Author Archives: Jeana Anderson
Some say my career in social media and my training in journalism are at odds with each other. I agree that the nostalgic idea of dead-tree-news traditional journalism with newspaper smells, newspapers leads, newspaper inverted pyramid and newspaper speed is at odds with the 140-character society. However, I tend to disagree with the idea that these two things are polar opposites. I think, instead, that social media simply made news and blog content more democratic. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to fact check a story from Twitter against Google News.
Newspapers, the plural noun sold at Starbucks and 7/11s across the country, may become just a kitschy name that we hold onto like “record label”. But the Newspaper, the media organization that enables the day-to-day education of a society, isn’t going anywhere. I tend to think that content churned out by newspapers has the labels of “trustworthy” and “authoritative”.
Trying to increase your Facebook fans, Twitter following or even charitable donation numbers? Give something away.
Brands make a habit of promising that if YOU follow or like they’ll give things away to a varying number of followers. Life as a Community Moderator has by no means made me immune to this. In the past year, I’ve become a fan of Einstein Bagels—even though I don’t eat bread. I’ve voted on my favorite feature of a Ford Explorer and “liked” the page—even though I have no use for a car in the city, and I’ve followed Chicago Food Critic Steve Dolinsky for the chance to go to dinner with him (and won)—even though (I’m sorry, Steve) I had no idea who he was. Why? Because these brands were all giving stuff away and even though I didn’t necessarily need this stuff, I did what these brands and people asked for a chance to win. Was I bought or was I earned? Short answer: I was bought in all cases except for Steve Dolinksy, he’s great. I don’t fit the other brands’ profiles of a model community member, and I’m a useless fan.
Upon realizing my own affinity to follow the directions of those who will buy or give me things, I started to think through successful contests and giveaways for branded communities. Thus, my proposal for a SXSWi panel, Fans for Freebies, was born.
Aside from my own anecdotal evidence in Einstein Bros Bagels’ giveaway, the brand posted some solid fan numbers after it gave away coupons for free bagels to all who liked its page. In an interview with Spinsucks.com, the brand revealed that it increased its fan numbers from 4,700 to 613,703. Suspecting that many would have dropped off as fans after downloading their coupons, I checked the Facebook fan page’s current fan count: 613,413. That’s a 310 fan loss, out of 609,003 fans gained through the giveaway, that’s over a 99% retention rate. In college, we called that an A+. Because Einstein featured more deals and giveaways since their initial free-bagel offering, my conclusion is that these fans actually frequent Einstein Bagels enough to make use of the page’s coupons, thus they are valuable and active fans. Aside from those who gave their coupons away (me), these fans were earned.
Jeana Anderson | Critical Mass Chicago
The social media marketer’s dream came true over at Old Spice over the past two days. The brand’s latest campaign by Wieden + Kennedy was translated into real-time, branded video responses to social media fans and followers. If you weren’t watching along in awe with me, or if you ignored all social media in general, you may have missed it. If that’s the case, here’s a recap:
The campaign developed originally for TV is over-the-top masculine, peppered with hyperbole stated as hilarious science. When combined with the nearly perfect casting of the ruggedly attractive Isaiah Mustafa, who is every woman’s kryptonite and every man’s idol, viral sharing of these videos was imminent. A phrase from one of the earliest ads exemplifies the tone of the entire campaign: “Did you know that women prefer Old Spice for their men one bajillion times more than lady-scented body washes?”
Riding the horse of popularity associated with the ironic campaign, Mustafa holed up in what appeared to be a bathroom, setting out to thank influencers (read: celebrities and bloggers with a large following) including Ellen Degeneres, Perez Hilton, and The Chicago Blackhawks. He also answered questions from fans–all in the exaggerated tone of the original campaign. Memorable moments from the two day real-time YouTube video onslaught included the spokesperson pausing to facilitate a fan’s proposal to his girlfriend, shooting down an offer for coffee from @Starbucks and putting to rest rumors that he was masking the voice of a nerd. In slightly over 24 hours since the marriage proposal video was posted on YouTube, it has been viewed 269,203 times and counting.
Each video in the series reeks of manly, unabashed confidence, and based on a search of Social Mention, we are eating it up: the brand is mentioned in social media every 39 seconds.
Aside from its novelty, uniqueness and incredibly sharable nature, there were some strong points to this real-time-video-production-marathon that made it even more extraordinary (and more viral) than the original. Or as the Old Spice Man may put it, virally viral videos that were viraler than the viral originals.
In his recent blog post, CM Executive Scott Shamberg answered some of the top questions he fielded at a recent forum. One of which revolved around making social media relevant for smaller-scale, local efforts. He defined the makings of a successful local-focused social media campaign as relevance. Specifically, “any offer or service that is relevant to me in my geographic world.” I absolutely agree with Scott. When localizing social media, relevance to the user’s life is above all the most important feature of strategy.
Considering what other guidelines are necessary, I’ve developed the SHARE framework to help you shape your future local efforts. By grouping relevance with these five strategic considerations (that just so happen to spell the word SHARE—one of the central drivers behind consumers desire to localize), a brand can create content that will be of value to its consumer at various important and specific geographic points throughout his day.
Save Time: Time is one of the most valuable resources we have and consumers have an insatiable appetite for time saving tools. Share content with your users that will help them accomplish their goals or manage their time better. A great example of this within my city is the Chicago Transit Authority’s Bus Tracker. I seldom give props to the CTA, however this tool allows users to answers the great unknowns of public transit including “will it be faster for me to wait for the express bus that stops where I’m standing?” In creating this simple tool, it’s obvious that the CTA asked the following necessary questions: 1. What will make my demographics goals more achievable when we know their location? 2. Where will I put content so that it is easy to find or access on the go?
Help: Localized and location-based social media content, when done well, will allow a brand to share almost altruistically within a branded strategy, while maintaining a human and helpful voice. This ideally fosters Online sharing without requesting it of consumers. Charmin’s Sit or Squat, is a very specific example of this. The location-based network is filled with information to help its users find a public toilet based on their location. This network is a natural fit for Charmin and gives seriously useful information for any civilized human looking to meet basic hygienic needs.
Apply Insights: When a brand builds its location-based campaign on what’s unique about its target, it can successfully foster a community of repeated users that will interact with and share relevant information. One local social program by Purina leverages the brand’s learnings on its community of pet lovers. Purina uses the Petcentric Places app to put its Petcentric community in touch with locations and resources to make their dogs’ lives better. Offering tips on everything from dog sitters and walkers to bars, restaurants and lodging that allow for four-legged visitors, this app has the potential to really deliver for its target. Based on iTunes ratings, there are a few complaints on the amount content and usability, but if time is invested by Purina and its community to develop a more robust set of tips this app will be perfect for the pet-minded.
Jeana Anderson | Critical Mass Chicago
Going viral: For the purposes of this blog post, I’m going to define that as an idea, phrase or a piece of rich media being replicated and shared, spreading with the speed and intensity of a viral infection. A very popular meme.
Memes are an insanely interesting characteristic of the social media, especially for those who are in the business of harnessing the power of social for brands. These viral fads go through the same cycles as fashion and music. The unique kids adopt the meme or trend first; they feel a sense of ownership or that they’ve discovered this piece of content. The masses sniff this out and start adopting the meme; they forward it to all of their gchat buddies. A member of the masses sends said piece of content onto one of the early adopters who replies with “I saw that like a month ago.” The masses overplay and click-by- click kill this trend, bringing it to “viral” status. The cool kids move onto the next thing.
As a rule, it’s difficult for large brands to grab a hold of these large-scale trends and insert themselves in a relevant way while the trends are still hot. On the flip side, content creators have been attaching their inevitably viral blogs, tweets and videos to brands in ways that stick and get forwarded down the chain-of-cool. A notable example is Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. This serves as a terrific case study, so please bear with me as I do not wish to imply that you, dear reader, have not seen this video or heard this song. After the original song was posted to YouTube, several video iterations emerged as users adopted it and tweaked it to their own tastes. The combined total views of these videos mention Pizza Hut and Taco Bell thousands of times. However, as the meme reaches the main stream, its status as “cool” has effectively been killed.
It’s fairly safe to say that starting a viral movement requires the leader, or brand, to have the guts to stand out as different. More important than that, however, is a well educated community that collectively feels listened to by a humanized brand. Advocates. With processes in place to address concerns and praise positive contributions to a movement, the principles of Derek Siver’s TED talk apply. Siver outlines the importance of nurturing the first few followers of any movement. Without the first advocate or follower, the brand isn’t leading a movement; it’s just a “lone nut.”
Aside from the initial idea and execution, the entire movement is on the shoulders of the advocates. Creating the type of content that most brands are comfortable with requires a production budget and “talent,” but devoting a spend on something that may or may not be adopted by the community is risky. I would guess that Ford went through a similar thought process as it inevitably put a huge volume of its social content creation for the Ford Fiesta in the hands of its advocates. The brand acted as a leader, posing its community with challenges that required creating cool content with the Ford Fiesta in the background.
As far as going viral is concerned, this model is ideal: be the kind of inspiring leader that isn’t rigid about ideas for content. Allow the first follower to have the creative license to be just as inspiring as the brand itself.
Jeana is a Community Manager in our Chicago office.
By Jeana Anderson | Critical Mass Chicago
Illustration by EffingBoring
I recently started following the White House on Twitter, @WhiteHouse for those of you who want to check it out. A closer look at the content in the twitter stream sped me on a path towards applying some of Critical Mass’s Community Management best practices to the White House’s social media presence.
Best practice one: Research and understand the community before engaging. Moderating a community of President Obama’s supporters alone, the over 13 million citizens who opted into the campaign’s e-mail list, presents itself as a gut wrenching challenge for a single moderator. Thinking big picture: moderating President Obama’s social media community would never just be those 13 million opt-ins. The community would potentially consist of every U.S. internet user, 163.3 million people according to comScore.
