Already we have discovered that consumers are most likely to share on social media if the experience was unusual (71%), entertaining (69%) and relevant (65%). However, knowing which specific social platforms they are using tells you where you need to focus your attention. It can be hard to be active across all the social media platforms, not without unlimited resource and investment. It is much better to concentrate marketing efforts on a few platforms and do the job well – building ongoing relationships and increasing advocacy.

So when it comes to live experience what social networking sites have the closest affinity with real life social media? Are there platforms where we love to post form our mobile devices and do we prefer to share the live experience on specific sites only?

Mainstream platforms remain the favourite when it comes to live brand social sharing. Survey data revealed that 61% of consumers share content on Facebook, 25% on Twitter and 24% on YouTube. When it comes to devising material for your live experience it is important that you focus on content for these three social platforms in order to enjoy maximum return from your engagement with customers.

Although the research shows that visual content performs well with consumers, such as photos (51%) and videos (37%), comments remain the most popular. Facebook sees the most interaction so it is worth planning content that is easily shared. Still, that is not to suggest that user generated content will not do well. 68% will take the time to write a post or comment following a live experience, 60% will upload a photo and 30% will upload a video.

Smartphones present an easy solution for sharing visual content but it is interesting to note that the personal touch is not lost online. Comments, in particular comments on a friend’s post, remain the favourite way to engage and interact.

Download the full report and share your thoughts on live brand social with us bit.ly/LiveBrandSocial #LiveBrandSocial

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With such a large number of analytical tools for social media, it is understandable that you may feel overwhelmed with all of the data that is available. However, with some simple steps, you’ll be analysing the success of your social media campaigns in no time:

There are so many statistics, which ones are relevant to me?

Firstly, take a step back and think about what you want your social media campaigns to achieve. Do you want to gain more brand awareness, drive more website traffic, or would you like it to provide better customer service? Whatever its role, pick out the statistics which help show if you have been successful or not in working towards your aim. For example, if you’re looking at driving web traffic, create trackable links (you could use bitly) and see how many people have clicked on them. You could also look at Google Analytics, to see how much traffic has come to your website from social media.

Should I be measuring ‘Likes’ and followers?

Although it is great to see your follower numbers increase, what does this figure really show? A common way to increase followers is to run a competition. Although you get a sudden increase in fans, you may find that not all of these people are interested in your company, but just want to win a prize. These followers may also not be your target market and so although many companies still measure their social media success against this figure, it shouldn’t be your key focus.

What are the key statistics that I should be monitoring?

This depends on what you want to achieve. However, a good area to measure success is on customer interactions, so see how engaged your communities are. This can be seen through how many customers add a comment to one of your posts, ‘like’ or favourite a post, retweet or share a post and click on your post links. On Facebook, you also have a figure which shows how many people are ‘talking about this’ which is a good engagement indicator.

Which social media analytics tools should I use?

There are a number of free and paid for tools available, each providing different statistics, however, to get you started, here are a few free tools to give you the basic data that you may need: Facebook  Insights, Twitter Counter, TweetStats, Pinpuff, Bitly, Klout.

Do you have any other tools that you have enjoyed using? Leave us a comment below to let us know your favourites!

Images courtesy of Facebook Insights

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In the last Live Brand Social post we touched on how, together, live experiences and social create a 48% more successful event. Being active on social before, during and after a live event gives you the greatest opportunity to extend the relationship: 

In our report, 61% of participants find out about a live experience from a friend but over half (56%) find out through social media. In fact, 43% find out through Facebook, 22% see a tweet and 19% see it in their Newsfeed. It is clear that Facebook is the most influential in motivating attendance at live experiences. Even more significant is that live experiences give you the chance to meet your fans face to face. 1 in 5 still find out about an event before it takes place, through the brand’s own social media pages. A fantastic opportunity to build stronger relationships with fans and turn enthusiasts into advocates.

Social media extends opportunities to develop a lasting relationship with customers after the event too. 49% of all respondents said they felt more positive about brands when they took part in live experiences with social. And 37% follow or like a brand profile on social media.

And your audiences are not just interested in joining you or feeling good about your brand: one in six will tell more than fifteen people on social media about their live experience. That is a lot of conversation about your experiential marketing!

By understanding how experiential marketing fits in with the ongoing social relationships between brands and customers, companies can capitalise on mixing the two activities. And, dare we say it, ensure that the investment is greater than the sum of its parts!

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Rumours are plentiful that Facebook will begin to roll out a video advertising offering this summer. This would have Facebook users finding video ads popping up in their Newsfeeds, as soon as July this year. The video ads would begin playing in silent mode, until the Facebook user opts to turn on the sound, upon which the advert would recommence with volume.

It is clear why Facebook is looking to roll out this new feature; it is yet another attempt at pulling in additional advertising revenue. It also nods to Facebook’s desire to become a player within the TV advertising space, enabling brands to extend their TV campaigns to the realms of the social network.

This new advertising option would offer clear benefits to brands. According to Singh Cassidy, founder of JOYUS, ‘people are five times as likely to buy a product from a video advert than from a picture on an e-commerce site, and buy five times as often’. Furthermore, as more and more brands wisen up to the importance of using visual content on social, vying for user attention is becoming increasingly challenging. The new video advertising format would offer brands a new means of standing out from the crowd.

It is expected that Facebook’s major brand players, including Coca-Cola and Nestlé, will be the first to experiment with the new advertising format, through a series of trials. However, their introduction is expected to be a slow one; the last thing that Facebook wants is for the ads to drive away users!

Facebook, the ever-evolving beast – whatever next? Share your opinion on the latest advertising development.

Image courtesy of Foter

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Let’s face it, there is a little piece of us that lights up inside when we get a comment, like or retweet on our latest post. The knowledge that what we have to say is being heard, or read, is satisfying and it encourages us to share more. But is this the only way to be popular nowadays?

One in four said that they measure the success of their day by the number of Facebook Likes they receive, and the popularity challenge is never more nerve-wracking than on your birthday. Nowadays you are more likely to receive a Facebook comment than an actual card; a survey of 1,000 individuals by One4All proves that people prefer to post birthday greetings to friends online.

Never one to miss an opportunity, as last year’s purchase of Instagram and the recent rumour of buying Waze for $1 billion suggest, Facebook already launched a ‘real’ gift service which lets users buy and send physical gifts to their friends. This is linked to birthday reminders on your profile. So, is it a worthwhile service? Will it relieve the pressure of remembering to buy birthday presents? Or will it just be a new way of measuring how popular you are by the number of gifts you receive?

Would you like to use Facebook to send or receive gifts? Let us know what you think!

Images courtesy of Flickr

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US Attorney General, Eric Holder, made headlines this week as he is investigating whether employers have the right to ask for Facebook passwords  during job interviews, or whether this goes against federal law in America.

While imitation may well be the sincerest form of flattery, if you were to mimic American employers by asking for passwords in the UK you could find yourself in court for violating the terms of the Data Protection Act. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has expressed real concern over the issue, while Facebook has released a statement warning employers that sharing passwords is in breach of the site’s Terms of Service and could lead to legal action.

Most job seekers do not understand the relevance of their social networking profiles in relation to their ability to do a job and are refusing to share personal information on that basis, as the Law of Confidence  declares. While sites like Facebook tend to store information such as age, gender and religion, which could put an employer at risk of appearing to discriminate as well as breaching the Data Protection Act.

Perhaps George Orwell was truly ahead of his peers when he wrote of a restricted world where every move made was recorded and could be used against you. Will handing over passwords spell the beginning of a Big Brother society? Should we be battening down the hatches in anticipation of a dystopian future with no right to privacy? Or should we stay calm and find out what’s what according to the law when it comes to sharing information with employers?

We have written a series of blogs with valuable insight into social media and the law which you can browse, as well as a best practice guide. Use our resources to better understand your rights.

Images courtesy of Danny Sullivan and Kirstie Wells via Flickr

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Have you ever wondered how to merge the physical and digital worlds together? Mega-brewer Budweiser has figured it out and is doing just that. Budweiser Brazil is testing a new and innovative beer glass referred to as the “Buddy Cup”, which is integrated with Facebook via a microchip embedded at the bottom of the glass.

The concept will bring a whole new meaning to the clinking of glasses. When two glasses touch, the cupbearers instantly become Facebook friends! Facebook is the most popular social media platform among Budweiser fans and this new concept will allow users the opportunity to integrate their in-bar experience with their social media profile.

Let’s take a closer look at how it works:

• On the bottom of each cup is a QR code and drinkers must connect the cup with their Facebook accounts by taking a picture of the chip using the Budweiser Smartphone app.

• Once that is all set up the chip at the bottom of the glass, or “bump sensor”, will automatically send a Facebook friend request to the person you bump glasses with, making it a lot easier to meet people and exchange information. Nobody likes to waste time on a night out trying to take down someone’s details, and there’s no guarantee that you will remember them all in the morning.

The Buddy Cup is to be tested and used at major public events such as concerts and festivals to see how people take to it. But with the Buddy Cup offering the chance to eliminate awkward social moments when meeting new people on a night out, it is bound to be a hit!

Image courtesy of Flickr

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Whilst there may be a lot of talk in the social media world about Facebook losing its way and users proliferating to other platforms, it is still the big juggernaut – generating unrivaled engagement and reach for brands across the globe.

The winners have recently been announced for the Facebook Studio Awards 2013, judged by a prestigious panel (called the Facebook Creative Council), comprised of members from McCann, AKQA, Publicis and Buddy Media. Take a look at 3 of the best from the 2013 winners and shortlist:

Ted

For the movie launch of  Seth McFarlane’s first film (creator of Family Guy) Universal utilised a  network of 23 partner pages including Family Guy (50 millions fans), Scarface (7.5 million fans) and The Office (10 million fans) to extend the reach of memes and other great visual content. Ted-e-grams were also featured on the Playboy Facebook page (7.6 million fans). Fans were engaged through the “wild night with Ted” Facebook app which allowed users to create custom photos that were edited in the app, which integrated a photo gallery, voting and weekly competitions.

The Ted Facebook page generated over 7.5 million fans and engagement levels reached millions on a daily basis during the peak of the campaign. The memes distributed through the partner pages generated a whopping 30 million impressions! Over 160,000 images were created on the “wild night with Ted” Facebook app, and a total of 125,000 images were shared. In addition, the Talking Ted mobile app which was pushed via Facebook reached over 10 million downloads.

Nike Academy

The Nike Academy set out to narrow the gap between aspiring amateurs and the professionals. The mission was to give late-developing and unlucky kids a second chance to hit the big time, scoring a professional contract.

An on-site social media team at the Academy HQ at Loughborough University center of excellence gave 24/7 access to the aspiring professionals’ journey by creating a wealth of content, proliferated through the academy Facebook page.

The community grew to over 250,000 fans, a rate increase during the campaign of 260%. The Academy films amassed over 3 million views! Above all else, 10 Academy players have signed professional contracts as a result of the program.

Grey Poupon – society of good taste

 Grey Poupon mustard is for those of discerning taste. In the brand’s bid to help people celebrate good taste an application was created which would assess a user’s tastes based on their grammar, education, cities visited, books read, restaurant check-ins and more to define their membership to the exclusive club.

This quality over quantity approach saw users who did not “cut the mustard” removed from the page! A very unique approach. Those who made it into the highest percentile got access to member-only-benefits such as gift cards, books and merchandise.

The result was a super-engaged, super fan  community made up of members with “good taste”, the ideal target audience for the brand. Full marks for being so bold and flipping what is so often a numbers game completely on its head!

See all of the winners and those shortlisted or take a look in more detail and review the galleries and video content.

Images courtesy of Facebook Studio

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Since the creation of the smartphone and the advent applications, social media has been an integral part of the mobile phone experience. With that in mind talks of a Facebook mobile phone seemed to be a natural progress. Instead, Facebook made the bold decision to create Facebook Home; an innovative software that takes over your home screen in order to provide a more immersive social mobile experience.

Effectively, the software acts as a skin that turns an Android or HTC phone into a social networking device. Although the software is littered with interesting features the real gem is the reach that advertisers will gain. Facebook Home will have ads integrated into it, even when the phone is locked, providing a further opportunity for advertisers to targeted audiences.*

Facebook already has a very advanced targeting system. Marketers are able to target users based on age, location, education level, interests and relationship status amongst other things. But with the launch of Facebook Home, Facebook will be present wherever you are. It will know what you are doing, where you are and who you chat to. This means that the data available about users will be deeper, allowing for more advanced targeting. And although ads do not yet have a place on the cover page there are plans for integrating them in the future.

Though Facebook Home seems to be the future of social media marketing, one could argue that this amount of integration and the reach of Facebook ads may prove to be an experience that is too invasive and saturated. Moreover, if the software is going to have a profound effect on marketing, the user experience needs to improve. Whilst the app has been downloaded more than half a million times, reviews have been mixed with the average being just 2.2 out of five on app shop Play.**

What are your experiences of using Facebook Home?

Sources:

* BBC

**TechRadar

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In its bid to constantly evolve and improve the mobile experience for its billion-strong user base, Facebook has introduced a brand new feature for their Android and iOS users.

Chat Heads have recently debuted on Facebook’s mobile apps, allowing users to keep a list of conversations going on without having to switch apps.

Here is how it works: if you view one of your friend’s profiles a circular “chat head” appears. Tap the Chat Head to reply, drag them around, or flick them down to close.

This is a nice touch that adds a layer of interactivity to Facebook’s mobile offering, particularly a comic element, as you can drag individual Chat Heads onto photos (take a look at some examples from Mashable)!

If you are looking to chat on the move using the Facebook mobile app, then this is a nice touch that allows you to find out what’s happening on the News Feed while chatting, instead of having to use Facebook Chat in a separate window.

What do you think of Facebook’s new chat feature? Let us know your thoughts!

Image courtesy of Facebook

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