Feb
06

Who Are You?

by Feedback

Who are you? Or better yet, are you who the public thinks you are?

Feedback’s Dean Browell offers a short study of sorts on U.K. social media site The Wall into we go about crafting our online identities for various audiences. He writes the following on Facebook’s new and slightly freaky Timeline feature:

Facebook’s Timeline changes things a bit. The 7-day grace period Facebook gave users to trim, prune and add to their Timeline speaks volumes to the impact it has on us as a representation of our online identities. For many, it was a complete shock to see Facebook had bothered to keep all of the data they have been posting for years and neatly displayed it as a scrolling scrapbook for them.

The sins of several years ago lined up with the very thing you posted yesterday, the errant ex appearing again for the first time since the breakup. As Facebook accurately described it, it was truly a digital scrapbook of our limited lives as they pertain to Facebook. It combines the realtime and the oldtime. It makes us a sum of our parts. Of course we can shift and delete and highlight to create a carefully crafted identity on Timeline as well, but it made us stop and consider.

Read more of Dean’s high points on how we are perceived on different social networks over at The Wall.

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Jan
31

Foursqualor

by Feedback

One threat to a check-in service governed by users is digital litter. For instance, it used to be when you wanted to mark your location on a social network such as Foursquare that you’d get listings of places such as “Seat 23A” or “this rocking chair on the porch.” That’s still the case, but it’s much less frequent in the United States; overseas, however, it could be a big problem in the United Kingdom, where Foursquare is just now starting to emerge. Feedback’s Dean Browell outlines the threat of what he calls “Foursqualor” on iMedia Connection:

Perhaps [initial users] thought they were being helpful, but I suspect most of the reasoning behind “Seat 23A” or “This Tollbooth” had to do with boredom or a surreptitious motive to become mayor of something (anything) and therefore accumulate points. The problem was, the lowest level of engagement in Foursquare is supposed to be the check-in, not the creation of locations. By creating instead of interacting they were diluting the major concept. And worse yet, they were creating a mess for anyone else looking in, trying to check in.

Landing in any major airport in 2010 and trying to check into Foursquare meant scrolling past all of this Foursqualor in order to find the actual airport. Check-ins to dozens of seats, gates, regular commuter flights at even the smallest airport crowded the screen. With airport names sometimes invoking some local politician or patron saint of flying, mere searches would not always help. Later, Foursquare would appropriately weight these major hubs so they appeared towards the top of the list when you were nearby. But for a while a casual Foursquare user could be forgiven for just getting fed up with the chaff, the atmosphere of waste, the annoying litter of the fake-or-worse locations.

In London, however, this issue seems to be worse as the general population interested in potentially using Foursquare is far more diverse. In the U.S., you were dealing with a savvy first-mover who didn’t mind (and potentially relished) the clean-up and pruning while the general public gave Foursquare a chance after many of the corrections had been made. In the U.K., a cross-demographic shift to social with these tools in place would mean newcomers could be turned off immediately by the digital litter and abandon Foursquare altogether. For Foursquare to take hold in the U.K. will require a base of superusers who can make changes to locations easily, reporting, policing and editing venues as needed. More at the link.

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Jan
25

Tweet or Die? No.

by Feedback

There is a cure for conservative brands thinking of moving into social media – particularly those in B2B sales – and it’s not the “Tweet-or-Die” method of the social media gurus, but rather to thoughtfully look at the real leaders in social media: your audience.

Feedback’s own Dean Browell gets inked over at Fourth Source, a new digital media marketing pub geared toward the U.K. market. He writes:

 

B2B marketers cannot afford to pretend their audiences aren’t affected by social media in some way. As they watch their sales arms utilize email, messaging from the road and using a variety of tools to track and interact with clients, we know that even internally some element of social and digital communication would happen through top salespeople’s own instincts and savvy for relationship building. Moreover, as B2C becomes more heavily laden with social validation elements such as reviews and ratings, so does B2B begin to reflect that environment, if even in a private way. Consider the often-robust private message boards (sometimes present in LinkedIn Groups) for various industries where members dish on contractors, suppliers and more. When you take the time to look, you may see that your particular industry congregates in some very specific places online and it may not be Twitter, but rather some other channel. Repeat this regularly to ensure you’re not simply following trends or unnecessarily satisfied with inaction.

More here.

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Jan
10

ReminCESing

by Feedback

The annual rite of, well, the year, began today: the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, featuring the gadgets you’ll see – and many you won’t – in 2012. Reporters typically measure the show’s size in football fields, and in this case, it’s 35 of them. That is very, very large.

I went to my first of two CES’s six years ago as a reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, covering the half dozen or so companies and handful of sales reps from Virginia that were attending. I’d spot the sales guys by scouring nametags as they’d pass by.

“Hey, you from Richmond?” I’d ask.

“Yeah.”

“Quote for the paper?”

“What the —- are you doing here?”

Your first CES is difficult to enjoy because it’s so overwhelming. Multiple halls, each the size of a standard city’s entire convention center, house thousands of exhibitors and play host to tens of thousands of industry people. Lots of the booths give out branded mini-moisturizers, tissues and lip balm to help combat the dry air. Single “booths” are the size of McMansions and filled with gadgets – some conceptual, others that will go on sale and be outdated in six months. I recall being told by a reporter who’d been before to plan ahead. Get booth numbers, map out a schedule, drink lots of water. I chose instead to wing it, and found myself doubling-back throughout the week and destroying the soles on a well-made pair of shoes. That first year I remember delaying booking a hotel room and had to stay at a Howard Johnson’s outside of the main Strip area. I imagined horrible, horrible things had happened at that room before my arrival. I recall being close to tears at one point attempting to submit my stories by the deadline, which, thanks to time zones, was three hours ahead in Richmond.

I did  a little better the second year – including booking a sweet room – but still not great.

 

As technology changes every few months, so too does how the show is covered in the media. While blogs were of course popular in 2006 and 2007, when I was there, the updates coming out of CES weren’t as constant (annoying?) as they are today thanks to the prevalence of social media. Print deadlines are less important because you’re writing for the web. The deadline is unending.

In my mind, though, almost more than anything, CES stands today as a time to remind people that Apple is not the only company in the world that makes gadgets, nor is it the only company in the world that makes good gadgets.* Apple doesn’t attend CES.

I recall being in the press room at CES in January 2007 when Apple announced the first iPhone. Slick timing on the company’s part: distract the industry. We were all huddled in that press room reading about the iPhone on blogs and watching news reports on TV as a world of ridiculous technology sat outside our door, waiting to be touched and looked at and reported upon. Yet the announcement instantly killed the vibe of CES and overshadowed everything for the remainder of the trade show. Reporters in the press room called their editors to determine how to handle CES coverage with the iPhone news. Which story led? The answer, that day, was iPhone. Hundred-inch televisions, the newest gaming consoles, the hottest stereo systems and the bikini-clad women showing them off were no match for a tiny three-in-one touchscreen device that would go on to disrupt entire industries.

But Apple doesn’t make TVs (yet), and not everyone uses Macs. People still pick up game controllers, and enjoy flip-style phones, and buy technology products from many other reputable and innovative brands. And all of it is on display at CES. Here are a few trends and products to that I’ve been watching come out of this year’s convention:

Ultrabooks. Super thin, fast, and not a lot of bells and whistles.

Skinny TVs. Slim, more natural colors, richer blacks, thin, thin, and definitely not thick.

Kinect on Windows. “I’m thrilled to announce that Kinect is coming to Windows on February 1,” Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said.

Health and Fitness. A host of upstart companies want to serve a helping of vegetables to those consumers in the form of health-and-fitness gadgets.

Oh, and that * symbol a few paragraphs up: for every one really awesome thing at CES, there are at least two completely lame things that will never, ever be bought or used by anyone. Though I probably still thought they were cool.

-Jeff (@jephkelley)

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Dec
27

The Value of ‘Like’

by Feedback

Software company Vitrue announced recently that a 1 million-strong Facebook fanbase for an organization’s page translates into at least $3.6 million in equivalent media over a year, based on impressions generated in the site’s news feed.

In other words, marketers can expect to pay $3.60 for one set of eyes on the foremost social network. Reports U.K.-based Marketing Magazine:

Criticism of the announcement was widespread and immediate, noting that impressions give no account of engagement. Vitrue chief executive Reggie Bradford countered that he was coming to that, and “shares”, “comments” and “likes” would feature in a subsequent study.

While it is sometimes difficult to measure ROI in social media, pointing to “Like” as an indicator of success is seen as a problem by many, including Feedback’s own Dean Browell, who was interviewed for the article. A “Like” may simply be someone entering a competition or seeing something intriguing on a company’s Facebook page – but it doesn’t necessarily mean that a person is instantly wedded to a brand.

The article continues:

The truly curious thing, according to Dean Browell, executive vice-president of US social media strategist Feedback, is that so many brands seem happy to unquestioningly reach for the large numbers – and the less nuanced, the better.

“There’s an unusual shift happening now,” says Browell. “At first, marketers were clamouring for very specific data they could hang their hat on as a reason to go into social. Now, you have brands doing social and being OK with not measuring it.

“They are in love with the ‘like’ and, unfortunately, many of them aren’t asking who these people are who ‘like’ them, and what is the quality of the ‘likes’ they are getting.”

While many top brands view an individual Like on Facebook as a huge value, a good social media and digital practice comes down to more than just numbers. With careful methodologies in place, a great deal of meaningful data should emerge from a brand’s presence online and its fanbase, giving a company insightful feedback on its customers and stakeholders. This is data that impacts marketing departments, sure, but also gives key information to sales teams and C-suites.

For more, check out the article, Social Media: The value of a Like here.

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Dec
09

Get Pinning

by Feedback

Google has long been hailed as the ultimate search engine. But what if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for? Say you’d like to see a broad range of inspiration for a home project or DIY gifts. Google won’t get you too far.

Enter Pinterest. A virtual pin-board for cataloging and sharing images, Pinterest has been growing quickly since early 2010 despite its semi-private beta status. The number of users has soared from 418,000 in May 2011 to 3.3 million this October. As it stands right now, potential users can either request an invite through the site or have a current user email an invite to join.

Here’s how Pinterest works: users label and create theme-based virtual pinboards so they can “pin” designs, gifts, tutorials, recipes and other things they find around the web to share with other people. Pinning is done by installing a simple button on your web browser. Once “pinned,” those images lead the user back to the original web source. Users can follow others’ boards and “like” specific posts or “re-pin” to their personal boards, much like the concept of Facebook sharing or Twitter ReTweeting.

This “self-expression engine” promotes a kind of sharing and reciprocity that has built a community passionate about discovery and inspiration. Brands such as RealSimple and Williams-Sonoma are starting to take advantage of Pinterest’s popularity and rapid sharing. We’ve even had a few clients here at Feedback express interest in Pinterest.

There seems to be an illusion that the site is only for women; it’s true that the majority of users are female, but there are still plenty of guys using Pinterest to curate inspiration for design, cool spaces, cars, and photography. In fact, Ben Silbermann, a dude inspired by his love for collecting things as a child, founded Pinterest. The users have grown to be increasingly female in the past few months, up from 54 percent in April 2011 to about 70 percent in November.

Like most start-ups, Pinterest has yet to create a solid revenue model but has caught the eye of advertisers, brands and investors. Pinterest is ad-free for the time being, creating organic engagement and growth. With such growing interest, it will be interesting to keep an eye on what steps the site owners will take to become profitable.

Pinterest seems to have that “stickiness” that so many new social networks lack, which we believe gives it a lot of staying power. Check it out for yourself if you haven’t. And happy pinning.

- Caroline (@carolineradom) and Brittany (@britgary)

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Nov
21

Feedback’s UK Expansion

by Feedback

We are pleased to officially announce our expansion into London. News about our new office is spreading, particularly among media in the United Kingdom. Here are a few excerpts from articles that Feedback UK has been featured in during the past few days:

The Drum –

The London presence will be headed up by Feedback president and CEO Jeff Thompson and executive vice president Dean Browell Ph.D., alongside vice president Anna Lucas.

Mrweb–

The team examines and analyzes online chat across relevant sectors, including clients’ own brands and their competitors, then uses Feedback’s proprietary ‘Human Filter’ service to deliver information and insight.

Promotional Marketing –

The company has partnered with London-based integrated creative agency 23red to offer a full suite of communications services to customers. Both agencies are part of global network Worldwide Partners Inc. In its first two years Feedback has already helped UK and other European agencies win new business and worked with a variety of international clients.

Campaign Live/Brand Republic-

Thompson said: “At Feedback, we believe that social media is an accelerant to traditional media, and should not be an afterthought or seen as a frivolous must-have to keep up with technology. “This approach has delivered enormous success for our clients in the States and we look forward to bringing our strengths and creative solutions to our clients here in Europe.”

We look forward to growing in Europe and keeping our friends up to speed on our progress.

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Nov
15

An Education at WordCamp

by Feedback

This weekend I attended WordCamp RVA, an all-day conference focusing on everything WordPress. Lots of our friends and colleagues from around Richmond also came out to the Saturday sessions.

While the speakers and panelists provided an interesting perspective on WordPress use, I found the Education Panel the most compelling. I pulled two big lessons from it:

1. We live in a digital world and the upcoming generations need to know how to survive in it.
2. The earlier children understand the appropriate way to use online technologies such as WordPress, the better.

As members of the panel noted, Henrico County Public Schools are actively trying to accomplish this by weaving in digital lessons and teaching students “21st century skills.” Such skills include creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving, and information fluency – all through the use of technology. WordPress helps achieve all of these fundamental lessons by providing an inexpensive and easy means to create, publish and distribute content.

At WordCamp we learned that by the time students are in kindergarten, they are exposed to an online community by commenting on blog posts created by their teacher. These communities are safe and carefully monitored.

Beginning in 6th grade, students are given a laptop to use until graduation and are required to take Internet safety courses along with their parents and teachers. The classes teach students ways to protect themselves and to educate them on topics such as cyberbullying, social networking and monitoring.

And that brings me to a 21st century skill I feel is often overlooked: online social responsibility. Online communities are not very different from those in the real world. It is important that the upcoming generations know that predators are everywhere and they need to be smart about their Internet use and what information they divulge. Schools are a great place for such education to take place because they have the resources to monitor student activity and educate parents on how to do so as well.

Henrico County Public Schools is ahead of its time in its promotion of Internet use and safety training. Kids use it whether parents like it or not – for both education purposes and communication – so why not make sure they’re doing it in a responsible way? I hope this is a trend we see exercised in public schools more in the future.

- Brittney (@bntrim)

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