Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

The One-Percenters Of Recommendations

The One-Percenters Of Recommendations
originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider 

Save money. Eat better. Become more popular. All this is possible for the lucky “haves” who distance themselves from the “have-nots” by joining a class of people shaping their lives and the lives of others through digitally shared recommendations.

There’s no membership card or initiation test. It’s totally opt-in. But the tangible benefits can add up, and the intangible benefits can be far more substantial.

Consider these three examples:

1) It’s Small Business Saturday, the November commercial holiday created by American Express. The week before, you visit Klout and notice a new Perk: receive a $25 AmEx gift card to spend that Saturday, or anytime in the next 10 years. You receive it and put it in your wallet in case an opportunity arises. Out in Dallas for Thanksgiving weekend, you go shopping on Saturday and visit Society Bakery, thanks to a recommendation from a friend who knows you love cupcakes. When checking in on Foursquare, there’s an AmEx offer to get a $25 credit on a purchase of at least $25, so you link your AmEx card and get a free box of baked goods. You later wind up sharing tips about the bakery and photos of your desserts on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Foodspotting, and some new apps like Oink, Fondu, and Stamped. And if the day wasn’t going well enough, you go out to dinner at Wild Salsa, where you already had reservations, and notice the $25 promotion there too. Combining that with the Klout card, you saved $75 that day -- and in this case, on purchases you were going to make anyway.

2) You’re in the market for a new digital camera. You try asking friends on the social shopping site Buyosphere. Within hours, three friends and followers chime in, including one mentioning how much he loves the Canon SX40 HS with the 35x optical zoom for $400, which looks like it’s the best value of the models suggested. Tempted to pick up the camera yourself and test it out, you try the ShopSavvy app to find dealers near you, but you may just take advantage of the free and fast shipping through Amazon Prime.

3) Out with clients in Portland, Ore. you use some of your favorite recommendation apps not just to pick a great restaurant, but to pinpoint the best dessert there. The client loves it so much that you’re asked to pick a brunch spot to meet when you’re all reunited in Austin for South by Southwest (SXSW). You meet up there, have a great time -- and 12 hours later, you see your clients check into the same spot again on Foursquare. Your reputation is cemented as a go-to resource.

All of these examples, based on personal experiences, point to four rules for these One-Percenters:

1) By knowing where to turn for recommendations, you have access to a layer of information that not everyone else has.

2) The more you share, the more that’s shared your way. Karma is alive and well. Whether your interest is food, fashion, electronics, cars, travel, film, or anything else, people will seek you out to be the beneficiary of their own picks, further improving your options.

3) By sharing, new technologies can increasingly personalize experiences for you, triggering another virtuous circle.

4) Tangible rewards are increasingly available, but the most fulfilling reward is increased social currency.

There are three main caveats for this class of One-Percenters:

First, even with the democratization of media today, there is a limited subset of people interested in curating experiences for others and regularly using these technologies to engage in frequent discovery. This has the clear semblance of a leisure class, with bon vivants in it for the prestige and enrichment rather than more straightforward, goal-oriented behaviors of locating businesses and saving money.

Second, there have always been town squares, bazaars, and water coolers with their resident mavens engaging in this kind of recommendation exchange. Similarly, there are plenty of parents pushing swings at the playground who will always be infinitely more influential than what any digital reputation scores indicate. The analog world still matters, but it’s far more static and less serendipitous. When the experience migrates digitally, then it’s possible to connect with more unexpected sources and share with people far beyond one’s immediate environs.

Third, the “One-Percenter” term is one of convenience rather than a hard statistic. But take Foursquare, with its 10 million users, as an example. If you narrow it down to people in the United States who use the service on a weekly basis both to peruse recommendations and leave their own tips, it’s a sliver of a slice of a pie.

Speaking of which, have you tried the whiskey buttermilk pie at Hill Country Chicken? It’s fantastic. Just check out my tips and photos and reviews on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Citysearch, UrbanSpoon, Fondu, Oink, Stamped, and… wait, come back. I’m just getting started! OK, maybe the ninety-nine percent are on to something too.

 

 

Who I'm Thankful For

Who I'm Thankful For
originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider, without the cat pic

A great philosopher, Dr. Meredith Grey of “Grey’s Anatomy,” once said, “Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes simply to be human.” And then there are the timeless words of Spock, who reflected on “Star Trek”: “Oh yes, you humans have that emotional need to express gratitude. ‘You're welcome,’ I believe is the correct response.”

Whether you’re human or half-human, you can probably appreciate the timelessness of gratitude. For those in the United States, it’s especially timely. While I’m feeling that Thanksgiving spirit, I wanted to do my part and give thanks to some groups of people who have made my job notably better. Here’s what’s far from a totally comprehensive list of the kinds of people who impact this column:

Clients: I learn from the best, constantly. Whoever complains that “marketers just don’t get it” has not met any of the marketers I’ve dealt with in my career. I’ve yet to have an exchange with a client that hasn’t taught me something.

Colleagues: The people I’m surrounded with at the office keep getting smarter. Maybe they’re eating acai berries. So much of what I’ve learned comes from them, whether it’s from the work they do for clients or informal emails about crazy memes that get passed around.

Public relations professionals: The great PR pros constantly help me do my job better, both as a writer and in my agency role. I reward them when possible with mentions of their clients here and elsewhere, but there are always many more companies that don’t get mentioned that still shape my views of media, marketing, and technology.

Entrepreneurs: One of the best parts of the job is that I’m constantly in touch with architects, builders, creators, and dreamers. Privately and publicly, I give some a hard time, challenging them to meet the needs of both consumers and marketers. What I don’t say enough privately or publicly is how much I respect what the vast majority of them are doing to carry out their visions.

Venture capitalists: They have played an increasing role behind the scenes. Consummate connectors, they often make introductions to startups long before they’re ready for the spotlight here.

Family: Whether it’s my oldest nephew switching among mobile chat apps while living abroad, my sister setting up a Facebook page for her new business, or my 95-year-old grandmother getting hooked on the Kindle, they’re a constant source of insights and serendipity. This is especially true for the family members whom I haven’t hidden or blocked on Facebook.

Conference organizers: I get to dozens of conferences every year. I’m indebted to quite a number of the organizers for bringing people together, namely people such as: fellow columnist Cathy Taylor who runs MediaPost’s social events, Toby Daniels of Social Media Week, Hugh Forrest at South by Southwest, Eli Mandelbaum at PluggedIn Ventures, Steve Etzler and Maria Feola at the Business Development Institute, Gordon Platt at Gotham Media Ventures, Steve Leon at ShowStoppers, Tonia Ries at Realtime, Victor Harwood at Digital Hollywood, and many others I’m inadvertently omitting.

Conference speakers and attendees: I love learning from great presenters, but there’s often even more value derived from chance conversations at the snack table. That’s just one of the reasons I spend so much time at the snack table.

The media: Whether it’s the mainstream press or committed bloggers, the best journalists and outlets are adding clarity to breaking news or unearthing important stories. This column wouldn’t be possible without them.

Editors: Phyllis, you rock.

Students: At least every couple of months, I’ll wind up presenting to undergraduate or graduate classes or student associations. It’s one of my favorite professional pastimes. The questions from students are far more candid than those I’ve encountered at any other event I’ve taken part in, and the rooms are overwhelmingly filled with people who really want to learn.

Technology powerhouses: It’s good to have some consistency with this job. Certain companies like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have been generous with their time and increasingly proactive outreach; their generosity with beer and sugar is always appreciated too.

The cats of CatPaint: I wonder how many people buy iPhones just because that’s the only way to use CatPaint. How sad it must be for Android owners -- those poor saps who can’t put cats over all their photos. It may sound trivial, but CatPaint is precisely the kind of emerging technology that taps into key trends (mobile photography, social media, putting cats all over stuff) and reminds me why it’s so critical to be a consumer first and a marketer second.

Readers: It’s the classic “tree falling in the woods paradigm.” Without you, none of this would matter, so whether you read every word every week or just see this forwarded to you on occasion, I’m constantly grateful for your attention.

It was Gertrude Stein who said, “Silent gratitude isn't very much to anyone.” So, thank you, and thanks to so many more who make this whole endeavor possible by contributing in some way to the 363 Insider columns so far and the countless editions to come.

Ten Mobile Social Trends for 2012

10 Mobile Social Trends for 2012 and Beyond: Customer Engagement Technology World 2011 Keynote

View more presentations from David Berkowitz

Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

Ten Mobile Social Trends for 2012

How prepared are you for the mobile social tidal wave, tsunami, hurricane, and  Bieberquake that will hit us in 2012?

You better get ready. Gartner forecasts that there will be 7.4 billion mobile connections in 2015, when the Earth’s population is expected to be a mere 7.2 billion. And you know what everyone’s going to be doing with their 1.03 mobile connections per person? They’ll be undressing catalog models with augmented reality apps. But when they’re not doing that, they’ll probably be engaging with some kind of social media.

Following a keynote I just delivered at Customer Engagement Technology World 2011 on mobile social media, which you can view above or download at bit.ly/cetw2011, here are the ten trends to follow. You can find even more examples of these trends in the talk, with links in the appendix.

Here are the top ten mobile social trends:

1) Social Fashion

Why it matters: Mobile experiences can change the shopping experience to provide real-time feedback from friends, experts, and sometimes brands.

Watch out: Retailers and fashion brands might not love the real-time feedback when it’s negative.

Best in show: Go Try It On is one of my favorite digital experiences, especially for an app I don’t need personally (being married gives me all the real-time feedback that I need, and then some).

2) Tag, You’re It

Why it matters: Tagging is cool again thanks to Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and other services built on tags, let alone the humble hashtag popularized by Twitter.

Watch out: Keep tags simple and relevant. No one will use a tag just because a marketer tells them to do it.

Best in show: If you haven’t tried Pinterest yet, you’re missing one of the great phenomena migrating from trendsetters to the mainstream.

3) Interactive TV

Why it matters: Interactive TV is here. Almost all mobile internet users access their mobile devices while watching TV, and most of that activity involves socializing.

Watch out: Check-ins and other gimmicks won’t have the same staying power as experiences that provide relevant content and active communities.

Best in show: There are some great contenders here, but I like IntoNow to use during TV programs and Shazam during the ads.

4) Q&A

Why it matters: Mobile social media makes it possible to get instant feedback from local experts.

Watch out: Very few local apps scale, especially for real-time experiences.

Best in show: Opinionaided is addictive. More than 100 people bothered voting on whether I had something in my teeth. Oddly, they couldn’t agree.

5) Putting ME in RecomMEndations

Why it matters: We’re not all the same, so how come recommendations are the same for everyone?

Watch out: Few services do personalization well, either because the social graph data is limited or the personalization takes too much work.

Best in show: Foursquare still nails this better than any newcomer I’ve tried so far. Seeing where your friends have been and what they recommended is both powerful and rewarding

6) Social Context

Why it matters: For people sharing their location, you can find out who is nearby and what you have in common with them.

Watch out: Many find this creepy, even if it’s all opt-in.

Best in show: Sonar has become one of a handful of apps that I use regularly; it’s perfect for habitual location-sharers.

7) Geo-Gaming

Why it matters: Mobile games can be far more fun if they’re based around real-world locations.

Watch out: A lot of people just want to kill pigs and cut ropes.

Best in show: I’m addicted to Traveler’s Quest for burying and finding virtual treasure all over the globe, but Life is Crime is also a well done version of Mafia Wars using real venues, and the latter runs on Android.

8) Augmented REALity

Why it matters: Merging digital experiences with the real world offer imaginative new ways for people and brands to tell their stories. New applications will have people using AR to find people, not just places.

Watch out: So far, it’s still mostly gimmicks.

Best in show: The Airwalk virtual pop-up store by Goldrun may be the best AR campaign run so far.

9) Near Field Community

Why it matters: Near field communication (NFC) becomes far more interesting when it taps into social media.

Watch out: Hey, Jack, in Springfield! Can we borrow your phone? The rest of us 300 million Americans are waiting for our turn to try NFC since our handsets don’t have the hardware.

Best in show: Look how excited this guy from Engadget is to buy a Coke from a vending machine just because he’s using NFC. Now imagine if there was an incentive for him to buy one for a friend.

10) Facial Recognition

Why it matters: Mobile handsets are just getting powerful enough with fast enough connections to process facial recognition. Whatever you’ve seen so far using webcams will seem like child’s play.

Watch out: It better be 1,000% opt-in or people will flip out. And it doesn’t play well in places with more sensitive privacy concerns, like schools, strip clubs, or Europe.

Best in show: Face.com has processed 34 billion faces so far and is just getting started.

Face.com isn’t the only one. We’re all just getting started. How are you planning to use mobile social media in the months and year ahead? I’m excited for the opportunities we’ll have to learn from each other.

 

What You Won't Like about Google+ Pages

This column was originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider.

For more perspective on Google+, check out my post in Ad Age on Why Google+ Isn't Just Another Facebook, as well as 360i's White Paper on Google+ Brand Pages.

On to today's column...

What You Won't Like about Google+ Pages

If you haven’t set up a Google+ Page for your brand yet, you’re missing out on the Internet’s new favorite pastime: complaining about Google+ Pages.

Brands should have a lot to complain about. Marketers all over the world paying any attention to social media have been eagerly awaiting Google+ Pages. Google took a few months to release Pages, and what went live is a scaled-back version that will satisfy some smaller businesses but will underwhelm large brands accustomed to other social platforms.                  

For brands that can cope with Google’s growing pains or that can wait for Pages to evolve, most of the current limitations should fade in the coming months. Meanwhile, early adopters of Pages will have their headaches, and the kvetching will keep on coming.

Many kvetches will be objectively sound. There are shortcomings to Pages today, and some of these drawbacks may linger for a while. For a balanced look, though, here are five things you won’t like about Google+ Pages, and why they won’t be that big a deal down the road.

1) You’ll have to learn a new language. You may have learned a lot of the language if you experienced Google+ as a user, with all the plussing and circles and hangouts and streams. Did you know that if you made a list of all the terms introduced by social media companies and services, it would fill up almost half the space of an Oxford English Dictionary? I just made that up, but if that statistic sounds plausible to you, then you won’t enjoy decoding a new lexicon.

Why it’s not such a big deal: There are about  10 words to learn. Maybe it’ll be 20 within a year. That’s the equivalent of one week’s worth of homework when you studied for third-grade vocabulary tests.

2) You’ll reach the same people through Google+ that you’ll reach in other services. Yes, there will be overlap, and this will be truer for some brands than others. So now you’ll have to spend even more time reaching all of these people you’ve been able to reach through existing platforms.

Why it’s not such a big deal: Regardless of which social media services your brands are active with, it’s a safe bet that only a small minority of your audience will see any individual post. This gives you another way to make sure your messages are received by people who want to receive them.

3) You’ll reach entirely new people through Google+. Who are they, and why are they following you there when they had all these other ways to find you before? Can’t they just consolidate around your Facebook page so you can get back to your day job?

Why it’s not such a big deal: Google has been slow to share details about the audience using Google+, but in time Google should wind up shedding more light on who these people are. In the meantime, ask your followers what they want to get out of your Google+ Page.

4) There’s no geotargeting posts. Brands love to localize content. It’s what they do at brand marketer parties after playing Pin the KPI on the ROI. Facebook has allowed targeting posts by geography for years, and Google knows a few things about geotargeting. What gives?

Why it’s not such a big deal: You still can’t do this on Twitter. That hasn’t prevented millions of marketers from asking, “What’s my Twitter strategy?”

5) Where are the analytics? The official Google blog post announcing Google+ pages does not reference analytics. The help files for Google+ include references to “sports,” “coffee,” and “AdWords,” but there’s nothing on analytics. If Google is going to compete with Facebook for brands’ attention, analytics is the way to do it.

Why it’s not such a big deal: Analytics is one thing Google does unequivocally well. Remember, before Google acquired Urchin and turned it into Google Analytics, Web analytics were either meager or expensive. Thanks to Google, marketers and publishers of all sizes have had access to a robust analytics suite for free. Expect Google to turn this into a major competitive advantage for Google+. This analytics arms race will also lead to much better offerings from Facebook, Twitter, and others.

Expect to hear all sorts of other complaints. Most of them will be marketing folks sitting in the back of the Googlemobile asking, “Are we there yet?” And then Google’s going to turn around from the driver’s seat, yelling, “If you don’t cut it out this instant, I’m going to bring you back to Google Buzz!” That’s the cue for everyone to buckle up. When Google steps on the gas, Google+ Pages are going to get a lot more fun.

 

Checking In On The Check-In Class Of 2010

Keanu's sad because none of his friends are checking in anymore

Checking In On The Check-In Class Of 2010
originally published in MediaPost

Remember when check-ins were the future of social media? Remember when Foursquare was the next Facebook, Gowalla was the next Foursquare, and Whrrl was the next Gowalla? Yeah, I’m glad we’ve moved on, too.

Yet it wasn’t long ago that these check-in apps were so prevalent that I used eight of them concurrently, and then showed how they differed by including a celebrity persona that embodied each one. Things have changedm though. At last week’s OMMA Social event in San Francisco, I kept winding up in conversations with people wondering what happened to the check-in craze. The hype has faded, leaving check-ins in the proverbial chasm that must be crossed for the activity to become mainstream.

So what happened to the one-time pioneers of the check-in world? Here’s a review of the Check-In Class of January 2010.

Buzzd (Lindsay Lohan)

2010: “Buzzd is a little too cool for me so I don't use it as much as the others, but if you're more into bottle service than cupcake trucks, party on.”

Today: Buzzd quietly faded as a consumer app, and founder Nihal Mehta pivoted the business. Today it’s LocalResponse, “the world’s first cross-platform check-in based ad network,” allowing marketers to reach consumers publicly sharing their locations (full disclosure: I’m a LocalResponse advisor).

CauseWorld (Lance Armstrong)

2010: “Every time you check in somewhere, largely at retailers and restaurants, you earn karma points that you can donate to a number of charities, all thanks to sponsors.”

Today: CauseWorld is gone, but its good karma has been reincarnated into Shopkick. Now, points are earned not just for checking in but for scanning objects at a store, creating more opportunities for marketers to reach consumers. With 2.5 million users so far, it has achieved more success than many check-in apps ever did, though it still has a long way to go before it scales.

Foursquare (Ashton Kutcher)

2010: “Foursquare is responsible for a lot of how we think about mobile social media, from ‘merit’ badges to local advertising. It's tough to say how well Foursquare will play to the masses, as the whole idea of checking in creeps some people out.”

Today: Foursquare remains the king of check-ins, which sounds great except when you find out the rest of the royal family either contracted cholera or left to join the clergy. Foursquare has grown, notching 10 million users, but most people still don’t get the point of checking in. I still love Foursquare and look forward to its next act. It needs that next act, though.

Gowalla (Anna Kendrick)

2010: “You might be thinking, ‘Anna who?’ That's the reaction I still get when talking about Gowalla, even as it racks up investments and increases its global appeal.”

Today: Gowalla squandered its opportunity. You know when I knew it was dead? At South by Southwest, the hallmark tech event in Gowalla’s home city of Austin, no one was using it. Think I’m exaggerating? Check Google Trends on Gowalla versus Foursquare. Gowalla flatlined so much that you can hardly tell it’s still declining. I was wrong. Gowalla wasn’t Anna Kendrick. It’s more like Quinn Culkin, the younger sister of Macauley who had a couple brief acting roles before fading from public life.

Loopt (Mark-Paul Gosselaar, circa "Saved by the Bell")

2010: “Sure, it was in Apple's ads for awhile and may have a passionate fan base. But it seems short on features compared to its competition… It's the one I keep forgetting about.”

Today: It still exists. Every now and then, it inks some marketing deal. But it remains as forgettable as ever. Oddly though, if you check Google Trends, it seems like its entire fan base is in the Netherlands. Veel succes, Loopt!

MyTown by Booyah (Ellen DeGeneres)

2010: “MyTown has the most fun with location-based checkins… In MyTown, you buy properties and upgrade them, and then you keep collecting rent while finding new items to boost your points.”

Today: MyTown went from a market leader to a ghost town. Following a slew of frequent updates in 2010, Booyah’s only announcement between December 2010 and September 2011 was hiring a COO. Now it’s resurfacing, having just released MyTown 2 last week. Veel succes, Booyah! (Dutch is the fifth most popular language for “MyTown” searches; the Dutch sure love experimenting.)

Whrrl (Dame Helen Mirren)

2010: “Whrrl's not the newest or the hottest of the apps… It's not a must-use for me...”

Today: In April 2011, Groupon acquired Whrrl creator Pelago, naming Pelago CEO Jeff Holden its SVP of Product Management. Unlike Groupon’s share price, you can bet Holden’s undervalued. My favorite thing about Whrrl was the team behind it, and I wish the old Pelago crew the best.

Yelp (Michael Jordan -- on the Chicago White Sox)

2010: “It has the chance to be the Michael Jordan (Chicago Bulls style) of review sites, if it doesn't get crushed by Google. But now it's trying a new game, adding check-ins. While users love it for reviews, the notion of checking in is not part of its core purpose.”

Today: It’s not a check-in app and never was. Yelp’s growth remains meteoric; just check its own infographic from this summer. It needs all the success it can muster, because now that Google’s acquired Zagat, Yelp has bigger competition than ever.

If you’re keeping score, there’s hardly a resounding endorsement for check-ins. But there’s more to the story.

First, it’s odd that I didn’t include former check-in star Brightkite in the round-up, but it killed that functionality late in 2010 to focus on group texting.

The column also ran before the launch of SCVNGR, which includes check-ins but really hinges on rewards for location-based challenges. Even in that short window, it has quasi-pivoted, launching mobile payments spin-off LevelUp, though SCVNGR remains alive and well.

The biggest change to happen during this span is Facebook introducing check-ins in August 2010 and killing off the feature a year later. Tellingly though, Facebook made it much easier to share one’s location with every post. Thus, the check-in is dead but location is much more central to its functionality.

If you’re overwhelmed by this review, imagine using all these apps. I noted in the original post, “It gets to be a problem when you start interacting with the apps so much that you're not interacting with the people in front of you.” That’s a problem that is only getting worse. Yet that’s an issue that’s much bigger than check-ins. And on the flipside, the marketing opportunities for mobile social media are much bigger than just check-ins. The era of the check-in may have been short-lived, but the era of brands creating meaningful experiences through the combination of mobile, social and location-based marketing is just beginning.