Social Media

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Lots of sports drink, but not so much social: Where was the social media in Superbowl ad spots? (Image via telegraph.co.uk)

If social media has finally gone mainstream, where was it during the Super Bowl? It wasn’t visible in many of the spots.With Facebook passing the 400 million user mark and so much of the buzz about the ads happening on Twitter, you’d expect more social media love from the ads. Instead, the Web site URLs at the end of the spots tended to go to the advertiser’s main site. Where were the callouts to become a fan, follower, or friend?

Here are ten reasons why social media wasn’t front and center during the Super Bowl ads:

1) Social belonged elsewhere in the architecture. Marketers must make decisions on where social media fits within their digital architecture. Frequently, their main site serves as the hub that links out to their social presence elsewhere, and those social properties link back to the site.

That doesn’t have to be the case; a social network, blog, or microsite could serve as a hub, or it may be a decentralized approach without a hub but with the pieces still connecting together. For Super Bowl advertisers, their hub tended to be either their homepage or a page within their main site. Brands with an active presence in social media had an opportunity to direct consumers to their social channels from their sites, yet that’s where a number of marketers fell short.

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During Social Media Week’s panel on Social Graph Optimization that I had the pleasure and honor of moderating, I was able to get in a bunch of the questions that I had for the panel, including Meebo’s Seth Sternberg (@sethjs), Wiredset/Trendrr’s Mark Ghuneim (@MarkGhuneim), Droga 5’s Hashem Bajwa (@HashemBajwa), and Anna “the analyst” O’Brien (@annaobrien).

You can read the official SMW blog post by Amanda Rykoff (@amandarykoff) for the details of what was covered there, including what social graph optimization really means (I’m not as convinced as some panelists that we need this as a discipline separate from social media optimization), what marketers need to measure, and where mobile location-based services fit in. That last discussion was inspired by @BukolaE, who’s not even in New York City currently but participated via social media. If you’re so inclined you can catch the whole session’s video.

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Mayor Bloomberg tweets alongside Twitter creator Jack Dorsey (image by davidall via Flickr)

Social marketing programs have proven their worth in driving sales (@DellOutlet), building loyalty (Coca-Cola’s Facebook page) and improving customer service (@comcastcares) – but in the throes of a complex political campaign, what is the worth of social engagement?

If done right, it just might be the difference between victory and defeat.

The evidence? Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2009 mayoral campaign, in which he won by just over 50,000 votes. Jonah Seiger (@jonahseiger), Chief Online Strategist for Bloomberg ’09 and Managing Partner at Connections Media LLC, shared the social strategies that ultimately bolstered the then-incumbent’s road to re-reelection at a Tuesday Social Media Week event hosted by ClickZ and the Personal Democracy Forum.

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