Comply or Die by Profero Global

There are, inevitably, both pros and cons to reaching maturity at a time when economies around the world are collapsing, a time when even the assumed recession-proof financial superpowers in the Middle East are bellowing smoke signals for help.

Social marketing has, ostensibly, helped many brands bridge the chasm that can separate consumer confidence and corporate promises; it has added value to products and corporations where value was previously lacking. We have seen relatively run-of-the-mill companies, such as Coffee Grounds and Zappos, leverage social media in ways that have transformed their marketing strategies, revitalised their customer service policies and even enhanced their core business models, turning them into local and global superstars.

With the maturation of the social super brands i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Bebo etc there is an inevitability that this is due to the aging and maturing taste of the consumer. The recent explosion of social media and the seemingly endless list of ‘innovative’ social platforms has been well documented, one only needs to go as far as the Conversation Prism and the changes made on a weekly basis to Brian Solis’s work of art to gasp at the accelerated pace of evolution. However, this torrent of social network offerings has recently begun to slow, with the projected plateau being reached early 2012. It seems that consumers’ digital taste buds are beginning to have satisfied their curiosity for all things social and have settled on fewer platforms. Yet the time spent on these, fewer, sites has increased dramatically i.e. the average user visits 5 main sites each day with Facebook holding the longest engagement statistics with people spending on average of 55 minutes each day on the site.

So, what does this change in social media consumption mean to marketers? Is the growth of Facebook and Twitter the motive for the increase in digital advertising spends? It is, surly, one of the reasons. But one only has to watch an “Awesome Social Media Guru” parody to understand the clichés that have begun to attach themselves to this segment of the industry. Has the work of Facebook, conveniently segregating consumer interests and psychographics, made marketers lazy? Some, of course. However, for social marketing strategists who aim to create memorable and lasting experiences these social superpowers have created a small problem.

The growth and influence of Facebook, in particular, has seen the platform take on the role of teacher, entertainer, retailer, communicator, organiser and, in some cases, employer. Users might now struggle to find a reason to leave this space. The age-old casino trick of offering players free sandwiches and beverages has the audience in a very favourable position. Parallels can be drawn with the introduction supermarkets in the UK: for the consumer it’s convenient, for the independent retailer a nightmare.

There is a divide in opinion about the growth of social media and the power of the new Tesco’s of the web. There are those who think it’s a quick win, a holy grail in the form of a strategy that can now satisfy client needs for ROI figures; and there are those who believe it stems creativity and that its popularity has made it a beacon to naïve clients and lazy marketers, ultimately devaluing it. I am drawn between both. I agree that the platform is great in that it offers a space for brands to listen and create relationships, but on the other hand I feel that the consumer has been spoiled. They want to have their cake and eat it (this includes myself to an extent) at a time that suits them and in a space of their choice. And that is Facebook.

So, sure this creates a conundrum when the brief comes in, for the weaker of the marketers, the ‘Awesome Social Media Gurus’ and the like, simply creating a plan centralizing around a Facebook strategy that a nodding client can sign-off, regardless of the lack of innovation and creativity required, is a good days work (shudder). For the stronger agencies, creating digital spaces the client can own, that bear roots from a creative idea is the real challenge. To create ideas that are not restricted in offering value to the consumer but current and potential business and customer service models, is even more so.

The future is looking bright, however. Facebook seems to have become conscious of the changes in quality to the user experience that social marketing has had and this can be seen in stringent regulations now in place for marketers to adhere to. For the main part, innovative, engaging campaigns that offer real value i.e. Virgin ‘Frienemies’, Audi crowd sourcing for the future etc., the crux of these ideas will remain unaffected.

The changes include a banning of pushed notifications, pushed ‘share’ boxes and the removal of Facebook ‘boxes’ from the user control panel, among others. Although the seeding for these ideas may now alter slightly, the ideas at their heart are the true drivers of their success, not the blanketing of messaging across the target market, praying that the low click-through-rates (0.3 on a good day) will come good. And the result? The more generic/traditional/disappointing advertising approaches used by the idle industry advertisers, those that result in merely seeding Facebook contextual ads, spamming news streams whilst begging you to ‘share’ boring content and so on, is to be abolished in the new year.

It can be assumed (dangerous but tempting) that Facebook has finally monopolised this segment of social networks, similar to YouTube, and can now strip back the growing clutter to concentrate on a purer consumer experience. This is certainly not a case of leaving us marketers outside in the cold, salivating at the abundance of consumer insights and information of yester-year, but now throws down the gauntlet to advertisers who relish the Darwinian challenge that only the deserving, most innovative ideas will prevail on this evolving landscape.
So, it seems that while the monoliths may be growing in stature, signaled by the lack of threat from new entrants, with power comes responsibility. With the reforming of rules within Facebook advertising, ethics and value for the customer remain integral to the new plan; and it is a change welcomed by those ready for the challenge in the new year….so only the strong need apply.

Art made on an iPhone

The ultimate potential of the revolutionary iPhone was not realised when admirers first lauded its aesthetic appeal. Nor was it appreciated when they praised the power of the hardware that was housed within this sleek exterior. Only now, when looking at the ever-expanding choice of iPhone apps available, enabling the smart phone to become a device that rotates around the user, taking on the function of what the user desires, as a truly customisable phone that can become anything you want it to be, can we appreciate its true capability.

iPhone

The most successful apps are those that use the phones inbuilt software and hardware features effectively i.e. Accelerometer, GPS, Compass, Camera, Touch-screen etc. However, the most successful branded applications are those that seek out the part of the brand that provides an engaging mobile user experience. Carling’s iPint entertained pub-goers with a simple yet fun visualisation that could be pulled out at your local for some banter, whilst Oakley uses the GPS function to create an app that surfers could use as a utility for checking wave height and location, adding to the brand’s product truths of functionality and reliability relevant to the sport.

With the total number of “Active Apps” shooting past the 85,000 mark(and counting) there are a fair share of brands that have dipped into the world of Apps, some offering engaging mini-brand experiences, others offering not so engaging branded experiences. In order to take a snapshot of the state of the branded iPhone app segment, a modestly-sized document with some examples of the latest brands trying their luck at mobile is available here, including our ten pence on just what we think of their efforts.

For a more detailed list, including more on this and other information, head over to Johnny Makkar’s blog at Attention Digital and take a look at his extensive spreadsheet. If you know of any applications he may be missing then help the gentlemen out with some good old-fashioned crowd sourcing.

Social Media

Having been in the process of writing a conclusive (And slightly overdue) piece to summarise the social media film review, I stumbled upon an article written by Andrew Hampp of AdAge that evaluates the phenomenon in a respectable fashion. The article takes a mature and well balanced stance on exploring the relationships and variables involved. Hampp also uses the studies that were featured earlier on The Hive Blog social media film review, adding to the relevance of the inclusion of this piece, so without further adieu, view the article after the break. All credit is due to the author and publisher.

Forget Ebert: How Twitter Makes or Breaks Movie Marketing Today

by Andrew Hampp
Published: October 05, 2009
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NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Can the so-called Twitter effect boost a movie’s box-office performance faster than any traditional form of word-of-mouth? Not yet, say many top movie marketers and researchers, but the social networking platform’s impact on a studio’s media mix and campaign management has already taken shape.

Witness Sony Pictures, one of the first studios to create branded Twitter pages for its films, which saw releases such as “District 9,” “Julie & Julia” and “The Ugly Truth” open strong and maintain momentum by keeping the branded conversation around each film active and updating the films’ followers on the microblogging site with exclusive content in the following weeks. The results? Grosses of $113 million, $90 million and $88 million, respectively, and counting.

But the idea behind a Twitter effect gained traction this summer after the Hollywood press and the blogosphere blamed Twitterers for shortening the box-office life of films such as Universal’s “Bruno,” which opened to a strong $30 million but quickly sputtered to a $12 million second weekend based on poor word-of-mouth and a high volume of negative tweets. Could moviegoers with nothing but a cellphone and a Twitter account really be undermining the millions of dollars poured into a movie’s marketing?

Market research firm 360i recently tested the Twitter effect by comparing Twitter traffic for “Bruno” during its first weekend at the box office with three other summer films, and found “Bruno” to have the highest percentage of drop-off in second-day box-office grosses (-39%) and negative tweets (21%).

But making a direct correlation between the two is far from scientific and hardly one-size-fits-all for all films, said Sarah Hofstetter, 360i’s senior VP-emerging media and client strategy. “A movie like ‘Bruno’ is exceptionally polarizing — either everyone wants to see Sacha Baron Cohen naked or they don’t,” she said. “You have to differentiate in the content and context of a film — if you give too much credence to Twitter marketing and you say, ‘Our efforts contributed to a 10% lift in ticket sales,’ no one’s going to agree on what caused that.”

Little impact
And Twitter, as well as other social media, has yet to directly affect the methodology behind the metrics supplied by box-office forecasters to the studios to gauge all-important first-weekend ticket sales weeks in advance. One major movie forecaster said active Twitter and Facebook users have yet to be included in the sample size because it “needs to be reflective of how the studios spend their money. To chase Twitter or social networks would be a disservice to that population.”

In fact, Twitter has helped forecasters such as Marketcast and Nielsen NRG steadfastly hold on to their role in manufacturing hype around those all-important first three days. In the case of “Bruno,” analysts correctly predicted the $30 million opening weekend, but stayed away from managing post-debut expectations. “Our job stops after opening day. The rest is up to the universe,” said one forecaster.

Nor has Twitter had a measurable impact on studios’ marketing budgets, even as they add dedicated staffers to manage and measure social-networking activity around their slates. “While Twitter is important as social media, it is a very small sliver of our marketing campaign,” said a Sony executive. “I think it is more effective as a gauge of how effectively your materials are working and it allows marketers to take a real-time pulse on consumer attitudes towards your brand or property.”

Instead, Twitter has become the campaign-management tool of choice, one that studios and other marketers can harness faster and to a greater extent as more case studies crop up on a weekly basis. “The name of the game for the studios is to take full advantage of all early signals,” said Pete Blackshaw, exec VP-Nielsen Online’s digital strategic services. “The downside for them is a movie can be damaged really quickly — the flow of information on these platforms, and degree to which influencers are tapping into those signals is quite profound.”

But one former marketer at a major studio suggested that Sony has harnessed Twitter more effectively for a $30 million movie such as “District 9″ than other surprise blockbusters such as Warner Bros.’ “The Hangover” or Disney’s “The Proposal.”

“Sony did a very good job at continuing engagement with consumers. The film got such positive buzz from consumers that they started talking about it through [Sony's] real-time stream,” the executive said. “I don’t think those other studios knew what they had on their hands at the time.”

Sony’s fall-movie forecast
If early numbers are any indication, Sony Pictures’ fall forecast is less “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” and more “Sunny With a Chance of Blockbusters.”

EARLY HIT: ‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’
EARLY HIT: ‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’
The studio is taking big bets on summer-level success with a slate that got off to a strong start with the 3-D animated “Meatballs” ($60 million grossed in its first two weekends) and is off to more ambitious heights with the Roland Emmerich apocalypse flick “2012″ and the highly anticipated Michael Jackson concert film “This Is It,” each slated for the coming months. Even last weekend’s “Zombieland” was expected to top the box office with a $25 million haul, which, leading up to the Oct. 28 release of “This Is It” could give Sony a No. 1 film for at least four of the season’s first seven weeks.

“They’re positioned really perfectly,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office at Hollywood.com. “The other studios have some good stuff going on, but it’s not like in past years where we had a ‘Lord of the Rings’ movie or a ‘Harry Potter’ to dominate the season.”

“It’s really anyone’s game, and the momentum they’re going to glean from ‘This Is It’ is really going to help them,” added a former marketing chief for a rival studio.

The concert film has already sold out more than 200 showings based on advanced ticket sales on Fandango.com, breaking the site’s records for highest-ever Sunday sales. Although scheduled for a limited two-week release, the film could be extended much in the way Disney’s “Hannah Montana” concert film was in 2008 should ticket sales soar. “If the demand’s there they’ll keep it out there,” said the former marketing chief.

“2012″ is also poised to be a summer-sized blockbuster when it opens Nov. 13, preceded by what was believed to be the largest-ever simultaneous media roadblock on Oct. 1, with two minutes of new footage from the film airing on 92 TV networks, reaching 90% of TV households and an estimated 110 million viewers.

“If you look a couple years back to ‘I Am Legend,’ there will always be a place for a movie like that in the fall,” Mr. Dergarabedian said.

And while boutique arm Sony Pictures Classics rolls out Oscar bait in November and December (“An Education,” Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces”), the main branch seems to have gotten its Academy-courting out of the way in the summer with Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia” and the critically praised “District 9.” Instead, it’s prepping popcorn fare such as the action flick “Armored” and the romantic comedy “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” for the final weeks of the year. “It’s not about chasing Oscar, it’s about chasing the audience,” said Mr. Dergarabedian.

adage.com/madisonandvine/article?article_id=139444

The “Connect” tool, which can be seen as the first genuine attempt to allow access to Facebook user data outside of Facebook itself, is not new, having been used by developers since its introduction in the first quarter of 2008.

Although the intuitive application may not be in showroom condition, like most new technologies it does take a while for developers to become accustomed to the possibilities available, and so the practicality element tends to suffer with novelty fuelling much of the interest and following.

So, having been around the block, with both developer and user familiarising themselves with the new application, we are finally starting to see some interesting and practical uses being developed, with both parties (and client, of course) gaining substantial value from it.

That the use of FBC is free, the monetary value for FB themselves comes through charging for social ads that are targeted at consumers through relevant key words, given. Revenue is generated by allowing the use of the platform and the placement of social ads on Facebook profiles being purchased by those wishing to follow up the campaign using the FBC API.

Below are a few examples of recent campaigns that have integrated the Facebook Connect set of API’s in order to engage, offer a tailor-made experience for the user and provide a rich database of user information.

Facebook connect will be familiar to most, certainly within the media industry (should hope so), however it would be logical to quickly highlight the four main features of API’s before critiquing recent campaigns. For those that may need reminding or clarification on the tech, courtesy of crunchbase.com:

“Trusted Authentication – Anywhere during the user’s experience that the developer would like to add social context, the user will be able to authenticate and connect their account in a trusted environment. The user will have total control of the permissions granted. This is a proprietary authentication mechanism, but is more streamlined than the existing method and will not require a redirect back to Facebook.

Real Identity – Users can bring their real identity information with them wherever they go on the open Web, including: basic profile information, profile picture, name, friends, photos, events, groups, and more.

Friends Access – Users will be able to take their friends with them wherever they go on the open Web. Developers will be able to add rich social context to their websites, and will be able to show which of their Facebook friends already have accounts on their sites.

Dynamic Privacy – As a user moves around the open Web, their privacy settings will follow, ensuring that users’ information and privacy rules are always up-to-date.”

Prototype Experience

The gaming experience, and the overall goal for games developers, is to increase the level of immersion that players experience when using their products. Using the Facebook connect API in order to place the user within the trailer is a natural transition for the Facebook connect application given that the user is willing to suspend his/her imagination and they have some grasp on current technology. Prototypes latest trailer is proving to be the torchbearer not only for budding games marketers but also for those wishing to use the FBC API in general.

The trailer itself is accessed through a microsite with a variety of content (filling up space) surrounding the FBC API login bar. Once logged in the trailer focuses on the plot, giving you a background to the story and the protagonist, with the viewer of the video taking centre stage. Frequent flashes of images and information pulled from the user’s FB page are seamlessly integrated into the storyline, offering a unique and genuinely engaging experience as well as simplifying the plot.

Museum of Modern Art (MoMa)

Definitely one of the main benefits of using the FBC API is its unrivalled convenience. Simply imputing your FB credentials allows the user to bypass all the mundane forms that require filling in order to get a unique experience and what better way to use this than planning a day trip? The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) uses the FBC tool to “tailor your MoMa experience based on your profile and personality.” So, if you have keywords that may suggest that you are interested in Lichtenstein prints and cinema, it will suggest you come in when the relevant exhibitions are running. Genius.

Movies by Flixster

A more recent development from FB around their Connect product is its integration within the iPhone platform, offering iTunes application developers the chance to use the API on both the iTouch and iPhone.

Simply by going to My Movies -> Settings and connecting your Facebook account, you’ll immediately tap into your communal Movies and Facebook network. Given the popularity and reach of Flixster, a simple two-click process can instantly add all your friends, and their respective movie watching behaviours, to your mobile experience.

If you wish to find out more about other campaigns using the FBC API or have any examples of the application yourself that you wish to share, then please send them to Luke.Farrell@Profero.com along with your comments. Mucho gracias.

Via Information is Beautiful

As part of the social media film review we have been looking at new benchmarks for successful marketing campaigns by films exploiting the social media space to engage and disseminate information to potential cinema-goers. Dark Knight threw down the gauntlet to potential adopters of viral marketing strategies and the success of the multi-pronged Cloverfield campaign saw a creative and intelligent teaser campaign that involved moviegoers beyond the conversations at the water cooler. However, neither of these used the social phenomenon Twitter as effectively as Quentin Taratino’s Inglourious Basterds.

Recently we have seen correlations drawn between Twitter activity and box office performances. “Twitter sinks Bruno” articles, for example. However, according to Steven Zeitchik at Risky Biz Blog, Inglorious Basterds is the first film that can directly thank Twitter for its opening weekend box office success. A bold statement, indeed, given the proven audience-pulling power of both Pitt and Tarantino.

So, how can we/anyone make the claim that IB has, in fact, tamed the mob that runs the Twitter trending topics thus benefiting hugely from the “Twitter factor”?

The first step of any successful social media campaign is to recognise the medium that suits the project/message, and Twitter definitely facilitates the Tarantino fan. It’s a cult film director, slightly niche yet mainstream and with more one-liners per minute then most. It’s the perfect habitat for Tarantino fans to mingle and create conversations around the latest offering. This, in part, might explain the substantial 7,000+ following already acquired. (The Twitter population demographic breakdown indicates that circa 75% of users are over 25 and male and IB Distributor The Weinstein Company’s exit polling indicated that 58 percent of the audience was male and 72 percent was aged 25 and older.)

So far this summer the “Twitter factor” has been blamed for the poor takings of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno on its second day at the US box office, plummeting almost 40% after the first day, and the unexpected success of low-budget sci-fi tale District 9. And the effect seems to have influenced the success of IB. When analysing the timing of its popularity in relation to the tweets about the movie, like Bruno, the effect can be seen after the first showing so that fans can make their mind up, spread opinion and thus influence those waiting for peer reviews before seeing it themselves.

To support this analytics provider, Crimson Hexagon, has commented that “78% of those who commented on Inglourious Basterds on Twitter gave positive responses, and that may have helped encourage people to see it.”

Prior to its release the film had provoked division among critics but Friday and Saturday tweeting swung it in a decidedly favorable direction. And it picked up momentum as the weekend went on, with Saturday Twitterers enthusiastically tweeting and re-tweeting their approval.

it is interesting, too, to compare positive and anticipatory tweets, given that conventional review sites such as Rotten Tomatoes had rated the film as low as 40%.

Positive tweets – Loved It, Pitt was Great, Have to See It, and Vintage Tarantino – make up 78% of all Twitter coverage, whereas combined negative tweets – Not Tarantino’s Best, Unimpressed – make up only 8%.

With that kind of data, it’s hard not to believe that the overwhelmingly positive response from the Twittersphere convinced at least some moviegoers to check out the movie.

As with Cloverfield and The Dark Knight, below are some statistics on the social media campaign, highlighting the importance of this digital element in marketing one of the most popular social past-times.

Trailer Diggs – 1234
Bebo members – 65
Facebook fans – 60,547
IMDb reviews – 42,837
YouTube views – 2,236,026
Box Office weekend total – $38,054,676
Twitter followers – 7,355

Sources

www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/25/inglourious-basterds-twitter-box-office

www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2611

digg.com/search?s=inglourious+basterds+trailer

mashable.com/2009/08/24/twitter-inglourious-basterds/

www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=7601813869

es-la.facebook.com/inglouriousbasterdsinternational?ref=share&_fb_noscript=1

twitter.com/therealbasterds

www.slashfilm.com/2009/05/20/early-twitter-buzz-inglourious-basterds/

www.riskybusinessblog.com/2009/08/inglourious-basterds-twitter.html

mashable.com/2009/07/13/bruno-twitter-reactions/

Jonathan Agnew is a well-respected commentator on BBC radio’s cricket coverage. Will Buckley is a slightly less well-respected senior sports writer for the otherwise excellent UK Sunday newspaper, The Observer. During the recent topsy-turvy, edge-of-your- seat England v Australia Ashes series, over a lunch break at The Oval, Agnew interviewed diminutive English popstrel Lily Allen, herself a surprisingly loyal, and it transpired amusing, devotee of Test cricket and never anything less than an engaging interviewee. The interview was light-hearted, informal and, judging by the days of faux-panic and jocular ribbing between Agnew and his co-commentators in the build up, an unabashed tongue-in-cheek affair. How, his colleagues enquired, amused, would the bumbling Aggers cope when faced with the paparazzi-fodder and darling of the red-tops. They got the joke. Buckley didn’t. After the interview, writing in his column he accused Agnew of unashamed fawning and positioning “himself firmly on the pervy side of things”, a cross “between benevolent uncle and desperate middle-aged man panting on the edge of the dance floor.” Sticks and stones and all that. But…

Agnew, like Allen, and unlike Buckley, is a rapacious Twitterer. He has 22,000 followers. She has nearly 1.3 million. In the ethereal world of social media they are, like a couple of virtual New Jersey hoods, very well connected “tweeple”. In the lead up to the offending interview Agnew tweeted about his nerves, the excitement, the questions he should ask, what he should wear. Allen, too, tweeted how excited she was. It was all very cheerful and sociable. Until Buckley waded in. Agnew expressed his surprise at the tone of the column on Twitter and thanked his followers for expressing their shock, and 140-character support, too. The Observer website was swamped with astonishment. Allen chipped in and voiced surprise. 

And then more people piped up. And more. And more. And still more. A “snide, nasty, small-minded and utterly hyperbolic hatchet job, dripping in meanness” they cried! The hordes gathered at the gates and, fired by his role as slighted quarry, Agnew demanded an apology.

Today, so vociferous has the support for Agnew become, that this atonement now seems imminent. The whole torrid affair has tipped into the mainstream press and Buckley is boxed in, his reputation in tatters. Or twatters.

So, what have we learnt from this tragic tale? Well, it’s not only brands that need to tread carefully, to act responsibly, to listen to the proles. If you want to throw stones at national treasures, be sure to keep in mind that it’s not only they who you damn. You take on legions of pumped-up, digitally-savvy devotees, too, each with a voice. And against such a tsunami of opinion, even august strongholds such as The Observer are dust.
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I read Rory Sutherland’s engaging blog post in Campaign today validating the continuing need for great copy in advertising. The only thing it was missing was a purposeful discussion on the subject within the digital world, so that’s what I’ll attempt here.

In our digital industry, we are seduced by the ever-expanding list of things technology allows us to do. With the emergence of technologies like Natal, Android and ARG, we exist in a wonderland of visual excitement and pioneering knowledge. It’s a great place to be. Even glancing back for a moment, our industry has been one that has up till now been sustained by audiovisual excitement of subservient poultry, wayward balloons and smartphone apps that really do make it look as if you are drinking that beer. We have been the Willy Wonka to the Cadbury factory of the good old traditional ads.

But social media has brought about one fundamental change and dusted down a discipline that I was worried had almost expired within the so-called ‘new media’ agency.

I doubt very much that readers can point to a piece of digital work whose awards were garnered by its masterful use of copy; the Ogilvys, Bernbachs and Abbotts would have little to detain them if they were to be brought into a judging panel for digital work. Yet, when I flick through my social media accounts, there is one thing that exerts a stopping power so great, I feel like a galloping, excited greyhound that’s just forgotten that it was tethered to a concrete wall.

You can see great copy coming. As you flick down the endless retweets and automatic blog posts, it’s almost like your eye sees the great words before your brain has had time to start reading. Beautiful writing never goes out of fashion, and it’s just about to become very important indeed.

On Twitter, there are certain people whose avatars are a prompt to stop scrolling out of pure habit. Charlie Brooker, Richard Herring and Paul Carr are all people who have the power to captivate you with no more than 140 keystrokes. They make you smile, think, flinch or disappear into a fit of giggles. On the other hand, there are people who should hold far more sway in the digital world who are truly undermined by the high volume and low readability of what they put out there. Please take a bow Robert Scoble, Piers Fawkes and Guy Kawasaki. Don’t get me wrong – once I connect with what these people are on about, they are as compelling as anyone, but words aren’t their forte.

I have seen precious few brands that have invested in a truly arresting voice.  Typically, their social media efforts are a mixture of platitudes, harmless observations and @answers dripping with well-intentioned banality. Granted, Brooker, Herring and Carr all push the boundaries to certain limits, and brands have reputations to manage.  But these same brands manage to approve the creation of advertising campaigns that are just as provocative and arresting as their social media voice should be. They need to develop a voice that is invested with the same brilliance and power as an ad campaign. Only this time, you add spontaneity. If that terrifies you, then it’s good confirmation of how things have changed. In terms of great examples lighting the way, it’s all a bit limited. Aleksandr_Orlov from Compare The Meerkat is only one I can think of, but I’d love to have some more voices to listen to.

So the recommendation is simple. Talking isn’t enough. Brands should actually pluck up the courage to write something involving, human and compelling. And for heaven’s sake, write it well.

Brands having trouble building a large base of followers on Twitter can now turn to Australian technology firm uSocial.net and pay for connections (full story at Revolution). Surely if a brand wants to get more followers it should simply be interesting in what it has to say. Obviously the first thing any brand needs to do is identify what is the purpose of its twitter feed – it is a mistake to simply treat it as an extension of your PR communications channel.

Some brands have definitely got it right:
Dell Outlet (795,396 followers) – Quite simply an extension of its online outlet offering discounts on products. So far accounted for $3 million of additional sales

Zappos CEO (901,993 followers) – Surely the most followed CEO on twitter. Mixture of him running an amazing business, having a sense of humour and sharing interesting views. E.g.

Interestingly Zappos_service only has only got 1,712. However this only scratches the surface as they still very active. Here is the response I got soon after I recommended them as one of the best #socialbrands:

There are many more (see mashable for a list of top 40) but most seem to be focused on customer services and/or providing interesting information to their customers. Where twitter however has been used as part of a campaign, from what I have seen it has invariably not been successful. Here is the reality for some of those brands that have been lauded for their campaigns on twitter:

Marmite – LoveHate Martmite

The write up
This is a good idea for the Unilever brand in a sector where new marketing strategies can be difficult to get off the ground. Continuing its love/hate theme used across all channels, this Marmite/Twitter mashup has created two hashtags (#lovemarmite and #hatemarmite) that it then collates. The key thing here is that Ollie Parsley and Paul Randall have matched Marmite to micro-blogging in a way that’s appropriate for the brand, but that doesn’t blindly follow the convention of having a Twitter account. Like Skittles, this uses Twitter without having to tweet about an FMCG brand – something that may be of limited interest. This is an unofficial Marmite campaign that Parsley says he and Randell created in four hours and demonstrates what FMCG brands could do if they devoted even a little time to social media (via Revolution)

The reality
Love Marmite mentions – 18
Hate Marmite mentions – 12

Vodafone Live Guy –

The write up
Vodafone announced the launch of its free Lenovo laptop with a campaign that was Where’s Wally? meets social media. Consumers followed Liveguy through blogs and Twitter as he travelled through UK cities, blogging and Tweeting about his surroundings. The aim, for consumers, was to find him in real life to win a Lenovo laptop. This went beyond the standard Twitter models that most brands adhere to, and as a campaign, highlighted a new product in an innovative way. It was more daring than most Twitter brands and built a nice amount of buzz. Vodafone has now wrapped up Live Guy and has turned VodafoneUK into an interactive feed, suggesting that a conversational tone is set to become obvious throughout its Twitter presence.

The reality
244 followers

There have been some successes on the campaign side but personally do not think that this is going to be the main purpose of twitter for brands. Irrespective I do not want to criticize these brands for trying as it is probably only going to be through trial and error that brands are going to find their true voice in this environment. The important thing is that when they do choose to play in the space that they remain authentic, true to their values and be interesting.

Profero Sydney have created a unique social media campaign to promote the release of much anticipated Electronic Arts game The Sims 3.

The Sims 3 Ultimate Aussie Fan Competition calls for Sims fanatics to build and promote their own Sims fan page, recruiting friends, family and anyone in sight to become a supporter of their page. Entrants to the competition are competing within 2 major prize categories – Most Supporters, for those who are able to spread the word of The Sims the furthest, and Most Creative. Competitors are encouraged to populate their pages with interesting Sims content in order to attract the vote from supporters, who can also win a copy of the game. In just over a week after launch, the competition attracted over 2500 entrants with Fans creating a huge amount of Sims 3 fan art, including YouTube videos, facebook, twitter activity and more. Among various user generated content, some fans have created their own t-shirts, parody videos, advertising concepts, rap songs and more.

The competition is open to Australian and New Zealand entrants and ends July 3rd.
Website: www.sims3fan.com.au
Twitter: www.twitter.com/sims3fancomp