because of their communications strategy using social media and other online content. Ford’s adoption of social media has helped share their story and allow real people to share their experience in a meaningful way, creating a profound connection with their customers. The Ford Story has been a successful outlet for Ford news and helps convey their overall plans for progressing, quality assurance, green initiatives, safety and other smart technologies. Customers are invited to participate and make their opinions and ideas heard. Ford is not just present in the social media realm, it is actively involved and this translates into a trusting relationship that helps Ford sell more cars.
Our end of summer news letter has been posted here, and was written by yours truly. Hope you enjoy it!
