Using Twitter as a Marketing Research Focus Group

Twitter lends itself to chat, and so long as you have a dedicated community it’s a wonderful source to tap into to get feedback from your biggest fans, as Volvo US have found over the past year.

Initially their Twitter chat groups were focused on asking the community about vehicle attributes, with occasional appearances by guest speakers and the CEO. However, with the recently launched monthly #Swedespeak Volvo have started asking for feedback about their creative efforts BEFORE they are finalised in what might just be a brand first.

Specifically they are interested in gauging reaction to the initial ideas in an umbrella campaign that has as its a theme ostentatious luxury versus the understated upscale motif that Volvo is meant to represent. One advert at least didn’t gel with the Twitter community. Featuring a Chihuahua dressed to the nines, with the strapline “If your dog has a wardrobe the Volvo S60 probably isn’t for you” (above), the ad was canned because it rubbed dog owners up the wrong way.

Tassos Panas, North American CMO, said “ [marketing research on Twitter] helped us fine-tune the campaign and it’s creating good conversations; people enjoy being part of [the creative process]. Feedback helps us find the right balance.” 

Panas reports traffic and fan numbers have doubled since the social research creative-opinion experiment launched.

 Using Social Media Creatively for Brands

Ever since social media first emerged over a decade ago the questions of how (and if) this new technology fosters creativity, how to use it for business, and how to integrate it in to existing media platforms, have been the focus of much discussion by business and comms folk.

Ad Age thinks they may have finally started to see some concrete answers to these questions with three research papers, winners of their 2012 research paper competition. Two specifically look at how advertising performs in a social media world and how organizations foster creativity online, and if these are problems you are currently wrestling with then the papers would prove interesting reading.

Something we’ve long understood is humour’s role in helping organisations leverage social media for their brands and even turn a potential ‘brand breaker’ into a positive ‘brand builder’, as the O2 outage crisis proved in spades.

Recent studies on Usurv back this up, with findings showing that humourous content wins big time on social media with just over half (51 per cent) of the people Usurv interviewed saying they had shared, commented on or liked a video because it was “humorous” and a third (30 per cent) because they “knew others would want to see it”.

Other factors to bear in mind when using social media as part of your marketing efforts is that we’re still a very visual species, despite our sophisticated language skills, and so it should be no surprise that video and pictures engender more attention and sharing than mere text, however high the quality nor that memes go viral and get turned into adverts!

The only remaining question really is how are you using these insights to leverage social media for your brand?

Integrating Social Media Offline

Integration of social media into other media and offline promotion is one of our passions, and so we loved this campaign from MINDDRIVE, who have built a car that is driven by the power of social media and so in the process changing the lives of a number of ‘at-risk’ students in America.

The students were tasked them to build and specially adapt a car to travel from it’s starting point in Kansas to its goal location in Washington DC entirely on so-called ‘social fuel’ ie social shares, retweets and likes. The more connections the campaign’s pages/profiles/hashtag received via Twitter, Facebook and Instragram the more ‘social fuel was created to power the car.

This ingenious programme’s mission was to inspire students to learn and expand their vision for the future, whilst having a positive impact on urban workforce development. The way it used online and offline integration to raise awareness really keyed in to the target teenage audience as it , something brands could look to emulate.

A quarter of a million watts of energy have been produced so far! Join in and help the project at #MINDDRIVE.

The Guardian newspaper have also moved into online/offline integration with the launch of their #guardiancoffee in Shoreditch at the end of May. The coffee shop aims at providing a tech-focused coffee shop offering a working space for journalists, and in what must herald a future trend in social media/offline integration, projects the #GuardianCoffee hashtagged tweets as well coffee stats and TheGuardian news on to the wall of the coffee shop.

Upon launch the British Twitterati responded in true form with a flood of tweets that ranged from the sarcastic to the very very funny, with some shared hundreds of times, thus proving yet again that humour is the power that drives social sharing.

Which was your favourite? Here’s a selection of ours:

Images via Volvo, Guardian on Flickr

Surgeons Live-Share Brain Surgery on Social Media

This week saw a first in the use of medical social media when on Thursday UCLA  surgeons to shared live brain surgery on social media, using Instagram and Vine in conjunction with Twitter and Facebook.

The surgery was live tweeted from UCLA Health System (@UCLAHealth) using hashtag #UCLAORLive and the story was chronicled in pictures on Instagram and each stage was ‘Vined’, making for incredible social media coverage of what is normally a very private event.

This was 500th patient for which the UCLA’s Deep Brain Stimulation Team had implanted a brain pacemaker, a procedure that according to UCLA has been proven to help “cease Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor”. Roxanne Yamaguchi Moster, a spokeswoman for UCLA Health, told the LA Times in an email that this was their first live-tweeted surgery and through it they wanted to bring attention to brain pacemakers as “many in the public don’t know about this treatment, so UCLA Health System thought this would be a good way to get the word out.”

Burn The Miles App Rewards Frequent Flyers

The Burn the Miles app rewards their frequent fliers who jog to burn off the same number of calories as miles they’ve flown and was developed by communications agency MRM for Latvia-based loyalty program Baltic Miles.

Rewards are bestowed in points, which can be exchanged for products and services at partner businesses depending on how far they’ve traveled. Those downloading the app are challenged to match every mile they fly with a calorie burned in the space of 24 hours after they land, tracked using the smartphone’s built-in accelerometer, and if they manage to do so they win extra prizes.

The program encourages those whose work requires them to fly for extended periods to use some of their on-the-ground free time to exercise and the app is a nice example of how gamification can be used to provide an incentive for people to keep themselves fit.

BigWhiteWall Tackles Mental Health Issues Digitally

Funded by the Nominet Trust, the BigWhiteWall is using digitech to help people tackle mental health in a positive and anonymous way. With support from ‘Wall Guides’ and members of the community create ‘digital ‘bricks’ to add to their visual digital wall to express how they feel, and with trained (live) support, wide range of information, and the Big White Wall community, learn to get on top of their troubles

A mental health 'digital brick' on the Big White Wall

As Therapy Today says it  ‘gives its community the chance to express itself creatively and alleviate emotional problems’, while one of the members said “The Big White Wall is my Haven” and that seems this is a near universal view with 73% of users sharing a problem for the first time, 95% saying it improved their wellbeing and 80% reporting an improvement in self care.

The service is mainly free at the point of delivery, either with a code or as part of the user’s local mental health provision, and is always free to veterans, serving forces personnel and their families. And hurrah to that we say. Follow them at @bigwhitewall1

Hospitals Could Use Smartphone Tracker to Monitor Patients

While still in Beta and seeking more funding to take it to market, the Scanadu Scout is a palm-sized device packed with sensors to aid the early detection of a number of conditions and is designed to help individuals keep track of their own health.

Developed at Singularity University at the NASA Research Park in California, the hardware for the device is based on RTOS Micrium platform, which  currently being used in the Mars Rover Curiosity mission.

Apparently according to Springwise he idea behind the innovation is inspired by the fictional ‘tricorder‘  in the Star Trek series that scans and collects data about living things. When users place the Scanadu Scout to their forehead for around ten seconds, users can get detailed information about their heart beat and ECG, core body temperature, blood oxygen and blood pressure, breathing and emotional state, delivered via Bluetooth to their smartphone.

 Looks very #futuretech to us, be great to see that used by the NHS!

Google Adds Nutritional Data

Google have this week introduced nutritional data to food searches, so users can look up how many calories, carbohydrates and other information a food has and also compare types of foods, with the results being shown on a panel above the linked results. A Google spokesperson said: “Now you can look up calories, fat, sugar protein of any food or drink, you can even compare types of avocados or English muffins.”

While it’s a useful addition to the search engines offerings, especially for people trying to lose weight, let’s face it, we’ll never be able to Google ‘chocolate’ again without feeling guilty…

If you see anything you think we should cover in the next Social Medic blog, please do drop us a line at hello@themediamarketingco.com, or tweet us at @TheMediaMktinCo

It’s a gift really, and one all UK charities should make sure they take advantage of. However, the application process can be quite daunting, as can the set up and management of the account to ensure you get maximum social goodness from it each month.

Applying for Google Grants

The process of applying online is somewhat irritating and long-winded,with lots of information required to verify the charity is in fact a charity etc, but the end result is well worth the pain. You will need to have your charity’s business number and the document of proof that it is a charity registered with the Charity Commission or recognised by HMRC, and a bit of patience for them to verify and approve it, but after that you are all set up to go.

Your Google Grant Adwords Account

You won’t be able to set up with your existing Google AdWords account and you must be very careful of NOT giving payment details despite them prompting you at set up, or else it’ll just become a normal AdWords account, fully chargeable and everything!

There are restrictions, obviously, so you need to be aware of these and work within the limitations, which are as stated by Google:

• A daily budget set to $330 USD, which is equivalent to about $10,000 per month, or £6.600 at current exchange rates

• A maximum cost-per-click (CPC) limit of $2.00 USD

• Only run keyword-targeted campaigns

• Only appear on Google

• Only run text ads

• Run for as long as the organization remains actively engaged with their Grants AdWords account.

In addition:

• You must have a website

• Your adverts must link to a page on your website

• The keywords that you target must be relevant to your charity and services

• Your website cannot display revenue-generating ads, such as Google AdSense or affiliate advertising links, while participating in Google Grants

• The ongoing, active management of your advertising campaign is your organization’s responsibility once your account is active – and Google will expect to see it actively managed.

While the monthly allowance is higher than previously, the restrictions can still mean you may struggle to spend your monthly budget, so in order to make the most of the Google Grants allowance and wring the most search and social goodness out of the campaign it is essential to concentrate on the two basic premices of any good AdWords campaign, even though you are getting it for free, which are:

1. Use the right keywords/key search terms in your niche ie the ones that give you the best return for what you are trying to achieve for the least spend

2. Ensure the keywords are scrupulously used EVERYWHERE ELSE so it all links up, so in the advert copywriting, the SEO of the landing page, in the content and links on the landing page, as SMO (social media optimisation) in all and any the social media used to promote the landing page and in the content of the blogs or PR used to drive traffic to the page.

Selecting the Best Keywords

It can be an arduous task, especially if your charity covers a lot of areas, but the best Google Grants campaigns start with the keywords, so it is well worth investing the time (or money if you outsource to someone like us) to get the right ones. They may not always be the ones you expect – even in a crowded market there are always unexpected gems that are baffling unpopular!

Just make sure they are the best in class for your purposes, as well as the most cost effective, and don’t be tempted to be choose to bid randomly just because it’s cheap. It is always better to concentrate on one main area or if you really need to cover a lot of ground, at least make sure that they are grouped in the different areas.

Copywriting Google Grant Adverts

We then like to ensure that you have a good selection of adverts written (Google allows you to use multiple ones for the same keyword) to avoid browser boredom and to make sure they cover off the top, middle and bottom of the marketing funnel.

Make sure the adverts aren’t over the length restriction, remember they can only be text based and must contain the domain at least of the landing page (use a url shortener if necessary, such as Bitly).

Other important factors are including a Call to Action and considering whether to include a button for social likes – the latter can be helpful when your potential audience aren’t quite ready to commit to fundraising or donating, but would like to stay in touch with you. It sounds straight forward, but it takes a degree of skill to get it all right within the space restrictions, which is where hiring a professional copywriter can be a bonus.

Keyword Bidding for Google Grants

Set all keywords in the account to the $2 max CPC bid, which is the highest amount allowed in order to help show up as high as possible in the search results. Remember that many of the top keywords are ultra competitive in the non profit sector, so cross reference with your Keyword list and make sure that you only choose the ones you know are going to give you a decent return.

Landing Pages for Google Grants

Make sure they use the keywords at least four times on the page, and that the copy is completely relevant to the advert copy and the search term – confusion makes people click away; you’ll know if you’ve got it right or not from the resulting bounce rate, so make sure you are tracking it.

Make the page engaging – we are currently fans of using Vine for short simple messaging, and it can be embedded on a page -  and ensure the call to action is very simple and clear.

Also give them an option to just ‘like’ you socially – as we have already touched upon, the potential fundraiser or donor can often take a few visits to make up his or her mind, and giving them the option to like you helps them stay in touch without over committing, which then makes it that more likely they will commit later.

Adding YouTube To Your Google Grants Campaign

Video can often be the most powerful fundraising tool of them all. Google recognises this by enabling registered UK non-profits that are part of their Google Grants network to create a branded channel on YouTube and/or embed videos on your own website for free. The benefits of doing so include:

• Add a Donate button -  Viewers can use your channel’s Donate button to contribute to your charity online from your YouTube videos

• Add Call-to-action overlays – Place a Call to Action on your videos, which viewers can click to visit your website, donate or learn more.

• Live streaming - Stream video footage live onto your YouTube channel, which is great for events, conferences and reporting.

• Video annotations - Use annotations on your videos to encourage users to subscribe to your channel or click to visit your website.

Dedicated Adwords Management

Google are strict about having a Google Grants account proactively managed, so ensure you have a dedicated person, either in house or external, who can manage the account for you, bidding on the keywords to your maximum amount, as well as answering any emails from Google. If you don’t, Google will pull you out of the scheme, which would be a shame after so much investment!

If you would like any advice or help with set up or management of your Google Grants account, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Yahoo! buys Tumblr

The major digital marketing communication news this week has been all about network changes, so we’ll start with a quick look at what has changed and how it affects your marketing activity and campaigns.

Unless you’ve been asleep under a rock you will be aware that Yahoo! has bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion.

The initial reaction from many users was pretty negative, with some disgruntled teen users throwing online tantrums and some likening it to the end of the world!

However, Marissa Myers personally promises not to screw it up (as Yahoo! came close to doing with Flickr – read what former employees have to say about that here)  and according to Marco Arment, who works alongside founder David Karp developing Tumblr, the future looks rosy and users should trust David’s proven vision.

For those of you who have never utilised Tumblr before, now would be a good time to start exploring its potential, especially if creative, fashion and/or teens are a focus for your brand – our prediction is that Yahoo! is gong to turbo charge it and with Gen Z the up and coming generation, this is going to be very interesting indeed.

Flickr Stops Pro Accounts

Talking of Flickr, the photosharing platform has changed it’s network set up in what seems to be a case of many winners and some losers. Whilst free users now benefit from unlimited pictures and increased photo sizes pro users have been left a little confused as to what benefits if any they are paying for.

On further investigation it would appear that one major benefit would be the removal of adverts, although there are more benefits covered as as outlined by Mashable in their comprehensive coverage, so if you already have a pro account it would be in your best interest to familiarise yourself with the changes.

Pinterest Adds Subject Pins

Continuing with photosharing sites, Pinterest – who seem to be on a mission to move towards a more e-commerce based platform – have just introduced three new pins (Product, Movie and Recipe), which are essentially direct links to further information and ultimately purchase.

If, like us, you have experienced frustration at not being able to purchase that desirable item directly or conversely have become irritated seeing your product on Pinterest without a link to purchase, these will be welcome changes.

Ferrero Lawyers Try to Ban World Nutella Day

Not-so-happy-this week was the totally outdated and ridiculous behaviour from Nutella’s lawyers towards online fans supporting World Nutella Day (Feb 5), which was created by super fan Sara Rossa and is a Marketing Director’s wet dream.

The company’s lawyers, who probably don’t know how to turn on a computer let alone use social media, sent Rossa a ‘cease-and-desist letter, which lead her to tell fans that she would be cancelling the celebration and taking down the site and social media.

However following online fan support and Rossa’s formal response to the C&D, Ferrero wrote to Rossa saying the whole thing had been one big misunderstanding and that its lawyers had simply been responding reflexively to what they took to be an infringement. Ferrero went on to say it wanted to express sincere gratitude to Rosso for her passion and its gratitude to all the fans of World Nutella Day.

The mystery is how it got past C suite and says a lot about the backward looking attitude of the company and their lack of understanding about ‘getting’ social media and the good (and bad) it can do for their products and reputation.

Dunkin’ Donuts on the Vine

In contrast, another food brand that really DOES get it, is Dunkin Donuts, who have a great digital competition running currently whereby fans submit a Vine video with the hashtag #IceDD to “show how Dunkin’ Donuts Iced Coffee puts pep in their step,”

Scott Hudler, vice president of global consumer engagement for Dunkin’ Brands, said that:

“When it comes to social media, we take a fan-centric approach that revolves around listening, learning, celebrating, and engaging. We put our fans first and use them as our inspiration for everything we do from contests and promotions to content and social customer service,”

“Listening to our fans and promoting a two-way dialogue helps us to thank our many loyal fans who run on Dunkin’ and shows our fans that we care. Whether it’s answering a serious question, or a fun and irreverent response, simply being there, engaging, and responding has been a key component to our success.”

As we said, TOTALLY different from Ferrero.

Hudler went on to say ”We see Vine as an untapped resource that is in the beginning stages of its popularity. Our interest and inspiration to launch our official Vine account came from Dunkin’ Donuts guests.”

Not using Vine yet for your marketing? Check out our article on Using Vine in the Marketing Mix.

How Gen Z Uses Social Media

A major study into teen behaviour on social media was released this week by Pew Internet . Takeaways included that just over half of online teens are careful with their privacy settings although they are sharing more personal information than teens 6 years ago, which is a worry for parents and schools.

What was more interesting for us from a marketing perspective was that teens reported more positive experiences than negative ones, with about half of them (52%) saying they have had an experience online that made them feel good about themselves. We were also interested to note that Pew Internet found that there is a general waning in teens enthusiasm for Facebook (which we have already noted) and that they love oversharing, again something we are already aware of from past campaigns to teenagers.

Job offer on Instagram

And finally, we were impressed with US tech marketing firm ePrize last week, who took to Instagram to offer one of their interns a full time job.

“We used Instagram because Samantha is highly engaged on this platform, and we’ve watched her work progress over her senior year in college through her photos,” said Janice Pollard, digital marketing and public relations leader for ePrize. “She follows ePrize on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, as well as some of our personal accounts. We cross-pollinated the job proposal photo across all of our social channels as well.”

Nice one ePrize, and well done Sam!

Images via ePrize, Pew Internet, Vine, World Nutella Day

A recent EU initiative aims to give people the right to be forgotten online, although Britain remains sceptical at how this will work in practice, with the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office cautioning: “Our concern is about how difficult (or impossible) this may be to achieve in practice and how it could lead individuals to believe falsely that they can achieve the absolute erasure of information about them.

“We know from the efforts of well-resourced and motivated individuals that it can in fact be impossible to remove information from the internet once it has been posted. We are concerned that this right, as billed, could mislead individuals as to the degree of protection the law can offer them in practice.”

Google remains at the front line, with European regulators blasting the search giant for continued EU privacy violation, the German data regulator fining them €145,000 (£124,000) for recording and storing data illegally from unsecured Wi-Fi networks with its Street View camera cars and their own departments reporting unprecedented requests from governments wanting them to remove content.

Hackers are more visible and active than ever, with 93% of large companies reporting a cyber security breach in 2012, with state and defense companies being most targeted. Mostly it does seem to be that the hackers don’t really have to try very hard, with the vast majority favouring authentication-based attacks that worked because of the weaknesses inherent in the password system.

Twitter profiles have been the subject of highly-reported hacks already this year, and has recently announced it will be introduce two step authentication, which it plans to roll out soon according to Mashable.

Image via

This makes sense. In our socially connected world, the majority of people prefer to take a recommendation from someone they know rather than listen to the PR spin a company puts on itself, and if that recommendation comes from someone they admire, then the recommendation is that much more powerful.

Blogger Outreach is Important

This is why bloggers are some of the most influential people online, although it has taken the PR industry quite a while to get up to speed with that, as an endless stream of PR/blogger disasters since the mid noughties testified.

However, after speaking about blogger outreach from both sides of the fence at a number of PR and blogger events over the last year, as well as seeing it come in as a major component of many entries when judging last year’s CorpComms Digital Awards, it does appear that most people in the PR and Marketing Comms industry have finally understood the importance of Blogger Outreach, which has to be a good thing.

Doing Blogger Outreach Effectively

However, there does still seem to be quite a gap between knowing you should reach out to bloggers and actually finding the right ones – ie the Bloggerati in your niche -  doing it effectively and being able to make the most of what you ask them to do, and measuring the results of the outreach.

Getting it wrong can be a huge waste of resources and occasionally disastrous, so here’s our top tips making sure you get it right.

1. Don’t just contact anyone and everyone – Do your research thoroughly to make sure that you find the top bloggers in your niche – the Bloggerati – and that they are interested in what you do, that they are open to working with charities, brands or PR pros – and in what capacity – that the blog has good traffic and the right demographic, and they have high social influence.

2. Don’t send round robins – If you get a group – any group – of bloggers in a room there are a constant stream of disaster stories of PR pros sending round robins without checking the details or the appropriateness of the product match, or even the right honorifics, such as the Dad blogger addressed as Mrs and asked to review breast pumps…

3. Don’t just send an email – Be persistent yet patient and respectful, and do try different ways of getting in touch. Some bloggers are happiest being approached by Twitter rather than email, for example, so be prepared to be flexible. Also remember that most unsolicited emails get spammed and even if it gets through it may not get read or acted upon. People are busy and don’t know you, and so you need to build a relationship.

4. Don’t be vague – Be specific about what you are asking and give them a good reason for considering getting involved. It helps if you have already read their content and got a feel for what makes them tick so you can tailor your approach accordingly.

5. Don’t be prescriptive – Be flexible and give them options. An influential potential medical advocate, for example, might not be happy to blog about your charity as she covers medical research or educational content, but she might be prepared to tweet about it, or add it to one of her Storifys.

6. Don’t expect them to do everything – Be prepare to provide content that they can then adapt or amend as required. Make sure you have good visuals – multimedia content is often appreciated too, and video is obviously essential for video blogs (vlogs).

7. Write good content – Provide a choice of content from tweets to multimedia case studies to excellent visuals. If they give you guidelines for content, make sure you adhere to them. Take the opportunity when writing the content to add in your most appropriate keywords to improve the content’s search goodness, and if writing a few tweets, for example, include the best hashtags.

8. Don’t assume it’ll be free – it might be, especially if it’s a for a charity (people are very generous to those who are trying to make the world a better place) but be aware that if you are a brand or pushing a product (even if it’s through a competition, for example) that you will almost certainly have to pay. They are running a business here – this is their livelihood.

9. Don’t act in a silo – Make sure your entire organisation/business is on board. One example of how this can go badly wrong happened last year when a prominent English food blogger (frequently wooed and chased by Waitrose to promote their products) saw an article in the Waitrose magazine slagging off food bloggers. Oof. When she challenged Waitrose on Twitter about it they took ages to respond and when the magazine editor finally entered the discussion he was prickly and defensive. It had the food blogger community up in arms and left a very bad taste. As the blogger said “I really don’t feel like working with Waitrose again”.

10. Don’t leave it as a stand alone – Give their blog as much exposure online as you can to connect it to the rest of the campaign, whether that’s on your website, via your social media and on news sharing sites to create that circle of goodness and improve the exposure.

11. And finally, don’t be an arse – They are doing you and your brand/product/charity a favour, so make sure you always follow through, always do what you promised, and that you always always ALWAYS say thank you. To not do so is to be highly unprofessional and will most likely result in you being given the cold shoulder next time you ask as well as for the rest of the community to know how poorly you behaved (most bloggers move in very tight-knit supportive communities). It might even to be made public via social media or, God forbid, on their blog…

And obviously if you want to do blogger outreach as part of a campaign or your wider marketing efforts, but don’t have the in house capacity or know how, we would be delighted to talk about it with you  – just get in touch!

Interestingly social media now generates 14% of all leads and 13% of all customers, and customers translate to sales, according to Hubspot’s 2013 State of Inbound Marketing whitepaper, which was based on their online survey of marketing and business professionals between January 31 and February 14, 2013.

These are readily measurable metrics, and combined with the rise in social travel revenue, point to social travel becoming a major growth area over the forthcoming years.

It’s not really a surprise to be honest, as travel is an area that is tailor made for social media, with 70% of travellers influenced by what their peers share or say online (particularly photographs), and over half then changing some or all aspects of their planned holiday as a result of browsing social media, from hotel and airline to activities and even country! While they are travelling over 70% post pictures and updates to social media, especially Facebook, and a quarter of all travellers regularly ‘check in’ socially while on holiday. Even afterwards they continue the engagement, with more pictures uploaded, and a third of all travellers writing reviews.

The surprise is perhaps how long it’s taken many of the travel companies and their marketers and PR peeps to get involved and work out how to profit from social media.

One travel company that was late to the social media party, but who subsequently nailed it, is Costa Rican Vacations. While the company had been quick to adopt pay per click after founding in 1999, they were slow into social media. Selling high-end, customized trips to Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama, their clients are mostly from the United States, plus Canada and the UK, and are mainly in the 40s to 60s age bracket.

The company decided Facebook was the best medium given the age of their clients and they eventually decided on using Amazon gift certificates to inspire their clients to post travel reviews on the Costa Rican Vacations’ Facebook page ow.ly/kfrsn  - to good effect so far, with referrals and rebookings doubled in the last year, a rise they attribute to social media.

The social planning and inspirational slant of Costan Rican Vacations is interesting, since over a quarter of Brits still find holiday planning a headache and want social planners and apps aimed at taking the headache away, and with many travellers falling into the ‘Lifestyle’ category this obviously represents a huge opportunity for dedicated social travel businesses and services.

Image via

Social networks are constantly searching for ways to enable businesses to reach their audiences as, despite being free at the point of consumption, something has to pay the social network bills. Sserving adverts to their increasingly large and noisy communities in actionable and likable ways is the best way anyone has found yet.

So Tumblr has just announced that it will now be serving ads via mobile as well on desktops, while Facebook continues to forge ahead with innovative and – as always – sometimes controversial actions, and Pinterest gears up to join the monterisation process.

Tumblr Adverts Go Mobile

This month Tumblr started serving adverts on its iPhone and Android apps. The adverts are not banner adverts but are more like the sponsored posts with which the users of Twitter and Facebook are already familiar, and are marked by an animated dollar sign.

The adverts can be “hearted” and “reblogged” like ordinary posts and Tumblr users will see no more than four sponsored posts per day, the company said in a statement.

Facebook TV-Style Adverts

There are a lot of changes happening with Facebook adverts – AdAge reportly reported that this summer Facebook will carry pop-out, full-screen, auto-play video adverts  (ie the same as television adverts) for a cool $1 million dollars per day price tag.

However Facebook cannot guarantee any and all adverts will not appear on pages supporting and glorifying rape and domestic violence, it seems mainly because they won’t remove or block such pages, which may put a lot of advertisers off if the price tag doesn’t.

Dove, Shelter, the RSPB and Vodafone have all had their adverts placed on undesirable pages, according to Lauara Bates reporting in the Times, and Facebook’s response has been less than proactive across the board.

Businesses Beware!

Foursquare: Life on a Plate

According to Valley Wag, this means advert placement triggered by where people go not only when they are logged into Foursquare, but also when they aren’t, via controversial check in tracking called retargeting. Facebook are also using tracking off the site (via store card data for example) to try and personalise the advert experience, but what Foursquare has proposed to advertisers takes it one step further.

Since it means most of what people do could in theory turn up as advert on Foursquare it’s unlikely to meet with much enthusiasm from consumers and may very well foul foul of the EU’s esafety measures (the mind boggles at just what an invasion of privacy it is likely to be). This is in turn is unlikely to go down well with advertisers who have just forked out a small fortune on interactive adverts – and it is likely to be expensive since Foursquare is hitting funding issues with investors (who haven’t seen any return for their money as yet), and rumours have it Foursquare have asked for a further $50,000 in advertisement spend.

One to avoid we think.

 Pinterest Advertising: It’s Coming

Pinterest’s traffic increased by a staggering 5,124% from 2011 to 2012 and people spend more time on the site than just about any other social site, the majority are educated women, particularly mums (ie the purse sting holders in the majority of households) and traffic from Pinterest produces 4x the revenue-per click than Twitter.

So it’s hardly a surprise that Pinterest is getting ready to introduce paid advertising across the network, not just on its ad board, nor that it is studying how Pinterest users convert into online shoppers so that it can eventually take a percentage of brands’ sales revenue.

Watch this space.

However, most professionals still don’t seem it use it properly, tending instead to ignore it and then go nuts on it when they need it for a job etc, which really doesn’t look very professional or desirable. So here are our top tips for utilizing it to build your reputation, showcase your expertise and in the long run help you increase your chances of landing that dream job or client.

1. Build a Tip Top Profile

Most people still view LinkedIn as a pretty boring site, despite huge improvements recently, and unfortunately that means that while most professionals do have a basic profile on the platform, many still ignore it unless they are looking for a job or trying to get more clients in a kind of desperate “OMG” kind of way.

However, that also means that if you buck that trend and make an effort to create a really interesting and comprehensive profile you will inevitably stand out not just to your peers and potential clients, but also in Google search – you’ll notice that if you Google yourself your LinkedIn profile always comes near the top as it’s very search friendly. You can enhance that further by updating your profile frequently and incorporating keywords that are relevant for you.

So regularly update your photo, rejig your summary, replace old buzz words and add up-to-date keywords that reflect what you are doing just right now. Endorse those people in your network you really rate or who have endorsed you (scroll down to the bottom of your profile for a list).

Then have a look around for the thought leaders in your industry and follow them, and share their content with your network if you think they would find it interesting too as it’ll help build your reputation as an expert – see Point 5, below.

Recommendations are still seen as a bit lame by most professionals but recruiters love them so if you have a colleague or client who would be happy to give you one, go for it. Try and add one or two every job/project/year, rather than having a recommendation splurge when you are starting to think about changing jobs.

Finally make sure all your links work and are still applicable – there’s nothing more frustrating than clicking through on something and finding that it’s a 505, and it looks really lame, especially for a Comms or Marketing Professional!

2. Get Involved

There are more groups on LinkedIn than you can shake a hat at, so there’s bound to be at least one that can help you network and increase your connections. Go through your groups and leave the ones that aren’t very engaged or that are no longer helpful for you – groups change over time and what was brilliant way back in 2o05 is very unlikely to be fulfilling that need in 2013.

Then have a search for new ones that can help you learn something new, meet new people, where you can reconnect with people you used to work with or network with your peers (most clients and jobs are gained via referrals by people you know, remember). Finally search out group where you can add value and answer questions in your specialist area(s).

So look for your alumni, your peer group, and where your (potential) clients are asking questions and wanting information and where you might be able to add value. You will also become more popular with group admins if you are prepared to engage and they will then almost certainly look more kindly on you sharing any content, which brings us to point 3 -

3. Share Good Content

Everything you create, from that neat stat you unearth and share on Twitter to a comprehensive white paper is valuable and potentially of interest to your professional connections. Therefore share it on your status update and in a relevant group and even reach out and flag it up to specific people (don’t spam them with a mass email – that’s not at all good for your reputation) whom you think might be interested or find it useful or might consider sharing it on with their networks.

Don’t be shy, but do, however…

4. Avoid Oversharing

This may well be a purely UK peculiarity – we’re pretty modest and don’t like self promotion -  but just be judicial about oversharing in groups, as many group admins get understandably irritated if you just post a link to your latest blog without engaging in conversation or explaining why it is of use to the group members. The admins are there to keep the group interesting and vibrant and that means interaction, not self promotional links with no interaction that immediately take people away from the group.

So if you have  fabulous article you know will be of great interest to the members of one particular group, pose a question around the link, perhaps write a very short but interesting summary, and make sure you are available to answer or respond to any comments. It’s always helpful if someone gets the ball rolling, so if you know someone in the group whom you can ask to do so, then do so!

And if you are really unsure about the admin’s response, check it with them first.

5. Be Seen as a Trustworthy Expert

Every professional has something they excel at and are knowledgeable about, and many people have more than one area of expertise. So make sure you showcase your knowledge not just in your profile, but also in  articles, content, blogs and whitepapers you produce and share on your profile and in your status update, plus any other content in other media (Vine, Video, Audio, Photography, Design, Infographics, Animation etc) if applicable to you as a professional. Do have a look at Slideshare, which LinkedIn own and which you can embed right into your profile.

Be sure that you are seen as a reliable source of information and always try to be a little ahead of the curve. So make sure you update your LinkedIn updates regularly with relevant information, statistics and information and balance the updates between your own stuff and other useful titbits, such as updates from the thought leaders in your industry and any content from your LinkedIn connections, as this will really help cement the connections you have and build them into the relationships that will stand you in good stead when you do actually need something, be that a new position, a new member of staff, a new client, a source of information, some information or whatever.

6. Keep it Fresh

Check your LinkedIn feed daily and scroll through the updates of people you might want to work with or for, and make sure you take note of any changes to their profile – you will get regular updates emailed to you, so make sure it’s an email you actually have access to and use.

Also download the app on to your smartphone and make a point of adding new contacts there instead of, or as well, as exchanging business cards.

7. Be Proactive

Reach out to people who are asking for help if you can help, even if you don’t know them very well. Offer to introduce people if you are aware they have had a career change or are looking for new contacts. Keep in touch with your top contacts (clients, colleagues, peers) via LinkedIn on a regular (monthly is good) and above all, make sure LinkedIn is part of your daily social media network updates and not just some place you ignore until you need a job or a new client.

Happy networking!

Connect with Claire on LinkedIn:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/claireburdett

Earlier in the month Facebook announced Android skin in the form of Facebook Home, which is launching today in the US. The slick and snazzy launch video is here:

While we are, as you are probably aware, techno babes to a woman, this seems just a step too far and it seems a lot of people agree with us, as so far it has garnered a somewhat mixed response.

In fact so many people declaring themselves wary and unimpressed because of privacy concerns that Facebook released a FAO privacy statement to clarify issues.

We’re not sure it was very reassuring to be honest. And while as marketers we obviously would like as much data for our clients as possible, in reality this is only a good thing when it’s sustainable and not being abused, which with Facebook currently proving itself such a friend to sexist violent trolls, we are pretty certain they’ll be either told to rein it in by the EU and others or people will start avoiding the network, as many adults and teenagers are already doing.

Neither of which is great from a social media marketing point of view, which relies totally on trust and transparency.

So for now we’ll stick with the infographic we found at The Wall blog for real clarification.

 Twitter Turning itself into a Portal

It’s interesting times over at Twitter too, with Twitter making a move to become the jumping off point for discovering, browsing and accessing the mobile app ecosystem, including the deep linking of Twitter cards that will enable consumers to make payments via tweet, buy products from e-commerce companies, and connect with the mobile applications and other media, such as photos, videos, article snippets, and a standalone music app that tracks the trending tunes and allows users to listen via iTunes and Soundcloud.

The music app supposedly going live this weekend, following the acquisition of We Are Hunted, but currently details are scarce. CNET previous reported that the app would be divided into four sections, including “#NowPlaying”, and that a Twitter account would not be necessary to use it and that it would be for iOS only.