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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Nov
08

+, or -?

by Feedback

Yeah, we started one of the new Google+ “Pages” for our company. But we have no idea what we’re going to do with it, how we’re going to use it, if we’re going to use it, or why, really, we even chose to make one. We aren’t recommending any company or organization bother with a Google+ Page at this point, but it felt like something we had to do just because.

This week Google introduced Pages for its “+” service, allowing brands big and small to join the social networking community and interact with the advertised 40 million people there. Many of those, however, aren’t major users, and are just sitting there, dormant, because they got an invite a few months back when this whole shindig began.

For now, we’ve largely written off Google+ after an initial wave of excitement. To be sure, there are some people there who have kept up with it over the past few months. And they may turn out to be a great social network’s pioneers. But for us, and for most, G+ is just too close to Facebook, which went through its own set of great changes and essentially introduced many of the same features that Google+ considered its own – the stuff that would set it apart.

The features on Google+ today are really no different than the things you can do on Facebook, where 800 million of your friends and enemies are already located.

So, back to Pages. If you know how they work on Facebook, G+’s are largely the same, with a few minor tweaks:

- Businesses and brands can update and share information with their “fans,” which are simply in an organization’s “Circle” on Google+. Pages can’t add people to Google+ Circles, just as Pages can’t add people as friends on Facebook. You can also “Like” a page, but not subscribe to it, by hitting Google’s becoming-more-famous +1 button on the Page.

- You cannot run contests or sweepstakes on a G+ Page. You can link out to them, but you can’t host them on Google.

- When you hit the “+” sign  in the Google search bar followed by the name of a business or group, and that business or group has a Page, you’ll be able to add that Page to your Circles.

Where Google+ may shine with its social products – eventually, and only “maybe, if it succeeds” – is on search. Anything you put on a G+ site – be it your personal profile or your company’s Page – will begin to show up in search rankings. And that could be cool, particularly for those small brands that are trying anything to get their name out.

But still, with very few actually using Google+ and still loyal to the old standbys that we all know and use, that day is likely far off. If ever.

And so, we’ll continue to maybe, someday, actually get around to testing out our G+ page.

-Jeff (@jephkelley)

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Nov
07

In The News For Social Brews

by Feedback

Beer tastes even better if you’ve got a nice piece of technology to go along with it.

Craft brewers are starting to take to mobile apps and the web to get their message out and strengthen the worldwide community of good beer drinkers. This trend was covered in a recent article on Sparksheet, the moral of the story being:

Whether it’s through Facebook pages, check-in apps or hashtags, craft brewers are giving macro-produced beers – and their marketing whiz kids – a run for their money. Most craft brewers live by a simple motto: No crap on tap. And now they’re bringing that philosophy to the digital marketing space.

Craft beer has a soft spot in Feedback’s heart, so much that one of our own, Dean, is regularly called on to speak at the annual Craft Brewers Conference. This got Dean quoted in the Sparksheet article, though, knowing the writer also helped.

Dean Browell, Executive Vice President of Feedback Agency, a social media consultancy based in Richmond, Virginia and London, England, has been a longtime friend to the beer community and counts a growing number of impressive keynotes under his belt at the annual Craft Brewers Conference.

“Craft beer is a source of experimentation and taste that lends itself to discussion, exploration and more,” says Browell, whose PhD thesis focused on generational differences and online technologies. “It’s one of those drinks that sparks conversation and practically requires you to drink with others, daring interaction.”

Thanks to writer Paul Spicer for thinking of us. Shoot us a line at feedbackoffices[at]feedbackagency.com if you’re looking for beer recs, and be sure to reach out to us on all those craft brewer social networks.

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Oct
19

Tabs on the Holidays

by Feedback

MediaPost, one of my favorite sites for trade-specific communications news, reports this from the National Retail Federation:

Smartphones and tablets will play a major part in shoppers’ holiday foraging, with 52.6 percent of smartphone owners using them to sniff out purchases. And those who own tablets are even more keen on shopper technology, with 70.5 percent of tablet owners planning to shop with them.

Note that this doesn’t say “buy.” Just forage. Which I believe means “to seek out.”

When it comes to tablet vs. smartphone use, one element I’ve found interesting is that while retailers and other companies are scrambling to build smartphone apps – Droid and iPhone versions only, let’s be serious – there’s not as high demand by firms to build tablet applications.

This isn’t to say tablets aren’t popular. They are.

But you don’t necessarily need, say, a banking or e-store app on a tablet, because the screen is large enough to accomodate to regular website. Yet banks and retailers are developing phone-specific applications (or at the very least, mobile-optimizing their websites), because they are easier to view on a tiny screen.

It’s easier to browse on a smartphone and buy on a tablet, which brings us to purchasing figures: only 14.1 percent of people plan to buy stuff on a smartphone this holiday season versus 33.8 percent – more than double – who will actually buy goods on a tablet.

Meanwhile, holiday spending – which rises every year, even in bad years, just by a different amount – will see a small increase of 2.8 percent this year. The average for the past decade has been around 2.6 percent.

- Jeff (@jephkelley)

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Sep
23

Facebook, Redefined

by Feedback

We’re not going to lie. The social network was starting to bore some of us.

Such a case of Facebook fatigue is not a good place to be when your core business is online media. But if we were tired, it was obvious other people were, too. We began rethinking future digital strategies: would Facebook continue to be the place to be? If its usage among the masses slows, what will replace it?

As it turns out, Facebook was replaced this week by a brand new Facebook that brought with it the introduction of a new home page and an extraordinary overhaul to profiles called Timeline. And in an instant, the magic of Facebook returned.

In short, here are the features, and what we think of them.

Profile becomes Timeline. Essentially, the old profile turns into a timeline of your life. You’ll see status updates you made years ago, comments people made about you, and your life history – for better or worse – laid out before you. You can even go back and add more content from your past, all the way to birth. Cool video of Timeline here. Timelines launch Sept. 29 to the public.

Liking and Verbing. You can still Like stuff, but you’ll also be able to do stuff. Anything. Developers will ow be able to “Eat” something, “Watch” something, “Play” something.

Ticker and News Feed. Smaller news items go to the ticker, a sort of news feed inside the news feed in the top right corner. Status updates and photos stay in the main News Feed.

These changes have us supremely excited in Facebook again, and thinking about how it will work in the future for people and companies. With Verbs (called “Facebook Gestures”), instead of “Liking” a movie, you’ll say you “watched” or “are watching” a movie. It’s a whole new way of interacting with audiences.

The update also has us thinking, for the first time in a long time, about Facebook applications. Facebook Apps now have the potential of competing with the iTunes app model. Facebook’s apps were once clunky add-ons to the service that had been marginalized out of existence, but now, they look to feature prominently in the new Ticker. The apps are what will bring on the Verb’ing of Facebook and these more significant connections. In fact, we’re more inclined to recommend apps now than just simple Facebook Tabs on a company’s page because the latter is just a splash page, whereas the apps are true branded engagement. Just like iPhone (or Droid or BlackBerry) apps, simple but significant features work best, especially given the new Verb environment.

As for the Timeline, where to begin. When you make the switch, prepare to take at least an hour looking at your life. It’s amazing. You may find yourself going total Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on your profile, deleting status updates from exes or erasing opinions you may have had years ago but view differently today. It’s a bizarre but ultimately superb update to Facebook. Timelines will usher in a whole new era about Identity, the Internet, human behavior, and personal history.

What’s more, company pages will likely convert to the Timeline at some point, so companies should start preparing for that.

Facebook is new again, and has proven that it is truly an innovator and not a passing fad. This update just bought the company several more years as the reigning champion of online communities.

- Dean (@dbrowell) and Jeff (@jephkelley)

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Sep
20

A Look At The Inc. 1

by Feedback

The vacations are over. Back-to-school sales have come and gone, while big yellow buses rejoin the fray that is my morning commute. Talk of football fills the airwaves and Facebook feeds, letting us know that fall is (almost) here.

For me, the annual September release of Inc. magazine’s top 500 private companies (stretched to 5000 online) has been an autumn rite for as long as I can remember.

For the uninitiated, Inc.’s list is ranked by the percentage of revenue growth over a three-and-a-half year period by privately held, for-profit independent companies that meet some qualifying financial requirements. Some companies appear on the list briefly before going public. Other companies are stalwarts, like North Carolina software maker SAS, which has appeared on the list each year since 1981.

At Feedback, we’re frequently charged with surveying the social media landscape of entire industries, clients and competitors alike, to evaluate the overall usage and uncover best practices. For the purpose of this post, I thought I might do a quick audit of this year’s Inc. 500 No. 1 fastest growing company, ideeli.

If by chance you haven’t heard of ideeli, you’re certainly familiar with the concept: a members-only online retailer, a “Flash-shopping” site, with regular-if-not-daily emails offering merchandise for greatly discounted prices. While ideeli counts sites like Gilt Groupe, Rue La La and HauteLook among its main competitors, it’s a short leap to their much-ballyhooed geo-specific daily deal siblings, Groupon and LivingSocial. Most of ideeli’s thousand brand partners are in the fashion world, though offers for such things as travel present growth opportunities they are just beginning to explore.

So how is a company of this size and potential using social? At first glance, the answer is quite well.

On Facebook, multiple daily posts reflect their assets via pictures, as well as their sponsors and items of general interest to their more than 170,000 fans. Likes by the hundred and comments by the dozen are common within hours of posting.

The effort on Twitter is strong as well. Having cultivated a base of almost 26,000 followers with over 20,000 tweets since September 2008, the content and interactions really flow here. Chances are if you direct your message to @ideeli, you’ll get a personal response. At the time of this writing, there were twenty direct responses to individuals tweeting their questions or affections for this shopaholic’s dream.

In addition to their regular offerings, they also do what they call “Flash Friday” giveaways for an unspecified and far briefer time period that you can only participate in by following on Twitter and using the appropriate hashtag in your messages. Clearly, there is some serious social media savvy within the company’s Manhattan headquarters.

As a business that contacts its consumers regularly via email, you could give ideeli a pass if they failed to make use of a blog along side their other efforts. However, the clean design and presentation of information, as well as the availability of multiple RSS feeds at blog.ideeli.com provide a strong complement to the other promotional efforts, though it would seem with less traffic and far fewer interactions. I am somewhat surprised – given the adoption of Tumblr within the fashion community – that ideeli has not embraced that site and its potential to further engage with its clientele. A presumptive search for ideeli.tumblr.com gets forwarded back to the main site, where an unformatted page lies begging for completion and content (I know some who would be willing to help them out with that).

I’m somewhat obsessed with deal websites, so I was surprised to see a site that I had never heard of (though competitors Gilt & Rue were on my radar) top the Inc. 500. Who knows where they will place on next year’s list: Maybe they’ll go public or be bought out and no longer qualify. Or maybe they’ll find a goldmine in other retail sectors and continue to grow at this torrid pace.

Either way, I’m sure they’ll be keeping up with their strong efforts in social. If you’re looking for an example of a private company doing it right, look no further: ideeli’s the real deal.

-Thomas (@thomasmcdonald)

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