Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

Attack Of The 50-Foot Faces

Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

Where were you the morning of Thursday, October 21, 2010?

I happened to be in a series of meetings. Yet if you were walking down a certain street in Singapore, you would have seen my face projected on to the side of a building, clearly visible in the night given the 12-hour time difference. Much to my relief, this caused no major panic in the region; the Singapore Exchange Limited opened 10 points higher Friday morning (yes, I checked). I sadly missed the moment, choosing the wrong time to pay attention to my colleagues and thus missing the video feed.

The event was made possible by Aviva, the world's sixth largest insurance group. That one fact is more than I knew about them when I submitted my face for global projection. All I knew at the time was that there was a press pitch involving something about a Facebook application, a marketer, and a chance to have my face momentarily flashed to people passing by a designated façade in Singapore, Warsaw, London, Paris, Mumbai, or Delhi. I've been to the last four cities, and now my face has been to the first, so I'm getting around. While it was great to visit somewhere new virtually, it would have been fun for a Frenchman to see my face and say to a friend, "Pourquoi ont-ils laisser M. Berkowitz revenir à notre pays? Je déménage en Suisse." ("Why did they let Mr. Berkowitz return to our country? I'm moving to Switzerland.") 

The program combined a lot of smart elements to make it successful, or at least memorable, as I don't know how they're measuring success. There's a cause marketing element, where you're asked to "donate your picture" with funds going to Save the Children. There are several points of engagement along the way: various calls to action to join, such as on a custom-branded Facebook tab; a personalized video preview that shows my face getting assembled on a skyscraper billboard; a customized Facebook event so I could share when my projection would happen; an email alert that my face would be projected; and then a final update with a link to my face on the building.

There were a few things that, as a participant, I wish they did better. My biggest gripe is the overreliance on Flash. That's the main reason why I couldn't save the personalized video or the time-lapse projection to my PC. How much more effective would this be if, in a click or two, I could set my billboard-exposed face my Facebook profile, or if I could upload my video to YouTube? This was something out of the ordinary, and I wanted to save the moment. When else could this happen again?

Well, it could happen next month. Corona Light has a new promotion where, if you like its Facebook page and  upload a photo, it will put your face on a Times Square billboard. It will then send you proof of your appearance. The app updated my Facebook status without me realizing it, but overall it's got a good hook. If you've got assets like prime New York City real estate, social media is a great way to flaunt and share them.

Corona's hardly the first marketer to pull a stunt like this. Last year, Kodak launched its Times Square Smile Gallery. Over the summer, Forever 21 put up a billboard that took real-time photos of pedestrians and streamed fans' Twitter messages. Coca-Cola showed fans' photos on its own Times Square billboard as part of its Expedition 206 program.

It would be fascinating to study the demographics of who participates in these stunts. There's a scene in the movie "Up in the Air" where the ambitious wunderkind Natalie Keener (played by Anna Kendrick) remarks to the suave veteran Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) how men love putting their name on everything. "You guys don't grow up," she said. "It's like you need to pee on everything."

Based on the number of marketers doing this, there's a lot of peeing going on, and if Forever 21 is any indication, it's not just about guys either. Aviva proved to be especially ambitious with its global approach. Some others will undoubtedly try to top that, whether it's showcasing fans in the Louvre, on the Great Wall of China, or even on the moon. If you've missed your chance to participate, don't worry -- because marketers won't rest until every man, woman, and child alive has the chance to fleetingly flicker their face on a famous façade. 

 

Scenes from a Social Media Face-Off

Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

How do you share insights from nine panelists spending 50 minutes discussing what works with social media? You don't. But given that I was one of the nine, I can at least share one person's perspectives, including answers to questions that weren't even asked.

Last week, I joined the Social Media Face-Off at the Direct Marketing Association's DMA:2010 conference in San Francisco. Questions were sent to panelists in advance, and after jotting down my own responses, I solicited input from my colleagues at 360i. Below are highlights from our collective answers, including invaluable input from Orli Sharaby, Christine Hsu, and Andy Amendola. 

Thanks to moderator Sean Muzzy and fellow panelists Brian Solis, David Marsey, Jeff Hilimire, Michael Friedman, Avi Savar, Chris Cunningham, Sloane Kelley, and Vivek Sodera. With any luck, others among this brilliant group will share their perspectives too.  

On to the questions:

1. How do you ensure you're generating meaningful insights from your social activity?   Understand your goals first so you can constantly evaluate if the insights are actually meaningful. If you know what kinds of insights you need, you can create a program designed to deliver them. Look for any opportunity to provide more measurement. For instance, if you're measuring traffic coming from social channels, are you fully tracking what people are doing once they get to the landing page? 

2. What is the most effective way for an organization to manage social media?  First, you need buy-in from senior leadership in your organization. You also need a mix of people involved. spanning marketing (including advertising, promotion, events, and public relations, among others), research and development, customer service, web development, and human resources. Some organizations do well with a more centralized focus, such as a social media nerve center, while others spread out responsibility across departments, brands, and locations. Allocate enough resources in terms of manpower and budget.

3. Where does social best fit in terms of branding, acquisition, or relationship management?  It can play a role in all three. The difference is that for relationship management, there's very little that compares with social media's depth of engagement and the power to turn consumers into advocates. For branding and acquisition, social media can play a crucial role, but there are also other effective ways to achieve results. 

4. What's the best way for an organization to determine how much they invest in social media? Benchmark your own success. Keep an eye on competitors. Align spending with your goals. Since social marketing tends to be about broader programs rather than short-term campaigns, consider customer lifetime value. Also consider the cost of not having ongoing social media initiatives. As Charlene Li noted in her book "Open Leadership," "Another way to frame the issue is: What is the return on investment on your fire insurance policy? You wouldn't even contemplate going without it!"

5. How big should an organization's social media team be? What should they outsource?  There's no single way to decide this. Marketers need to assess their core competencies, and then review agencies' and vendors' capabilities to evaluate what can't be done in-house and what can be done better by others. Marketers can get creative to maximize their internal resources. I heard of one national retailer that built a small social marketing team in-house by running a user-generated video contest for its thousands of employees. Hundreds of submissions came in and the few winners wound up taking on a bit of extra work for a bit of extra pay -- but more importantly, because they were excited to do it. The retailer still works with agencies, though. Also important: there needs to be at least someone internally who can muster resources, set the overall direction, and bring everyone in-house and externally together.

6. What are the biggest challenges in measuring the effectiveness of social media? How can you overcome them? There is no shortage of ways to measure social media; I counted over 100. The bigger challenges are tying metrics to business objectives and aligning metrics with what marketers are measuring across all forms of media. There are a lot of ways marketers can get around this, from weighted scorecards to determining the value provided by consumers engaging in social media. All of this requires a much longer answer, so we can revisit this later.

7. How can you determine "real" business impact from social?  The previous answers address this, but so does  MediaPost coverage of a study from Chadwick Martin-Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies. Erik Sass wrote, "The CMB-IMRT survey found that 60% of Facebook users who are fans of a brand are more likely to recommend the brand to friends since they became a fan; the same is true of 79% of Twitter users who follow a brand. Meanwhile 51% of the Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy a brand since they became a fan or follower."  

8. If something works, do you do it again? Or do you try to create something better?  A lot of social media is about persistence, so you should keep doing it if it works on any level. Test, learn, optimize, build on it, and always be iterating. 

9. How can technology power the optimization of social marketing?  Technology helps people do their jobs better, whether those jobs include online listening, measurement, influencer relationship management, content management, or web development. Marketers shouldn't lean on technology as a crutch, but understanding what technology can do can expand the horizons of social programs.

10. Simply put, what works? Two things: authenticity and awesomeness. The rest, as they say, is commentary. 

 

Slides from Blog World Expo Talk on Mobile Social Media

On Saturday, October 16, I joined Blog World Expo to give a solo presentation on mobile social media. While I rarely give the same presentation twice, I had to make an exception during this busy conference season as I used much of what I shared at a private Coca-Cola-hosted event last month on Why Mobile Social Media Matters.

For those who were at Blog World (or not) and want to directly download the slides from that version of the presentation in particular, you can do so right from this blog: Download Blog World Expo - Mobile Social - Oct 2010 (warning: the file is 47MB - I don't like compressing images for presentations too much, but I'm happy to do so if you want a more portable version).

With Blog World, the biggest differences were what happened outside of the slides. It was much more conversational, with some exceptional questions coming throughout, and then at the end. There were some great ideas from Howard Greenstein and others on how some of these mobile social rewards programs need to do more to tie in with marketers' existing loyalty programs. There was some chatter on Twitter about what comes after the Motivation Bubble (thanks Liz Philips). The biggest difference between the two talks was that there was no way Lenny Legoman on screen could compete with Barbie Video Girl in person. She made quite a few friends, such as Lovisa Williams and Julie Germany shown below. 

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Thanks to everyone who made it to the session, and a special thanks to all who contributed in any way from your questions or your tweets. I hope to keep the conversations going and welcome other voices chiming in.

Facebook Groups to Bridge BBS and BBM

Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider; image source: Facebook

The overhaul of Facebook Groups last week builds on the ideals of the 1980s and early 1990s. It's only halfway there, though, as it has the potential to be something much bigger.

Back in the early 1990s, in the days when Internet connection speeds were measured in baud rates and the Netscape Navigator web browser didn't yet exist, I got my first taste of social media by participating in BBSs, or bulletin board systems. You connected to these text-based communities by dialing in directly to a terminal often hosted at the home of the system operator (the revered SysOp). Given the kinds of geeks who would participate, the system thrived on many-to-many communications; there wasn't much of a point being a spectator or lurker. Unlike many forums and groups online today, the content was only valuable for participants actively using a given BBS, as there wasn't any latent value such as creating content that others could find through search engines.

The many-to-many spirit is alive and well with Facebook Groups. Within a day or two of the new features launching, I became part of a half dozen groups focused on social media. Sure, they all opted me in automatically, and Facebook's "shoot first, ask users later" approach is problematic, but that's likely a temporary drawback. My first reaction to the new Groups was that it was a usable version of Google Wave, a sentiment echoed by many technologists. Dan Peguine, responding to a post I shared in a group called Social Marketers, compared Facebook Groups favorably with Yammer, noting the quick learning curve for both. As I dive in, trying group chats and contributing to collaborative documents, I keep thinking back to those BBS days. If you want to participate, it's easy to do so, and there are these hubs of constant activity that encourage everyone to keep contributing.

I'm willing to bet this is still an early phase of Facebook Groups. A much bigger phase is coming, one where Groups transitions from the era of the BBS to the era of BBM. In case your coworkers or college-aged kids haven't asked to BBM you, it stands for BlackBerry Messenger, perhaps the most successful mobile app of all time in that it has helped sell BlackBerry devices. BBM is itself a progenitor of other mobile communications services such as TextPlus, GroupMe, and SMS GupShup that let users create groups of people to text, allowing for mobile communities to form and interact on the fly.

It shouldn't be too hard for Facebook to add mobile functionality to Groups. Given Groups' text-heavy nature, it can work across Facebook's mobile offerings, spanning its smartphone applications, mobile sites optimized for touch-screens and feature phones, and even 0.facebook.com, the scaled-down site designed for countries where bandwidth is more limited. Facebook has SMS commands too, even if they're seldom publicized. To paraphrase Amsterdam Vallon in "Gangs of New York," "They ain't got a gang; they've got an army."

I was having a conversation with one peer working in social marketing, and he lamented that Facebook Groups isn't useful for brands, so there's not as much for us to do. There are two ways I'd counter that. First, anything that makes Facebook even more important for its users is good for those in the social marketing business. More importantly though, features like the Wall, photo sharing, and events all started for users and then became part of brand pages. Heck, marketers can't do much at all with Facebook Mobile right now, but its 150 million-strong user base clearly matters.

Facebook Groups will matter, too. It's a bridge to the BBS past that will build on the BBM present to create something even more meaningful in the future.

 

Talk to Strangers - and Listen

Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

The famous chicken and waffle brunch at Birch & Barley

How old were you when you first learned not to talk to strangers?

It's one of those rules parents try to instill at an early age, right up there with eating vegetables and not watching TV before finishing homework. In my adult life, I've fallen short in all regards. Anyone who's seen my photos on Foodspotting knows I don't eat nearly enough produce, I'm prone to playing Angry Birds when there's work to do, and it's part of the job to talk to strangers all the time. Beyond that, though, I'm realizing that I've been benefiting regularly by listening to strangers.

Consider an example from my recent travels to Washington D.C. Thursday night, after arriving in the nation's capital, my wife and I drove straight to dinner at Birch & Barley, a trendy restaurant that boasts over 500 beers on the menu. My wife had heard of the spot from various sources, and gastronomes tend to vouch for it.

While waiting for our table, I checked in on Foursquare and then checked out the tips, a couple of which referenced brunch. Then I checked in on Yelp's app, which has the useful feature of highlighting the most frequently cited phrases in a location's reviews. Yelpers apparently are crazy about Birch's chicken and waffles, a dish that wasn't on the dinner menu. Well into what was proving to be one of the best meals either of us had eaten, I asked the waiter if brunch was a different experience, and he started telling us about the new menu. Before dessert arrived, I had booked a Sunday brunch reservation with the OpenTable app. 

The whole process traversed four stages that make recommendations effective: discovery, validation, confirmation, and actualization. We'll look at all four, specifically in how they're used in mobile situations.

1) Discovery: Recommendations need to be readily accessible. Right now, more technologically savvy consumers can find location-based recommendations easily through check-in services, Twitter, barcode scanning, and other means. To gain wider adoption, they'll have to gain even wider distribution, especially through default mapping and local search offerings on both feature phones and smartphones.

2) Relevance: The recommendations need to resonate in some way with their audience. At Birch & Barley, there were more recommendations for the Brussels sprouts than brunch, but I quickly ignored them and forgot about the vegetables. Food's a salient example, but this could relate to anything. When I shop at J. Crew, it won't help if I only see mentions of women's clothing. When I'm at a hotel, I'll care more about the WiFi than the spa. Venues and location-based marketers will need to know their audience.

3) Validation: Consumers must make sure there's some credible reason to listen to the recommendation. If there's one reviewer saying something that strikes a deeply personal chord, it may not matter at all who that reviewer is. In my case, there could be one tourist from Kazakhstan raving about fried chicken, and I'm fine taking a chance. Most of the time, other cues are needed. These factors include: quantity -- the sheer number of recommendations listed; convergence -- several reviews echoing similar notes; and proximity -- how closely you identify with the reviewers.

There are degrees of proximity. Complete strangers are the least credible, unless it's a relatively small and like-minded community (this can even apply to Foursquare today). Brands familiar to a consumer will provide a useful filter; around D.C., I consistently found sound, reliable information from AskMen, C-Span, Epicurious, and The History Channel. Then there are the spheres of known acquaintances and close contacts. Other cues can come from local subject matter experts, such as when I needed to ask the waiter about brunch and gauge his reaction before making a reservation.

4) Actualization: How can a consumer take action? Can someone act on it right there? Is it close by? Is there a long wait? Is there any compelling reason to do something about it sooner rather than later? These forces can determine if the payoff will happen and what kind of latency is involved.

Reading it like that, recommendations look like a lot of work. Satisfied customers don't think much about it, though, as for them it's all about the reward. 

 

See You at CTIA, DMA, Blog World, Adweek, OMMA Mobile or PRMKTGCAMP?

Event season is well underway, and October is bringing countless others (okay, I guess someone can count them, but I can't, so "countless" holds). I'll be speaking on seven sessions at six events over the next few weeks, even if I'll be spending far more time at these evens listening to what the real experts have to say.

Please let me know if you'll be in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles or New York at any of the events ahead, as it's always fun to meet in person. 

CTIA Enterprise and Apps - San Francisco, CA
-Speaker: Strategic Thinking in Mobile Marketing
-Tuesday, October 5 

DMA2010 (Direct Marketing Association) - San Francisco, CA
-Speaker: Social Media Faceoff
-Monday, October 11

DMA2010 (Direct Marketing Association) - San Francisco, CA
-Speaker: How to Drive Social Media, Search Optimization and Sales Using Content Marketing
-Wednesday, October 13, 8:45am 

AdweekMedia's Social Media Strategies Conference - New York, NY
-Speaker: Social ROI
-Thursday, October 14, 4:55pm

Blog World & New Media Expo - Las Vegas, NV
-Speaker: Is Mobile the Missing Link?
-Saturday, October 16 

OMMA Mobile - Los Angeles, CA
-Speaker: The Always-On Brand: What is the Master Plan?
-Wednesday, October 27 

PR+MKTG Camp East - New York, NY
-Speaker - Establishing Business Impact Metrics and Analytics
-Thursday, October 28 

 

Fired Up About Rick Sanchez? Blast Him Away on the Web

Rick Sanchez, it was complicated. I had a few run-ins with him, virtually and then in person, in a recap I shared right after I met him:

First I mentioned how he brought out the best and worst of cross-platform journalism thanks to integrating social media comments in ways that didn’t always add to the value of his show.

Then Rick actually responded on his own blog, and even on his TV show, in as transparent, humble, and authentic a way as anyone could ever do.

I came around and shared what a great listener he is. Yes, I’m still impressed.

I still didn't sit through his show any more, and apparently I'm not always the best judge of character. But as one of those elitists who grew up in the suburbs of New York City, what the heck do I know?

Anyway, I tried out my new favorite browser bookmarklet that lets you play an Asteroids-type game on any webpage (thanks to colleague Benny Simon for the link). I took a screencast with ScreenToaster - a really easy way to share audio and video recordings of anything you share on screen - and then uploaded it to YouTube for more visibility.

Update:

I could no longer look at Rick's face in our photo together. It pained me to do this, given the fond memories from that nanosecond, but I had to: