Digital Connections – 360i Blog, Digital Marketing Agency

Spring has sprung and along with it a ton of exiting Social TV News. April was a wild month that included record-breaking premieres, flashy media upfronts, election developments and historic, digital signs of the times. Below are some of our favorite highlights from the past 30 days.

1. Game of Thrones breaks GetGlue. HBO kicked off the month by flexing their social muscles for the premiere of Game of Thrones Season 2. There was so much activity that the show drove multiple worldwide trending topics on Twitter and for crashing GetGlue’s servers (momentarily) on premiere night.
2. Psych-ed to hit 100K. While networks typically focus their marketing efforts on premieres, USA Network’s hit show Psych had thousands of reasons to cheer for the finale of Season 6 as they passed 100K Twitter followers. To share their appreciation, USA Network (a 360i client) and the cast of Psych produced personal and sincere thank you messages that were shared via @Psych_USA.
3. NBC & the first digital Olympic Games. 360i client NBC Sports excited millions of fans when they confirmed that London 2012 will indeed be the first-ever digital Olympic Games by announcing that the network will be live-streaming all 32 events from London and connecting fans to the action via social media.
4. Social takes center stage at BET Upfront. BET’s social presences have consistently stood out among their entertainment peers. Take for example @106andpark which, with 4MM followers, is a social TV powerhouse on Twitter. To further draw attention to their success, BET put social front and center at their upfront and took time to discuss their goal to provide the best digital environment possible to their viewers. Read the full article »

Since the Mad Men era, the widely held perception has been that consumers are only influenced by advertisements of shiny celebs and models – but social media and the rise of a new sect of influencers is turning this notion on its head.

Recent research shows that consumers would rather receive marketing messages from bloggers or influencers that they are familiar with than a celebrity. Moreover, this preference ultimately affects their purchasing behavior (53% of female readers have bought a product based on a recommendation from a blogger).

Cool Whip is using real moms as part of its latest campaign that puts bloggers front and center.

In a recent article for Social Media Explorer, Stephanie Schwab discusses the evolving role of bloggers to “celebrities” featured in paid advertising. This growing trend, if executed properly, allows advertisers to borrow influence from established online influencers trusted as experts in their field.

Read the full article »

For many teens, the pinnacle of ‘Happiness’ would be hanging out with their favorite pop star – of course few people are ever afforded such an opportunity. Well, this dream is about to become a reality for seven lucky teens thanks to 360i client Coca-Cola and Google+.

As part of Coca-Cola and American Idol’s ‘Perfect Harmony’ program – in which fans can help singer Jason Derulo pen his next big hit – the brand has picked a handful of teens to participate in a live chat on the Coca-Cola Google+ page. You can watch the chat LIVE tonight at 7 p.m. EST, as Jason answers fan questions and takes live ones from the Coca-Cola community.

Image via College Candy

Coca-Cola hosted its first Google+ hangout in February. The broadcast featured archivists from the brand who fielded questions from the Coca-Cola archives. The brand, which touts one of the largest corporate presences on Facebook, has more than half a million fans on Google+.

Earlier this month, Google rolled out its ‘Hangouts on Air’ feature to all Google+ users. This update allows any G+ member to publicly broadcast a hangout for their network to see – either within the Google+ stream, from a website or from a YouTube channel.

Last week, Bing announced the most significant update to its platform since its launch three years ago, by introducing a new social structure to its search results.

Microsoft has had the jump on Google for quite some time now when it comes to privileged social data, winning both the Twitter fire-hose deal and enjoying a cozy relationship with Facebook. And with Tweet and Like counts clearly poised to be the new relevancy king-maker signals, the most surprising thing about yesterday’s announcement is that it took so long.

In fact, a week prior to the announcement, it appeared Microsoft took a step backwards, reverting to an old familiar top-ten look for results. This turned out to be clean-up in preparation for pop-out panels, which allow for enhanced results and apps, and a right-rail for social. In this new scheme, the pop-out panels can provide shopping or reservation apps right on location to satisfy the user onsite.

Top Changes

Significant changes to the platform include the addition of “snapshot” and “social” bars to SERPs. Natural search links will remain on the left side of the page, similar to what was rolled out in last week’s UI Update. This section will still include the “gutter” at the far left of the screen.

The snapshot bar will be immediately to the right of natural links and will leverage APIs to populate data related to your search. The social bar on the far right will house social networks that the searcher opts-in to connect to (i.e. – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Foursquare, and LinkedIn). This bar will take information from these services and display content relevant to the search query. The bar is divided into three sections: People Who Might Know (it will take info from your friends and say how it matches your query), People Who Know (will leverage experts specializing in the query area that may or may not be a direct social connection to the searcher), and Activity (shows curated posts from your social network).

Bing’s new Search Page Layout Read the full article »

There was a lot to digest after a week of events at the Digital Content NewFronts (DCNF), which wrapped on Thursday with Google’s BrandCast event. This year, the magnitude of the event trumped those of years past, with platforms proudly touting the power of native digital content to attract large brand marketers. This post brings you all the highlights from DCNF 2012.

About the Digital Content NewFronts

The DCNF mission statement, according to its site, is to “to shape a new and practical marketplace for connecting the wealth of native digital content with brand marketers and their media and marketing agencies.”

What is compelling about this mission is the emphasis on “native” digital content. It’s a subtle, but important distinction – and one that speaks to the creative voices involved in this exchange. This is not an event focused on drumming up interest in repurposed TV content; rather, its focus is on content designed for digital consumption.

We’ve yet to fully create the DCNF’s mission of a “practical marketplace,” though it was made clear last week that we have witnessed a palpable shift in our industry. While the concept of NewFronts dates back to 2008, there was something profoundly different this time around. The scope, scale and showmanship of these NewFronts seem to have finally caught the attention of big brand marketers. It was more than an event this time – it was an exciting experience of which brands wanted to be a part.

Read the full article »

Last week, Tumblr decided to throw their hat in the ring and start selling ads on their platform. Perhaps because they’ve had a chance to observe Facebook as they have publicly iterated on the core value proposition of their advertising products, Tumblr has skipped those steps and come out with a very clear stance on what they’re selling and who can buy it.

Image via CNETAt fMC, Facebook launched new ad products that enabled marketers to easily port the content they were already publishing on Facebook into advertising units. Facebook had already been selling advertising for quite some time though. The announcements at fMC were an effort to align marketers with Facebook’s vision for their platform and encourage them to focus on the content they were creating for their fans first and foremost.

Read the full article »

While advertisers have been flocking to Facebook – especially in light of media opportunities introduced at fMC earlier this year – measuring the impact of their efforts relative to other channels has left some media folks scratching their heads. A Wall Street Journal article published yesterday explores the sense of “doubt” some marketers feel toward their media investment within the world’s largest social network.

Graphic via the Wall Street Journal

Although Facebook has built out a full suite of media opportunities to bolster its $3 billion-a-year ad business, Suzanne Vranica and Shayndi Raice of the WSJ argue that “some marketers … are wondering whether they’re getting their money’s worth.” It’s a fair question – especially given Facebook’s impending IPO purported to happen later this month. By the way, Facebook’s valuation is projected to be nearly $100 billion – or 33x the company’s ad revenue, according to Vranica and Raice.

Yet more than doubt, advertisers are experiencing a sense of confusion regarding how media impact within Facebook can and should be measured. The discussion and debate surrounding social media ROI is nothing new – it’s a topic we’ve been hearing about for years – but it does take on a different weight as brands continue to up their investment in Facebook.

For example, one marketer featured in the WSJ piece cites that while he is increasing his investment, he’s still unsure of if an ad on the platform will lead to an eventual sale. Some brands, like Ford, have conducted research to tie social investment to sales and found that Facebook media can in fact provide a boost to sales. There is widespread agreement that social media is effective in helping reach such goals; however, marketers continue to wonder to what degree social media is driving the sale.

But is this the right way to evaluate success on Facebook? As 360i President Sarah Hofstetter notes in the article, Facebook might not be the right platform for marketers who measure ROI as direct sales from the Web. “If the goal is to move the needle on brand health metrics, whether its awareness or engagement, then Facebook should be a key part of the marketing mix for most consumer brands,” she says.

Read the full article »