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TV Shows & Social Media

October 14, 2011 By Alex 3 Comments

The following is a guest post written by Lisa Skrezec, a Social Media Specialist and Account Manager at tcg. Her background in marketing has sparked her interest in the entertainment, fashion and social media world.

The only thing I love more than Facebook stalking and tweeting all sorts of outlandish hashtags, is television. When my two favorite things overlap, well, I couldn’t be any happier! Between the hours of 8pm-11pm you can find me sitting on the couch with my laptop tweeting away – but apparently I’m not alone.

Live-tweeting television shows is not only fun to partake in and track, but it has a proven positive impact on the ratings. The best way to reach your audience is to do what they’re doing, and they sure as hell are tweeting and Facebooking! Below are five examples of television shows that have adopted the live-tweeting trend and engage with their fans on a weekly basis:

#JerseyShore: Oh yes, our favorite fist pumping “juice heads” have without a doubt adopted social media. They dominate the trending topics every Thursday at 10pm EST and each cast member live tweets and asks questions to their fans. 9 our of 10 times @itsthesituation WILL retweet you!
#TheVoice: This past summer, NBC’s hit new show “The Voice” not only had its 3 judges live tweeting each show, but they even had a social media room! Fans would tweet questions for the contestants using #TheVoice and they would all be answered in the exclusive, state-of-the-art social media room. How cool is that? Needless to say, #TheVoice was always the number one trending topic.
#Bachelorette: @ChrisBHarrison hosts the long running show “The Bachelor”/”The Bachelorette”, and as the seasons progress, Chris gets more and more involved with connecting his show’s fan base through social media. Throughout the entire 2 hour show, Chris is actively tweeting and answering questions, many of which reveal “behind-the-scenes” fun facts. (For example, did you ever want to know if the contestants pick out their own clothes? Well someone asked, and Chris said nope!)
#Survivor: @JeffProbst, the host of Survivor, is a social media guru! He too live-tweets each show, but he has recently joined Tout. Tout is a video status update — essentially Twitter meets YouTube. Fans tweet him questions during the show, and he answers them in a Tout. Not only do I look forward each week to his video responses, but I’m excited to see how Tout is perceived by social media users…
#SonsofAnarchy: Last, but most certainly not least, is @SutterInk. Kurt Sutter, the creator, writer and producer of Sons of Anarchy has explored ALL aspects of Social media, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogspot. Kurt is quite possibly the most honest and uncensored person on Twitter. He constantly stays connected with his fans, which certainly helped him achieve a 20% bump in viewers from season 3 to the season 4 premier.

Below is a graph that demonstrates the relationship between online buzz and TV ratings. Clearly social media has it’s biggest impact prior to a show’s premiere, which is expected, but it also does hold a great deal of value throughout the season (source):

Social media gives fans and followers the opportunity to connect to these shows/contestants/creators on a more personal level. I look forward each week to tweeting all those mentioned above, and nothing makes me happier than getting a response! I am very glad to see television shows taking part of new age media – keep it up!

Do you follow television shows in the social media universe – have you gotten an EPIC retweet? I’d love to hear all about it!

Filed Under: Guest Posts, Social Media Tagged With: audience, fun, impact, partake, positive, proven, ratings, real time web, Social Media, televisions, the bachelor, tv shows, tweet, Twitter, web 2.0, world wide web

Managing a Digital Footprint

June 28, 2011 By Alex 2 Comments

This is a guest post written by Alex Shippee, and reproduced from the website for #SMchat.

A “digital footprint” is what your presence on the Internet communicates to those who find it. Google is the usual starting point, but more and more people are using monitoring services or going straight to the big social platforms, like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, your blog, etc. All of this is becoming a necessity because of one inescapable truth about the Internet Age:

You will be Googled. In fact, you most likely already have been. Family members, co-workers, friends, and employers will all be interested in how you show up on a search engine. And if you are a brand, or have a client who is, then you can add “customers” to that list as well.

© Clare Munn 2008-2011

This isn’t a bad thing. Instead of seeing it as “work,” try to think of it as an “opportunity.” It is common for our clients, some of whom are new to social media, to be concerned about “opening themselves up.” They fear negative comments, or being the victim of a smear campaign by their competitors. The truth is, people are already talking online and it’s not possible to curb it. Choosing not to participate hands all the power to the consumers, or competitors. Instead, you want to fan those flames in the right direction.

One of the most valuable and rewarding elements of the work tcg does is provide their clients with real-time, contextual intelligence by monitoring and analyzing their digital footprint before we start our work. We take it a step further than wanting to know what people are saying about you and reputation management; we turn a digital footprint into a valuable asset.

Managing a digital footprint means taking responsibility and ownership of your brand. You start with the simple steps first and sign up for Twitter or start a blog. Then, you go one step further and decide you want to attach your name, or brand, to good content. From there begins the hustle of growing an audience now that you’re easy for them to find.

Filed Under: Guest Posts Tagged With: #smchat, blogs, branding, digital footprint, facebook, Google, linkedin, Marketing, SEO, Social Media, social-networking, tcgagency, Twitter

A Clear Path To Context

August 11, 2010 By ajmunn 10 Comments

Context gets a boost this year with the proliferation of location aware devices. The idea of using crowd-sourced information with the added layer of location aware intelligence makes me very excited. It is not only smart, it also provides the ideal tools for context and relevance. Yet, many remain stuck in the mindset of ‘Get loads of people to sign up and figure out how to make money once we have critical mass.’”

The visible layers of social media can be so shiny that they end up distracting us from their deeper application. We all recognize that ‘overt’ social media is a critical element. If there were no people out there sharing information, participating and making it available to everyone, we would have no crowd to source from.

The deeper layers don’t always get as much attention. The collection of data and its sorting into useful information registers on people’s minds, but it is often overlooked. It’s a case of ‘out of site, out of mind.’

Listening and monitoring are a bit deeper, sure, like the sedimentary versus surface. There are many organizations great at customer service, sourcing and developing leads, discovering new markets and even developing new products by monitoring keywords and engaging. There is a good level of online conversation around this topic.

We all talk about what’s next for social media. What is going to be the next Twitter or the next Facebook? Is FourSquare going to last? These questions all have some bearing on the future of social media but, for me, these are the wrong questions. The quest for the social media business model involves a combination of the visible, the sedimentary, and a third, deeper level that is seldom seen, but rather experienced.

A lesson I learned many years ago is that the quickest route to a sale, or an achieved objective, is to remove as many obstacles from your customer/audience as possible. Thinking for your customer is key. Putting the information they need in front of them as quickly as possible will increase your chances of achieving the sale. The lesson that followed shortly after was not to expect your customers to thank you or to notice how clever you’ve been (your sales figures are your thanks). Do expect them to notice when you mess up and do expect them to lose interest if you put obstacles in their way.

Using technology to understand exactly who you audience is, where they are, when they are interested in hearing from you, what steps you can cut out and what information to put infront of them isn’t some sort of ideal, it is what smart organizations are doing. Location based technology, attached to a profile, or connected to an objective or call to action is much bigger than a game, it is a marketers gift.

This is what social media can do for you. This is where you are going to see your ROI. People’s expectations have evolved and we have the technology and tools to meet them. “This is who I am. This is where I am. Serve me up relevant information.” Get that right and you are that much closer to reaching your objectives.

It may not be shiny. It may not be sexy or achieve as many column inches, tweets or inclusions in the ‘Top Ten viral campaign” blog posts, but it will cut through all the noise, and put you in front of the right people, at the right time, and in the right place.

What’s your next big thing? What do you think is going to be a game changer?

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: audience, context, facebook, FourSquare, geotagging, Location, Sales, Social Media, Twitter

Brand Africa, Twitter and World AIDS Day

December 1, 2009 By ajmunn 2 Comments

Twitter is doing a fantastic job supporting the World AIDS Day. Changing their whole theme and incorporating the colour #RED has done much to spread the message and allow people to connect and spread their message.

Having said that I have a problem with one aspect of the execution. It was brought to my attention by @meotree who retweeted this post from @ithorpe:

It is fair to say that Twitter has not created this, merely fallen prey to the prevailing Western attitude towards Africa. Africa as a Brand stands for poverty, disease, pestilence, corruption, drought, and recipient of aid.

How can Africa develop under these stereotypes? Can you blame outspoken African leaders who talk about the arrogance of the West? When are people going to recognize that the aid model has not worked?

If you have been following the investment trends for Africa over the last 24 months you will see an increased investment from and courtship of Eastern and Asian countries. You see African leaders seeking partnerships with South American countries and organizations.

Of course Africa has its fair share of problems. Yes AIDS is a huge concern, as is Malaria and TB. Of course there is need for development and assistance. But let us not define a continent by these things. Solutions to Africa’s problems will come from within Africa, with the assistance, partnership and goodwill of the West, the East, the North, the South. Let us concentrate on what is good about Africa and grow that. Surely nobody can argue that this is not the best way for Africa to develop?

Thank you Twitter for all you have done on World AIDS Day. Consider, however, the impact on people of reading an investment-focused tweet on Africa when it is turned red, reminding them of Africa’s stereotypes, instead of allowing people to see its potential.

Filed Under: Africa Tagged With: Africa, Africa Strategist, AIDS, brand, Brand Truth, Clare Munn, HIV, Twitter

Start at the Beginning

May 8, 2009 By ajmunn Leave a Comment

It is great to have opinions. It is also a good idea to seek out and learn from other peoples perspectives. What is important is to apply what you have learned in a manner that ensures relevance and context. I used to be an Apple evangelist. I still love Apple and it is my weapon of choice, but I stopped a while ago trying to convert those that use PC. I can see that I was trying to prescribe a technology based upon my own criteria. My own needs, likes, values and learning styles. Really the choice should be based upon:

Who you are
Your objectives
Your needs
Your learning styles
Your resources
Your history etc.

That is not to say Apple evangelists cannot put a case forward for why they like to use Apple products, but it does mean that they need to listen to and accept other peoples decisions and reasons for using a PC. Based on this, if I am asked to recommend a laptop for someone, I need to base my recommendations on their needs verses my own.

I made this mistake in my last blog post “The politics of Followers”. The blog talked about my personal take on the collection of followers on a social network like Twitter. I feel it broke my own rules around discovery, context and relevance.

A personal or organisational social media strategy cannot be pre-determined. It really does need to be built according to the organisations or person’s unique objectives. It needs to understand its audiences and it needs to work within the boundaries of its resources. It is conceivable that an element of an organisations marketing strategy might include manipulating a large twitter following. Perhaps there are instances where they might not gain much from their actual followers, but more from the perception from those outside Twitter that they have a large buy in? Whatever the reason, it is reasonable to assume this is a considered strategy.

It is great to get people’s perceptions on various social networks and to understand how they are using them. Valuable insights and best practices can be learned. The problem arises when people take a prescriptive view of them. Following someone’s strategy to the letter can lead to copycat strategies that go horribly wrong. Context and relevance are key. Start at the beginning, be patient and go through your discovery process.

Photo by Craig Rodway

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Apple vs PC, context, discovery, relevance, Social Media, strategy, Twitter

The Politics of Followers

May 1, 2009 By ajmunn 3 Comments

As I sit here at my desk, peering at my beautiful Apple cinema display, keeping an eye on all the tools that allow me to connect with so many people remotely I am struck with a sense of … loss. I know, to some of my social media “connections” I am just a number in a game called online influence.

Equally, I have made some incredible connections online. I have gained enormously from conversations, links and collaboration. These are not just numbers, but relationships. Just like in the “real world” relationships are built through trust, context and the ability to add value through being who you are.

How then can we build relationships online when we deal primarily in numbers? How is a social media strategy different from a mass TV or radio campaign if it consists of sending out periodic links on twitter to 20,000 + “followers”? We can argue that it is targeted. We can debate that this is where the target audience are. We can even try to convince ourselves that the 20,000 + profiles have opted in. I am not so sure.

Absolutely there are individual instances where there might be opt in, where a personality has something to say that hundreds of thousands of people want to hear, but these are exceptional cases. Here there is already trust and a desire to consume their information and content. These personalities have worked hard to get to where they are. They give of themselves and offer value. Their following has grown organically.

As a Zimbabwean I look to the policy of “printing money”. As more and more zeros were added to the Zimbabwean dollar, its actual value, in real terms went down. Now, it has reached the stage where the currency has been abandoned. Zimbabwe has moved onto something new. The Zimbabwean dollar is worthless.

We talk about social media as being about relationships. We argue that you cannot put a price on true connections and real conversations. The numbers game is the old way of doing things. Perhaps this message has not permeated through?

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: relationships, Social Media, trust, Twitter, Zimbabwe

The Deepend of Social Media

April 7, 2009 By ajmunn 1 Comment

There is no doubting that the innovation and investment into social media tools, software and applications have come from the commercial sector. By that I mean start-ups backed up by investor capital, which have taken risks, believed in themselves and their ideas and run with them.

It is no surprise that the most discussed social media networks are the ones that have excelled from this model, creating a following and infusing themselves into the very fabric of our online lives. Here their determination and vision have created mass following and buy-in, and from that revenue models have been created, or in some cases are yet to be created.

For every Facebook or Twitter, there are thousands of start-ups which have not made it. Not much has been written about them. We prefer to applaud the mighty. We love to pick at, dissect and analyse the ones that have made it. The ones we all want to emulate. How many times have you seen battling niche social networks describing themselves as “The MySpace of Christianity” or “The Facebook of fishermen”? (Ok I made that up but it has a certain poetic quality to it).

This has perpetuated the “build it, create a following and then figure out your revenue model later” strategy as the one to copy. We all like to document why these networks are successful, what lessons we think can be derived from them and applied to our businesses, and how we can maximise our use of them in order for organizations to gain.

Don’t get me wrong, there is much to applaud, and lots to discuss, however, to avoid stagnating there is a need to step away from this and look at the topic from alternative perspectives.

It is this view of social media that has prompted such a fierce reaction to the executives who calmly and quite understandably ask for some ROI data for social media. “They just don’t get social media” is the combined cry from 10 million of the 10 million 7 hundred thousand #socialmedia profiles on wefollow. “How do you quantify a relationship?”

I think most of the executives get that. It is a valid answer, but it misses their point. From their perspective, the build it, get people to engage and then figure out how to make it valuable later is not a model that they are familiar with. (I know I am oversimplifying things here, and yes there is more to this argument than this) Just because the innovation, thinking and construction of these tools are derived from this model, does not mean they have to stay in this model.

Organizations already have business models. They have processes set up to ensure that they reach their goals and that they are adding value in a manner that allows the business to continue. Taking the tools, applications and software that drives the social media we know and love and bringing them into established business models in order to facilitate a greater overall ROI requires a shift in application.

Social media does not only exist “out there”. Bringing the tools into the structure of an organization in a way that aligns with their objectives, culture and purpose ensures that value is brought with them. Helping organizations to see the shift happening in relation to stakeholders, collaboration, connections and content, and how social media tools and processes can bring it all together for the benefit of the organization is key.

Thinking about User Generated Value (UGV) verses User Generated Content (UGC) is important. It is not always appropriate for us to engage or discuss overtly or for inappropriate people to alter content. Using filters and permissions based profiles to ensure relevance, or mapping how people navigate your site can add more value and relevant understanding. Allowing the right people access to the right content, and getting them to add value through tagging, flagging, bookmarking, rating etc can help streamline efficiencies, and add more relevance than sifting through reams of comments, suggestions and text. All these tools exist. The fact that they are becoming easier to integrate into legacy applications, CMS and LMS ensures that this is easier and cheaper to do. The gaps between what we want to do, the cost of doing it and the time it takes to role it out are getting smaller.

Too many people are driving the social media vehicle in automatic. Look under the hood, see what tools make it go and adapt that knowledge so it allows organizations to meet their objectives, goals and unique business rules.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: enterprise social software, facebook, ROI, roi of social media, Social Media, Twitter, UGC, ugv. user generated value

Rediscovering Web 2.0

September 30, 2008 By ajmunn 3 Comments

I have not been a fan of the term Web 2.0, mainly because of the many instances where it has been taken out of context. Through revisiting the man who coined the phrase, Tim O’Reilly I have rediscovered that his thoughts and concepts around this phrase not only make sense, but puts forward ideas and directions I can and do subscribe to. Thank you Jeremiah Owyang for your blog What’s after the Social Web? for pointing me back to Tim.

I am not going to venture into a definition of Web 2.0. It is not my term to tamper with. Besides, it would be difficult to reduce the definition to a few words and phrases, not to mention the possibility of misinterpretation if it is read by someone who doesn’t truly appreciate the phenomenon that it is.

This is how O’Rilley defines Web 2.0:
“Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them.(This is what I’ve elsewhere called “harnessing collective intelligence.”)

In one of Tim O’Reilly’s latest blogs Why Dell.com (was) More Enterprise 2.0 Than Dell IdeaStorm, his vision of Web 2.0 is clearly laid out.

It is important that people get this because it really puts the term social media into perspective. The word ‘social’ often throws us off. We immediately think of outward facing dialogue, collaboration and social connections as being at the forefront of social media. However, it is often the product of the dialogue, collaboration and connections that provide the real added value of social media. Just like Tim O’Reilly’s Google example in his blog where google’s intelligence is only made possible through the way in which it organizes and uses content that is produced by the collective.

A bit of poetic license here as I attempt my own example. Imagine a computer reseller who allows customers to build their own specs online. To facilitate this they have some social media elements on the site that allow users to discuss the merits of various components. They can debate, discuss, and ask advice from each other. The data (conversations) are then monitored with key words and phrases, actively searched so as to provide the individual users with immediate information about the components they are talking about. This can include descriptions, user reviews, costs and options to select, add to your basket, add to your build, etc. Conversations about which graphics card works best with which processor for example can result in bundled deals, further reviews, alternative suggestions, etc.

Beyond this, users movements can be tracked and their search behavior monitored so to allow the computer reseller to understand real customer preferences versus their assumptions about customer preferences. Tracking could help with their supply chain management, trend watching and configurations for the standardized commodity boxes they sell to computer stores, allowing for real time adjustments to product offerings and market understanding in an industry where constant changes do not have the luxury of quarterly marketing reviews.

It is with this understanding and vision that we have built SocMe^TM Through integrating social media elements with CMS, LMS, analytics and measurement tools, websites are turned into intelligent business tools that are applied in relation to a company’s unique business rules, goals and needs.

Conversations, collaboration and gathering data are all vital, but so too are how we handle and use that data. The trend is to be fixated on the well-known external facing social media properties out there, rather than thinking how social media tools and applications can bring us a competitive advantage.

For example, people talk about using twitter as a business tool rather than thinking about creating a searchable organizational database of collaborative conversations. Yet it goes beyond this. How we organize, manage, analyze and use that database of collective conversations is key.

http://twitter.com/ajmunn

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: CMS, Jeremiah Owang, LMS, Social Media, social web, SocMe, Tim O'Reilly, Twitter, web 2.0, web analytics

Brand Africa, Twitter and World AIDS Day

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