Great Marketing Idea

Imagine if an online security company took this comic literally, and start hacking sites & computers - to promote their product... LOL, no need for media budget and it will make a great digital marketing case study!

OPINION: Planning for Social Media Campaigns

As I was crafting my previous blogpost, Facebook's new metric to measure engagement and it spurred me to think about how publishers and media owners have been selling the idea of "viral" and social media "influence". 

I don't understand the logic behind selling/buying Facebook updates/tweets based on the number of fans/followers. Heck, it's like newspapers and magazines selling their ads on a value based on readership, not circulation/subscription. 

Fine, with that being traditional media, we have to make the assumption that you could potentially reach xxx number of people provided all readers flipped through every single page of the magazine and shared the paper/magazine with two other people. 

But we're talking about digital media where almost everything was supposed to be trackable, and it's a sad story to tell that we're tolerating this buying/selling media based on assumption. I would rather pay a minimal "ambassador-ing" cost + premium price on CPC once we're able to gauge how many people clicked on the "celebrity's" post. 

What would you prefer - pay per fan/follower or do you know of any other buy/sell methods?

Marketing With Social Media: Why Facebook Likes Is The Wrong KPI | Digital Dudette

I'm excited with Facebook's latest metrics, "people talking about this" for Pages which rolled out early October 2011. The number is a combination of many interactions that takes place within the Facebook pages for the past seven days. It includes:

• Liking a Page
• Posting to a Page’s Wall
• Liking, commenting on or sharing a Page post (or other content on a page, like photos, videos or albums)
• Answering a Question posted
• RSVPing to an event
• Mentioning a Page in a post
• Phototagging a Page
• Liking or sharing a check-in deal
• or checking in at a Place.

Though I don't see how it's going to affect user experience but as a marketers, I see that it helps in three different aspects.

1.Understand that fans are not a measurement of engagement. 

Many brands are rolling out campaigns after campaigns to recruit fans without having a long term conversation plan (I hate!). This new metric is a more accurate way for brands to measure their engagement on Facebook as compared to likes. It limits the use of likes as an indicator of success.

I made a comparison for the top five brands on Facebook in the Malaysian market (source:Social Bakers), calculating the engagement rate based on "people who talked about this" number and divided by the number of fans. Obvious observation shows that a brand can't buy their way into popularity all the time, in this case - the 1Malaysia Facebook page which lacks interaction for obvious reasons. This could call them to rethink their engagement strategy to justify the money they are spending on social media.

2. Think long term. 

The stats on "people talking about this" challenges the social media marketers to have an all-year-long engagement plan without blindingly running contest every once in a while. As this engagement number is based on the last seven days, pages might see great engagement numbers when they have got Facebook ads running to promote their page contests etc, what happens when the contest stops? 

3. Helps digital planners choose their paid online advocates carefully. 

Publishers, media owners and bloggers have been selling social media "influence" based on the number of fans/followers (which I do not agree, but that's another topic all together which I discussed in my new post: Planning for Social Media Campaigns). This engagement number would help planners decide if they should or shouldn't use a particular online "celebrity" instead of blindly paying them to post an update. 

Also here’s an example of paid tweet by a celebrity gone wrong. Though they claim that it was a publicity stunt for Del Taco, who would describe their food as shitty? Here’s the article on it on Mashable. 

Related Post: Why Social Media is like Volcano Eruption

Digital Media - Mistake to Avoid #1: What Happens When Expandable Banners Expand On Each Other?

Situations like this (please see the images below) where banners "expand on each other"  is something we may not be able to foresee but with digital media growing immensely, mistakes like this must be prevented because:

Online Media Planning: Mistakes to Avoid

1. Brand image might be compromised as one brand is on top/below the other. It gets worst in the case of competing brands. For example, if Pepsi & Coca-Cola end up appearing in the same page with the similar situation and Pepsi turn out to appear above Coke, that would leave a negative impression for Coke although they are paying the same premium price to have rich media banners. And you won't have a very happy client.


2. Disrupts users' from being able to view content on the page which they WANT to read by blocking them with not one, but two expandable banners. This will eventually lead to an unsatisfactory experience, not only affecting the brands advertised but the website's image overall. Therefore: (1) publishers should take extra effort to configure their technical system to avoid such situations and (2) production house should ensure that banners are programmed to immediately close when cursor is not on the banner.

3. It's a costly mistake. Rich media banners are usually 30%-35% more expensive than standard banners, hence all the more reasons it should be properly executed.

Online Media Planning: Mistakes to Avoid

P/S: Nothing against MSN here, I believe many other publishers would have the similar issue. I'm just highlighting something that I noticed that happened to be in MSN.

                                          

New Post: What Happens When Your Competitors Start Talking To Your Users, In Your Own Aisle

Augmented Reality >> Cool Ideas for Marketing Campaigns in 2011 | by Digital Dudette

#1 Augmented Reality

The most innovative segment in Digital Marketing and perhaps one of the most over used word since last year, Augmented Reality has probably been exposed to plentiful of clients and how they could potentially create novelty in Malaysia by being one of the very few brands to use.

What is Augmented Reality?

I think one should first see an example of AR in a video before reading about it because words cannot tell you how cool it can be. Simply said, AR works by receiving input from your device (eg. webcam) and uses a technology to alter the reality in the output (eg. computer screen). Find out how it works in-detail in How Stuff Works.

Who’s used AR in Malaysia?

Perhaps one of the first to leverage on this technology is MAS Airlines, who developed the MHdeals AR App. It uses GPS to position airports around you and display the best Malaysian Airline deals. See the video below to learn how MAS Airlines used AR. 

My point of view.

The usage of AR is rather pointless in this app. As a user, if I’m travelling, my need to locate an airport nearby me sounds bit daft. Perhaps they could have taken a little more initiative to do an integrated campaign with print. For example, they could print a map of China and use AR to recognize the country, thus showing the users the latest promos MHdeals are offering to fly there.

Lesson to learn?

Though augmented reality is COOL, it SHOULD NOT be used if it doesn’t serve a distinctive purpose.

AR Success Story - Stella Artois Bar Finder App 

I love how the idea of AR technology was beautifully executed for Bar Finder app by Stella Artois. It’s serves a purpose, it’s convenient, it’s the reason why people would want to embrace AR. It’s lifestyle driven app to drive sales, what could beat that?

 

#NEW UPDATES (Nov 2011):

Latest adaptation of augmented reality in Malaysia.

 

1.F&N Big Fun Fest: Augmented Reality Dance in streets of KL.

 

 

2. Kit Kat Augmented Reality Game on Facebook. 

Works pretty simple. You've got to show Kit Kat wrapper to the webcam, once the AR detects it, then you can use it to catch as many Kit Kats you can!