What would a brand need to give you to become a fan of their page on Facebook? A free hamburger? A pair of underwear? Virtual cash to support your virtual farm?

These are all real examples. T.G.I. Friday’s gave out the burgers in September 2009. Victoria’s Secret first gave away panties in June 2009, and then it offered fans two pairs of underwear in September to celebrate getting 2 million fans. Just last week, Microsoft ponied up (pun intended) 3 Farm Cash, the virtual currency of Facebook’s leading application FarmVille, to players who became a fan of Bing.

On the surface, it works. Bing grew its fan count from over 100,000 to over 500,000 overnight with the one-day promotion March 2, and it now has 593,000 fans, indicating continued residual growth. By comparison, Google has 529,000 fans. Microsoft’s Bing only needs another 18,000 fans to overtake Chandler Bing (of “Friends” fame), and the page is now far more popular than “I just realized that Bing stands for ‘Because Its Not Google’” with its 258,000 fans. So it was successful, right?

This is the question marketers need to ask. Was it a success? And then you can break it down further – in what ways was it successful, and in what ways wasn’t it? I haven’t seen the press tackle these questions. Even a story yesterday from Silicon Alley Insider, a publication that makes a sport of ripping into large tech and media companies, treated it with kid gloves.

There are several reasons Microsoft should celebrate:

1) The creative in FarmVille was beautiful, showing a massive farm with Bing’s logo, instantly visible in the game.

2) Zynga, the company behind FarmVille, made it relevant for its audience, with a prominent call to “become a fan,” and then the hook to “get fun FarmVille tips on Bing now.”

3) Microsoft “owns” these fans now. It can directly communicate with nearly 500,000 more people than it could at the start of last week. That’s tremendous.

4) Microsoft has cash to burn. When you’re sitting on billions of dollars, paying a few million bucks for this kind of promotion might be a relatively good use of ad spending. The cost of this promotion wasn’t disclosed and I know it wasn’t anywhere near that ballpark, but the one-day spend undoubtedly trumped what most marketers spend on social media in a year.

5) The press value alone probably helped with some of the incremental fan gains, and its public relations team can add the media love to their clip files. In this bizarre world where Microsoft is the David to Google’s Goliath (or “The Hurt Locker” to their “Avatar”), it’s going to get the ink.

Yet the promotion’s hardly perfect. There are several reasons why this might not be the best use of marketing dollars:

1) Die-hard fans will do anything for virtual cash. Zynga games often have two kinds of currency: the kind you earn by playing the game and the even more special currency you have to pay for. There are items and other in-game boosts you can only get with that special currency. As a Mafia Wars player for about a year now, I’d become a fan of Stalin for Godfather points. Getting FarmVille players to become a fan of an innocuous brand like Bing is a cinch when you’re dangling Farm Cash. Without a doubt, these same people would become a fan of Google, Yahoo, Apple, the Burlington Chamber of Commerce, hedge funds, or the Senate’s latest version of health care legislation (hey, Obama, you might want to try that). It doesn’t mean they’re fans.

2) A week later, the vast majority of comments from fans on Bing’s page are still about FarmVille. Consider the latest post from Bing about a maps app. The first ten comments are mostly relevant, though largely negative. And then the FarmVille comments come: “I just joined this group for the FV$.” “I got my 3 FV dollars – and what other search engine offers you anything? So thank you to Bing!” “My son got his fv cash, but I didn’t.”Its wall is also full of fan posts such as, “Need some farmcash ASAP thanks in advance.” These will drop off in time, but it’s doubtful that these FarmVille players will ever contribute meaningfully to Bing’s Facebook presence.

3) Another way to look at engagement is by the number of people who “like” a post. Bing’s two official Facebook updates since the FarmVille promotion garnered about 150 likes. Bing’s post about the FarmVille campaign garnered 1,280 likes. And before that? It’s a mixed bag. A post about someone from Bing riding a mechanical bull in Dallas got 325 likes – and that was when it had 117,000 fans, according to All Facebook. Typically, posts netted around 50 to 100 likes – and occasionally far more, such as a Christmas update with 222 likes. Microsoft will have to figure out what resonates with the new crop of Bing fans now that they’re overwhelmingly FarmVille fans too (do they search for virtual animal husbandry?). Or perhaps Bing will fare better letting that FarmVille contingent remain a fallow fan field, while continuing to reap the fruit of the organic Bing fans.

All in all, size only matters so much. Bing could have had a successful page with 10,000 fans if they were passionate users who could spread Microsoft’s messaging further, or Bing could buy 10 million fans that give Microsoft nothing but bragging rights.

My final recommendation: next time, run the promotion in Mafia Wars for 100 Godfather points, and I’ll be Bing’s biggest fan in the whole wide world. Burlington Chamber of Commerce, that goes for you too.

This article was originally published in MediaPost’s Social Media Insider.

E-Commerce Sites Poised for Improvements in 2010

According to a study by Internet Retailer and Vovici, web retailers have big plans to provide better online shopping experiences for consumers. The “Website Design Strategies & Tactics” report found that two-thirds of retailers plan a site redesign in 2010.

Reports eMarketer on the study: better organization, “updating of home, category and product pages” are the top priorities among web retailers improving their sites. Improved SEO is also on the agenda for many e-commerce sites. Retailers surveyed said the biggest reasons for the redesigns were to increase sales and to build buzz for their brands among new visitors.

Approximately 25% of retailers surveyed said they will introduce personalized product recommendations in order to optimize conversions on their sites.

Report: Huge Gains in Mobile Social Network Usage YoY

ComScore released a study this week that pointed out the substantial increase in social media usage via mobile devices from January 2009 to January 2010. The report found that more than 30 percent of smartphone users access social sites via a mobile browser in 2010 – up from 22.5 percent a year ago. Broken down by social network, Facebook saw 112 percent gains and Twitter enjoyed a nearly 350 percent boost.

As Mashable points out, the study likely underestimates the gains, as it only encompassed data from mobile browsers (not mobile apps). Mobile social network usage should continue to grow as leaders like Facebook and Twitter continue to enjoy increasing popularity with mobile alternatives.

Universal Pictures Repo Men Campaign Ties Mobile to Offline Creative

A new promotion for “Repo Men” integrates mobile bar codes powered by Red Laser with offline media in order to build buzz around the film. The new Universal Pictures film (disclosure: Universal is a 360i client) involves selling organs via bar code scanning, “so it is not only a good digital integration but also a cool tie-in with the subject of the film,” writes MobileMarketer.

The mobile component of the campaigned ties directly to offline creative found online and among the top 15 markets in the United States.

“Red Laser met two important needs for the program: it’s one of the most popular mobile applications especially for tech-savvy early adopters, and they had the flexibility to incorporate real bar codes for fictitious products from the film,” said David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media & Innovation, in the MobileMarketer article.

Business locations have unwittingly joined a world of local social gaming. The use of “check-in” technologies, and buzz around this new kind of social activity has blossomed thanks to the recent growth of sites like Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, MyTown and Brightkite. These are just some of the technologies out there that create social utility and a bit of fun around the everyday places we visit.

Through GPS functionality, mobile browsers and apps have empowered consumers to share their daily adventures, longitude by latitude, tweet by tweet, at any given second in time.  For example, Foursquare allows its users to quickly find a location, check in and supply content that is relevant to their geographic location.  For places of business, a user may want to inform his or her social community in real time of his or her location and thoughts about the spot.  This might include a traditional status update, advice or a review of the location itself.

The above example shows how a new venue is entered, resulting in a new Foursquare address (screen shot below).  Once created, users of the Foursquare community can now check-in, create dialog, and battle for “geographic domination” at this location or business.

Foursquare creates a pursuit for its users who can earn status levels and recognition at certain locations by checking in frequently.

For businesses, there are SEO implications from all this location-based socialness.

As Web sites such as foursquare.com facilitate user-generate content, they also enable natural search visibility via Google.  This realization is an important factor in their ability to grow user profiles, content, and popularity.  Once a location is created by these sites, they are indexed by the engines and become searchable.

• Foursquare Google Index Count – About 300,000 of their “venue” pages are now indexed
• Loopt Google Index Count – About 22,000 of their “places” pages are now being indexed
• Gowalla Google Index Count – About 8,000 of their “spot” pages are now being indexed of

Getting indexed by Google is clearly valuable, as these types of local content pages can rank for geographic related searches. For example, a Google search for “360i Atlanta” results in a Foursquare venue URL ranked in position 3.  On the resulting Foursquare page, users will find some basic info about 360i such as the business address and phone number, plus other user-generated Content (UGC) like shouts, tips and more, which all contribute to the page’s keyword relevance.

Foursquare isn’t the only mobile application contributing to local search relevance. Yelp.com embraced SEO best practices years ago, improving their organic visibility in Google’s results for local search queries aligned with businesses.  The site now offers a mobile “check in” system a la Foursquare.

A big mystery in the mobile/ local page saga is Google itself.  They have not allowed their own “Google Places” pages to become indexed in their web catalog. At the moment, they disallow /places/ URLs via robots.txt.  So Google’s Place pages are not currently indexed, although there are SEO-friendly Google Place URLs available that could be indexed in the future. [Example of Google Place page: http://maps.google.com/places/us/folly-beach/center-street/39/-woodys-pizza.]

A Google Place page for Woody’s Pizza

With Google’s renewed focus on mobile, will they eventually create a mobile app that allows their Gmail users or other community members to do “check-ins” at local businesses? Don’t be surprised if this happens.  They could certainly integrate UGC into their own Google Places along with our Google Profiles (example below). This is speculative, but certainly possible as Google looks to expand its user profiles reach, with social and local relevance.

Regardless of what happens next or who becomes the next Geographic Twittering platform, below are some local social SEO tips that marketers should consider:

*Check out these sites, notably Foursquare and Google Places to review your “venue” pages:

• Ensure each of your business locations is accurate.
• Do you have duplicate listings under various platforms?
• Claim or verify your listings whenever possible on each platform.
• Listen to your customers and learn whenever possible – is there buzz happening about you right now from a customer in your store?

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*Consider adding outbound links from your own location pages to your presence on Foursquare and Yelp!

• If you have enough, create an index sitemap.

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*Learn more about Foursquare for Business and sign up or ponder customer loyalty concepts.
This space is changing fast!  Google’s Buzz and layering onto of local maps is just another recent example of how this environment between mobile, social and location buzz is evolving. Understanding the major players and technologies today will help marketers test and learn until things shake out.

If you look ahead at the agency business several years out, where will social media fit in, especially once some of the hype dies down?The question occurred to me after hearing a speech by someone I’ve worked with for over four years now: 360i CEO Bryan Wiener. When I saw how Bryan touched on social media in his “Agency of the Future” talk at the IAB Annual Leadership Summit last month, I was itching to go deeper, and I happened to know how to reach him. For full disclosure, the idea to interview him was mine alone. I rarely mention 360i at all in these columns, but this was a story I was excited to run.

You can read a few of Bryan’s broader thoughts about the coming evolution of agencies on 360i’s blog. In this exclusive interview, the focus is entirely on social media.

Social Media Insider: How does social marketing fit in with the agency of the future?

Bryan Wiener: The unfettered rise of digital, and of social media in particular, has brought about staggering shifts in consumer behavior — and this requires equally dramatic changes to the way agencies operate in order to help brands connect with consumers in this new dimension. The agency of the future must have digital expertise in its DNA, with search, social and mobility — three things that have completely transformed consumer behavior — as the three key legs of the stool.

Not surprisingly, social marketing serves as an indispensable leg to this stool for the simple reason that it provides a channel for developing a direct, unadulterated relationship between a consumer and a brand. And building relationships is becoming a more critical component of brand marketing as the media landscape becomes increasingly fragmented and cluttered.

SMI: Which skills in particular will be needed for agencies to ‘own’ that leg of the stool?

BW: Brands of the digital age need to keep pace with consumers — and when it comes to the social space, this is no small feat. How can marketers navigate the changing terrain of the social Web in order to capitalize on those opportunities most relevant for their brands? Which emerging arenas hold tremendous promise, and which are flash-in-the-pan media darlings with little or no value to marketers?

As an agency, we are committed to staying innovative and ahead of media and technology trends, and to being change agents for the brands we represent – to throw out everything that’s comfortable when necessary and innovate at the speed of consumer behavior. For agencies that want to be indispensible marketing partners to their clients, they need to commit to developing expertise within social and, even beyond that, commit to keeping pace with consumer behavior and bolstering their skills at fostering consumer relationships across all channels.

SMI: Agencies undoubtedly have their own hurdles in really getting social media to the point where they can be strategic advisors for their clients, yet marketers have their own issues managing social media. To what extent do client-side marketers need to change, and what in particular needs to change there?

BW: Digital engages consumers throughout the marketing funnel, simultaneously in real-time, which requires both agencies and their clients to adapt. The old, siloed model of advertising, promotion, sales, customer service and IT just doesn’t cut it anymore. Put simply, if marketers really want to rapidly and radically impact change in the agency ecosystem, it starts with how they allocate their dollars. And while many are paying lip service to relationships and conversation, not enough marketers, media properties or agencies have made the structural and budgetary changes necessary to adapt to this new model of marketing.

What’s more, marketers need to understand the dire importance of value exchange in their social programs. Consumers aren’t going to follow you on Twitter or fan your Facebook Page in the absence of something in return — entertainment, information, utility of some kind or some form of social currency. Understanding that there now NEEDS to be a value exchange between consumers and brands in their advertising and marketing is probably the single biggest change to the marketing industry since the advent of TV advertising.  The strategy of intruding and interrupting is replaced by informing and engaging.

This article was originally published as part of MediaPost’s Social Media Insider.

Google Now Indexing Facebook Page Updates in Real-Time Search

On Thursday Google announced that it has begun including Facebook Page updates into real-time search results. For now, the Facebook updates will come only from Pages (largely managed by brands, businesses and public figures) – of which there are about 3 million, according to TechCrunch. Google first debuted its real-time search functionality in December, when it began aggregating and displaying tweets within its search results.

So, what does the news mean for marketers? For one, brands with active Facebook pages could benefit from keyword-rich status updates. In addition, as Google’s Universal algorithm includes “Latest News” on a brand’s relevant keywords, they might consider joining the conversations during those opportune windows. Finally, the aggregation of Facebook updates within Latest News grants greater visibility to a marketer’s Facebook presence, and can therefore lead to increased Page traffic and fans.

Eyeblaster: Strong Synergies Exist Between Search & Display

A new study by Eyeblaster that analyzed cross-channel search and display campaigns found that while nearly a quarter of conversions came after a customer saw a search ad only, a solid 5% were from the combined impact of search and display. Reports eMarketer: “Almost one-fifth of the 28% of users who converted after search had seen at least one display ad as well.”

The report notes that while search attracts prospective customers further in the purchase funnel, display can function “at all stages of the funnel.” Digital marketers running cross-channel digital programs across both search and display can reap profound benefits from a robust attribution strategy that uncovers overlap and steers new strategies when it comes to budget considerations. For more information read SearchIgnite’s whitepaper on Cross-Channel Measurement & Attribution.

Citysearch Ties Twitter Buzz to its Local Business Directories

Citysearch – a digital hotspot for all things local biz – has begun building a “definitive directory” of Twitter accounts and chatter about local businesses, according to TechCrunch. Currently, there are about 5,000 listings in the new directory – a small slice of 15 million businesses within Citysearch’s broader listings. You can check out this new feature on each city page as a widget box that aggregates tweets from and about local businesses.

As Citysearch’s Kara Nortman noted in TechCrunch, the widget box changes the nature of the site’s reviews function, as it makes customer feedback “more immediate” and therefore more “relevant.” For brands, this move by Citysearch highlights the increasing power of real-time engagement and the blurring lines between CRM and social media.

New Report Explores Social Media Usage at Fortune 100 Companies

Global PR shop Burson-Marsteller has released a comprehensive report on how Fortune 100 companies are leveraging social media. B-M found that globally, 79% of all Fortune 100 companies are using at least one social media platform – including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs. Of all social channels, Twitter was most popular among this group: two-thirds have at least one Twitter account, and those that do average 4.2 accounts apiece.

Other findings:

• More than half of Fortune 100 companies have a Facebook Page
• 50% have one or more YouTube Channels
• 20% utilize all four social channels

You can read B-M’s full report on Slideshare.

Join the conversation by leaving your comments below or by tweeting us @360i or @bwiener.

1. You’ve proposed that agencies are not only necessary for the future, but that we’re actually on the cusp of a golden age for agencies. What’s the importance of the agency in the future of brand marketing?

There is a tremendous opportunity for agencies to increase the value they provide to marketers, but this comes with recognizing the opportunities and seizing them. With consumers in control like never before and media fragmentation proliferating, brands need strategic partners who can help them drive marketing innovation and stay ahead of changing consumer behaviors. Marketers need agencies to step up and be change agents.

A huge part of this means that most agencies, especially the traditional holding company agencies, will need to reorganize themselves to be more aligned with consumer behavior and marketer needs, which are increasingly digital in nature. Reorganizing for our golden age will be tough, but I believe it’s critical for the entire marketing ecosystem.

The agency of the future should deliver innovative strategic thinking that’s not driven by or beholden to any specific tactics or platforms.

2. What’s changed in the marketing landscape that necessitates an agency of the future versus the agency of the present?

There are really three key implications of this change in consumer behavior that impact the future of marketing and how agencies need to adapt.

For one, thanks to Google and Facebook and Twitter, individuals have more power over shaping brand perceptions than ever before. And it’s not just for a brief moment. None of us can afford to forget that when consumers communicate online, they’re leaving a permanent digital record for others to see. Consumers are not just influencing short-term opinions about brands. They are affecting brand reputations long-term. Marketers and their agencies need to establish relationships with consumers where they are spending their time. This means building the foundations of your brand footprint in search and social because that’s where consumers are creating and consuming content about brands and their competition the most.

The second implication I see is that growing brand strength now means a long term commitment to relationship building – like a marriage. The wedding is not the end game. If the core of a brand’s value is the sum total of how much extra people will pay, or how often they choose one brand over the alternatives, then establishing an emotional bond and building long-term relationships to drive brand loyalty are critical for success. Digital is the key that allows for that – a direct, unadulterated relationship between consumer and brand – NOT a cheap transactional one-night-stand. So any agency that wants to add strategic value to marketers needs be an expert and fostering relationships between brands and consumers across all channels.

Finally, the agency of the future needs the marketer of the future. Marketers need to play a major role in dictating the pace of change. Digital engages consumers throughout the marketing funnel, simultaneously in real time, which requires brands and agencies to adapt. The old, siloed model of advertising, promotion, sales, customer service and IT just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Put simply, if marketers really want to rapidly and radically impact change in the agency ecosystem, it starts with how they allocate dollars. If you buy into the first two implications, it changes the way you fund your marketing efforts and organize around it.

3. What’s the way forward – what do agencies need and how do they need to be aligned in order to be more relevant and more valuable strategic partners to marketers? How do we as an industry work to reach the golden age?

Frankly, no one model will likely be perfect for every marketer. I believe the prototype for the agency of the future is one that is responsible for both brand planning and the core elements of earned, paid and owned media executions. This agency shouldn’t come from a broadcast-centric background and it should have digital in the center, in its bones — because that’s where consumers increasingly are.  But the agency of the future would not be biased toward digital, either. Ultimately, it will have traditional media planning and buying capabilities as a core service offering but this shouldn’t be the driver of the agency’s strategic thinking.

As agencies we should be most focused on building a model that can provide the most value to a variety of marketers. To that end, I think there’s a core group of capabilities that are indispensable regardless of the model.

1. Every agency needs to excel at using the Internet as a complement to traditional research tools to mine the consumer insights that inform brand strategy and fuel continuous improvement of marketing programs. This is very different than the typical pre and post campaign insights and analytics and we’re done approach.
2. Every agency also needs to have digital expertise in their DNA, with search, social and mobility — three things that have completely transformed consumer behavior — as the three key legs of the stool.
3. Finally, agencies must be platform and tactic agnostic and marketers need to give us the freedom to be. Mobile, online, TV, print — who cares? It’s about driving brand engagement and achieving the marketer’s core objectives, using the platforms and tactics that will best help us get there.

What do you think the agency of the future holds? Join the conversation and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Microsoft-Yahoo Partnership Approved

Yesterday, Microsoft and Yahoo announced that they’ve been cleared to move forward with their much anticipated search partnership, which was initially declared in July. Since the engines now have received “unrestricted” clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission to implement the deal, we’ve revisited our earlier POV and highlighted some of key areas for digital marketers to focus on in the months leading up to complete, full-scale implementation.

Read 360i’s POV on the Microsoft-Yahoo search partnership for more insights into what the deal will mean for marketers in the digital space.

Google Revisits Buzz Amid Privacy Concerns

Last week Google announced it would be reassessing some features of its new Buzz platform in the face of widespread concerns about user privacy. One of the biggest concerns was regarding Gmail contacts being made public. Says Google: “Like Gmail’s chat service, Buzz helps you create a social network by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with most. You can change, delete or add any contacts you want to follow.”

As people joined Buzz they found that they automatically followed Gmail contacts without granting approval first. This presented a problem for journalists and others who do not wish to have their contacts list disclosed in public. It also presented an issue for at least one brand using Gmail as a CRM platform, as former customers (many of those disgruntled) who were compelled to follow the company left a barrage of negative comments on the company’s Buzz updates.

In response to these concerns, Google has made some changes:

• The option to show/hide followers and people you follow is now more prominent.
• Users can block anyone who starts following them.
• Google will suggest people to follow, but not automatically add them to the list of people you follow.

Google Buzz and its subsequent updates are proof that as social media continues to evolve and influence more areas of our lives, it will become increasingly important for marketers assess the possible implications of each emerging platform as part of their broader brand reputation management efforts – before they dive in head first – so they can properly explore all challenges and opportunities.

Facebook Continues to Surge in Popularity & Engagement

According to new data from Compete, Facebook has surpassed Yahoo to become the second most popular site in the United States with 133 million unique visitors in January. Search Engine Journal reports that in addition to traffic figures, the top social network is also dominating when it comes to user engagement. Last month more than 11 percent of all time online was spent on Facebook. This figure was around 4 percent for both Yahoo and Google.

The most obvious impact on marketers is that there will now be two major places to buy search advertising, down from the previous three. And with more scale now aggregated within the next biggest search marketplace to Google, the partnership should ideally build efficiency in search advertising and also enable marketers to take better advantage of Bing’s traffic. Since Google volume is so much greater than either Yahoo or Bing, it enjoys proportionally greater attention from search marketers. This unified marketplace will grant Microsoft and Yahoo! a better chance to compete with Google due to their combined scale.

In this new marketplace advertisers will be able to select traffic from Bing and Yahoo! rather than the full affiliate network, but will not be permitted to select traffic exclusively from one engine or the other. Thus, the impending unified marketplace raises new unknowns that could potentially pose serious ramifications for digital marketers.

Currently, 360i sees vastly different results across Yahoo! and Bing search campaigns. These discrepancies have led us to approach and consider both engines differently when we optimize a marketer’s paid search program. A unified marketplace that does not allow advertisers to select only one engine or that does not provide complete transparency into the results by engine would severely limit this opportunity to maximize returns and optimize ROI. The integration of Yahoo! and Bing within one platform in this case could very well change the way we manage each to obtain maximum results – though we won’t know for sure, or by how much, until more details emerge.

360i POV on the Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal (Updated Feb. 2010)

One emerging business model that has caught on in social media is not particularly social at all. The model, especially prominent in supporting the booming social gaming business, allows marketers to target consumers with cost-per-acquisition deals that earn consumers points or virtual currency in the games.

Among the best known players in this field is Offerpal, which says it reaches more than 150 million consumers. After missing the company’s CEO George Garrick last month both when he was in New York and I was in San Francisco, we finally caught up on the phone for an exclusive interview. While Offerpal has typically targeted direct response marketers for lead generation programs, new and upcoming programs will cater to brand marketers too.

Note that his answers below are paraphrased, except where in direct quotes, and some of the questions were added later for clarity.

Offerpal Overview

Offerpal reaches consumers who don’t want to spend money for points or virtual currency. Offerpal’s consumers are typically teenagers – younger people who may not have credit cards.

The first rewards were offers, but there are other ways Offerpal is providing value for consumers subsidized by marketers. Shopping Offers was introduced a few months ago. A video product is coming out where consumers will get rewarded for watching ads.

How do the leads from these offers compare with customers acquired through other channels?

We’ll see if the quality of the response from these offers will turn out to be lower than purely voluntary responses (consumers who are not incentivized to respond). If someone sees an ad for Netflix and signs up for a new account, they’re probably more interested than someone who suddenly needs some game points. The lifetime value is probably not going to be as great. The economics are probably going to settle out over the remainder of the year, and that’s  OK. “If you look at customers acquired through different channels, they’re always going to have different values.”

The quality of leads may not be lower at all though. “I don’t know that it’s going to turn out that way. There’s an argument that can be made in the other direction.” You can say the type of person playing a social game is a heavier user of DVDs and watches more movies, which offsets the fact that you’re incentivizing them to sign up.

It takes a long time to calculate lifetime value. “Ideally you need a lifetime… I don’t think there’s enough data yet.” Offerpal has been around a couple years but social games only really took off at the beginning of last year. Part of the challenge is that “up until recently, a lot of the offers were coming through exchanges and networks… If you’re coming through a network like Commission Junction or ValueClick, the marketer can’t really tell where the lead is coming from.” Better data is just starting to become available.

How will the new data affect pricing?

“Most marketers expect to be paying the same regardless of the channel… I think over time, the advertisers look at additional visibility into the source of the leads and their acquisitions and they will adjust the pricing by source… At the end of the day it probably doesn’t make that much difference because unless a new channel comes along that suddenly is a significant source of customers and is significantly different in terms of lifetime value, it really wouldn’t make that much of a difference.”

What else is Offerpal doing to attract brand marketers?

“We have a number of things coming along that are targeted to brand marketers and more of the Ad Age type reader than the Direct Marketing News reader.” [Editor's Note: MediaPost welcomes all such readers.] “The brand marketing world is spending a lot of money, and we think that social environments in games are a great way to reach people, especially certain demographics that are harder to reach through traditional media.” Consumers playing these social games are arguably more engaged than TV watchers because they want to get the reward.

You’re discussing the offers’ role in social gaming. Do you see the offers themselves becoming more social?

“I don’t know. It depends on what the marketers and what the agencies come up with.” As more research and understanding come out of this, that’s a reasonable thing to expect to happen, but that’s really up to the marketers and agencies. “We don’t design the offers… Typically, marketers do want to take advantage of the environment and the state of mind the audience is in.”

Consider  Groupon – they come up with an offer that’s only available if a certain number of people sign up for it. TownHog does that too. “We will always be looking for things like that to embed in our offering. I wouldn’t rule out actually developing some of our own offers at some point.”

What impact did the ’scamville’ brouhaha have? [For background on this, read Garrick's comments in TechCrunch.]

“I think there’s a lot of opportunity that’s still being left on the table because of the controversy that happened a couple of months ago. There’s still an excessive amount of hesitancy to engage in non-cash alternatives. While I can understand that, there are a lot of users who would engage at a deeper level in these games and applications if there were non-cash alternatives available.”

This column was originally published in MediaPost’s Social Media Insider.

Google Buzz,  the Boss and a lesson for brands as social media and CRM collide.

A couple of months back I came across a Facebook ad and clicked on it. It was for a $6 dollar T-shirt emblazoned with Bruce Springsteen’s head that said “The Only Boss I Listen To.” Obviously, I had to have it.

I made my way to the checkout found that the $8 shipping cost was more than the product, as the only option for delivery was UPS.  I ordered it anyway. A few days passed.

Curious as to where my awesome shirt was, I shot an email to the vendor, 6 Dollar Shirts, asking what was up. Two days later I received a response. Turns out, my order was processed on Dec. 26 – but was not actually shipped until Jan. 6 (12 days later). Oh, and it was sent via USPS. Wait a minute… I followed up again and asked what my adjusted shipping charge would be, given that it was clearly not shipped by UPS.

No response. I finally got my shirt on Jan. 8. No one ever got back to me on the adjusted shipping rate. I didn’t press the issue because frankly, I didn’t want to waste any more time on a few bucks. I was just happy to have my sweet Springsteen t-shirt.  End of story? Nope.

I hadn’t really put much thought into my experience until last week, when Google Buzz broke out onto the scene. I started perusing the interface from within my personal Gmail account, reading updates from some of my friends, when I came across some Buzz activity from 6 Dollar Shirts and sister company ThreadPit.com.

This brand was particularly excited to be testing out Buzz, and had emphatically sent out an update: “6dollarshirts.com is BUZZING with NEW SHIRTS! ”

Within 24-hours the Buzz had garnered about 15 comments, many of which were negative and recounted poor customer experiences. Some examples:

• Daniel - your shirts are so cheap i also use them as toilet paper.
• Noel - … i ordered 10 shirts on the 6th of dec. received them on about the 18th… the shirts were completely ruined, colors had bled through on to other shirts. I called they said they would take care of the problem … i didnt get the shirts until the 12th of january.
• Travis - Terrible company and everyone needs to know this. Ordered shirts on December 5th, was promised delivery by the 12th. By the 20th, I was notified they weren’t coming for another week … Shirts eventually arrived (wrong sizes as well, with terrible printing) on January 15th. Terrible terrible terrible.

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A brand’s presence on Buzz is not that much different from its presence on any other social platform in that the marketer doesn’t really have tons of control when it comes to what people say about you. However, the difference here was that I had not opted in to receive updates from 6 Dollar Shirts – rather, the vendor was automatically added to my Gmail contacts list (and subsequently to my Buzz list) because I had exchanged several of emails with them.

As I’m guessing was the case with some of the negative commenters, the email exchanges were a result of poor customer service – so, it’s ironic (yet understandable) that Google assumed I’d want to follow them based on the fact that I “knew” them quite well.

Sidenote: 6 Dollar Shirts has 111 followers on Buzz. To put this in perspective, Samsung, a MUCH larger brand that also received some press on TechCrunch about its enthusiasm regarding Buzz, has about 570. Now, there’s no way of knowing how many of the followers selectively chose to receive 6 Dollar Shirts updates, but my gut tells me that a big number of the brand’s followers were default opt-ins via Gmail Contacts.

For an online vendor like 6 Dollar Shirts, a vocal presence on Google Buzz has the potential to directly solicit such negative feedback because as Gmail users some of their not-so-biggest fans are automatically compelled to follow their updates.

In defense of the brand, 6 Dollar Shirts has since announced a new customer service rep and responded to most of the negative comments.

And, as a result, some brand evangelists have even emerged to defend the company. Comments Agustin Vazquez-Levi: “Give these guys a break … Have you ever tried to run a business? Threadpit is the first company that is already active on Buzz. To me that says something about their customer service.”

I’m not sure how accurate the claim is that the brand was first to get in on Buzz, but Agustin does have a point regarding their willingness to jump into conversations and connect with customers past and present, happy and not-so-happy. Since the initial incident, the company has not received much negative chatter at all.

Perhaps if Buzz were around back in December, I could have sent 6 Dollar Shirts a very quick (and very public) comment about the status of my order. I’m guessing a public comment for all to see would have helped my order proceed with a bit more alacrity – not to mention I would have likely received a near real-time response from the brand’s new customer service rep. This process seems similar to a CRM effort on Twitter, but Buzz is more powerful since anyone following the brand can see all comments to an update, regardless of whether or not they’re following the commenter.

In the end, this anecdote is an important one as social media and CRM continue to collide. Google Buzz blurs the line by integrating everything within the Gmail interface. And, as evidenced by 6 Dollar Shirts’ early challenges, brands using Gmail for customer service should take note that some of their earliest followers might not be their biggest proponents.

That aside, marketers should also look to the brand’s swift response as a smart example of how negative feedback can lead to stark improvements in how customer service is managed within a company and across social platforms.

This week Google revisited Buzz in the face of widespread public outcry regarding privacy concerns – and moving forward, Google will suggest people to follow instead of automatically adding them. This assuages a number of risks for brands, but not all of them.  As social media continues to evolve and influence more areas of our lives, it is increasingly important for marketers assess the possible implications of each emerging platform as part of their broader brand reputation management efforts.