Proximity Influence in action at F8 with "Facebook Presence"

While not an "official announcement" at F8, there was an interesting geo-location Facebook experience that may just be the brand's first-ever foray offline and into the real world of connected objects (at least, in public). While not an attendee (*sigh*), I noted that the geo-location activity was picked up by ReadWriteWeb, the Guardian, and TechCrunch. The RFID token is called "Facebook Presence" and being tested according to Nick O'Neill, but has apparently been in use internally at Facebook during their legendary keggers with data visualization and real-time updates in a great example of "proximity influence."



You gotta love it. Its very interesting to see Facebook skip GPS and use RFID--the real world implications are pretty astounding when coupled with the announcement of the unique Facebook ID that will be given to everything "liked". It could connect real world "liked" data to online data, truly enabling an internet of things. I'm not sure Google realizes that this may be the year that Facebook surpassed them in innovation. As usual, the key is the simplicity of design and the vision to look beyond your walls--that is the beyond the walls of the internet online, to see that what we really want is to connect everything to everything in a meaningful way.

Photocredits: Facebook and AllFacebook.com

Facebook Community Pages makes your Wikipedia Strategy Really Important

Facebook has made the change from Fanpages to Community Pages, dropped "fans" for "likes" and most interestingly, drawing Wikipedia information into the pages for content. "These new Pages include a live stream of all recent relevant Facebook information from your friends — as well as public status updates — in addition to relevant information about the Page as drawn from Wikipedia, " according to Inside Facebook.

Well now, how many brand marketers have managing their brand reputation on wiki's in their social media monitoring plan? Is contributing to and managing your brand on public wikis an active part of your client brand strategy? Would you be surprised to know that Wikipedia entries are typically one of the highest ranking results from of searches? Some 60 -70% of traffic to Wikipedia comes from Google and a large percentage of results rank in the top 10 on Google. While your brand or topics that involve your brand may not be of interest to a consumer to conduct a direct search or even show up tangentially during a search, Wikipedia data is now being "pushed" through Facebook and could bring unanticipated attention to your brand. Say for example a community page is started around GMOs (genetically modified food), and your brand is mistakenly listed as being genetically-modified on a Wikipedia page. Your brand could become quickly become the subject of a conversation online--and a misrepresentation that could lead to a crisis. Whether the content is false or not, it may be spotlighted around topics that you would rather not see it. Of course, that's part of the social media revolution--the fact that you are not in direct control of your brand anymore still applies.

So you can see it is critical then that brands take responsibility for making certain that the facts about their products and brand on Wikipedia are correct. Treat Wikipedia as an important part of your social media strategy--you wouldn't leave Twitter unattended, so treat Wikipedia with the same level of respect and attention--not because you're there, but because your consumer is there. One, include Wikipedia in your social media monitoring, and while you're at it include Google SideWiki. Two, monitor when changes are made and follow the Wikipedia protocols to suggest "edits". There really are no rules against brands suggesting edits but following the golden rule of being "transparent" and "nice" continue to apply just as in any social media engagement. Three, be prepared for a negative response from consumers who may object to a brand's involvement.

Ultimately--feel confident that by being proactive now, you're preparing for how your brand will be talked about, referenced, and shared by consumers in one of the most active social experiences online today. It wouldn't be surprising if little-known facts about brands become new social currency--all the better to be prepared if your brand receives positive attention.

Promoted Tweets: A Brand Reputation Tool?

Twitter will announce its "Promoted Tweets" program shortly. Its very exciting to see Twitter finally get down to experimenting with revenue schemes. Smartly, they've chosen to pursue a context-aware advertising program based on branded sponsored content appearing in searches at the top of the page (and eventually in your Twitter streams). By choosing to take a page from Google and serve up "relevant" ads based on a user's search, Twitter will monetize in a way that people are already familiar with (being less intrusive) and provide marketers with a familiar way to plan media (based on CPM). What is most interesting to me, however is the opportunity to use promoted tweets to respond to comments proactively. Proactive WOM, whether amplifying positive messages, responding to negative ones, or trying to convert neutrality, goes beyond an advertising model to a brand reputation management issue.

"The ads will also be a way for companies to enter the conversation when it turns negative. Several companies have created tools to measure sentiment on Twitter, but until now, businesses can do little with that information. Even if they write a post in response, it also quickly gets lost in a sea of complaints." (NY TIMES)

Promoted Tweets is content that could affect a brand sentiment
There are several implications. The first, is that Twitter is proposing that the ad can be used in a proactive way to stimulate positive sentiment with a kind of "auto-response" to negative comments. While its not direct engagement, brands shouldn't be responding to every negative comment out there anyway through Community Managers. This is big--because it shows Twitter (more than most) wants marketers to see their property as not just push, but pull too. This is a paradigm shift for brand managers and their agencies. You're not just buying an impression anymore. Twitter wants you to think beyond one-time engagements here, they're suggesting your messages have a role in the dialogue between brands and consumers. Twitter is suggesting your ads are content!

Promoted Tweets for brand reputation management requires integration
The second is that by inviting marketers to think of promoted tweets as content, Twitter is assuming brand reputation management is well-integrated among the agencies. In my experience, this just isn't the case. At Porter Novelli, we're wrestling with the implications of making targeted buys to support blogger outreach and branded influencer programs, so being able to work with the media agency to make buys that promote and protect brands is a new relationship that must be fostered by clients. Clients should be setting aside portions of their budget for proactive WOM support and brand reputation management (to be used through-out the year in support of campaigns but also in an "always-on" mode). Likewise, media agencies should be proactively engaging their PR partners. Surely there will be lots of speculation about how promoted tweets can be used throughout the conversion/purchase funnel, but if media agencies don't actively engage the other partners, they will have wasted an opportunity for their client brands. And of course, PR agencies need to get wiser about media planning--the social media strategists they hire should have traditional media backgrounds (or at least some of them should).

Promoted Tweets that are geo-demographic will work better
The last implication I'll share for now is that of the combination of Twitter's location-based service and promoted tweets. Twitter will be able to get in on the "proximity influence" ad-game, and help marketers engage with consumers not only based on their search, but where they are--and that's key. Twitter content is now geo-demographic data, and therefore I'm willing to bet that the promoted tweets that get the best CTR will contain location-specific messages, especially if these tweets will appear in my Twitter stream eventually. Opportunities abound for group marketing too. For marketers, that means we should be able to target "resonance" (the proposed metric) geographically, a critical component to retail and FMCG marketers. Promoted tweets should enable marketers to support existing conversations on Twitter in a way that makes it feel like we're right there, in the neighborhood, through localized messages and offers, and that can only benefit the overall conversation we're having with consumers.