Social Media

Today, Apple announced a new iTunes add-on, called Ping, which aims to make the process of listening to and purchasing music through iTunes a more social experience. Apple CEO Steve Jobs described Ping as “a social network all about music.” It’s like “Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes,” he said.

This notion of a music-centric social network isn’t entirely new. In fact, Last.fm has offered an almost-identical service since 2002. Popular music streaming sites like Grooveshark, Pandora and Playlist.com also allow you to share what you’re currently listening to with your social networks (like Twitter, Facebook, etc.). That said, Apple does have a very clear advantage, and that’s its already massive user base that will simply need to “opt in” to become a part of Ping. Jobs noted that Ping could potentially attract 160MM users – more than Twitter’s 100MM, though significantly less than Facebook’s more than half a billion.

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It was a strange experience working as a social marketing strategist while planning my July vacation to South America. I had especially high hopes for question and answer sites, given how much they’ve evolved since the days when it was just Yahoo Answers competing with the now-defunct Google Answers. I thought I’d write a column about the recommendations the sites provided, but then I started asking questions and the answers underwhelmed.

I first tried Aardvark before Google bought it, back when I thought I was just going to Peru. A decent enough response came back when I asked for restaurant recommendations, but it ultimately wasn’t helpful, and the respondent admitted he defaulted to the Lonely Planet guides. Before I left, I then asked Aardvark members for packing recommendations for Peru, as well as for my Ecuador leg to Quito and the Galapagos Islands, and the responses were mildly helpful but similar to any packing list I found through search engines.

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Back in October the FTC updated its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising and established precise rules for disclosure when it comes to marketers interacting with online influencers. The news was significant to the digital community because for the first time since 1980, there were specific parameters for digital word of mouth outreach programs.

The FTC recently clarified some of these changes to provide marketers and PR professionals with a better understanding of what the new regulations mean and how they are being enforced – and answered some of the most common questions at length in a new article on its website.

Here is our summary of the key takeaways:

The rumor that bloggers who fail to comply with the Guides can be fined $11,000 is a myth. The FTC notes that press reports to the contrary were wrong, and that there is in fact no fine for not complying with an FTC regulation. If enforcement measures are needed, the advertiser – not the blogger – will be the focus.

Per the FTC, bloggers are NOT held to a higher standard that reporters. According to the Commission, “paper-and-ink” publications are not held to a lesser standard than blogs: “The issue is – and always has been – whether the audience understands the reviewer’s relationship to the company whose products are being reviewed.” When it comes to reviews in newspapers, on TV or on a news-affiliated website, it’s assumed that the reviewer did not buy the product being reviewed. For example, it’s expected that film critics do not front the cost of their own tickets. However, the FTC notes that when it comes to personal blogs, readers often do not expect the reviewer to have a relationship with the brands they mention.

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First of all, the short answer is no.

Facebook announced last week that their Gift Shop is officially closing on July 31. Currently, the Facebook Gift Shop lives as a gift icon under the Publisher Box within a your profile. If you click the icon, it expands to show all the available gifts that can be sent to your friend. In addition to closing the Gift Shop, Facebook will also be ending the Virtual Gift Homepage Engagement Ad offering to advertisers.

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The world may not need a Google-branded social network along the lines of what Google is reportedly building. My fellow columnist Cathy Taylor made that perfectly clear last week. Yet I can offer a barometer to show whether Google will launch a great product: the more boring Google makes it, the better it will be.

Google excels at boring. Look at the heart of its business model, search advertising. I’ve worked for companies with strengths in search engine marketing since 2004 and penned over 200 Search Insider columns for MediaPost, and I love search as few on this planet do. Still, Google’s take on search, with its character counts and algorithms, doesn’t provide great material for a Cannes award submission or a David Fincher movie.

Google has a similar track record with social media. Its most exciting contribution is a site that has contributed to the democratization of video production and distribution: YouTube. Most of what’s great about YouTube already existed before Google acquired it, while Google has done well with the “boring” aspects of making it scale and developing revenue streams.

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Dave Hendricks is COO of LiveIntent, a technology that helps people create meaningful connections on social media by answering the question: “Who do I follow?”  LiveIntent re-invents the rules of introductions across social channels by providing introductions based on common interest and level of engagement. To learn more, visit www.LiveIntent.com.

[360i]: Currently LiveIntent is very focused on Twitter – do you have plans to work with other social platforms, as well?

[Dave Hendricks]: LiveIntent has planned from the beginning to create a ‘Connections Server’ that presents and recommends the best creators of content, regardless of which service they inhabit. We started with Twitter because it had several characteristics that made it a good place to start. First, Twitter has an excellent API on which to build complementary services. Second, while the concept of ‘following’ was already established, the mechanisms for recommending the best accounts had not been developed. We thought that Twitter’s ‘Suggested User List,’ while generating many followers for the few accounts that it promoted, was not the ideal solution for most users. Twitter users, especially newer ones, are often frustrated and lose interest because they can’t figure out who to follow in order to make Twitter productive and enjoyable. We sought to solve that problem first within Twitter – the Discovery Problem – and then move on recommending the best friends/channels/groups/fan pages on other services like MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn — and eventually Facebook.

Above: LiveIntent window on celebrity news website JustJared.com

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A Wednesday New York Times article reports that Oreo, a Kraft Foods brand, will be ramping up its efforts in social marketing by giving its Facebook page a global face lift. The popular page, currently more than 5 million-“Likes” strong, will feature a new look on July 5.

As partners with Oreo on this initiative, we at 360i are looking forward to unveiling the refreshed page to Oreo lovers worldwide on Monday. Though the page has been up since August 2009, its focus to date has primarily been the American audience. However, a large volume of comments and “Likes” from global Oreo fans prompted the amended strategy which will engage fans of the brand from all corners of the world.

Mark Clouse, senior vice president for global biscuits at Kraft Foods, told the Times’ Stuart Elliott that the outpour of global engagement created an “a-ha moment” for the brand. He went on to say that Kraft sees Facebook as “a global vehicle and a platform” that can be leveraged to create dialogue with all consumers – wherever they may be.

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