Social Media Predictions For 2012
My recent Forbes Article discussed social media trends for 2012. You can read the article here, or at Forbes.com, enjoy!
Companies sometimes gripe that social media is useless as a branding tool.
For marketers, converting messages into transactions is the Holy Grail, but if they don’t quickly materialize through new media outlets, that’s no reason to throw in the towel. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other outlets are constantly evolving and experimentation is necessary to find success.
Once we accept that “social” does not equal “transactional” we’ll all be a lot more adept at using it in 2012.
Three trends and tools to watch in the coming year:
From Checking In To Cashing In: Geo-Gaming
Geo-location has been an important marketing tool for a few years, but in 2012 it will become more personal and more transactional, especially in social-media marketing. This is a game-changer for retailers because it enables them to put potential consumers in the context of time and place and more effectively influence purchase intent.
This type of influence is a reason I see social media as a bridge to commerce because it’s where marketers build a relationship with customers.
The context of the offline world is crucial for marketers so they know what kind of message to deliver and how to interact with a customer at any given time. Is my potential customer in front of a store or on the couch? Is that person with people or alone?
Yes, geo-location has been around a while because the technology exists, but marketers have not yet taken advantage of it. To date, geo-location has been all about the “check-in.” Nobody really understands the value of the check-in yet, but if you think about it, the check-in is a social transaction, but soon will become a monetary one.
How will that work? Look for marketers to motivate and change behavior through geo-location tools and social gaming.
Starwood was one of the first brands to see the check-in as a bridge. Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) members could connect their SPG accounts directly to Foursquare. Anytime they checked into a Starwood property combined with a confirmed reservation they got points. There’s a reciprocal relationship between the check-in and the reward, which is what game dynamics are about–rewarding behavior through real and virtual currency.
Let’s say Starwood has a million fans, a small sub-set of whom checks in on Foursquare. Now let’s add a layer of social gaming so that whatever those fans do online they do through Facebook. I post to my page saying, “I just came back from Paris, ate at this restaurant, and it’s amazing,” and that is shared with the Starwood community of a million people through a gaming experience. Starwood could reward me for that because I’m selling travel to Paris where Starwood has properties.
I don’t think there’s a place in social marketing to have offers, promotions, coupons and transactional items as a part of the social eco-system and social story telling. Where I do think there is a time and place for coupons, offers, promotions is through mobile and geo-location and how those two talk to each other.
These are ways for brands to say, “Believe in us, be part of our community, and when you engage with us, we notice.” It’s that acknowledgement that creates loyalty, advocacy and drives earned-media value.
Facebook: Gateway To The Web
Would it surprise anyone to think Facebook will become the overlay of the Internet experience? It may not happen in 2012 but it certainly will in our lifetimes. Facebook is what Ma Bell once was, a utility with which few people could conduct their daily lives. It’s almost impossible to not use the web these days, and it’s becoming less possible to use it without Facebook.
As marketers build the bridge to commerce through online communities, it is imperative that they do not cannibalize them for the sake of transactions. Microsoft and Zynga got it wrong with their partnership.
Back in early 2010, Zynga moved beyond making its popular games available on social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace and began making some titles, especially the wildly popular Farmville, available on Microsoft properties like MSN Games and Windows Media Player. More than 200 million players had interacted with friends and acquaintances through these games every month. But Zynga wanted to expand its reach even further, hence the Microsoft partnership.
It was a great move for MSN’s gaming portal, which was steadily losing traffic, but what did Zynga gain? It already had enviable reach. What it really did was cannibalize Zynga’s passionate and original gaming community by adding all those MSN gamers.
Imagine being at a party with people you know and feel comfortable with, and then suddenly, an outside group of revelers crashes your bash. It’s not the same party anymore. You don’t want to be there. You aren’t going to stick around.
Microsoft spent a tremendous amount of time, dollars and effort cultivating a community, and they threw it out the window with the Zynga deal just to boost its fan base.
Starbucks got it wrong — and then got it very right. The coffee bar behemoth woke up one day and noticed it had completely alienated its consumers. Instead of selling them coffee in an ambient setting, Starbucks installed mega coffee machines to serve people faster. They took the artisanal aspect from the process and then realized they moved away from their core brand attributes. The company was smart and sincere enough to ask its community for help by launching Mystarbucksidea.com, listening to the people who were very attached to their brand. It was like the return of the Prodigal Son.
Starbucks also devised Pastry Thursday, creating a regular event on Facebook where people could register and check-in to get a free pastry. On Election Day, they gave away free coffee.
Starbucks is one of the few advertisers that know it will lose [Facebook] friends if all it does is talk about itself. If I had a friend who, whenever we’re together, tries to sell me something, we wouldn’t be friends for very long. Starbucks knows it has to care about what their customers have to say.
Mystarbucksidea.com was an example of perhaps the first time that a brand had to act like a person. The company recognized that relationships are personal and that for a relationship to thrive, some base-line principles must be observed.
Perpetuating The Personal
Brands in 2012 must create a social world of personalization.
Facebook has built a model for this. Its “pages” function enables brands to engage customers on a virtual island and have a theme party of their choosing. If the guests are into Huggies, the page can be about potty training. Amex’s page/party theme can be about small business.
Then you have Facebook’s “social ads,” through which brands can deliver targeted messages to fans and followers. Any marketer that knows something about its core fan base, derived from the insights gathered on its Facebook page, can create and deliver custom messages to sub-sets of that population.
The third prong is Facebook’s “sponsored stories,” which are about leveraging the friends of fans. If you become a fan of my page, this generates a News Feed story that your friends might see. Sponsored Stories increase visibility of this story by highlighting it for my friends in the right column.
The brand has delivered a story to someone on Facebook, and that person delivers the story to their Facebook friends.
Let’s say you became a fan of the AMC show “Breaking Bad.” Now your feed reflects that action to your friends, and the next time any of your friends log in, they’re alerted that you just “liked” “Breaking Bad” — and maybe they should check it out. Your friend clicks on that link, which takes them to a “Breaking Bad” page, completing the loop.
The Facebook triad of Pages-Ads-Stories is one example of how to create a loop using paid media dollars to drive earned media. There are many other ways of delivering earned media across social channels. Every brand has different needs, but most importantly, every brand has a different personality – it’s crafting and delivering that personality that ultimately drives the kind of earned media that you don’t need write checks for.
The best kind of media is organic earned media. In 2012, social media as a bridge to commerce may seem obvious, but the journey will be much more interesting–and lucrative.
Read MoreMary Meeker Presents 2011 Internet Trends
Kleiner Perkins partner and former Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker took the stage at Web 2.0 Summit to present her annual trends report. The deck is filled with tons of stats and insights that I found fascinating and felt compared to share. That Mary Meeker is one smart lady…
Her 12 trend topics are below:
1. Globality – We Aren’t In Kansas Anymore…
Meeker revealed that 81% of users of the top ten global internet properties are outside the USA, which makes global markets a force to be reckoned with.
2. Mobile – Early Innings Growth, Still…
iPhones, iPods and iPads have revolutionized the market. But Android tablets and phones, at a different price point, are not to be underestimated.
3. User Interface – Text/Graphical/ Touch / Sound / Move
“Sound is going to be bigger than video. Record is the new Qwerty,” say SoundCloud CEO Alexander Ljung.
4. Commerce – Fast / Easy / Fun / Savings = More Important Than Ever…
The ability to click and buy on a mobile device is making a huge difference in mobile commerce. “It’s now an expectation that if you see it on your screen, you can click and buy it,” says Meeker.
5. Advertising – Lookin’ Good…
Look at Google’s click growth for an indicator of advertising health: 23% of clicks on ads is a good sign Meeker says.
6. Content Creation – Changed Forever
Meeker refers to Joanne Bradford from DemandMedia doing a better job at talking about content creation.
7. Technology / Mobile Leadership – Americans Should Be Proud
64% of smartphones have U.S.A. OSes (iOS, Android, Windows Phone) versus 5% 5 years ago.
8. Mega-Trend of 21st Century = Empowerment of People via Connected Mobile Devices
“The ability to get realtime fast and broad information flow is only going to get greater,” says Meeker.
9. Authentic Identity – The Good / Bad / Ugly. But Mostly Good?
“One of the biggest topics of the next ten years,” Meeker says.
10. Economy – Lots of Uncertainty
Despite lots of indicators of uncertainty, “We’ve had a good two weeks.”
11. USA Inc. – Pay Attention!
The US ranks 10th on a list of country by debt. Greece, by comparison, ranks number 3.
Read MoreDear Jon Hamm…
I was more than happy to add some leverage to the Grad Men campaign, started by students of Creative Circus to convince the actor Jon Hamm to speak at their commencement ceremony – as his Emmy-nominated TV character, Don Draper from AMC’s Mad Men!
Read MoreWhy you should care about 4Square.
Mark my words, Geo-location will be at the heart of Social Media.
Social Media Is About Me.
I had the good fortune to hear Peter Theil speak a few weeks ago. He shared a lot of wisdom from behind his podium — one memorable moment for me was his answer to the question “why did Facebook succeed where other social networks (ie. MySpace) stalled out?”
His answer was simple and elegant. “MySpace was started in LA as a place where people went to become somebody else. Facebook was started in Boston as a place where people went to be themselves.”
I have always said that Social Media is a channel of “people stories” but Peter’s insight into what made Facebook successful adds further context. The people stories are real, they represent a collective human experience and every individual user is part of it.
Essentially, Social Networking is about real people and the connections between them. However, social media is also a highly individual experience — I experience social media through my “social graph” and my experience is different than your experience. Social media is about me — it’s the place I go to be myself.
Mobile Is My Gateway
Like many folks today, I am constantly on the go. Like many folks today, my mobile phone has become an appendage. My mobile phone is what connects me to my digital world no matter where I am. Mobile is the gateway I use to access information, make connections and “plug in” to my social graph.
The use and adoption of mobile is critical to the thesis of this blog post ( “geo-location is the heart of social). If the stats are true and by 2014 a person’s first online experience will be via a mobile phone not via a computer, then mobile and social will converge — social media becomes more than just being “about me,” it becomes being about me and… where I am and what I am doing. Everything that I do is tagged by “where I did it” and the mobile device becomes the conduit to sending and receiving that information — mobile provides context to everything about me.
I “Check In,” Therefore I Am
Content is the fuel that makes social media run. Whether it’s a 140 character tweet, a video clip or a photo — content is at the center of the social universe. Moreover, content with context is the holy grail. Geo-location provides instant context to the content we create and share because remember — social is all about me, what I’m doing, where I’m doing it, etc.
Now let’s think about this a little differently. Let’s think about this eco-system from the perspective of someone that needs to find information rather than share information… Here is a scenario:
I was recently in Amsterdam for 3 days of client meetings. I landed a day early to adjust to the time change and get settled in, which gave me a free afternoon to explore and wander. As I headed out of the hotel I had a few choices:
- Ask the concierge what I should do or where I should go.
- Open google maps and search for some points of interest.
- Or…. You guessed it. “Check-In” to my hotel on foursquare and access real-time information about my current surroundings.
Here is the hypothesis. As adoption rates continue to increase across mobile and location-based platforms like Facebook Places and FourSquare, hopefully the quality of real time information improves also. This means that in the future FourSquare could become the front door to the mobile web just like Google became the front door to the desktop web. When I’m at my desk, I search to find information in the digital world. When I’m on the go, I “check in” to access information about the physical world. Social lives right in between the two.
Social is what connects my physical world to my digital world. “Checking in” is the digital representation of “showing up” — it’s how your digital self knows where you are.
Think about it. We have all seen movies like Terminator. Where a the creature or robot from the future (good or evil) has a built-in computer embedded with some augmented reality view of the world. What does that computer do? It provides relevant (and real time) information based on where the creature is and what it is doing.
If FourSquare can unlock delivering users relevant information, connecting them to their social graph and providing context to the content they create — then they could indeed become the future front door to mobile — then we will all care about FourSquare.
Read More10 Reasons Brands Need a Social Media AOR
Is 2011 the Year of the Social Media AOR?
There is no doubt social media is here to stay. Anyone who still says that social is a flash in the pan (and yes, there are people are still saying it) must be living on a different planet. So now that social has crossed the chasm, do brands need a dedicated social media agency?
My answer, even if I am slightly biased, is unequivocally yes.
Brands need a social media AOR because today a brand is shaped more by what their consumers say than what the brand tells them. And because social media cannot be treated as an afterthought, it needs to be integrated into an overall marketing plan. We live in a social world. Consumers are looking for human connections with the brands they buy. Consumers want to be co-creators with brands. And consumers are looking closer at the role brands play in society.
Additionally, if you look at the perception gap between what brands think and what consumers think about the role of social media – the disconnect speaks volumes. This study was conducted by IBM and shows how far apart brands actually are in understanding what consumers are looking for out of a relationship with them.
The bottom line: This is the first time in history that Advertising is talking back. Which means brands (and their agencies) can’t look at consumers the same way in social media as they do in other media. Not to mention, the growing importance and complexity of social media requires ongoing stewardship in a medium that is “always on.”
So, here is 10 reasons why Brands Need a Social Media AOR:
- Social media is a specialty. It requires specific expertise and skill traditional agencies don’t have. You would not ask your media buyer to write your press release or your Publicist to write ad copy.
- Traditional marketing is about interruption. Social media is about invitation. It’s about a two-way dialogue. It’s about creating experiences. It takes a different mentality.
- You can’t adapt advertising messaging for social media. Advertising is about selling and telling. Social media is about storytelling, engagement and socialization.
- Social is about creating audiences and which is different than traditional “targeting” of consumers. It’s about thinking like a publisher, not a marketer.
- Developing content platforms are fundamentally different from ad messaging. Social media is like advertising in reverse. It would require traditional marketers to unlearn years of engrained behavior.
- If you build a community, you need to engage with your audience on an on-going basis. It’s a living breathing entity that needs nurturing. Traditional marketers are not trained and skilled understanding the dynamics of engagement.
- Social media content has to be created with distribution of content and syndication strategies in hand.
- Social impacts everything: from awareness to advocacy to sales and marketing to customer service.
- A dedicated social media agency has social media as part of their DNA. It’s not taking people who happen to be on Facebook and Twitter and dubbing them the new social media department.
- Social media needs to be scalable. While many agencies can handle social media campaigns, few can handle scalability.
Buick Gets in the Game with "Quest for the Keys"
Brand Channel‘s Sheila Shayon wrote a nice post about Big Fuel’s current campaign for Buick. Thanks Sheila!
My favorite quote: “Witness “Quest for the Keys,” which marks Buick’s most innovative social marketing exercise to date.”
Social media scavenging is now yielding ever bigger rewards for brands. Witness “Quest for the Keys,” which marks Buick’s most innovative social marketing exercise to date.
The mobile-centric scavenger hunt rolls out Monday, hiding keys in Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York and Austin, with clues for fans on the brand’s Facebook page and @buick Twitter feed over the next three weeks, culminating in a day of actual scavenger hunting and a final draw in November.
Each city holds a key with a $2,000 cash reward – and the final three winners can choose a Verano, Regal, LaCrosse or Enclave.
“Quest for the Keys” is platform-agnostic and spans the use of Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places for clues.
Big Fuel, whose founder Avi Savar is a brandchannel contributor, was recently hired to handle all of parent General Motors’ social media. The agency devised an Android app that “Features an info screen for your city of choice, a QR code reader for any you might come across along the way to the key, and a Quest Compass to show you how far away you are from the finish.”
With its foray into social gaming, Buick is hoping to skew younger. “The product line is much more tuned to a younger buyer base. It’s now more athletic and sportier. Buick now believes it can catch a younger buyer and they have, but it’s not as young as they hoped so far,” says Chris Cedergren, managing partner with Iceology automotive marketing consultancy, to Mashable.
The campaign was unveiled last week at the North American International Auto Show, coinciding with the unveiling of the Buick Verano, and automatically enrolled anyone who watched the stream on Buick’s FB page or tweeted – enabling them to compete to win the first key.
Read MoreAbout Me
Proud father, devoted husband, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Big Fuel, a full-service marketing and communications company based in New York that takes brands from Content To Commerce.
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