Digital Stuffing

You can always tell when there’s a new tool around that provides a social media score of some sort. Today, it’s Twifficiency which

calculates your twitter efficiency based upon your twitter activity. This includes how many people you follow, how many people follow you, how often you tweet and how many tweets you read.

It also demands OAuth access to your account and then spams your followers with your score and a link, thus rendering many of your followers annoyed at you spamming them. From the tweets around the app, it appears not to inform people that it does an autotweet, so it’s making users angry as well.

So we’re going to see a quick peak of tweets from the app, lots of tweets moaning about the app and some money made for James Cunningham from the ads on the page. Update: as Jonathan points out, I’ve also missed out the number of blog posts talking about it

It’s just another score, with no indication of whether high or low is good, whether it means anything or what it can be used for. But it’s demonstrating how too many people just follow a link on a page, see a button and press it, without considering the implications – that’s how the malware links spread. At least this one is not asking for user name and password! And it’s going to get exposure for the builder at least.

Metrodeco, a furniture and tea shop in Brighton, is using Foursquare to offer its customers something different. Not content with just offering specials for customers who check-in, last week they ran a special event in an attempt to get themselves and their customers the Foursquare Swarm badge, This only gets unlocked when you have over 50 people check-in in an hour. The time (and money) spent promoting the event obviously paid off, with the badge being unlocked and the takings doubling for the day. As they say in the Metrodeco press release

“Foursquare has been brilliant for our business because we’ve used it to engage with customers in a whole new way and to offer them a better service.
“There’s a growing excitement about it in the UK because of the power it gives people to share their views and tips on bars, restaurants, airports, public buildings and many other locations. Social media means businesses are now forced to do their customer service in public and the best businesses will embrace this fact, rather than fear it.”

It’s not the first UK swarm, it’s been done at sports events and conferences, but they’re claiming the first deliberately planned business event that reached those numbers. The owners are busy leveraging all the tools at their service to drive traffic to their business and doing it well. Here’s one clear case of digital/social media leading to direct sales.

So if you’re going to try this, what needs to be thought about:

• Consider your audience; they have to be checking into the location for any promotion to have an imapct. So sign up to the service and see who checks-in
• Claim your business on the service and get the description, address and geo-tags set up correctly
• Make sure the offer is relevant and obtainable. Setting out something just for the mayor is great, unless your staff claim mayorship, or the title never changes. Metrodeco have a simple offer (free tea or coffee at lunch) for everyone who checks in
• Make sure your staff are aware of the offer. In a single location like this, it’s simple. Larger promotions by companies such as Gap and Starbuck have had bad press as staff were just not aware of the deals.

Remember to have some fun as well; it’s a new tool to play with, be creative and you may be surprised. Next up for Metrodeco? It has to be the Superswarm for 250 people.

Another video from the Cadbury’s Glass and a Half Productions that on the face of it, is just another quirky, fun ad. Dig deeper however, you’ll see that this is that start of a two year campaign for the brand as they start the lead up to the Olympics as a sponsor

The site is Spot vs Stripes, which is going to be the hub for all the action.

We think games are great. They get people playing, they bring people together and sometimes they even reveal an undiscovered talent. That’s why, with the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games around the corner, we’re launching Spots v Stripes.

We’re asking the nation to choose sides and split into Spots or Stripes in order to play what’s quite possibly the biggest, longest game ever.

It leverages the main social tools, with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube been drafted in. Pick your side, play the games and add your points to the team. Some of the games will be on the site, although they’re not quite ready yet as the only one mentioned is still not active. Others will call for your participation,the first being to make a video of you throwing things, load it up and get people to vote on it. There’s going to be new challenges every three months. They’re also taking the games on the road, with city challenges throughout the summer.

First impressions were underwhelming. I wanted to play now, in front of the computer and it’s not possible yet. I can read all the information, and there’s a lot that seems to be dotted around the site, or I can get out and make a video. I can join the Facebook group, but again, there’s little to do there. The site itself left me slightly confused about why I want to join the team, what’s in it for me, what it will add to my life over the next 2 years apart. I know it’s all about the gameplay, the taking part and the getting out and doing things, but I’m left feeling a little meh about the team aspect.

I like the idea, but I want more – now. They could have waited a while to allow the online games to be there – or more likely, started earlier in development It’s going to be interesting to watch the idea grow from its slow start.

At the London Girl Geek Dinner last night, Glenn Morgan, from British Airways gave an overview of the importance of IT. To close his presentation he showed an updated Socionomics video, with a whole load of new stats.

The most interesting line, for me was this

The ROI of Social Media is your business will exist in 5 years

Whilst I’m not as hardline as that – there’ll still be plenty of businesses out there who aren’t using the tools even in 5 years (whatever tools we have then) – I believe that businesses that connect with their customers (which is all social media use is) will perform better than those that don’t.

In my ego search this morning, I picked up a re-publication of a press article (on a spam blog, so no link) that came out earlier this year. However, the article had obviously gone through some translations to another language and back to English, or had a weird replacement algorithm in place as I’m referred to as

Rachel Clarke, head of amicable media at twentysix

I just love the term amicable media, a good description for some of the activities we do.

The Media Lions were announced today; a Grand Prix was taken by Photochains, an Australian campaign from Leo Burnett, Sydney for the Eos camera from Canon.

The Work

Photochains is simple, it’s all about the inspiration. Start with one image and get inspiration from it to create the next. They started on TV and then moved online, encouraging people to upload the next image in the creative chain or start their own. Over 20k photos were uploaded, as they encouraged people to encourage their friends to load the next image, to join the chain. The site showcased the increasing number of chains and the campaign moved back offline, demonstrating what had been created.

I love this, it’s all about the social object – an image – and how it fits in with your community and the wider network. By adding your photo, 2 objects are created, the image and the new interpretation of the chain. The connection with others activates the human need to share and create. It’s the same motivation behind previous campaigns such as the Google email video, or the longest football passing chain video, but the constraints of those efforts, passing an object across media are removed, it’s all about the inspiration and creation for something new

The first round of awards have been announced at Cannes. Loving how much social media and digital there’s in there.

Replay

Gatorade found not as many 30+ people were exercising and therefore not buying the product. So they looked for a way to re-ignite the athletic spark by replaying a high school match that ended in a draw. They used the website to tell the stories, produced portable exercise content and used Facebook to allow you to find your old team mates from school. It even encouraged more replay matches to be organised. (Won PR and Promo/Activation)

Orcon and Iggy Pop.

Iggy Pop is not just the face of Swiftcover Insurance. In New Zealand, he’s involved in Orcon Broadband. The premise was to record a version of his song Passenger, using Skype over the broadband. Using ads across Facebook, outdoors and display they called for musicians to upload audition tapes to a special Facebook app. The 9 players chosen then recorded the song, which got used for TV and more. (Won Direct)

On the recruitment market, there’s a lot of movement for social media people, specialists in the area. But I think the first set of winners demonstrate that we are moving beyond the specialist into having people (ie social media) far more integrated into the work than ever before. There’s always a need for expert knowledge, but not as a separate element. As the website was often seen as an afterthought, so was social media. That is now moving to be part of the whole, integrated from the start.

The US Navy continue to be leaders in using social media to connect with service members, potential recruits, fans and other stakeholders. Here’s a presentation they’ve put up with some concrete examples and action plans we can all take something from

Looking at You Tube this morning I saw You Tube now has a trending terms widget. Not sure how new this is but I’ve not seen any comments about it. It’s interesting, Google adding a real-time search element to the site. You’ve long been able to see what people are watching ‘right now’ but this is an extra dimension – what people are searching for, an indication of the external drivers to the videos.

I’ll have to admit I’m not entirely convinced yet. This morning’s snapshot is not necessarily the most interesting. However, I would expect to see a bunch of trending search terms based on TV shows (especially the reality ones), celebrity deaths and sports events, all of then time-relevant areas, where mention in mass broadcast channels drive people to look for things.

You Tube Trending Terms

Anyone who’s heard me speak on social media or spent time chatting with me should know that I’m a strong believer in using social media across the board when it comes to companies.

• It should be a strategic component of the communications toolset.
• It should be integral to all marketing actions, not just a bolt-on at the end of planning just because it’s ‘hot’
• That in many cases the budget set up is wrong – it should come out of customer service budgets as well as marketing budgets. It applies just as much, if not more, to post-sales work as it does to getting people to consider your product or service.

I often draw the diagram below as a situation I would see as ideal. A foundation of ongoing activity, a combination of customer service and just conversation presence in social media areas, complemented by peaks of activities associated with campaigns, when new things are tried, when a brand extends what it is doing (with apologies for my poor graphing skills) Red is campaign activity, blue is service and general presence.

Social Media Activity over time

The same sentiment was reflected by Jamie Coomber yesterday when she tweeted:

Have been asked “what agency does great social media campaigns” 3 things wrong with the wording,

It’s all tied up with the thinking that marketing is just something that gets done by agencies on a campaign basis, instead of something everyone in the company who comes into contact with a customer or potential customer does all the time.

But what does Rackspace have to do with this? Well, last night they demonstrated how a company that integrates things across multiple channels can work when it comes to service. At Ale 2point0 last night, sitting in a pub with James Cridland, who runs mediauk.com, he was annoyed because his site was down and he’d had no communication from support. One tweet later and there were a bunch of people on it, including the official Rackspace account

@rachelclarke @jamescridland need immediate assistance? DM me and I’ll help route to right people ~ call +1.210.548.5616

James meantime had also raised a ticket and that was also picked up by the US based team and monitored to ensure it was resolved. Taking a look at the whole stream, that’s just what these guys do all the time; keep an eye out for mentions and get problems fixed

@gabeanzelini we’re real people, 24x7x365+ Thanks for the shout-out

Overall, completely impressed with the reaction and eagerness to get things sorted. This is the difference between a brand that uses the tools for campaigns and those that live and breathe them throughout what they do. One you treat slightly cynically because you know it’s just a short term thing that’s trying to get you to do things, the other will be there in the long term for when you need them to do things for you.