FreshNetworks Blog

I’m sure by now you’ve all seen plenty of memes and read various different articles, tweets and blog posts about actor Charlie Sheen. But do you know what he did for work experience website internships.com?

Charlie Sheen banked on his ‘meltdown’ by creating a record breaking Twitter account. How record breaking? Try 1 million followers in one day.

Five days later, on 7th March,  he sent a tweet for internships.com using ad.ly (a Tweet ad specialist) which said:

“I’m looking to hire a #winning INTERN with #TigerBlood. Apply here – http://bit.ly/hykQQF #TigerBloodIntern #internship #ad”.

Internships.com will have paid at least $100,000 for him to do this.  So was it worth the payoff?

According to data published on Techcrunch, for the period March 7th – March 11th 2011 internships.com saw (with usual traffic etc removed):

• 1,035,021 unique visitors from 475,375 original link clicks
• 82,148 internship applications
• From which 50 highly-qualified candidates were selected

These figures not only show the power of leveraging celebrity on Twitter but also the importance timing. Internships.com picked the perfect moment to benefit from Charlie Sheen’s social media influence – the height of #tigerblood #winning hashtag spread– and they reaped the benefits. What ever you may think of Sheen’s lifestyle, these numbers are another little bit of evidence which proves that value of Twitter as a marketing tool.

That’s not to say that all brands should jump immediately jump on the celebrity endorsement bandwagon; you still have to be careful when leveraging celebrity.

During the Earthquake/Tsunami disaster in  Japan, Hollywood actor Gilbert Gottfried (best know for his role as Iago the Parrot in Aladdin and for co-staring in the Problem Child movies) was fired by insurance company Aflac for some very insensitive tweets. Aflac, the top foreign insurance company in Japan, get 75% of its revenue from the Japanese market. With this in mind it would have been sensible for someone from their team them to contact Gottfried  as soon as the earthquake occurred to ensure he put his ‘humorous’ quips on hold – particularly when he’s known for making insensitive remarks during or shortly after disasters.

So it there are definitely pros and cons to using a celebrity to endorse you brand. Given the rate at which things can spread online these days, make sure you consider any and all outcomes before using the power of  celebrity in social media. Remember these people could be viewed as a  spokesperson for your brand so its important to consider whether the timing and their persona is appropriate for how you want to position yourself.

Image by ntr23 via Flickr

Twitter is growing both in terms of users, the number of messages being created and the importance that people place on the service.

In a recent presentation from Raffi Krikorian, Twitter’s lead on Application Services, we got an insight into how Twitter is being used and some current statistics. The most interesting of these are below, and the full presentation is at the end of this post.

• There are currently 110 million tweets per day from the 200 million registeered users.

• The current rate of tweeting is 1,200 Tweets per second (tps), but these increase during dramatically important events. The Superbowl at one stage saw 4,064 tps with the second highest peak during the superbowl was during the half-time ads rather than the game itself.

• Twitter generates 10TB a day. That’s ten times what the New York Stock Exchange produces.  It’s all generated from 140 character tweets which are individually 200 bytes per tweet. A phenomenal amount of text.

• There are currently 200m registered users with a growth continuing at a higher pace than before.

• Top three twitter-users by number of followers  – @ladygaga (8.3m), @justinbieber (8.1m), @barakobama (7.0m)

• This Twitter density map (below) shows that Twitter is most popular in Western Europe, Japan, the USA and parts of South America. What might be surprising is that it appears to be especially popular in Indonesia, with some good activity in theMalaysia-Singapore area.  You’ll notice that it doesn’t seem too popular in Africa with a couple of exceptions on the West Coast and the city-centres of the Middle East (you can quite clearly see Cairo and what appear to be the Amman – Damascus – Tel Aviv trifecta).

Image courtesy of Televisual

A few weeks ago the ban on TV product placement was lifted here in the UK,  allowing advertisers to pay for their goods to be seen on British TV for the first time ever.

With the likes of Coca-Cola, Nike, Apple and Ford among the most high profile users of product placement in the USA (according to IAG Nielsen), it’s likely to be big consumer brands that will lead the way over here too, especially when you consider the high consumer recall for products like Charmin and Cheerios because of their involvement with hit shows like “Survivor” and “The Biggest Loser”.

While it’s unlikely that branded products will suddenly start popping up left, right and centre, (especially given that several FMCG companies like Unilever benefit already from free product placement by providing realistic props) TV product placement could certainly effect the way brands are promoted moving forward.

Say, for example, P&G pay for their Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner products to be used in a shower scene in a popular soap like EastEnders. Given that products can’t be given undue prominence during the show, and may only be given a fleeting moment on screen to avoid programmes becoming “brand vehicles”, could the association be further highlighted through social media? Could Herbal Essences use social media in a way that utilises its connection with EastEnders to help increase consumer recall?

And what about those products that can’t benefit from TV product placement? Branded products can’t be placed in kids’ TV shows which doesn’t help child-oriented goods like Ferrero’s Kinder Surprise or toy brands like Lego.

Alcohol and baby milk are also among the list of products  on the banned list too. Does this mean that businesses like Diageo and Pfizer-owned SMA formula will need to look at other options to stay front of mind with the consumer?

If so, perhaps this is where social media could help. Not to say that the virtual pint app launched by Guiness, which allows users to pour themselves a virtual pint of the Irish stout, and share the link with their friends so they can do the same, is the finest example of social media marketing but it’s timed to launch with St Patricks Day – associated much more with drinking Guiness then any TV product placement opportunity I can think of. Plus, it makes people thirsty for a cold pint of Guiness. Job done.

So while TV product placement does provide an exciting opportunities for changing brand promotion it remains to be seen whether it is a game changer in itself here in the UK.

If you use Foursquare on an Apple or Android smartphone, you will notice a significant update to the app this week. Version 3.0 has been released, and with it come significant changes that not only change the app experience, but also show that Foursquare is maturing in its use and positions is clearly alongside Facebook Places, the other dominant location-based service. We have written before about the power of Foursquare, about how location marketing should be about more than just vouchers and discounts, and about how Foursquare can really help you to discover new places. This latest version changes the game in a number of small but important ways.

The value of a tool like Foursquare is not necessarily the race to earn points and to become mayor (although I am in a fierce competition to be Mayor of my favourite local deli). The value is in the data that Foursquare captures: the listing of places, the reviews and tips, and the popularity of them as judged by how many people check-in there. The gaming tactics that are used to grow Forusquare are just that – tactics to help capture and gather this information. It is in this that the value really lies, and a major weakness to date with Foursquare was how this data adds value back to users. The new version of the app changes that. And changes it for the better.

What Foursquare really cracks with this new update is the discovery of this information; using it to provide a real service back to users. It turns the service from being fun to being useful. The two most significant changes are improvements in the way you can explore areas in your locality, and ways to find deals and offers:

1. Explore new places

Previously it was very difficult to find venues on Foursquare, and the huge amounts of data they gather on user behaviour, friends and connections, reviews and comments was unused. The real benefit of Foursquare comes when it van help me find a new venue, when it can recommend places my friends like or places that are similar to places I have checked-in at before. The new ‘Explore’ feature does this and does this well. I can search by type of venue (such as my search for ‘Food’ places in the picture above) and find places based on where I have been previously and where my friends have been. It looks like I really should check out The Breakfast Club in Hoxton Square (my friends Sam and Blaise have been there) and I really should.

This will, for me, now be the single most useful feature of Foursquare. When I want to find somewhere to eat or drink, or somewhere to visit, Foursquare uses all its data, and all the data it knows about me to recommend somewhere it thinks I would like. This, in turn, will encourage me to check in more often (to improve the accuracy of these recommendations) and to review places it recommends.

2. Find deals and offers

Deals and offers have always been part of location marketing – both for Foursquare and for Facebook Places. The problem has been that finding these deals is difficult. You find them when you check in at a place and sometimes they are shown when you are nearby. They rewarded people after they had been to a venue rather than being used to attract people to go there in the first place.

A small but significant change in the new version of Foursquare is that I can now search for all deals and offers near me. This will include Mayor offers (as in the two closest to me in this screenshot) but also new Specials, including Friends offers and deals. This allows the specials feature to help drive consumer behaviour and visits, rather than just rewarding people.

Foursquare is growing up. These changes are significant as they change the game from one that captures what people have done to using information to help change consumer behaviour. This is where the real opportunity lies for location.

Image courtesy of Flickr

With the release of new technologies and applications almost everyday, it’s likely that the demand for migrating online communities to new platforms that feature some of the latest functionality will increase.

The migration of an existing online community is, at best, a tricky process for the community manager to lead. Get it right and the vast majority of your existing community members will stay to enjoy the benefits of their new home. Get it wrong and you’re left with a mere shadow of your former community.

Any good community manager worth their salt will realise that the most important feature of any online community is the community members and the relationships they have with each other. So here are seven factors every community manager should consider in order to successfully migrate a community:

1. Understand how the existing community currently operates

A community has a culture, a shared history of experiences, and a certain way of doing things. Knowing what works and what doesn’t will help you to avoid replicating pitfalls in the new community.

2. Be transparent

The migration date shouldn’t be a surprise to community members. Tell them what is happening well in advance. It doesn’t have to be too granular in detail but community members need to understand why the migration is taking place.

3. Explain the benefits of new community

Community members will always ask “What’s in it for me?”. Ideally, you should highlight the benefits of the existing community, which will be transferred over in addition to the ones associated with the new community.

4. Explain the potential risks

There will be bumps in the road. For example, community members may loose some personal data in the transition. Be clear as to what the risks are and stipulate which measures you have in place to help mitigate those risks.

5. Keep open lines of communication

The community manager needs to be vigilant and proactive when communicating with members. Providing useful and timely answers to their questions will go a long way to getting buy-in from community members who still need to be convinced.

6. Establish a clear timeline for actions

Community members need to be aware of the timeline for the migration process. They will appreciate regular reminders of the deadlines for performing certain actions e.g. “Make sure you’ve made a note of your login details and backed up your pictures by XX date”.

7. Involve your community champions

Your community champions love to be trusted to perform important tasks for the community. For example, it might be to beta test the functionality of the new community or to act as go-betweens for general community members. Getting your community champions on board early on will help the migration process to run much more smoothly.