Nicholas Cifuentes

Social Media Map.

Late last week, our team at Overdrive Interactive released the first version of the Social Media Map. This map is designed to help marketers and random people alike view the components of the social media landscape and determine how it can be best leveraged for their marketing or personal branding needs.

“We know how complex and overwhelming the social media landscape can be,” said Harry Gold, CEO of Overdrive Interactive. “We wanted to map it all out, so that marketing professionals can use it as a guide to what we believe are the most important social media tools out there. The power of social media is growing exponentially by the day, and now is the time to harness it.”

The map details the ‘key’ social media websites that Overdrive believes you should know about. As a key component in putting that list together - I can’t stress enough the importance of what we did with this social media map.

Our efforts to bring you the most up-to-date social media strategy for you company is key in our mission of social media branding. You have all heard me talk in the past about various websites that come and go, and the social media websites that seem to be flashes in the pan - but remember, they are all relevant in someway. They are helping us shape society on the Internet, and the way people, brands and identities communicate with each other.

Think about the various social engines that are present in the social community; micro-blogging, social bookmarking, groups, life-casting, travel, wikis, B2B social networks, blogs, and more! Many of these have become key points of interest in your daily Internet life, and many of you might still be wondering what certain websites do, and how you can utilize them. That is where this social media map comes into play - for you to see what type of ‘expressions’ on the web you might be curious about, and how you can get started involving yourself in them.

Soon, we will have an interactive version on the web - so stay tuned! Although for now, head to http://www.ovrdrv.com/social-media-map to download your copy today & take part in the revolution!

Fin.

I came across a viral branding website yesterday for a popular television show on HBO, Flight of the Conchords. The TV show is about two men that live in NYC doing sketch comedy and singing their comedic folk songs inside a once a week half-hour show that looks at the everyday happenings of the two main characters, Bret and Jemaine

The idea.

Take a concept of the brand and distinguish it as a ’sensation’. I know that might sound complicated - but it’s really so easy, and I don’t understand why other companies aren’t utilizing their ‘usable’ assets for something similar.

This is exactly what the Flight of the Conchords are doing with their new micro-site - “Lip Dub Video Fansterpiece.” The concept is to learn the lyrics of one of the songs the two main characters sing, and then you are supposed to videotape yourself lip-synching the song, and then upload it to the website - where you might be added to a final “Fansterpiece” that will air on HBO. This content is being advertised only on social channels, and is completely viral - meaning this is not having any media or TV dollars spent on the campaign.

The contest was launched in mid-November, and will last until the new season of the show starts in mid-January.

Simple. Simple. Simple.

I can’t get over how simple this is, but how effective it has become. They don’t give away any lavish prizes, you don’t win a trip to any special destination or big lump sum of money - just about 10 seconds of a small amount of fame.

At the same time, they do a great job of implementing bookmarks or sometimes referred to as chicklets. These are the type of calls-to-action that include the ability to post the “contest” to Facebook, Digg, Twitter, Delicious, and you can also email to a friend. These are all tactics in “spreading” the word-of-mouth further into the social networks.

The video service they are using is YouTube, making it ‘free’, as well as very viral! This allows HBO to spread their contest through the social channels with little to zero promotion on their part, which was their full intention.

Statistics.

Since the website launched in mid-November - the main website where they utilize the videos, the YouTube channel that was created for the contest - has seen nearly 8,000 views since the project launched on Nov. 13. I know those numbers are not monumental, but you have to think about the ‘trickle’ down effect from this contest alone.

On the microsite, you also are able to access the Flight of the Conchord’s Facebook and MySpace pages. Their current Facebook page has a more than 245,000 fans, and they have a little over 25,000 friends on MySpace. These channels were setup well before the contest started…but both channels have seen an increase in activity in fans/friends since the middle of last month.

So What?

Well, I tell you this information because it’s important to consider the outreach of a ‘viral’ campaign, such as this one, and what it can do for a brand. Chances are, many people are going to submit videos to try and appear on the channel, and many more people may just watch the videos other people create. Either way, their creating a ‘buzz’ about the show and the new season, interest of not only current fans, but new fans of the show are found through the ability of allowing others to easily spread the contest into the social content networks, such as Digg, Delicious, Twitter, and so on. They attach links to the show’s page on the HBO website, as well as create easy access to the show’s MySpace and Facebook pages.

Through a viral campaign like this, you should explore your brand further to see what kind of similar outreach you may be able to do. This is social media branding 101 friends - don’t take something as small and ‘funky’ as this to be something silly - when in all honesty, they spent next to nothing to engage new fans and current fans of the show - to stay tuned to the new season, maybe buy the DVD, purchase some apparel, or some other Flight of the Conchords related materials. It’s genius.

The point is - you need to think about social media branding if you have not already. Agreed, for some brands social media might not be the way to go - but as they say so often - “don’t knock it before you try it.”

Chances are, I think it will.

For more information, and if you have any questions on viral or social media branding - feel free to contact me @ nicholas.cifuentes@gmail.com

Although this might be slightly old news, it still something worth writing about. A new report from Peter Schilling, the Director of IT @ Amherst College, said that 438 students who enrolled at Amherst this fall, 432 had joined the Amherst College Class of 2012 Facebook Group by the end of August (classes started the first week of September). Schilling also said that 3,225 posts were made in the group by that time.

To think that only six students out of an entire class are not on Facebook is quite an astonishing fact. Over the past four years Facebook has become a second language on college campuses nationwide. Ask almost any student what ‘friending’, ‘poking’ or ‘leaving a message on someone’s wall’ means and they will be able to tell you almost instantly.

Facebook is your identity.

For many teenagers, college students, young adults, and even adults; Facebook is simply irresistible. It honestly is. Just look @ the numbers:

• Just this past June, Facebook became the largest social network by reach at 132 million uniques, a 35% jump from the end of 2007, according to comScore.
• Facebook’s user base grew by nearly 25% to 102 million active users. Facebook nearly added 20 million more members during the third quarter, 80% of which came from outside the U.S.
• 17 countries now have more than 1 million Facebook users: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Turkey, Chile, France, Australia, Colombia, Venezuela, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Mexico, Hong Kong, and Argentina. South Africa and Belgium will be next to cross the mark.
• Facebook’s torrid growth in Europe and South America has continued. 10 of the 15 fastest growing countries in 3Q08 were European; 3 were South American.

Despite the international growth, Zuckerberg (Sir Mark), recently said in a German Newspaper interview that the company is focused on growth first, revenue second.

Sir Mark said:

“What every great internet company has done is to figure out a way to make money that has to match to what they are doing on the site. I don’t think social networks can be monetized in the same way that search did. But on both sites people find information valuable. I’m pretty sure that we will find an analogous business model. But we are experimenting already. One group is very focused on targeting; another part is focused on social recommendation from your friends. In three years from now we have to figure out what the optimum model is. But that is not our primary focus today… Growth is primary, revenue is secondary.”

And when asked about a potential IPO:

“No, we are really not planning to go public. For the next few years we are really focused on user growth.”

Finally, when asked about why the company is allowing employees to sell up to 20% of their vested shares (up to $900K), Zuckerberg answered:

“We are not going public for a while. So we want the people to have enough money to life [sic] for the period of time until we go public. In the early days of Facebook I was able to get $900,000 dollar of liquidity. That made a pretty big deal to me. We want engineers or other people in the company don’t have to worry about simple things.”

Facebook Futures.

Recently, Zuckerberg spoke @ the Future of Web Apps Expo in London - although mostly a controlled PR show for web app companies; Sir Mark hinted at a few things, most interestingly the theme of ‘enabling people to share’.

Some interesting tidbits from the event: (thanks to insidefacebook.com)

• The vision of Facebook Connect is to enable people to do on the rest of the web what they currently do on Facebook.
• There’s no firm launch date for Connect, but it’s expected to be within the next few months.
• As everyone already knows, Facebook does not want to encourage third party applications that are only interested in occupying profile space. The recent redesign has been specifically developed to encourage applications that enable sharing between users. Part of this is the prioritisation of feeds over profile boxes.
• Talk of the payment system was downplayed, and was even referred to as “the rumoured payment system.” (It’s more than a rumour, given the solicitation for developers to sign up for a beta programme last year, but obviously there’s nothing to be announced imminently.)
• Mark talked about his loose theory of a “Moore’s Law” for content sharing: the amount of sharing that goes on is growing exponentially over time.
• Asked about Open Auth, Open ID and other standards initiatives, the view expressed was very much along the lines of not having done it yet as opposed to not wanting to follow open standards at all. Mark’s view of Facebook as it stands was that “It’s more closed than we want it to be.” However, he believes Facebook’s implementation of things such as the Platform APIs and FBML are more developed than their open standard equivalents.
• Asked if he would build Facebook (or any web application) the same today as he did four years ago he said no, especially given advances in cloud computing and the availability of other sites-as-platforms.
• Despite running a multi-billion dollar company, he still goes into the code base and fixes bugs from time-to-time as a way to keep in touch with how the site is being developed and abstracted. (Still doing the dirty work…what a guy!)

To see more about what M. E. Zuckerberg had to say about Facebook, see his BBC interview here & his FOWA interview coming soon here.

Final.

Whether you are a student, e-marketer, or just a normal someone (wink), you know where this is heading - Facebook is growing daily, and your just a small part of that. So go ahead and look @ those pictures from the rager last night…look @ those party invites you have yet to confirm, go write on Steph’s wall about her new dog pictures…go nudge that other someone, go see what the class is saying about the new Physics professor, go watch that video with that kid getting hit in the nuts with the soccer ball, go see how many comments you have that partially naked photo of you that you just ‘had’ to get up on the site as soon as you got back from the party, go add that fun application where you can send growing plants to your friends and let’s go buy fake gift icons for a $1 and send them to everyone too.

I am not making fun…I take part in this revolution daily.  I just always like to step out of the ‘branding’ work I do on a daily basis (sometimes it feels much more often) and realize the actuality of the framework in this platform.

It really is amazing…or scary.  You choose.

Fin.

Porn. It is and always will be a key element of the Internet – with it accounting for almost 10 percent of all Web searches, according to Hitwise.  

But at one point many, many years ago (exactly 10) – a massive 20 percent of all Internet Web searches accounted for porn. However, thanks to sites like Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites, porn on the Internet is not as popular as it used to be – simply put.  

Hitwise researchers said that surfing for porn had dropped to about 10 percent of searches from 20 percent a decade ago – the sites that grab all the searches now are the social networking sites.  

The research said that visits to porn sites have decreased, and social networking traffic as increased. 

Now, I don’t entirely believe this – to think people are so busy with MySpace that they don’t have time to look at porn.  I believe that web growth ‘overall’ has lended mostly to this result, and other changes in the way people utitlize the Internet - that is the true difference.

Point is, the Internet is bigger then ever, and much more people are using it than ever before.  And more kids then ever are involved online – so it makes sense that fewer users are looking at porn.

Another point – you can look at Facebook at work, more than you can look at porn. And if your working – chances are your using the web at work, more than you were 10 years ago – before social media websites existed.

Enough said.

In a recent survey done by Careerbuilder.com, an increasing number of employers are taking a look at staff’s social networking profiles before hiring a candidate.

The survey found that 20 percent of companies admitted to checking out the profile pages of potential employees on social-networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace before deciding to hire them. Another 9 percent said that they would begin to review potential employees social-networking websites in the future.

The research also revealed that while 24 percent of employers had hired a member of the staff based on their social-networking profile, 33 percent had decided NOT to make a job offer after reviewing certain content on a profile.  Use of drugs, alcohol and posting of photographs that seemed ‘inappropriate’ or ‘provocative’ were identified as the most popular reasons why employers eliminated a candidate after reviewing their social-networking profile.

Should you be scared of this?

Yes.  You absolutely should.  If you dragged yourself out for a Saturday night pub crawl, blacked out at some point and the next day arrives with you not remembering what happened - be worried. In today’s world - transitioning from school to a professional career can be a lot of work, but just be careful with what you do on your social-networking profiles.  You don’t want to have last week’s party to be the reason you don’t get hired for that job you’ve always you wanted.  These pictures work great in college, and globally acceptable among that crowd - but the professional world is a much different story. Pictures and comments your friends might leave about you could become a liability in the workplace.  

First, privacy settings are your friend - use them.  You can set websites like Facebook and MySpace to allow only your friends to view pictures or profile specifics.  Blogs can be a huge risk too - so unless you are blogging about things like what I am talking about - keep it clean and remember, people can find what you are reading easily - so use those privacy settings. And even if you do have a job - remember that people get fired for unauthorized blogging all the time now - so BE CAREFUL!

Are you that person that Google’s themselves all the time?  You should be.  You have to keep up with what people might be saying about you on Yahoo! and Google. Or, if you are really curious, give Pipl.com, a “people search engine” a try.  What you see here is the same thing a possible hiring manager is seeing - be careful!

And another thing to be careful of - don’t befriend people who you don’t know.  You just don’t know if it will come back to bite you later.  Keep your friend list to ‘friends’ and associates in both personal and professional social networks.  

Case Study.

A bank intern, in 2007, was caught through Facebook lying to his boss about a family emergency, when he actually just wanted to ‘party it up’ on Halloween instead.

Kevin Colvin (pictured below) was an intern at Anglo Irish Bank’s North American arm, was busted by his manager Paul Davis after Kevin told Paul that he had to miss work because of a family emergency.  His boss then turned up this photo of Colvin on his Facebook profile from a Halloween party he apparently missed work to attend, and attached it to his reply, copying the rest of the office as he did it.

Below is the short email exchange and incriminating photo.

You always knew it was going to happen eventually – colleges and universities nationwide using social media to find new students. Looking for that edge to find the top candidates, schools are reverting to social networking sites, message boards, online video and podcasts to bring the talent!

It makes a great amount of sense to do such a thing.  You have to go where the audience is, and with millions of people going on social networking websites daily, it’s only obvious to attack such a market.

I used to be a college student, and working in social media, sometimes feel like I still am – but that is the medium where you KNOW students will go daily.  There is less chance they will open a college/university email, newsletter, mail brochure, or go to high school college fairs – chances are – you will absolutely find them on Facebook.

The National Association for College Admission Counseling said that nearly 29 percent of colleges use blogs as recruitment tools, while the percentage of colleges using online chat rooms jumped 12 percent in 2002 to nearly 35 percent in 2006.

Alliant International University recently ran a Facebook ad for its Center for Forensic Studies.  The ad targeted users with bachelor’s degrees in psychology that watched the show “Criminal Minds.” And because Facebook allows you to target users in ads using the specific information they list in their profiles, such as favorite TV shows and education – this allows advertisers to target very specific users.

Through the ad, Alliant asked users to take an online quiz to find out how much they knew about serial killers.  The answer page gave them the choice of joining the forensic program’s Facebook group or linking to the program’s home page.

When all was said and done, almost 5,000 people took the quiz and nearly 500 of them made it all the way to the how-to apply page on the university website.

Now, some experts have said that allocating too many resources, (aka $$$$$), to social media efforts does not prove its return.  I beg to differ – not that I have evidence to prove such a statement, but based on the basic philosophy behind social media and its effect – clearly there is only a win-win situation involved here.  Such as this, if your going to establish a blog network to promote recruiting – make sure your website is up to par with what you are doing on the social media side.  The last thing you want to do is have a kick-ass blog, and then turn students to a poorly built college/university homepage.

If you are going to operate podcasts and video through places such as iTunes, YouTube, etc…make sure you try and implement that technology on your regular website as well.  This is where branding becomes an issue – and a possible students views the entrance page on the blog, video, or podcast area as great, and then quickly ‘bounce’ as soon as they reach your regular website.

One example of a college website that does it well, in terms of how their ‘regular’ home page/ entrance page looks is Bryant University in Rhode Island.  They successfully integrated a ‘tour’ entrance page, in addition to their normal homepage, that uses their current students into a ‘video-friendly’ format that ‘pops’ in terms of functionality and is useful for actual information necessary for a student to make a decision – taking them to the ‘regular’ admissions home page.  Schools should consider this outline when thinking about organizing their recruiting approach.

With the back-to-school season in full swing, a number of retailers have lined up social media tactics to attract new shoppers.

Targeting teens and young adults – social media has emerged as a key component in drawing new targeted users through social networking sites, such as facebook, to deliver their marketing campaigns.

With an already shaky economy scaring buyers away from the stores, shoppers need to realize that retailers will only use these types of marketing efforts more often as consumers continue to pinch pennies.

To promote a new clothing line, J.C. Penny created an online game called “DorkDodge” in which a girl has to navigate through a number of unwanted boyfriends to find her dream date.  The retailer also launched an integrated marketing campaign that gave the teens the opportunity to ‘get that look’, using a clothing theme from the movie “The Breakfast Club.”

And retailers like Victoria’s Secret and Apple are using their valued partnerships with universities and college-aged consumers as a key demographic.  Victoria’s Secret partnered with 33 universities to launch Pink’s Collegiate Collection, a series of shirts, accessories and sports gear cross-branded with colors, names and mascots from participating universities.  And as part of Apples’s back-to-school promotion, students and faculty of an accredited university receive a free iPod with the purchase of a computer.

And it should be said, that retailers will find a stronger influence with social media and Web 2.0 experiences by allowing most of the benefits coming from branding and awareness building, rather than direct sales.

And there it goes! Facebook has finally done it - overtaking MySpace, in terms of users and signups with just a touch above 132 million people worldwide.

It is really amazing to think how quickly Facebook has overrun the social media websites - turning their aim and boosting profits by opening up their API to everyone - and for that, if you don’t know what that means, you can thank all those fun little, pointless, applications you attach to your profile…I do it too, so I am not  hating.

However, in all honesty, MySpace still has the base audience for bands and music, allowing a great way to stream music easily, and have a website in a couple of minutes - and be able to network the hell out of it!

But, from what I hear, coming down the facebook trail - will be some powerful music applications that will allow bands, both starting off and established, do the same, plus more. They will be allowed to post, sell their own music and related items through their facebook page!

Your blog is like a baby, you nurture it, feed it daily, take care of it when it is sick and watch it go to sleep every single night…yes, my friend – blogs are addicting.  It is 2008, time to build readership, and begin to grow your brand’s awareness through the social media channels.  As popularity has grown in blogs, and blogging, there are some key steps you can take to market your blog and grow effective strategies to increase readership.

Here are some key strategies for growing your blog in 2008:

Bring your Blog Home: One tactic to consider when trying to harbor more traffic, that will almost always work, is to localize your blog.  Targeting a specific market and reaching out to them, using their language, all is a great way to reach more outlets.  Localization allows you to cover topics that competitors probably won’t take the time to cover…something that should be considered when considering new material to write about.

Have Others Write It: User generated content is a great way to expand your blog’s reach.  You can ask the public to submit articles that you feel might benefit your blog’s purpose and publish them accordingly.  This can be gained by seeking out online writers, using article PR services to get content, and affiliating with other blogs in your field.

Start A Forum: A forum is great way to let your users interact with each other.  You want reasons for your audience to come back to your blog, socialize, and interact with each other online.  A forum is a great tool that will encourage this.  By creating this outlet, you create a magnet for your users, which encourage them to return to your brand daily.

Start a Newsletter: Newsletters are an excellent way to reach an audience with information that differs from your blog.  Depending on your product, newsletters are almost necessary to keep your customers returning.  Newsletters are an excellent way to send out narrow messages, or more concentrated, to your audience.  Create a weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly newsletter to connect to your followers.  One of the great advantages a newsletter has is being able to monetize it in several ways (advertising, premium content), as well work them into effective methods for capturing leads.

Social Media Anyone: Social Media Optimization starts with social bookmarking.  Creating an outlet for other readers to take your content and submit it, talk about it, or even blog about it in the social media channels will ultimately grow your traffic.  Allowing applications like Twitter, Facebook, Digg and countless other social news websites, can help disseminate your information to a target user.  Open up accounts in these channels and begin the process yourself, befriend the influencers in each channel and begin to watch your content wind its way through the Internet, and leads grow on your blog or website.

New Writers: New writers can be a great way to bring a new ‘voice’ to your blog.  Otherwise, a change of pace.  Just remember, when you pay someone per an article, make sure they are the best at what you need.  Don’t bring in writers who are unsure and could question your blog’s voice, keep it lively, bring in TALENT, and then you can pay more attention to marketing the blog instead.

Premium Content: This is a great way to further monetize a blog.  Premium content refers to exclusive content that is not made public to everyone and anyone who may fall upon your website.  Create member only pages inside your blog that you can tie to subscriptions and promote alongside your free content.  One suggestion I do have, when you do this, please make sure the content is original and most likely can’t be found anywhere else – it is what makes it PREMIUM!

Other Blogs Like You Too: Working with people in your industry can bring surprising results.  Collaborating with other bloggers in your practice would be done to initiate some sort of social network possibly, large writing projects, online applications, awards, and contests.  This helps build your brand and drive specific traffic to your website.

Videos & Podcasts: Consider video blogging, as a new tactic to your approach.  Your content can reach an entire new audience through some major social video websites like YouTube, Metacafe, Dailymotion, and other high traffic video websites.  Podcasting works the same way, obviously your hearing instead of visually applying yourself.  Viral video marketing also falls into this category, and should not go overlooked.  You will be surprised how much traffic and new conversions you see using this technique.

Overall, in 2008, be creative!  High quality editorial content will keep audiences interested, however, building a supportive audience and broadening your distribution channels will only help the original cause.  Expanding your blog through some of these channels will increase your user participation, create new delivery channels, grow your reputation and influence the audience around you.

Get Blogging!!