I was reminded at the Web 3.0 and Social Media Conference today about Facebook credits. With over 500 million users, Facebook has an opportunity to create a global currency unlike any other. Credits can be earnt via marketing incentives (playing games etc) and ‘gift cards’ can be given to ‘friends’. FB credits can be purchased at 7-Eleven stores, via mobile phone and PayPal, amongst others. Find out more here: http://www.facebook.com/credits/

I wonder what the tax office thinks of this? Or the Reserve Bank?

I just got sent this presentation that showcases an amazing collection of innovative projects from around the world that have digital at their heart...

It looks at projects about music, movies, art, science/ technology, light, politics, advertising, history, books, sport...pretty much everything! You might need some time up your sleeve to watch it all :-)

 

Source: https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0Abmo0iWBO2gEZGY3cnc3dnpfMzM4Y3o2bmdu...

- Coops

 

Enterprise microblogging platform, Yammer, has branched into more of a Facebook-style social network. It was only a matter of time... All the kids are doing it (I'm thinking Salesforce Chatter, but I'm sure there's lots more).

The new Yammer allows employees to share files, post messages, share links, do polls and promote events, but also build your own person profile and post status updates a la Facebook. It also integrates with Twitter and email and it uses analytics to help businesses track engagement in the network.

Like it! And it's still free!

Times have changed. I'm not weighing in to a gender debate, but we ladies have a lot on our plates. We're busy building a career, making a home, raising kids, nurturing our relationships with our friends and family, trying to fit in some exercise (or spending time feeling guilty about not doing any), dabbling in our hobbies, trying to contribute to our communities and fitting in some sleep (most of the time). As a general rule, we enjoy the juggle and relish in our many and varied different roles, but one casualty of the circus act has been the traditional construct of 'community'. Often we're too busy to really engage with the other families that live on our street, we've moved away from our parents and, as much as we'd love to help out, much of the voluntary work we once did (manning the canteen, working on community projects) is gradually being outsourced due to dwindling numbers of mums who are available to lend a hand. But we're resilient creatures. We find ways of making it work. And one of the ways we've managed to stay connected is through our social media networks. According to 'Reaching Empowered Women Through Social Media' released by Forrester in April 2009 (NB: Empowered women are women ages 25 to 54 who feel that the Internet helps them manage their family life):

"One-third of empowered women use social networking sites mainly for communication compared with 23% of all online adults. Nearly one-third (32%) of empowered women will actively go to friends’ pages on social networking sites to keep in touch, compared with only 21% of all online adults."

As women, we like to share and we yearn to be connected, so we have created new communities to fill the void. Social media mums are not desperate housewives. We're busy people looking to engage with our friends and families and meet new, like-minded people. For marketers, it is crucial to take heed of this. You're not a voice on TV in the background while we're doing the ironing and making dinner. Often, we're logging on to Facebook in the slivers of downtime we get during the day and tweeting while we're on the bus to and from work. We write posts on our blogs when the kids have gone to bed to share our experiences and promote conversation with our network. And we're doing this for one simple reason. To engage. If you want to promote your product to us, it must be relevant. Shout at us, and we'll regard you with disdain. In fact, it would be no different to someone approaching a group of women at a cafe at lunchtime and asking if they would like to see a demonstration of your new vacuum. Bah-bum. We're sooooo not interested. Here's a good example of effective marketing to social media mums. Finish Quantum recently ran a sponsored spot on the uber-popular social media mum Mia Freedman's (@miafreedman) blog, Mamamia. All they did was offer her readers a sample of their new product, but they did it by weighing in on a topic that has many social media mums buzzing (and furiously tweeting) at the moment - MasterChef. What was posted what nothing short of a well-written, press release that showed insight into the behaviour and interests of the audience. Mia's followers were musing over their messy kitchen, how they wash their dishes (if they're a ‘rinser’, or they simply dump the dirty dish in the machine and hit go), who will take out the MasterChef title... The most interesting thing though is that they were also were falling all over themselves to claim their sample. The key for marketers is to spend time to get to know their audience and to make your communication with that audience as relevant as possible. Participate. Join in. You never know, you might even have some fun. You will win the hearts of social media mums if you can enrich our online experience by helping us connect with like-minded people: provide platforms for us to share what we know, learn what we don't and give us ways to help us manage our busy lives. It's worth the time, patience and effort. Remember, more often than not, we're the ones buying the groceries! Simply... put our needs before yours, and you'll see results. Cheers, Sarah (@SassieqQ)

* Image sourced from: workitmom.com

By Kevin Ferry (@kevinferry)

There's an on going debate about how much businesses should be using social media channels like Twitter to promote themselves, well if your thinking like this, then stop! You're already in the wrong mindset- the fact you want to 'promote' your company is the wrong tack, instead think of your company sharing knowledge and advice around your profession and that might not all involve around your company on that I picked this up early this morning via Chris Brogan this is all your business needs to know about using social media in particular Twitter, my personal opinion on using Twitter for business is it's vital, without it you can't reach out to your customers in an engaging manner, it's also a valuable channel as a source of research, so here's the first steps in building your business further: First Steps 1. Build an account and immediately start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor’s names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.) 2. Add a picture. ( Shel reminds us of this.) We want to see you. 3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn’t sell more widgets, but it shows us you’re human. 4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you. 5. Share links to neat things in your community. ( @wholefoods does this well). 6. Don’t get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. ( @jetbluegives travel tips.) 7. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out. 8. Promote your employees’ outside-of-work stories. ( @TheHomeDepotdoes it well.) 9. Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc. 10. Talk about non-business, too, like @astrout Ideas About WHAT to Tweet 11. Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?” 12. Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety. 13. When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link. 14. Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions. 15. Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her. 16. Tweet about other people’s stuff. Again, doesn’t directly impact your business, but makes us feel like you’re not “that guy.” 17. When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc. 18. Share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things. 19. Don’t toot your own horn too much. 20. Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the others, too.

By Coops (@ccoops)

Yesterday I attended a really interesting presentation about how to listen and engage in the social web.

The topics and speakers were:
The power of listening, analysing & measuring: Chris Ramsey, Radian6 USA
The power of engaging: Brian Giesen, Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence

Here are some of the highlights from Chris Ramsey:

Brand today is defined by the sum of what people say about you. This changes the way marketeers think and act. It’s no longer about the 4 p’s – place, promotion, price and product. It should now be the 4 c’s- content, community, conversation, connections and collaboration. When advising clients to start listening to conversations in the social web they need to understand that it isn't about measuring impressions and it certainly shouldn’t be thought of as a place to put ads. It’s about engagement, sentiment and share of voice. The key to success is through; transparency, authenticity and speed.

Brian Giesen then spoke about the power of engaging and these were his top ten tips:

#1 Drive smarter media planning (a soft drink company found loads of people were talking about their brand mid week – which then led to their hump day or Wednesday media strategy)

#2 Drive stronger creative and ROI (relevancy)

#3 Own search engine results (Recent deals between Google and social networks mean social conversations are more prevalent in search than ever before)

#4 Influencer love getting online (seek them out)

#5 Sharable content is king

#6 Offer talk-worthy experiences

#7 Great PR ideas drive engagement (KFC Free Cayan Chicken Burger example)

#8 Recruit brightest new talent (social media allows people to pinpoint great talent, Ernst & Young use Facebook as their main recruitment tool)

#9 Turn customer service into PR (responding to negative conversations to turn them into positive experiences can great a very powerful reaction that outweighs the original negative conversation. People are surprised and delighted that brands and listening to their conversations)

#10 Be relevant and respectful (engage bloggers but do it in the right way and always involve influencers- charterforcompassion.org is a good example of this)

‘Say it with your eyes’ is a microsite www.wearlenses.com.au and online campaign developed for CIBA Vision, a global leader in the research, development and manufacturing of contact lenses and lens care products.

Our approach Bullseye was asked to work with the tagline ‘Say it with your eyes’, and create a website and viral campaign that was innovative and required a social media application. This site had print media and heavy point of sale materials supporting it. The site launched in October 2009, and it targets 16 – 19 year old girls who want to, or already do, wear contact lenses. It houses information about contact lenses, as well as an application that connects visitors with Facebook (a popular social networking site for this demographic). This allows the user and their friends to upload and share photos of each other and see what they ‘Say with your eyes’. There were several key objectives incorporated into the site’s production:

1. Downloadable trial vouchers
2. CIBA Vision branding
3. Viral spread of the Facebook application
4. Information about lenses
5. User redemption of unique codes

Results Within the first two weeks there were over 1000 hits and Bullseye went on to rank in the 2009 Top 40 BestAds Australian Agency Rankings as a result of the work done on the CIBA Vision project.

When I heard about Google Wave, the digital marketer in me was keen to understand how I could exploit the pants off it. Obvious uses came to mind, such as the ability to target Google Search Advertising to live conversations via the content network. I could also see how brands could promote themselves to consumers through personal and direct conversations. Take the car market as an example, you could set up a ‘Ford Wave’, where Ford lovers could share experiences and, perhaps, Ford could offer exclusive invitations to Wave riders to test-drive new models. However, I was still struggling to understand how marketers could really make brands famous using Google Wave. Or let’s cut to the important stuff... how us ad-folk could commercialise it. So, I decided to embark on the task of analysing some of the industries that I felt would benefit most from greater collaboration. One of the first areas that sprung to mind was Education. All over the world there must be teachers, university lecturers and students who are keen to share learning experiences. This could take classrooms and lecture theatres global. Unbounded by classroom walls, children could have live Waves with kids across the globe, and teachers could share and develop learning ideas with like-minded people. Students could get their exam results delivered by the Wave, so they no longer have to loiter around the letterbox waiting nervously. Assignments could also be marked and commented on via the Wave. Journalists, reporters and producers could all use Google Wave to develop and share story ideas. Sporting clubs could use it to organise team games, training and via forum to get to know their teammates better. Government agencies and departments could use it to spread important messages. For example, they could set up a Wave for people living in areas at risk of bushfire that would allow them to collaborate with each other and, importantly, get access to real time updates. The Wave will also be a powerful tool for cause-related activities, as proven by the ‘My Oath Campaign’ promoting White Ribbon Day. The possibilities for collaboration really are endless. Perhaps, rather than being a money spinner, it will simply be the tool that modernises communications in industries and organisations that are crying out for new and more effective ways to collaborate. Google’s approach to this launch has also been quite clever by opening it up to the developer community first on an exclusive ‘invite only’ basis (which, on further investigation, can really be anyone who poses as a developer or gets an invite from one). I think that the real meat of this tool will be uncovered by the development community through the API. In this sense, it is a blank canvas. One of the first things I think we will see from the external developer community is the creation of a tool that allows it to work with other email clients, while at ‘Camp Google’ I think we will see a commercial variant of the software that sits in their business applications portfolio. Internal corporate collaboration through the Wave is inevitable, but the big players will only leave their safe Microsoft havens if developers can create some safety nets between the discussion and the clouds. In 2010, consumers will be smarter and more security conscious about their social interactions. If they are marketed to via social networks it will only be accepted if it’s secure, relevant and engaging, and businesses will only use the Wave if they have ownership of the conversations. The other big question I have is how does Google plan to make money from the Wave? At a recent seminar, one of the creators, Lars Rasmussen, said he had a romantic notion that people might actually pay for it. However, he also mentioned recently there are a number of ways it could generate revenue. One idea was to set up a Google Wave Apps Store for all the robots, embeds and gadgets being developed. My tip? Watch the space and make friends with a geek. Claire is a Senior Client Services Manager with Bullseye’s Digital Marketing business unit. She is responsible for managing a diverse portfolio of accounts, including the Australian Sports Commission and Goodman Fielder. Claire guides Bullseye’s clients on how to get ROI from social media campaigns and how to engage and respond using social media monitoring. You can email Claire at claire.cooper@bullseye.com.au or follow her on Twitter @ccoops.

Morphy Richards is a well known UK brand that has experienced growth in Australia over the last 2 years. The 'Tea and Toast' concept takes a typically British tradition that is loved around the world and 'Australianises' it by asking  the participant which Australian they would most like to have Tea and Toast with.

Objective

The Tea and Toast campaign targeted Australian women aged 28 to 50. As a 'top shelf' home appliance name Morphy Richards aimed to target high income consumers from the AB demographic. The objectives were to raise brand awareness for Morphy Richards in Australia, to introduce the market to the new Illuma Kettle & Toaster range and to start to build a database of consumers for future communications. In a market which is saturated with advertising messages, 'Tea and Toast' offered a simple entry mechanic and cut through the clutter by appealing to the aspirational nature of this target market.

The approach

The campaign harnessed the power of 'celebrity' by asking the participant to day dream for a minute or two during their busy day about who in Australia they would most like to meet. At the end of this campaign the organisers will do their best to organise a Tea and Toast 'date' and if not, the winner will receive a $2000 cash prize. This was the first online marketing campaign for the Morphy Richards brand in Australia, so there was an objective to test various online channels during the campaign's life. Using social media as a channel for communication just made sense. This market is one the fastest growing age-groups in social media usage so making it easy for users to share on Twitter, myspace and delicious also increased the likelihood of the idea being shared with friends. Furthermore, participants went into the draw for 1 of 5 Illuma kettle and toaster packages by emailing the competition to their friends. The campaign included a simple campaign microsite , targeted eDMs, a Facebook campaign, targeted advertisements as well as some supporting PR activities.

Results

Just 4 weeks into the campaign, Morphy Richards Tea and Toast received an incredible response with over 11,724 visitors, 1,794 entries, and 4,581 very active fans on Facebook. Morphy Richards anticipate that Tea and Toast will keep the brand top of mind for consumers around the time of the Illuma launch and in the lead up to Christmas.

On 2 June, the AIS launched its AIS Facebook page to build a fan base with 14-25 year olds.

The objectives of the fan page

• Increase brand awareness of the AIS
• Increase awareness and public support for targeted AIS programs, athletes and staff
• Increase awareness of Australian Government support for sport, including the AIS and other high performance and grassroots programs.

Our challenge

Bullseye was tasked with building the fan base. Our approach was to run targeted performance advertising within Facebook to people within the age group of 14-25 who listed in their interests, sport related terms or any of the AIS sporting codes (a pool of approx 500,000 people in Australia).

Deliverable

We wanted to ensure that people could become a fan in one click within the ad itself - so we set the fan page as the destination and this enabled the one click functionality within the ad unit:

Results

• Before the campaign launched AIS had 1,321 fans
• Within one week of the launch it had 2,700
• After 2 weeks it gained 3653 fans
• The base then increased to 11,000 at four weeks and 16,000 at week 5
• As of December 2009 the AIS Facebook fan page has grown to 23,969

This graph shows how the engagement rates increased as the fan base grew!