Can Twitter Save Television Advertising?

It is no secret that television advertising is not what it used to be. The “Tivo” effect has resulted in many television viewers avoiding commercials all together. 40% of Twitter_TVhouseholds now have a DVR. Other options for commercial-free viewing including online streaming through Hulu or Netflix, On Demand programming, and whole seasons of programming available on DVD.

With all of these viewers avoiding commercials, advertisers are not willing to pay the big dollars for advertisements that no one will see. If, as a network, you are able to convince viewers to watch your show live (and thus the commercials) you will be able to command top dollars. With less legitimate advertising slots available advertising rates for live events have risen dramatically. The best example of this is the Super Bowl. While television advertising rates have steadily declined, the rates for the Super Bowl have experienced a dramatic rise.

Live sporting events represent the best opportunity for advertisers to capture an audience. That is because viewers cannot afford to wait to view a sporting event because they will want to be able to discuss it with their friends over social networks. Scripted television shows do not share this built in advantage. In most cases, waiting a day or two to view your favorite show is not an issue. Sure you might here about whether it was a good episode or not, but you won’t hear details analyzed and dissected. An extreme example of this is that most television seasons are available on DVD. In that case, people are willing to wait a whole year to watch a television program

Twitter has the capability to change all this. Twitter’s presence can turn the live broadcast of scripted television into appointment viewing. This happens naturally due to the conversations that happen immediately on twitter. With the immediacy of twitter, waiting even an hour can put you behind and leave you out of the conversation. By the next morning, the twitter universe has moved on to discussing something else.

In addition to this happening organically, networks can contribute to this phenomenon. One way to do this is by creating a twitter hashtag and encouraging conversation during the show. This hashtag will allow viewers of the show to connect over twitter to discuss the show. One network that has really embraced this is USA Network. They put the hashtag up on screen during the show, and even provoke response by asking questions throughout the show. You can click on the following link to see what I am talking about: http://a2sm.org/dz.

Going a step further, some shows even have stars of the show be a part of the conversation. Daniel Tosh, for instance, takes to twitter during the show to take part in the conversation. Knowing that a star may be responding to my question will certainly encourage me to be a part of the live broadcast. An example of this is shown here: http://a2sm.org/e0.

Lastly, Comcast has launched its own social platform, focused solely on television viewing. This new service, called Tunerfish, features conversations, sharing, and mobile applications.

Part of the appeal to viewers is being recognized with a response or a retweet from the show. If a star of a show responds to you, you will share this with all of your followers, further promoting the show. Jimmy Fallon has taken advantage of this. On his show, he poses questions on twitter and then shares responses on air. This has a powerful effect, where viewers will watch the show just to see if there question gets answered. It also has a viral effect, because if my question is answered I will share that with all of my followers, furthering interest.

Television networks can take advantage of this tool to help build a community of viewers to their shows. Encouraging viewers to be a part of the experience will help their ratings, and please advertisers. A network that is able to show this value of advertisers will get a leg up on the competition in the highly competitive advertising market.

Taking your Facebook Business Page to the Next Level

Facebook Privacy is all in the listsAs a business owner, you already know that your online brand is very important.  Is it the face of your company in the digital world.  An important element to your online brand is your Facebook business page.  This is a place where your customers and fans can interact with you.  They can learn about you and what you represent, and hopefully become ambassadors for your brand.

Here are five elements that should be a part of your Facebook Business Page.  They will set you apart from your competition and grow your brand.

1) Create a custom landing page. When you visit most business pages for the first time, you are taken right to the wall, where you can see all the recent posts.  This is great if you are already a fan of the business.  However, as a first time visitor, this is unappealing, and sometimes can even be dangerous for your brand.  The problem with the wall is that you can’t be certain what will be on there when someone visits your page for the first time.  The comments from your fans are great, but you do not want to leave your first impression in the hands of one of your commenters.  You want to present to first time guests the image of your company.  It is important that you control the messaging.  A feature of these pages is that once someone likes your page, it goes away and they will see the wall each time they visit.  It is done this way because, now that they are a fan, they know who you are and want to get to the wall as quickly as possible.  For a great example of this, please check out Rimol Greenhouses: http://www.facebook.com/commercialgreenhouses?sk=app_4949752878

2) Utilize your business profile photo effectively. The simplest thing to do, and what most folks do, is to put your company logo up as your business profile photo.  The logo is a great starting point, as it is a critical piece of your brand, but there is much more you can do with it.  Do something unique that will get people’s attention.  Dunkin Donuts does a great job of this, they use this space to put up a picture of their “Fan of the Week”.  A photo of your product or service is also great idea.  To see what I am talking about, check out a page such as Hanover Street Chophouse: http://www.facebook.com/HanoverStreetChophouse

3) Effectively use Facebook Advertising. I outlined the features and benefits of Facebook Advertising here.  A good advertising campaign can help jump start your business page, especially if you are just starting out.  The more fans you get, the more your page is exposed to new people and the easier it is to grow.  Because of this viral nature of Facebook, it is much easier to get from 100 fans to 1,000 fans then from 10 to 100.  If you currently have less than 100 fans, I highly recommend a Facebook Advertising campaign to prime the pump.  Start small, an investment as low as $5 per day will create an impact.  Don’t forget, you aren’t just adding one fan, you are adding exposure to those fans’ friends which will lead to even more fans.

4) Integrate e-commerce and other applications into your Facebook Page. The goal of your Facebook Business Page is to build brand awareness and create an online community.  Selling product should not be your primary goal.  If you are constantly selling you will quickly turn folks off and they will unlike you.  With that said, there are many opportunities to incorporate e-commerce directly into your Facebook Page.  The advantages of this is that customers do not have to leave Facebook to purchase from your site.  Some people will have concerns about doing business over Facebook, but for many this will be the only way they do business so if you do not offer this service it could affect their buying decision.  Some examples of this are Victoria’s Secret, which offers the ability to purchase gift cards online, and the NBA, which has their entire store up on Facebook.  There are many other applications available, such as sweepstakes, daily deals, and more.  If you can think of it, it probably exists.

5) Go mobile. Interaction with your followers is critical, and will help to grow your brand online.  Being able to respond quickly and appropriately to comments or requests is essential.  One way to do this is by arming key people in your business with the appropriate mobile applications to interact with the business page.  This will allow them to be the voice for your company.  It can also be very convenient to check on it while waiting in line, at the airport, etc.  Finally, it can open up the opportunity for some spontaneous and timely dialogue.

These five steps will go a long way to helping get your Business Page where it needs to be.  Your Business Page should be a dynamic resources for customers as well as a forum to gather feedback about your company.  It should reflect and augment your brand’s image.  Put a fresh set of eyes on your Business Profile Page and see if your page is accomplishing this for you.  If it is not, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.  I am happy to help and point you in the right direction.

 

BarCamp News Innovation Philadelphia 2011 Tomorrow!

BarCamp News Innovation Philly 2011 Logo

Tomorrow at Temple University’s Annenberg Hall, hundreds of professional and citizen journalists will converge for the 2011 BarCamp News Innovation Philly unconference. The conference is a great forum that bringsjournalists of all types together toshare ideas on how to report the news in the 21st century.

There will definitely be discussions about how the news media can better use social media among other great topics.

So what is BCNIPhilly? Here’s a quote from their FAQs section:

BarCamp NewsInnovation is an annual, one-day national unconference on journalism innovation and the future of news as explored by practitioners and friends. In 2011, BCNI will run concurrently with an Open Gov Hackathon presented by Tropo.

The event uses the BarCamp open-grid format where the attendees will set the schedule. In the main lobby of Temple University’s Alter Hall, there will be a large schedule board full of blank index cards. The day’s schedule will be filled by attendees who invent their own sessions the day of the event. Simultaneously, hackers, coders and designers will be working to use data to create tools for journalists and citizens to make government services more efficient and transparent.

Some of the greatest minds around will discuss new ideas on how to re-energize and innovate the news industry. This is NOT a journalists-only event! Invite any friends from various industries who are concerned about the future of news, information and dissemination. Even your friend who complains about the biased media. Especially that guy. There will be representatives from news organizations all over the country.

The event is FREE and will be hosted at Annenberg Hall on the campus of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pa. Doors will open at  9 a.m. and the presentations will start at 10 a.m. After an hour break for lunch at 12 p.m., the last presentations will start at 4 p.m.

As of right now the unconference is sold out. But you can follow it on Twitter via the hashtag #bcniphilly.

I will be tweeting from the event as well so be sure to follow me on Twitter (@sethgoldstein and @a2sm).

Tomorrow at Temple University’s Annenberg Hall, hundreds of professional and citizen journalists will converge for the 2011 BarCamp News Innovation Philly unconference. The conference is a great forum for writers and journalists of a types to share ideas on how to report the news in the 21st century.

Your Social Media Guide to the Royal Wedding

Royal WeddingThe Royal Wedding of William & Kate is this Friday. It is hard to escape this news as it has seemingly had 24 hour coverage on all new channels over the past week. Below is a guide to how to follow the event through social media, whether you have your alarm set for 4 AM on Friday or the Chicken Dance gives you nightmares.

The Royal Channel: The official YouTube channel of the British Monarchy, The Royal Wedding will be live streamed over YouTube. In addition to viewing the ceremony, you can also see a map of the procession, view the wedding book, and upload your videos.

Photos: The British monarchy will be leveraging Flickr to share photos from the wedding today. To check out their photo stream, simply click here.

Getting Social: The British Monarchy is very active on Twitter and Facebook. On Twitter they give regular updates on everything from the seating plan to pictures as they are setting up. This is truly a behind the scenes look at how a $60 million wedding comes together. You can also follow BBC’s diplomatic and royal correspondent Peter Hunt, as well as the BBC, CNN, and The Today Show.

The Facebook page has everything you can imagine you might want to know about the wedding. This includes an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, an appeal from the charitable gift fund, a guide to visiting London, and the Royal Wedding Video Message Book.

Going Mobile: If you want to make sure you don’t miss anything even if you step away from your desk for a minute, fear not there are a plethora of iPhone apps and Android apps available to you.  They offer everything from insider photos from the wedding to a countdown timer.

The way the Royal Family has approached social media might be a nice wake up call for your business or organization. Princes, princesses, and kingdoms are as old as, well, kings and queens so if they can leap into the social media world, then you can do. It is time for your business to learn how it can take advantage of this marketplace.  Will you be consuming all or part of the Royal Wedding experience?  Please share in the comments below.

What Is a Social Newspaper?

How we consume news is changing at a very rapid rate. Recent developments have gotten us closer and closer to a personalized newspaper. These services take information from your social network and organize it into a newspaper format. Each is a little different, all are free.

Paper.liPaper.li

Paper.li creates a custom newspaper from your twitter feed. It takes the news, images, and videos from your Twitter Feed and organizes it a newspaper layout. For an example of what one looks like, you can check out mine at http://paper.li/jamesbasbas . It is simple to setup, and very customizable. For instance you can simply use your twitter feed. However, you can also create a paper based on someone else’s feed a hashtag, or a list. It updates twice per day, so it is somewhat static. As you can see from my link, you can share your paper or others can subscribe to your paper. I don’t quite see the value to this feature, as it seems like the point is to make this personal. I don’t see why anyone would want to read my paper, perhaps maybe a stalker.

Paper.li jumping off of Twitter makes a lot of sense because there are so many reporters on Twitter. You can essentially take your favorite reporter from dozens of different newspapers, magazines, and networks to create your own paper. Many news outlets have been reluctant to allow their reporters to tweet because they are worried about hurting the paper. However, Paper.li is just one more reason that if you are not tweeting, you may find yourself completely cut out of this social newspaper.

Pros: Twitter is news rich; Great options including twitter feed, hashtag, or list; Very easy to use.

Cons: Only updates twice per day; does not integrate Facebook.

PostPostPostPost

PostPost connects to Facebook and grabs all of your friend’s links, photos, and videos. It is updated in real time and available on the web. They also have a Chrome store application. The layout is customizable, including only viewing links, photos, videos, or a dynamic mix. This site is built completely on HTML5, no flash so it is very fast and updates quickly. You can share and comments right from this page, but not like. For a video introduction from the inventor, please click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3oI9fsCEIg.

Pros: Very Fast; Ability to share and comment in-line; Updates in real-time.

Cons: Not as customizable; No Twitter integration.

FlipboardFlipbook

Flipboard is only available for iPad. It takes your Facebook and Twitter feeds and lays them out in a magazine format. It is very slick looking on the iPad and flips through just as a magazine would. You can easily share stories by e-mail or retweet them right from this app. For an in-depth video describing Flipboard, please click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7umqKbQ3PA.

Pros: Utilizes both Facebook and Twitter feeds. Sharp looking.

Cons: Only usable if you have an iPad.

Conclusion

PostPost is a very interesting way to view your Facebook content. However, news is not Facebook’s wheelhouse. Facebook is more social, sharing personal photos, personal update, and comments. For news, Twitter, is where that lives. Reporters and commentators are all over Twitter, and have thousands and even millions of followers. Therefore, any creation of a newspaper needs to include Twitter. If you look at your own online profile, I am sure you follow reporters on Twitter, but I doubt you are friends with them on Facebook. Paper.li allows you to drill into your twitter feed, or utilize a list to create a rich social newspaper. It is a great way to get a snapshot of what is going on as viewed through your lens.

Flipboard is beautiful and reads like a magazine. If you have an iPad it is a must have. For the rest of us, Paper.li is the way to go.

How do you consume the news? Are you utilizing a social newspaper? If so, which one? We would love to hear from you.

What We Can Learn From Taco Bell About How to Handle a Public Relations Crisis

Taco Bell on Colbert Report

This week we saw Taco Bell subject to a class-action lawsuit claiming that their beef is not really beef. That is quite a charge, and one that could cause major harm to their brand. The way Taco Bell reacted is a case study in how a company can effectively manage a crisis. Here is what they did:

1) Reacted Immediately: Most companies would try to ignore this kind of charge, hoping it would go away and no one would see it. They certainly wouldn’t want to draw attention to this negative press. Not Taco Bell. Taco Bell immediately took to their Twitter and Facebook pages, posting a video from the CEO as well as news articles. They did this because they understood that with 24 hour news cycles, twitter, and Facebook, it is important to take charge of the narrative, and not let the story get a life of its own. It is important to be confident with a response, not defensive and reactive.

2) Encouraged Dialog: Unlike a website, social media is, well, social. It is a conversation. This means as a company you can’t have complete control of what people are saying about you. This makes a lot of companies nervous. What if people say something about my company? The truth is, people are already talking about your company. They are talking about it online and in real life to their friends. The worst part is, you will never know what they are saying about you. You have no way of addressing potential issues or attempting to turn this negative experience into a positive one.

Social media changes all this. You can see in real-time what people are saying and have the opportunity to respond inTaco Bell Newspaper Ad an unfiltered way. Rather than close off comments, Taco Bell encouraged the dialog. On their initial post, they received 438 comments. Were they all positive? Of course not. But you would be surprised. Taco Bell fans were eager to defend their brand and a vast majority of those 438 were positive, plus there were 831 likes.

3) Built a Network of Brand Ambassadors: Above, I talked about fans defending their brand. How do you get your brand to be your customer’s brand? Part of the reason that Taco Bell was so successful with their online reaction to the crisis, was that they have over 5,000,000 fans on Facebook. When a crisis happens, it is too late to start to think about a social media strategy. Taco Bell embarked on their strategy. They built up their brand at a time when they didn’t need to, so it would be there when they did.

Creating this social media strategy took time and resources. When they were building their empire of 5,000,000 ambassadors, many may have said “where is the ROI?” This is often tough to quantify.

This example illustrates exactly how critical it is to have a good social media strategy. In addition to all the wonderful things you can do to promote your business and bring in new customers, the ROI of a good social media campaign is having your company still exist when bad news happens.

4) Had Fun: Your audience on Facebook is looking to interact with other human beings. This means people with real thoughts and feelings, and not a statement from the public relations department. People can tell when they are being sold to or being fed corporate babble. In Taco Bell’s case, they threw out the corporate jargon and form letters. They posted videos, pictures and articles and encouraged conversation. When The Colbert Show made fun of them, they posted the video and laughed along with it. They understood their customer, which came from being engaged with them over time. Folks were used to hearing from Taco Bell, so it wasn’t a step from the norm to be hearing from them now.

5) Wrote the End to the Story: The only thing worse than a negative news story is one with legs. Some stories, such as the BP oil spill, go on for months and months. The reason many stories live on is that there is more to learn. Investigative reporters are charged with getting statements from the company and attempting to learn more. In order for a story to live on, there must be an appetite from the public for it to continue. Taco Bell’s strategy of being completely transparent left nothing more to be learned. Not only did they share what their beef is made of, they shared their “secret” recipe of spices they use in their beef. Through social media, they allowed fans to ask all the questions they wanted, and they answered them. Having satisfied this, there was no more interest from the public and therefore the new story has largely gone away. In turn, Taco Bell has turned their focus back to their normal social media strategy. The key here is that they already had one to go back to. They did not have to scramble and fake it. It was genuine.

How did you consume this news story? Did you interact with Taco Bell over social media? What experiences have you had with companies during PR crises? Please share with us by commenting below.

Link Post for August 11th through August 25th

This is the A2SM Link Post for August 11th through August 25th. To see more of the bookmarks we’ve found, check out our Delicious Feed.

Link Post for July 12th through July 16th

This is the A2SM Link Post for July 12th through July 16th. To see more of the bookmarks we’ve found, check out our Delicious Feed.

  • DA Withdraws iPhone 4 Warrant, Returns Gizmodo Editor Jason Chen’s Possessions – The iPhone 4 may be available to the general public, but the police investigation into the leaked device that Gizmodo purchased last spring is still going strong. Now there’s been a new development: the EFF reports that the San Mateo District Attorney has withdrawn the warrant it used to search Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s house last April, when it confiscated multiple computers, hard drives, and other electronics.
  • U.S. Authorities Shut Down WordPress Host With 73,000 Blogs | TorrentFreak – After the U.S. Government took action against several sites connected to movie streaming recently, nerves are jangling over the possibility that this is just the beginning of a wider crackdown. Now it appears that a free blogging platform has been taken down by its hosting provider on orders from the U.S. authorities on grounds of “a history of abuse”. More than 73,000 blogs are out of action as a result.
  • How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made – How do you take the social web by storm in a day, winning over even the coldest of hearts and gaining international acclaim – with commercials?
  • Man Claims Ownership of Facebook – WSJ.com – A New York judge has issued a temporary restraining order restricting the transfer of Facebook Inc.'s assets, following a suit by a New York man who claims to own an 84% stake in the social-networking company.
  • Two Guys Conquer YouTube For Profit And Glory – I call them the YouTube cowboys: two guys who are rough around the edges, not obeying anyone’s rules, and steadfastly doing well by doing their own thing; they are crushing it. These relatively new YouTube channel owners are not just dominating their genre, they are often spanking the biggest brands in the world, bringing in hundreds of thousands of views to their content every day.
  • Make Your Own Rechargeable, Water-Powered Battery – We've covered how to make a beer battery before, but if you've yet to get into the home brewing scene, you can make a smaller battery with a copper rod and a bit of water or vinegar.

Link Post for June 27th through July 2nd

This is the A2SM Link Post for June 27th through July 2nd. To see more of the bookmarks we’ve found, check out our Delicious Feed.

  • Google Error Allowed BP To Violate Ad Guidelines – BP has been targeting many oil spill related terms over the past few weeks, including “oil spill” itself. But over at WebmasterWorld, it was noticed that the “display URL” in BP’s ad for “oil spill” didn’t match the site the ad actually took people to.
  • Google Launches Real-Time Blogger Stats – Google has introduced a full-featured stats dashboard for its free blogging service, Blogger.
  • Google Confusing 301 Redirects? – A WebmasterWorld thread has reports that Google is confusing 301 redirects as 302 redirects. This can be a serious issue, because 301s are the type of redirects SEOs and webmasters use to properly pass link juice and page factors from an old URL to a new.
  • Mobile Email Signatures Might Not Send the Message You Think – You've seen them before—email signatures that start "Sent from my," and sometimes end with an even more explicit apology for length and typos. One research analyst makes an intriguing argument against them and their implicit you're-not-all-that-important message.
  • Firefox 4 Pre-Beta Candidate Brings Tabs on Top and Other Changes to the ‘Fox – Windows/Mac/Linux: The first pre-beta build of Firefox 4 hit servers today, bringing several changes to the veteran browser, including a new tabs-on-top interface, a refreshed overall look, and consolidated menus.
  • Stock Photography Sites | Web Design Pond – Stock photography is widely used within the design world, mainly for its easy and also for its cost. As rather than hiring a photographer to go out and take the photo that is required for a certain design, an existing photo can be licensed for a particular use. Depending on the licence depends on how the image can be used, so be careful that you fully understand the agreement that you enter into when you use an image from a stock photography site, as even those that offer images for free might be doing it purely based on non-commercial, non-profit use.

Link Post for June 10th through June 16th

This is the A2SM Link Post for June 10th through June 16th. To see more of the bookmarks we’ve found, check out our Delicious Feed.

  • Google Voice Desktop App Launch Delayed, May Be Scrapped – When Google acquired Gizmo5, a Skype competitor, in November Google Voice users rejoiced – presumably they’d be getting a much needed soft phone on the desktop for users to make and receive calls through Google Voice.
  • Twitter Blog: What’s Happening with Twitter? – Last Friday, we detailed on our Engineering blog that this is going to be a rocky few weeks. We're working through tweaks to our system in order to provide greater stability at a time when we're facing record traffic. We have long-term solutions that we are working towards, but in the meantime, we are making real-time adjustments so that we can grow our capacity and avoid outages during the World Cup.
  • Detecting suspicious account activity – Official Gmail Blog – A few weeks ago, I got an email presumably from a friend stuck in London asking for some money to help him out. It turned out that the email was sent by a scammer who had hijacked my friend's account. By reading his email, the scammer had figured out my friend's whereabouts and was emailing all of his contacts. Here at Google, we work hard to protect Gmail accounts against this kind of abuse. Today we're introducing a new feature to notify you when we detect suspicious login activity on your account.
  • Online Coupons Impact the Bottom Line – Coupon Codes Can Make or Break a Sale<br />
    More than half of the consumers (57%) who used a coupon code during their last online purchase said that if they had not received the discount, they would not have bought the item(s). That indicates that coupons can be a highly effective sales driver and can be leveraged as such.
  • Couple’s First Kiss Vanishes From Google Street View [PIC] – Google’s Street View car captured the first kiss between teenage lovebirds in Staffordshire, England, then the intimate moment appeared on the web for all to see. Now CNET has discovered that the image has been replaced by one that’s blank save for the words “This image is no longer available.”
  • Facebook PPC: Finally, True Demographic Targeting! – Search Engine Watch (SEW) – For some time, the big three PPC engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Bing) have tried to offer demographic targeting to advertisers. Google has offered demographic bidding in the Content Network for the past two years. Microsoft's adCenter has long considered the pioneer of demographic targeting in PPC.
  • What Can Social Media do for Your Small Business? – Search Engine Watch (SEW) – April Fool's Day is probably the world's least memorable event. It's funny for a few moments, but not the sort of funny that really sticks. Granted, there's the odd exception, but most of those carefully crafted blog posts and spoof news stories disappear without a trace.
  • Kevin Rose To Leave Diggnation – Digg founder and CEO Kevin Rose will be leaving his popular Diggnation show, we’ve heard from a source. This has not been confirmed by Kevin, but we believe it’s accurate. Revision3, which hosts the show, has not yet returned our request for comment.