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Thank you Benito’s Hat & Facebook

May 3, 2012 By

The highlight of my week so far has to be the Benito’s Hat Facebook offer I redeemed – sad but true. I have a love for burritos and at least every other week I take the short walk to Benito’s Hat to get my regular fix so you can imagine my joy at when they promoted their ‘free amigios’ deal as a Facebook offer this week.

It was the first time I had come across a Facebook Offer which appear to be an evolved and simplified version of the old ‘deals’ which Facebook used to run. However unlike the deals there is no prerequisite to check in or take an action in order to redeem – the offer simply came up in my newsfeed, (as I already ‘like’ Benito’s Hat) I clicked redeem and an e-mail was sent to me with the offer. Even in the offer e-mail itself I was able to share it with friends which brings in the social sharing aspect further.

I feel these offers on Facebook open the opportunity for a wide  range of business to use  and I’m sure I’ll come across loads of examples over the next few months. However  the reason why I loved this one so much is that is stays true to the fun persona of Benito’s Hat which is what every brand should do across any social platform. The offer doesn’t need to be huge but needs to be simple and stay true to the brand whilst rewarding existing and loyal customers.

So thank you Benito’s Hat & Facebook!

Useful article:- http://allfacebook.com/facebook-offers-tagtile_b85766

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With:

(Google +) = (- Interest)

April 23, 2012 By

My self-imposed break from Facebook and Twitter is over.

As part of a one man (not so social) experiment, for the last week I haven’t logged in to either social platform as I endeavoured to become a Google+ convert.  To be honest, this little experiment was long overdue having ‘upgraded’ (current Google users don’t ‘join, but upgrade to G+) when it first launched, but never done anything with my ‘account’.

So, spurred on by reading about Google+ undergoing a revamp and boasting of its 170m users, I decided it was time to see what it was all about.

Whilst I understand (and Google later reiterated to me in person) that G+ isn’t supposed to be a like for like replacement for Facebook or Twitter, I felt the best way to truly appreciate what the platform could offer would be to give it my exclusive “social attention”.  Google + Google Plus

I chose to treat using G+ as any other punter would (as opposed to scrutinising it as a Digital Planner might) and to be honest the first few days passed without incident – literally.  Given that only a handful of my friends outside of work are on G+, my ‘stream’ remained unchanged.  Ok, so Mashable and Richard Branson had plenty to say – but to be honest that isn’t what I want in my personal social space.

I asked people in my ‘circles’ if anyone else was using Google+ “No – I don’t get it” and “Yes, but only because you sent me a message” came 2 responses.  I was starting to feel a little isolated and was wondering what has happening on Facebook.

As the experiment went into days 3 and 4, what did become apparent was how engrained the other social platforms had become into the social ecosystem.  I felt like I was cheating on Google when I checked my LinkedIn account to be confronted with Twitter updates from my contacts and everywhere I went I was being asked to ‘share this on Facebook’, or ‘login in using Facebook’ – but I couldn’t.

By chance on the 5th day of the experiment I was at an industry conference where a guy called Kerem Atasoy  (+kerem atasoy) spoke about how Google+ can be used by retailers and to be honest he did very little to convince me that Google’s dabble in the social world is going to be the soaring a success.  I collared Kerem at the end of the conference and outlined how I had been solely using Google+ for the past few days and asked if he could tell me how many other people in the UK only were using it – “Only Larry (The Lamb? Grayson?) knows that” was the response.  (Out of interest Kerem himself has only posted on Google+ 3 times in the last 3 months).

My interest was waning and I found myself digesting more than my average amount of daily digital news as I found that this (outside of a handful of brand pages) was the only real content I could find of interest.  Yes, a lot of big (and some smaller) brands (H&M, Burberry, Intel, Manchester United) have jumped on the Google+ bandwagon, have lots of people in their circles and appear to be making a fair fist of things – but it felt very much as if I was an outsider looking in, rather than it being the social/interactive platform I was hoping for.

Many of these brands have gone to great lengths to make some really attractive looking pages and update regularly, giving those people that are interested much to digest – but at the moment it just isn’t mainstream enough to be of interest to the mainstream – clearly seen by the lack of responses to most posts.

In summary, Google will be the first to admit they are behind the curve when it comes to social.  Facebook and Twitter stole a march on them some time ago and they are now trying to play catch up.

Whilst Google+ has some nice features (Circles and Hangouts especially), I think they are going to struggle to compete with Facebook and become a social media tool that is used by the masses.  The current awareness campaign they are running may help turn a few heads and increase uptake amongst a few (hundred?) thousand of the more curious and tech savvy amongst us but I’ll be surprised if it ever comes close to being as widely used as Facebook.

Admittedly for fans (and employees) of Google, G+ does help close the loop on their many product extensions but in my view it just feels a bit too complicated for the average online user – there is too much for people to get their heads around and I think this counts against it.  If you look at how simple other social platforms are to set up, understand and use, it just feels that Google have overcooked it a bit.

For brands that have the know-how and budgets, it is bound offer rewards if it is managed properly  – as no doubt Google+ brand pages will rank better in natural search and see other social platforms slide down into oblivion and it may well be this fact that many brands will consider when looking at their brand pages.  But on the flipside, this is yet another social platform that requires upkeep and moderation – putting extra pressure on all but the most socially active and well-resourced brands.

I’d like to say that I will continue to use Google+, but until less of the digital pluralists and more of my friends and the brands I am interested in are signed up – I won’t be.

Feel free to see what I don’t get up to :- +john kimbell

 

Useful links :-

http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/

http://mashable.com/2012/02/09/hm-google-plus-brand-pages/

http://on.mash.to/xWVjIb

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/23/google_is_fiddling_with_the_google_plus_stats/

 

 

 

Filed Under: Display, Search Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , ,

The digital world in April

May 6, 2011 By

There are a number of daily digital developments and internally we always look to keep up to date with important and interesting stories within the digital and marketing space. We know that it isn’t always possible for everyone to keep a track of the key stories so every month we will compile what we feel are the top stories of the past month and post them on our blog to share in case anyone missed any notable developments. There are obviously hundreds and hundreds of stories but below is just a selection of key stories for the month of April.

Google launched their new +1 social search service as their major attempt to become more social. Here is a useful video explaining what it is and our thoughts on the development are here. Critically this will benefit consumers who search via their Google Accounts to  ‘leave their seal of approval’ on relevant ads for their friends to see.

Facebook have turned their attention to marketers and developed Facebook Studio as a platform to showcase creativity. Here is our take on it  and we are hopeful that it will lead to a greater pool of knowledge but it remains to be seen…

Behavioural targeting was once again thrust into the limelight as EU legislation is due to come into play later in May. To summarise, it essentially means that businesses who collect and store cookie data from visitors to their websites should gain consent for this moving forward – with the ultimate aim to protect consumers online. This is likely to have an impact on behavioural advertising moving forward and the Online Behavioural Advertising Framework has been launched as a self regulatory initiative. There are sure to be many developments over the coming weeks and here is our view on it.

The BBC have united with a number of commercial radio stations to launch an unified Radio Player that allows users to search by station, location, programme, presenter and interest on one site rather than having to go to each individual site to change the station. This will by no means be a challenge to offline radio but the ultimate aim is to make consumption of online radio easier. In terms of online advertising for the player, we still need to go to each sales house as there is no unified sales point as yet. The player is in its infancy but it will be interesting to monitor developments and listening figures over the first year to see how it evolves.

Online music service Spotify announced that users of its free service would be restricted to ten hours of listening a month with songs playable up to five times only free of charge. The move comes as they look to move people to their premium subscription account (in which there is access to exclusive tracks and also unlimited streaming) and as they also announced their plans to rival iTunes. The move coincided with this week’s nmain which research shows only 3% of people subscribe to music streaming services and shows the reluctance to pay for online content.

And finally, this last story isn’t a digital development but it is a campaign we came across and liked. Air France recently took to the streets of Manhattan with a free food gourmet truck which was promoted via their social media platforms and just demonstrated how brands can cross the bridge between online and offline ‘social’ campaigns

Filed Under: Display, Search Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

Facebook Studio brings innovation to agencies

April 21, 2011 By

On Tuesday Facebook launched Facebook Studio and I believe it takes us towards the path of sharing ideas in the (sometimes) secretive world of social marketing.

Facebook have responded to the marketing community’s calls for a greater explanation of the advertising tools available and examples of successful social media campaigns across the platform. Studio is still in its infancy, but hopefully over time it will develop into a useful tool for marketers and agencies to use for inspiration and education as well as a platform to showcase great campaigns.

Working at a smaller digital agency means we don’t always get the attention of the Facebook sales reps in Dublin to keep us in the loop of the latest developments and success stories across the network.  As a result we keep up to date by regularly reading trade press sites, attending seminars and undertaking our own desk research. Studio essentially just adds another ‘layer’ to this research but in a collaborative manner.

Ultimately the success and growth of this platform is dependent on us (the digital media community) sharing ideas and being prepared to be more transparent by compiling case studies and results that are accessible by others.

I hope that ‘Studio’ develops into a showcase of successful case studies for an array of advertisers rather than a shop window for large advertisers and creative agencies with huge budgets – but only time will tell.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: ,

Becoming Social – Inside Out

April 6, 2011 By

Having been to a number of IAB workshops over recent months as well as the Social Media World Forum earlier this week, I’ve heard a lot of opinions and views about how brands need to ‘become social’.

We all know that social media is growing in importance with marketers and as a result there has been a rush of brands investing in social media campaigns.  However, this at times has been done with brands not taking a step back and realising that in order to implement a truly strategic social media presence, they need to fully understand and embrace the medium – essentially becoming social themselves inside and out – before engaging with the outside world.

Why is this so important?  Primarily brands need to ensure a consistent tone and message across all facets of the brand from the marketing department all the way through to those who are face to face with consumers on a daily basis. We talk a lot about consumers collaborating with one another and interacting with brands but what about how the brand interacts internally?

Last year we had an example where one of the Navigate team went to Domino’s to claim a free pizza which was promoted via foursquare. My colleague was initially denied his free pizza (despite showing the relevant offer to the Domino’s restaurant manager) however after protesting and several calls to the head office, the offer was verified and the free pizza was redeemed. This is just one example, but it amplifies the importance of sharing knowledge across all levels of a business – not just the marketing department.  Only when this is achieved can a brand truly be seen as being authentic and true – not only externally, but internally too.

Essentially, ‘being social’ isn’t all about investing hundreds and thousands of pounds into social platforms.

We need to strive for a step change in how brands understand social media and steer towards internal collaboration from the top down.  Without this, we face the situation where a brand is portraying one image via social media but when it comes to the product/service itself there is a huge disparity.

I understand that this is not as easy as it sounds especially for larger brands but in the long term an investment (not necessarily financial) is required – particularly where face to face interaction with the consumers is key.

I think we all know ‘doing’ social media isn’t something that should tag along at the end of a digital campaign but an ongoing internal social commitment is required in the long term. Social is still seen by many brands as ‘something we do’ rather than ‘something we are’ and we all have a responsibility to help this change.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , ,