Nick Cifuentes

It’s official, Twitter is set to introduce premium accounts for brands and businesses by end of the year, this according to co-founder and CEO Biz Stone. While speaking at an event in London, Stone said Twitter plans to charge for corporate accounts, and in exchange, would offer enhanced features and analytics in return.

It is important to note, however, that if you are a current brand or business, you will not be forced to pay, but this will more be added on as a value to your account, which will tie in the rich features & analytics, in addition to some other kind of targeting, is my guess, when plans are unveiled in a few weeks.

At the event, according to ClickZ, celebrity Tweeter, Stephen Fry criticized the move, saying it would be “anti-commercial” and there was a “sense of being guided by a big corporate brother.”

Fry also pointed out that this could now be the beginning of banner ads on the site, and Stone quickly dismissed that saying “the plan has always been to create a [revenue] model that would be native to Twitter.”

(Blog post is also published on http://ovrdrv.com/blog)

They always said games would be more fun when you play them with friends, which is why the Xbox 360 just finalized their Xbox Live software to sync with your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Users will now be able to wrap themselves entirely in a “social-enabled” game experience and connect and play with their friends on Facebook & Twitter.

With the integration, you can now use your Facebook account through your Xbox 360, and update your status, browse updates from your friends and view photos on the big screen. You will also be able to link your Xbox Gamertag to find your Facebook friends who also play on Xbox Live and connect with them directly within your gaming experience. Facebook goes one step further and utilizes the fairly new interface of the Xbox 360 dashboard, and allows a variety of sorting and slick panel movement, all with the touch of your controller.

Your photo albums will also load pretty quickly and look impressive on a high-definition TV - much better looking then on your computer screen.

Twitter also will now sync with your account, and you will be able to tweet through your Xbox 360 anytime during your Xbox Live experience, as well as view profiles, trends and conversations - even search to see who is tweeting about your favorite game. Although it is not much different than tweeting from a computer or your phone, the Xbox 360 interface takes tweeting to an entirely new level with just the design of it alone.

And for you PS3 fans, I know you are asking - where is our update? It is coming! The company just announced on its official PlayStation blog that upcoming firmware update v3.10 will add Facebook and Twitter functionality to the PS3 interface.

And for music fans, Last.fm, a streaming music application that allows you to set a channel and listen for as long as you’d like, also will now sync with the Xbox 360. As does the new Microsoft Zune player, Microsoft’s version of the iPod, where users can now watch videos in 1080p and 5.1 channel surround sound - all through their game system.

In addition to all the new social features, Xbox Live also will be debuting the “News and More” section, transforming Xbox Live into a full-on media portal that will regularly update streaming content from MSNBC, The New Yorker, and Dilbert, just to name a few.

Happy Gaming!

(This blog post is also posted on http://ovrdrv.com/blog)

Drum roll please…

Oxford Dictionary has announced its “word of the year” winner, and to no one’s surprise, they came through with a social media related term…”unfriend“, your new 2009 award winner.

The definition reads as followed “To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.”

Over the past few years, dictionary makers have seemed to jump at announcing social media related terms as the new words that deserve the recognition treatment. “Twitter” was announced by the Collins English Dictionary earlier this year as a new entrant, and “Facebook” was the word of the year back in the end of 2007.

And according to the dictionary’s blog, other terms that were under consideration this year included hashtag, sexting, funemployed, tramp stamp, intexticated and birther….hmm?

(Photo courtesy of SocialSignal.com)

Originally posted on http://ovrdrv.com/blog

Social media is still a fairly new type of marketing tactic; it requires thought, proper leadership, planning and typical branding practices that go along with setting up any type of marketing plan. However, it is still a form of media that can feel an extremely negative backlash when campaigns go bad, more so than any other type of marketing campaign in the current age.

Let’s dive right in…do you recall when Dominos’ employees posted a video to YouTube of them doing unsanitary things to customers’ orders on camera. This one video went on a viral roller-coaster, and almost destroyed the brand overnight. It took many apologies and a strong effort by the CEO to speak to fans directly, using social media channels as his outreach tool. Almost immediately, a company-sponsored video was posted to the Dominoes YouTube channel that showed the CEO apologizing to the public in a very informal, candid approach.

It is moments like this that still add shock value to what social media encompasses. Triumphs and great successes in social media can be met with cheer and joyful praises when everything goes in a positive direction – where social media fans and followers triple overnight and bloggers pick-up your campaign like it was just mentioned on Oprah – these are the true victories of social media. However, one wrong move, one video, one comment, one posts that might send the wrong message, no matter the origin, can tear away your sanity and drive your campaign and brand through a wall overnight. All the blood, sweat and dollars used to guide your brand into social media bliss were just flushed away by that video someone posted, that comment that went up by mistake, that message that was taken the wrong way – social media can drain you the same way it might make you a star.

Because of the sensitivity surrounding social media, everything is not always ‘sunshine and lollipops’. Companies traditionally understand the value of crisis management, but as gossip and complaints can spread through social channels faster than the eye can blink, this new interconnectedness of consumers and complaints has brought about a renewed importance in crisis management – social media style.

Let’s use another example in crisis management, on August 13, 2008, a video was posted of a Burger King employee taking a bath in a kitchen sink of a restaurant. Within a few days, the video was viewed more than 800,000 times on Break.com and YouTube, and was picked up by major news outlets, both on and offline. The number of negative impressions that was generated by this one video was equal to many months of traffic to BurgerKing.com.

Burger King responded through traditional PR channels, talking to reporters and sent an email to news outlets that said:

“Burger King Corp. was just notified of this incident and is cooperating fully with the health department. We have sanitized the sink and have disposed of all other kitchen tools and utensils that were used during the incident. We have also taken appropriate corrective action on the employees that were involved in the video. Additionally, the remaining staff at this restaurant is being retrained in health and sanitation procedures.”

Their response was sufficient, but could have been delivered with a more personal approach and to a wider audience had they explored the social media channels as a additional outreach tool. Instead of just informing consumers with a positive response in traditional media, they could have done a better job to inform consumers who are exposed to the information in social media by pushing across a message with their own video response. Despite the fact that they told the traditional world of their response, consumers are still going to see the disgusting videos online through YouTube and other video channels – wouldn’t a company-created video response help alleviate the stomachs of those who might just fall upon the original video on YouTube…I think so.

Agreed, a positive, company-sponsored video won’t get as much play, nor be as viewed as often as the scandalous video would be, but by responding to the situation, it could have increased the possibility of reaching consumers where it truly mattered. So when someone goes to search for “Burger King sink”, your favorable and more informative video would be tagged with similar titles, descriptions and keywords as that unfavorable video – creating a quick reactionary tool that allows that video viewer to see the truth.

In an age of social media, it is best to think about fighting fire with fire when it comes to managing a crisis within social media. Press releases and emails to TV and print outlets are good and necessary, but won’t drive as much authority and interest as a social media driven response. With the speed of how quickly the viral age is turning, it’s important to understand that the world is moving at a much different pace then it used to – it’s time to keep up with that.

It’s difficult to understand sometimes why certain events take place. Why individuals might act in a certain manner and take action in ways another might think differently about. It’s relative in thought, but when that action is applied in a real-life situation, you awake for a moment, see something so unbelievable, it’s simply beyond comprehension.

In Iran, we are witnessing that very moment – a revolution unplugged. In streets swept by defiant protestors for the past seven days – post-election of the incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; scenes of chaos have been described to us through singing gunshots, angry helicopters, and graphic images of wounded men, women and children being severely beaten, injured, and then carried off into another hospital bed.

The origin of this revolution comes at the barking of Mir Hossein Moussavi, who believes last week’s Iranian election was fixed – where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received more than 24 million votes – nearly double the number Moussavi received. On Moussavi’s Facebook page, he asserts that through a massive manipulation of the vote, with Ahmadinejad receiving more than 11 million votes over Moussavi 13 million, the election must have been fixed. His supporters now dress in his signature “Green Revolution” colors that accompanied his campaign.

And as reality strikes us with each update, this particular revolution has strung a different chord in 2009, allowing social media to be the key component in allowing the world to see the unfettered truth, happening nearly every hour in Iran. The hash tag (#iranelection) has been in Twitter’s top 10 trending topic since the election ended last week. And every 15 seconds, there are more than 100 updates on the hash tag, many live from ground zero – showing violence from the streets through uncensored images and videos. Iranians have taken up cameras, mobile phones and computers to send Twitter updates, YouTube videos, and Flickr photos of the country’s riots.

The number of Twitter posts with the hash tag #iranelection has risen in monumental fashion on Twitter since the riots have become more intense. On Saturday, June 20, 2009, there were close to 82,000 tweets in just one hour.

The number of blog posts discussing Iran has been on the rise as well, there are nearly 86 million blog posts that discuss Iran in some manner, and on in the last 24 hours there has been over a million of newly published posts.

According to reports Saturday night on CNN, one woman said that riot police pushed her and about 300 people back with batons and water hoses as they were trying to reach Tehran’s Revolution Square late Saturday afternoon. Another eyewitness said that he saw an old man who had been shot in the head. Another protestor said she saw two helicopters hover above a group, and then police broke up the group with tear gas, and those who ran away were hit badly with batons. All of this being caught through images or video of some type.

The power of video has also been used to push an imaginable force of emotion on the public. A video was released of a woman named Neda (#Neda) who was injured during the riots and died in a matter of seconds, all caught on YouTube. I give you fair warning before clicking the following link to go watch that video – for that reason, I am not embedding it. The following video is extremely graphic and you should be prepared before watching it here.
I am including this because we need to understand that social media is raw, and allows the public to see an uncensored version of the world or an event. And in the need of just simple understanding, the world must realize what is actually taking place in Iran.

Many other videos have also been released on YouTube that show protestors and police, militia and individuals who have had no part in these riots - being punished.

In one video, recorded June 19, 2009, a woman is filming from her rooftop and reciting a poem about the violence happening below her. And in those streets, you hear the shouting of hundreds of people, evoking such powerful emotion and thought about what is taking place in her country.

In another video recorded by the BBC, the Basij Militia open up fire into the protesting crowds:

Protests are also not only taking place in Iran, but all over the world, This video, very well-produced, comes from an election protest in Paris:

And in Tehran, recorded Saturday, June 20, 2009, just the amount of people you see in the streets is something to stop and think about.

And in some of the most graphic images to come out of the battle so far, a preganant woman was shot in the back earlier this week. Tehranian doctors removed the woman’s fetus and showed the graphic result of violence involved in these riots. The following image is extremely graphic - please be prepared before viewing the image here.

And similar to emergencies in the U.S., Twitter has been used to help tell people where to go if they have been injured, and phone numbers to dial in order to help find anyone who might be missing. Twitter also has been a component to help protestors gather and recruit others to help promote tactics to keep the Iranian government off-guard. Twitter-ers from all around the world are also taking part, and are requesting others to change their local Twitter time in their settings to the Iranian time zone to keep the government from trying to shutdown any local tweeters.

As of 10:16 pm EST on June 20, 2009, Tweeters were reporting that Iran’s oldest militia, the Basij, “were raiding people’s homes overnight and killing people in their homes.”

At 10:19 pm EST, Tweeters were offering guerrilla tactics if facing the Iranian government, “realitybias RT guerrilla tactic: If facing a tank, molotov cocktails drive people out of them. Aim for ventilation and entry port.#iranelection”

These are just two of the thousands of tweets I reviewed during just an hours time. See what others are saying as well:

Conclusion.

This display of escalating violence and mayhem unfortunately has only increased since this post was written. Iran is a nation caught in a web of chaos, and even though social media has allowed a colossal audience to see the destruction happening inside a country, it’s important to recognize what is taking place. And as we monitor this on a daily basis, and use social media as the favorable tool to do so, we must accept the reality described above, even as uncensored as it might be sometimes. But in return, the world is able to see what is happening inside Iran, and can react accordingly – keeping us informed and knowledgeable of the situation at hand.

This blog post can also be seen at http://www.ovrdrv.com/blog

When it comes to social media marketing, what isn’t hot these days…Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace…the list keeps going. And when considering using these social branding channels, these aren’t just another set of marketing toys to play with, remember, these are your brand’s identity. And with hundreds of millions of people scouring these sites for information daily, your connection with a potential customer needs to be seamless.

One aspect of any social media campaign that should be approached is to connect the dots within your marketing channel. There are a number of brands that dive into social media with a lack of experience in launching within the space.

So, let’s put on a little scenario. Brand A has product X and creates a Facebook, Twitter and YouTube page. They take the time to pamper the process and create lasting value behind these pages, through effective videos, messaging, images, and interactive content that brings value to the brand. Excellent!

Now, next question: How are you sharing this content with your users?

• Send out email blasts
• Integrate the link within your email signatures
• Run an online media campaign around it
• Develop a PPC strategy for it
• Link the channels to your blog
• Integrate with direct mail, pamphlets, & brochures

But, what haven’t you done yet?

Connect the Dots.

When building a social media strategy, it is crucial to connect a brand website with external social media properties. There are simple and advanced ways to do this:

1. Place simple calls-to-action on the homepage

This allows users to have a stronger connection to any social properties. A user’s relationship with your product hinges on these particular moments. We are opening a door here by allowing users to quickly share and disseminate content across their own personal networks.

Allowing this opportunity for a user sets a clear goal for them. First, they are not confused by the ‘impostors’ that may be lurking on the web. These are the unofficial channels of a product, many of which exist. These channels have unclear and more than often, incorrect information listed - which hurts the brand’s reputation in the end.

2. Build an Online Community Channel Within a Channel

This is a bit more work, as it requires building a channel on your website that captures the true meaning of all your social networks. This could include a live twitter feed, a Flickr gallery, calls-to-action that connect your Facebook, MySpace, Blog, etc. This builds a user’s confidence about the brand, and removes any falsehoods that might exist in the social space otherwise.

By building in this access to the social properties for users, we build the relationship from a more personal connection. We’ve eliminated the falsehoods that might live within a user’s mind, and connect users with accurate and efficient channel sharing capabilities.

This stems from an idea called relationship management. Companies often think of how to effectively build awareness to their social channels, grow their fans, followers, friends, etc. This is often part of what is coined a Phase I build-out for any social media program. Included in a Phase I build-out is an integration strategy, and connecting the dots between social properties and a brand website, often done during this phase - is a must-do.

I’ve seen the mistake more than often where brands build-out social channels, but fail to harness the conversation where they already receive the most traffic - their very own website.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about social media or just online marketing general.

Facebook made a bit of noise last week when they introduced the new Business Pages layout. Then, several days later, made changes to the Home page of all user profiles, and integrated a ‘Twitter’ like wall stream - Facebook’s strategy in building out a more real-time conversation tool.

As usual, when Facebook decides to make changes, your entire office, your close friends and other random people you might see throughout the day - they all have something to say, and I am sure you’ve heard the complaints already. However, I am here to bring calm to the storm…rest assured, Facebook is making a very intelligent change in status here. And most importantly, businesses will be able to flourish greatly from this move.

When it comes to the new business pages - it will now look and function much like personal profiles, offering stronger brand connections via the wall stream, which now takes center stage. When a fan comes to your page now, the very first page they look at is the ‘wall stream’. On this page, businesses that create content often, will thrive in this new environment. As a brand, the wall stream page will gather content and post information about the page and posts by the page itself. Also, content shared by you, links, photos, videos and short text updates via the status updates, and posts by your fans left for you - all now show up in the wall.

In this update, which is really the holy grail here, the wall updates you post will publish to your Fans’ news feeds, and posts by your Fans will go to their friends’ news feeds as well. So, think about this a second - the more content you are able to place and create in your channel, the more you engage with your fans, in turn, the more people you will be able to reach constantly. A single status update of your business profile seeds through Facebook into your fan’s news streams. Now, all their friend’s see this, and can ‘like’ or ‘comment’ on the update, and possibly go one step further and become a Fan of the page.

The wall stream will be a large key in driving attention to your page - use it wisely! You are familiar with how Twitter works, Facebook is integrating the same concept using this wall stream - homepage stream. The more frequency of status updates on your page, the more chance you have to stand out with your fans in the Facebook stream.

When it comes to the layout of the page, Facebook rid themselves of the long ‘leaderboard‘ layout, and moved to a tabbed layout - exactly how your user profile pages now function. And now, when a fan goes to your business page, they are defaulted to the Wall tab, so that fans can see the most recent added content to the page. And for non-Fans that visit your page, you can set a default landing page within your business profile page.

With the ability to send new potential fans to your business page, you can highlight a specific default tab to send them to that might have the most appealing or interactive elements within your page. This will allow users to better promote different portions of their page by driving ad traffic or new fans to certain sections of your profile. By driving potential fans to landing pages within Facebook, you can dramatically grow your fans and leads that ultimately improve conversion rates.

If you are running a specific campaign, or have a new application, event, or interactive element on your page you want new users to connect with - now you can easily create that conversion path for the user.

Some interesting analytics were also integrated into new business pages. Facebook now allows you to track video views, comments posted, news feed posts viewed, and this is all in addition to page views and unique views. And even better, all this data is exportable via CSV sheets.

New Design Makes Advertising on Facebook Irresistible

Facebook is clearly trying to drive more advertisers to use the platform, and it makes a lot of sense now with Facebook allowing you to drive non-fans to specific pages inside your business profile. This is going to add value and interest for users who will make their way to your Facebook page. Brands should embrace this tactic and give Facebook advertising a shot - you won’t be disappointed this time around.

People in the past have been reluctant to spend money on advertising within social networks. The real fact is, social network members are co-creators of content, and in turn, feel they have a sense of ownership within the site. Advertising needs to be more about participating in relevant conversation with consumers rather than simply pushing ads onto a social network user. Advertising should focus on being part of the conversation, not invading the social space.

Advertising needs to be about adding value to a user’s experience, as social networks are built around members adding value to each other’s lives through interaction. This is why fan sites and sponsored groups are truly one of the most successful strategies when marketing within the platforms. This act touches on the principles of interactivity, and adds value to a user’s experience via offers, previews, and the ability for user’s to help create content.

The true challenge though in creating a perfect marriage between social network advertising - marketing and that network’s user, is time. There is no quick-fix in social network marketing, sure there can be exceptions, but those are few and far between. Much like a friendship, social media marketing requires effort, time and a continual investment in the platform to build and foster relationships. Remember, your messaging needs to be authentic and humble, and built on two-way conversation, not a push (one-way) model - in the end, this will add value to the consumer’s decision.

For more information on social media marketing, please review our services, and contact us or myself if you have any questions.

Inauguration & Facebook Connect.

As today marked the first day of what many people hope is a shift in direction for the United States, CNN also embraced the day with live video coverage tied into the Facebook Connect platform.

Inauguration Day, the day Sen. Barack Obama became the first African-American President of the United States.  The day the 44^th President of the United States expressed that although we are in a midst of crisis, and the challenges we face are real, they will be met. More importantly, President Obama expressed this thought through not only television and radio, but also through streaming online video on thousands of websites across the Internet. One of those websites who met this challenge and decided to integrate the most widely used social network with this online video component, was CNN.

On CNN.com, video was integrated with the Facebook Connect platform to create a streaming conversation piece that utilized the Facebook message status capabilities along with live streaming video. This combination turned into a very successful technique that allowed users to connect with their friends during the Inauguration, and chat directly with them through the status update & comment capabilities.

This is a great example of allowing social media to connect with important, live events in today’s society. This is the kind of connection that we need to enhance in today’s web 2.0 world. Tired we are of the naysayers who express that social media is for those who have too much time or use it too frivolously. This allowed people to interact on a personal level with each other while watching a highly publicized event. Going one step further, it allowed users from across the world to access the event and make their points through conversation.

With just this example, a simple CNN.com live webcast - we see the powerful message not only in the direct message itself, but through the community we interact with daily. Your friends, friends of friends, everyone involved in the Facebook community, were able to see each other’s comments and create interaction on the platform - using a large, public event and tying it to Facebook.

Quick numbers just in courtesy of the CNN.com broadcast, during the speech, there were over 1 million people who updated their status messages, more than 85,000 updates just a minute before President Obama began to speak to the crowd. Numbers alone…wow! To say that is impressive is an understatement. The crew at Facebook said that this was the largest number of user status updates ever, in such a short period of time.

Web 2.0 - Time for “Change”.

It was not only a powerful speech, but a powerful move in a web 2.0 world. We all know that social media has had a very strong impact on this past year’s election, and something we should recognize is the fact that social media is being embraced by the current administration. Barack Obama utilizes Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and many more social networks to help connect with the users on a personal level, and realizes how important these social community networks have become in relation to his message.

Not only will President Obama’s message be relayed through these channels, but it will also help build grass-roots support for his agenda.

In a major move just done this morning, the official WhiteHouse.gov website was switched over from the old interface to the brand new ‘Obama’ look about an hour before his Inauguration. The new website looks very familiar when compared to his campaign websites. The most important aspect to recognize here, beyond the design, is the interactive features he offers on the platform. Tremendous calls-to-action that create a significant gateway to features such as his blog, videos, slideshows and much more!

Conclusion.

In the end, we have to examine the priority when confronting not only politics, but social media as well - to stand alone or stand together? When I see the new administration and analyze how they have reached where they are now - they did this with efforts that can be contributed greatly to social media and its external reach.  And when we look at a president who can connect with us in these channels and not just speak to us, BUT WITH US - no matter what party affiliation you are - you have to respect that!

God Speed.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…