Tag Archives: Facebook

Facebook to launch “Places”

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Sorry for the radio silence over the past month, but it’s been holiday season for me. But, back to it. You may have seen the news that Facebook is set to launch a feature called “Places”. If you’re a user of FourSquare, this is Facebook’s play in the location-based networking space, only I expect it’ll be bigger and better.

I’m a FourSquare user and I like to check-in fairly regularly, but I have to say that after the initial buzz It’s become more of a reference point. What I mean by this is that it’s an addition to my update, for example I’ll use it to update Twitter and Facebook with what I’m doing and where I am. The core idea behind FourSquare is the gaming and rewards aspect which seems to be sadly lacking in the UK on the whole. Maybe this is because fewer brands have got involved here, but it does lead to the service being somewhat half-baked.

Nevertheless, I think that location-based networking has a big future and what better enabler that Facebook. It already has a huge user base, a number of brands are involved globally and the branding/adverting model is proven. From what I’ve heard, Places is being soft-launched in the US at this point, but I suspect it won’t be long before it makes it across the pond to us

10 million fans go Gaga for Gaga

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You’ve probably read that Lady Gaga became the first living person to go past 10 million fans on Facebook, dethroning Barrack Obama and the ever colourful Britney Spears as the most fanned person on the network. So what is the key to such success for Lady Gaga?

First off, if you look at the Facebook page on it’s own, the first thing that strikes you is how developed the page is. It offers fans a complete experience that goes beyond that of a standard website to do what only social networks can do – engage.  There’s a complete tour listing, track listing and even an e-commerce section. In addition, this is layered with regular engagement by Lady Gaga. For example, when she reached the 10 million mark on Facebook, she posted “Thank u so much little monsters for following me on Facebook! 10 million friends of mine who are now connected to each other.” In addition, there are a number of videos aimed directly at her fans in the social space.

But it’s not just Facebook that makes her such a force in the social world, it’s the fact that she cleverly weaves together the different platforms available to her to tell her story.  On Twitter she has over 4,790,900 follows, on YouTube she has 313823 subscribers and around 126,922,521 video views. Underpinning all of this is the fact that she’s probably one of the hardest working celebrities from a global perspective, she’s not just US-centric, she has a far wider appeal.

She has cleverly used social media to tell her “brand” story as she wants it told, while underpinning this with countless PR and promotional efforts in individual markets. What this means is that while she might not physically be in your country, she’s never far away. While she might not be looking back at you from the cover of a magazine, she’s at the top of your Facebook news feed. What she’s developed is a continuous brand story that she (and not the mainstream media) owns in order to constantly stay relevant to her fans and always be top of mind. If I may say so, genius…..

Will Brazil 2014 be all about the mobile?

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For me, the World Cup is by far and away the premier sporting event in the world. It’s a sort of global carnival with local charm and flavour, featuring the world’s best players. So, it’s easy to see why it represents a huge marketing opportunity for brands. An interesting thing about World Cup marketing campaigns is that act as a snapshot to consumer media consumption.

Take Germany 2006, social media and social networking was still yet to envelop the masses. Sure, we had YouTube, but Facebook was not the huge entity it is today and I think Twitter had just launched. So, naturally, campaigns were more skewed towards traditional media. Fast forward to 2010 and social media and networks has played a very large part in many brand marketing campaigns, but I will say not as much as I thought it would. For example, I thought more would be made of Twitter and geo-location networks like FourSquare and Gowalla. Which brings me to the point of the post – will Brazil 2014 be all about the mobile?

It would seem the be next big opportunity. We’re spending more and more time on our mobile devices and they increase in sophistication almost on a monthly basis. Networks such as Twitter were born with mobile in mind, but it has to an extent migrated onto desktop-bound machines. However, the true power of Twitter lives in the mobile phone as it allows instant sharing. And from that, we move to geo-loaction networks like FourSquare and Gowalla which are increasing in popularity at a rapid rate. Not only is there a huge opportunity via social networks, but also through app development and other forms of mobile marketing, such as live streaming – imagine having goal-replays sent to your phone while you’re at the stadium.

My opinion is that Brazil 2014 will be the biggest social media World Cup ever and we’ll see major brands invest heavily in mobile campaigns as a way of getting to the consumer.  Those that want to come out on top will figure out two things: 1) How do I get into the match experience with the consumer, 2) How do I get them closer to what they want, so that I become an integral part of that experience

Celebrities, Forbes cares if you’re social

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If you were checking out the Forbes annual most powerful celebrities list, you may have noticed an additional ranking criteria – social. Other ranking factors include things like pay, TV/radio rank, press rank and web rank. According to Forbes, the move comes predominantly as a result of the growth of Facebook and Twitter and not necessarily as a result of their wider social footprint.

While this may look a little gimmicky on the surface, there’s actually much more to this than just who’s the most popular on Facebook and Twitter. From a brand perspective, rankings like this could enable you to make smarter decisions when looking to sign-up brand ambassadors for social media campaigns. After all, what’s the point of signing-up the top ranking celebrity from a TV/radio perspective when you’re looking to deploy a social media campaign heavily focused on Twitter.

In addition, we could also start and see social media take on much more significant role within the negotiations between brands and celebrities. For example, the number and frequency of tweets, how branded they are, what type of content is to be shared, will it be purely 1-way, or are there expectations around engagement. Of course, with all these elements there comes a price……if you’re a top 10 social media ranking celebrity, that price suddenly becomes easier for you to negotiate.

Coca-Cola scores big with World Cup tweets

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Only the second company to purchase a Promoted Tweet advertising package, Coca-Cola has reported seeing some “phenomenal” results, securing around 85 million views within the first day of their World Cup campaign. Whilst they haven’t revealed how much the entire package costs, it has been hinted that it’s not been that expensive compared to other types of online advertising.

Since its launch in April, there have been only two companies run Promoted Tweets advertising packages, with Pixar being the first with a campaign for Toy Story 3.  Early reports on performance are very good with engagement rates up at around 6 per cent, which is fairly impressive stuff in the world of online advertising.

I think a lot of people were a little unsure about this when it was first launched, but the early signs are looking very positive. Brands with a passion for cutting-edge techniques and those that are brave enough to be in that early adopter pool should seriously consider getting involved. However, in just the same way that brands saw so much success in the early days of Facebook’s branded platform, they’ll need to think about the whole package and produce a brand story that can move fluidly between owned, bought and earned.

Is Facebook about to give YouTube a bloody nose?

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According to ComScore, more Facebook users than ever are watching videos on the site and this has been growing at a fairly healthy rate over the past 12 months. In fact, Facebook could end the year second behind YouTube in terms of reach for online video providers. The data shows that video viewing figures are at around 41.3 million per month as of April 2010 representing huge yearly growth at over 200 per cent. The interesting facet about those numbers, it’s that only counts the video hosted on Facebook itself, not YouTube videos viewed on Facebook……

Mirroring a similar trend to the “social search” post from yesterday, Facebook really is turning out to be the King of Content, but could we soon see them take on the might of YouTube when it comes to video hosting? Hey, it’s possible. The question to ask is this – how can they take on an open platform like YouTube from behind the closed doors of their network? Could we start and see a partially open Facebook where more and more content is placed outside of the confines of your network? With figures like these, I guess this is all going to be (a lot of) food for thought for the guys and gals at Facebook

Social search alive and well in the UK

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Reports on WebUser today show that traffic to social networking sites outstripped that for search engines for the first time ever. According to the WebUser article, Facebook accounted for 55 per cent of all UK-based social networking traffic while Google led from the search side. So does this mean that the muted social search is actually gaining traction?

It’s often been argued (and I agree) that social networks are increasingly used as a source for news – both news on what their network is up to and more general news. However, I don’t think that people naturally gravitate to social networks with the intention on searching for news or information – I think they just find it there. And there’s a reason for that – they’re tapping into to a highly relevant pool of their friends and contacts that are naturally sharing information that’s interesting to them.

So, what am I getting at? Social networks are becoming one-stop information sharing points. While people don’t specifically head to Facebook to search for something, they might find that they are naturally being served with information that slowly but surely makes that search list smaller and smaller, probably without the individual actually being aware of it.

FarmVille crosses the mobile divide

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Amongst the various announcements at yesterday’s Apple keynote, one perhaps didn’t get the attention it deserved, and that was the announcement Zynga’s wildly successful FarmVille game is to go mobile with the iPhone 4 being the first platform. But why is this so significant? Well, I can tell you that as a social media and digital communications specialist, people like me have been very interested in working with Zynga to tap into their huge user base.

Casual gaming has always been something that has attracted vast numbers of users, but brands have found it very hard to find relevant and sympathetic ways of engaging with these audiences and have often jarred with the culture of these games. FarmVille on the other hand has two major things going for it – first of, it was built as a Facebook application and it’s where is draws the majority of its user base from and second, it has a huge female user base.



Not so long ago, FarmVille opened up certain advertising elements within the Facebook application and later on the spin off site. But with the mobile device continuing to eat away at traditional desktop-based surfing, the potential advertising revenue starts to flow away to the mobile platforms as well. Which is why, just as OS 4.0 comes into being with the iAd platform, it’s an extremely smart move for the guys at Zynga and perhaps a move that will become much more significant over the coming months.

UK Electoral Commission finds a friend in Facebook

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As campaigning for the UK General Election moves into full-swing, the Electoral Commission has a few other things to worry about, namely making sure that the number of registered voters increases. In a move targeted at getting more registered youth voters, the Electoral Commission is working with Facebook to target unregistered voters using the network.

Facebook Democracy UK page
This weekend, users who visit the site will be asked if they have registered to vote. Those that aren’t will be sent to a page linked to the Electoral Commission that lets them enter details online and download a registration form. There was estimated 3.5 million people that were eligible to vote in England and Wales in 2001 that were not registered.

In a quote given to the BBC, Electoral Commission spokesman Clinton Proud said “If you’re not registered, you can’t vote – it’s very simple. By downloading and printing a form through Facebook, users can now make sure that they are able to have their say on election day.” Interestingly, UK citizens cannot register to vote online. By law, a written signature is still required to register.

Blippy – let’s take a look in your shopping bag

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Blippy, if you haven’t experienced it yet, it a social network entirely based on your shopping habits. Sounds like a shopaholics dream, doesn’t it. It’s part of an explosion of social networks that track, catalogue and share different aspects of your day-to-day life. Blippy links your online shopping with a social networking back-end so that you can share information about the things you’ve bought online.

From memory, you can link iTunes, eBay, PayPal and a host of other options. I wasn’t too sure at first, but once I started using it I started to see the benefits. For example, I rented a movie from iTunes on Saturday and this transaction appeared on my Blippy feed and also on my Facebook and Twitter feed (which I’d linked) and within a few minutes a number of friends had commented on it. Now, I enjoyed the movie, so I can actually go back and rate it – letting my friends know what I thought and thus creating user-generated reviews based on my own shopping habits within a network of friends. Powerful stuff