Apr
23

Broadchurch: ITV building engagement and brand loyalty using social media

by Feedback

Brand owners and service suppliers: sit up and take notice. ITV has just charted new territory by putting on a master class in how to use social media to build engagement in its programming and in doing so they go a long way to trashing sceptics’ arguments, which are fixated on the ROI debate.

ITV is the United Kingdom’s oldest independent TV station (est. 1955); in addition to buying and broadcasting shows, it also commissions its own material. In recent years ITV has been applauded for producing the highly acclaimed Downton Abbey and Britain’s Got Talent.

Eight weeks ago we were introduced to Broadchurch, a modern ‘whodunit’ drama based in a Dorset coastal village. The drama traces the hunt for the killer of schoolboy Danny Latimer, led by two detectives. Monday night TV will not be the same again. ITV drew in 9.2m+ viewers last night (33.5% of all viewers) – figures not seen since the nation was left asking ‘Who shot JR?’ It has been suggested that just 29 people knew how it would end and that cast members, crew and production teams had been kept in the dark. Its appeal has generated an estimated £15m in additional advertising revenue and has guaranteed the show international success. The seaside resort where it was filmed has been inundated with visitors flocking to enjoy its charm.

Feedback professionals are fans of the show and we applaud the broadcasters flawless use of social media to build engagement. ITV used social media to involve viewers in the story. The content released was carefully crafted to help build the story, and the timing of announcements helped contribute to the tension.

  • Super fan Becca Overton set up the unofficial fan page to run quizzes, competitions, chats and polls – which the programme’s makers Kudos Productions were very supportive of

  • Final episode credits contained an invitation to see an exclusive additional scene on Facebook / YouTube clocking up an instant 255,000 views immediately afterwards

  • #broadchurch spent the day trending on twitter with the cast making contributions and announcing the commissioning of a second series

There are many lessons in this case study. The biggest though has to be that ITV understood the fit between the ‘whodunit’ format and social media. People were able to expand on theories, share filming locations and even place bets. The proximity of viewers to the show and its stars was closer than anything we have ever experienced insuring everyone’s investment had a payback.

If you didn’t see it, you had best check it out on ITV on demand or wait for it to come to your screens wherever you are and have your tablets/smartphones to hand so you too can participate.

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Mar
28

Coca-Cola’s 7 Secrets of Social Media Success

by Feedback
Wendy Clark, SVP Integrated Marketing Communications

Wendy Clark, SVP Integrated Marketing Communications

Earlier this week we enjoyed listening into a fascinating web chat where Wendy Clark of Coca-Cola shared some of the principles that underpin their use of social media. To save you having to trawl through the six hour transcript we have summarized it and added a Feedback point of view.

  1. Be Shareworthy: provide useful, interesting, compelling stories which are worthy of being retold by fans. In a social world it’s about initial influence
  2. Listen and Engage: real time listening & engagement are new skills that are now a mandate for businesses; If you ignore this you risk irrelevance with your customers; Engage in a real time dialogue
  3. Think Big. Start Small. Scale Fast: The key to rapid innovation is testing, learning, failing, fixing & then scaling; This stops us scaling the wrong things
  4. Social’s an amplifier, not a silver bullet: We’re believers in the power of social to make everything else we’re doing better; Disciplined to use owned, earned, shared and paid media (in that order) with Social at the Heart
  5. Content is the new currency: Social network cache & success are incredibly important to both teens and young adults; Create accordingly
  6. We might be shepherds, stewards and guardians of our brands but we no longer control them: Co-create & participate with your fans
  7. Be Flawsome = awesome w/ your flaws: Consumers are not interested in the corporate veneer; Brands must be real, authentic, human

Other key comments:

  • Studies point to social + other media = better ROI
  • Core metrics are: reach / engagement / brand love / brand value which we achieve through integrated plans
  • Spreading/replicating successful content doesn’t spread as effectively – originality is critical online
  • “We thought we could plan real-time engagement, turns out real-time is…real-time!”
  • “80% of the content & conversation online is not from us…”
  • Brands and consumers participating and co-creating together can be a 1 + 1 = 3 scenario
  • Use a 70/20/10 rule – 70% on what we know works now, 20% on things new to plans 10% unknowns

The way in which Coca-Cola uses social media is not confined to power brands, youth audiences or the soft drinks category. Everything Wendy was kind enough to share with us can be reapplied to just about any business, audience or category. These principles are simple but will be challenging to marketing organisations that have developed expertise around traditional marketing models. As Wendy points out though, the marketing environment has changed and with social at the center there are boundless opportunities to amplify, innovate and reinvent brands. Coca-Cola has created a culture that supports failure (so long as they learn from it) and in so doing has been one of the first in developing social media as a strategic tool that can improve ROI.

These approaches and the lessons therein are exactly how Feedback helps brands succeed through understanding the behaviours, differences and attitudes of your audiences, and helping your teams enhance engagement through strategic planning, ad testing, careful behavior monitoring and more… (And while we applaud Coke for their approach we think a dose of our human filter research would do way better than the 21% error rate of their machines.)

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Mar
22

Feedback’s Greatest Hits 2013, Vol 11

by Feedback

Progress doesn’t stop in the realm of social media! Here’s our top picks from the week:

YouTube reaches 1 billion unique monthly users, almost 15% of planet Earth

Google bought YouTube back in 2006 for $1.65 billion.

Twitter Advertising: More powerful tools for small business and self-service advertisers

Nice new targeting options in particular!

How Social Media Usage Among China’s Digital Natives Is Evolving

Consider: “China today has the world’s most social media population.”

Facebook Officially Launches Lookalike Audiences

Everything You Need to Know About the New Pinterest

Be sure to note: no more links in descriptions or hashtags (or at least – don’t use them as the “#” actually harms the search for that term now).

‘When we say it’s positive, the machine about 21% of the time says it’s negative,’

In this article, Coca-Cola validates why we specialize in true Human Filter listening (ignore the sensational AdAge title – they admit the way they are counting is way off):

“One problem Coca-Cola has is determining whether buzz is actually positive or negative in the first place. In one 2010 study where Coke pulled out more than 1,000 social-media messages randomly and had human raters compare them to automated sentiment analysis by one vendor, there were widespread differences.”

P.S. Ignore the sensational AdAge title and premise – it’s hilarious that they can talk about statistical significance with a straight face with 21% margin of error for HOW impact is counted.

New Study Confirms Correlation Between Twitter and TV Ratings

Twitter Archives Now Available In 12 More Languages, Including Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Simplified Chinese

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Check back weekly for our top stories of the week and follow us on our Facebook page and Twitter page for instant updates!

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Mar
15

Feedback’s Greatest Hits 2013, Vol 10

by Feedback

Updates seem to be very a la mode this week. Here’s a rundown of the updates that caught our attention!

Introducing Pinterest Web Analytics

Very, very helpful – wouldn’t it be nice if a channel like, say, TWITTER would bother doing this?

Introducing Netflix Social

We knew this was coming, but it will be interesting to see how often we see it implemented (even when people don’t mean to). The question remains: Do people WANT to share everything they’re watching?

Twitter Now Supports Line Breaks in Tweets

Note a huge story.

But might make for some interesting

choices.

Foursquare adds “City Pages” for hundreds of cities worldwide

A new level of geo-enabled search-worrying begins… now!

Facebook Begins Rolling Out New, Customizable Timeline

Coming very soon to everyone… another update!

Facebook to Introduce Hashtags—And That’s a Double-Edged Sword for Twitter

“We don’t comment on rumors or speculation” but perhaps there’s more to this rumor than Facebook simply integrating hashtags.

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Keep an eye out for these updates as well as updates to our Facebook page and Twitter profile!

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Mar
05

The Social Telethon: A Media Amalgamation

by Feedback

A short analysis of the Bonnaroo Lineup Announcement Megathon (B.L.A.M.)

I’m not sure if you felt it, but you might have detected a shockwave in the air as heads exploded at the thought of a reverse-procedure, modern-day telethon, held on the internet, using actual phones, conveying sensitive information the opposite direction while, of all people, Weird Al Yankovic pulled a list of musician’s names out of the butt of a paper mâché donkey. Okay, maybe that was all a lot to take in at once. But trust me, there was some method, some madness and actually some brilliance in the breaking down of true public relations and actual social media at work within an incredibly traditionally structured live event. But let me explain…

Bonnaroo Lineup Announcement Megathon (B.L.A.M.)

For a few weeks prior Bonnaroo had teased that they would announce this year’s lineup to their 12th annual four-day music and arts festival (held in June on farmland in central Tennessee, we’re fans) and telegraphed that comedian and song parody king Weird Al Yankovic would be a part of the big reveal.  Bonnaroo was no stranger to unusual or gimmicky lineup announcements. In 2010 Bonnaroo unraveled the lineup slowly throughout a whole day via a cartoonish clock hosted on MySpace (of all places). But this year’s plan began to coalesce with the announcement of an hour-long internet TV-special on YouTube called B.L.A.M., hosted by Yankovic.

Nevermind whatever you think of Weird Al, who, with the help of other comedians like Chris Gethard and a vaudevillian lineup of stunts, live music (Portugal The Man), jokes, tubs of meat and more managed to at least captivate if not actually entertain during the special event. Some found Weird Al’s humor painfully annoying while others were at least charmed in the same way they were when Al used to do a takeover of MTV for a Saturday (or indeed his whole movie on a TV takeover, the classic UHF).

No, the real magic was in the clever and casual use of social and traditional – and not in the same staid “one promotes the other”  cheap imitation of integration. In fact some of the ideas were so forehead-slappingly easy to pull off the real feat was that it all didn’t fall apart under the weight of what is a big news day for one of the bigger U.S. festivals.

Video Phones

After a montage of videos depicting what bands some people were hoping Bonnaroo to announce (which confused a few online who joined late into thinking these were the actual updates), B.L.A.M. hosted a mother-son duo who were chatted up and then given, presumably in the chat window below their private VOIP call, the names of the bands they could be the first to announce. This happened a few times during the event, putting a human face on the fans and allowing real surprise to show on the faces of fans also communicating a lineup to viewers.

The Reverse-Telethon

But by far the most unique, and frankly brilliant in my opinion, move by Bonnaroo was this unusual reverse-telethon they hosted. After a number had flashed on the screen several times early on, viewers were encouraged to call in and talk (presumably) to one of eight phone operators, which included comedians such as Eugene Mirman). When calls did manage to get through the caller was given a name of a Bonnaroo artist in the lineup that had yet to be announced. That’s it. And yet, it’s brilliant. No embargo, no requirements to share. You could do whatever you wanted with that information – you could just be privately excited. You could just tell your friends by phone, email, Facebook, whatever.  Or you could be the first person to tell the whole world an unrevealed nugget of news. If you wanted to reach the most people you’d use the #BLAM hashtag on Twitter – where you would no doubt be met with gaggles of new followers, hundreds of ReTweets. It was up to the caller. The truth would be revealed eventually whether you told anyone or not and so the onus was truly on the caller to make the most of the information. And the gem of news you were given was yours to do with as you please. It was a fantastic blend of the private hand-to-hand gossip world of social media and the opposite public desire to be a source to be recognized.

Love (and Information) Will Find a Way

Sure the whole, “let our audience announce it” bit has been done before, from white board photoshopped photos to even video clips – but Bonnaroo’s B.L.A.M. took it one crucial step further: they not only gave bits of info to fans directly but they gave them the freedom to use it too.

Timing was also on their side, theirs to mangle and play with like play-doh for the hour. No matter what happened, the Bonnaroo lineup would be revealed by 2pm. Countless media were no doubt ready to publish the list or at the very least would be sent it instantly. For an entire hour Bonnaroo (and Weird Al) could just screw with us. From a PR perspective the greatest weight was lifted with the concept that at 1:01pm EST if the whole thing unraveled it just didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if Paul McCartney was unveiled first in some ways (he wasn’t). It was a communications stress that lifted the moment the show started. It was play, it was fun, it was freeing. Yes, they wanted B.L.A.M. to be a success and be an entertaining hour but if the whole thing felt like a giant experimental theatre project that was perfectly okay. They had let the lunatics run the asylum and handle all the good china. In fact it was the best china Bonnaroo had: their precious and manically protected lineup before tickets would go on sale.

(At one point they had the internet live-vote through hashtag use to determine which envelope hidden in a poster would be open for the next reveal – one was Mumford and Sons, the other that Weird Al himself would be at Bonnaroo.)

The lineup content, or basic information in this case, was incredibly easy to separate and compartmentalize. Certainly some announcements were bigger than others, but not knowing how big a name was about to be revealed was part of the excitement (especially since, by many standards, Bonnaroo had managed to compile a relatively top-heavy lineup comprised of many other summer festival’s headliners and several unique ones all their own). There was more to B.L.A.M. than just reverse-telethons and you can watch the whole thing for yourself below.

Perhaps most refreshingly the B.L.A.M. stunt broke down the silos of not just “traditional” versus “new media” – but also the silos between channels. They had official channels that were all humming, but they didn’t try and make anyone use any channel they didn’t want to. With the exception of the live stream hosting exclusively on YouTube, fans of Bonnaroo could find out about the lineup a myriad of ways. The almost lackadaisical variety was nice to see – they weren’t getting worked up over how you revealed what whenever you wanted to. All control would still be theirs by the end. (Meanwhile I’m sure the entire endeavor would make many classically trained public relations professionals clutch their pearls.)

In the end, the important thing to take away from this isn’t how they utilized both channels and behavior to their advantage. No, it’s how they didn’t let a need for control get in the way of a number of smart ideas. Did everyone love every part? No. But as a series of tricks they managed to do more interesting things in 45 minutes than I’ve seen some brands do with an “integrated” strategy in an entire year.

- Dean

 

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Jan
16

Feedback on Digital & Media Predictions 2013

by Feedback

Last week the highly respected research agency Millward Brown International published Digital & Media Predictions for 2013.

Both the No1 and No2 trends concern Feedback closely so we thought we would share our POV with our friends and followers.

No 1 – Facebook’s monetization drive will provide new, richer advertising opportunities

“The drive for effective and revenue-generating advertising will draw on its powerful social ecosystem, pushing the creative formats and placements far away from the ads we see today. With these new opportunities will come increased responsibility for advertisers to deliver quality content that enhances the user experience rather than invades the platform. Brands will need to tread carefully as they explore these new opportunities…targeted advertising may cause resentment, unless brands deliver engaging content that is appropriate for this personal space.” Martin Ash

Absolutely and inevitable. Being able to judge what to say, when to say it and how to engage to people in digital communities is core to what we at Feedback do every day. Normative values for different types of advertising are developing rapidly allowing us to assess campaign effectiveness then change placement and messaging instantly leading to improved effectiveness. Those seeking the best conversions should be ready to get involved, this type of communication is more hands on than what they are used to. Agencies beware, simply taking press ad’s resizing and formatting isn’t the answer. It is a personal space and knowing how a brand can fit into that environment or contribute to it is critical. Advertisers who get it right will enhance the Facebook experience and benefit, the others risk alienating themselves and users. From past form we expect a minority of vocal Facebook users to protest but even they will get onboard rather than risk becoming a social leper. In general the adoption pattern of Facebook users is that they quickly become accustomed to the changes and will self select or filter advertising just like they do in every other medium.

No 2 – Social Media Listening Evolves

“The current generation of technology can help aggregate the data, but it is not yet effective at assessing more subjective aspects. Social data can start to inform business decisions more broadly across organizations, but it’s only meaningful if it’s cleaned, designed and analyzed in a way that makes it actionable and comparable to other measures. Human discretion is still needed to evaluate the source, quality, and value of results. To find true insight in social data, brands will require a new iteration of social listening that is less focused on fast feedback, and more on reliable research.” Anne Czernek

Dashboard analytics provide convenience and a way to manage the vast quantity of data but marketers in search of actionable insights need to dig deeper and ask ‘why?’ Identifying patterns is becoming more complex with: the increasing number of platforms; the evolution of different visual communities like Instagram/PInterest/Tumblr and increasing number of ‘private’ networks. This is likely to challenge the way the insight budget is allocated and agency rosters since specialist providers who pioneer new techniques are needed. The digital behaviours developing in these online communities are profound and extend to all aspects of consumers lives and decision making. Brands and their agencies therefore need to take great care in developing communication strategies with social media messaging and content that will ‘earn‘ them exposure.

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Jan
10

Feedback’s Greatest Hits 2013 Vol 1

by Feedback

Welcome to our regular compilation of notable news and trends – complete with our commentary and analysis. This week, we’ve seen particularly outlandish presentations at CES, milestones aplenty and a pivotal acquisition by Pinterest—proof that the new year is starting off strong.

Qualcomm produces over-the-top CES keynote that communicates nothing

CES is intended to be a wonderful week where companies take over the Las Vegas convention circuit to showcase their cutting edge and upcoming products. It’s keynote had been the stage for Microsoft to wow its audience with the genius products in years past, but this year, Qualcomm won the bid to speak on the loudest stage of the conference. The Verge has a great collage of photos and tweets as well as a super cut of the best moments of what they called ‘madness’ from the keynote. Probably the best/worst thing we’ve seen all year (um… no far). And no, we’re never calling anyone, “Generation M” – ever.

Pinterest acquires Punchfork

This is Pinterest’s first acquisition and we’re waiting to see how they incorporate the one-man operation behind Punchfork, a recipe-sharing network and API service , into their engineering team to help take Pinterest to the next level. The API service powers other services including Evernote’s food app.

TechCrunch’s Ingrid Lunden looks into Tumblr’s future

Tumblr had 18 billion page views in December, easily placing it within the top 50 most active websites in the world. In this piece, Lunden explains how Tumblr’s 2012 went and points out what the service is focusing on for the upcoming year.

LinkedIn hits 200 million users

LinkedIn’s explosion of members is undeniable – HOW it’s being used is very different than other social networks and it’s important to consider the careful, different role. 200 million is not a particularly magic number, but it’s still an important milestone for the network of résumés. With two new users signing up every second, LinkedIn is growing at a steady pace—even internationally. The next top market beside the 74 million US users? India at 18 million users.

Facebook Launches Flexible Sentences For Open Graph So Apps Can Share More Descriptive Feed Stories

This might sound kind of boring, but it’s actually pretty fantastic news and could make for some creative uses of Facebook’s Open Graph.

Can A Social Graph Last More Than 10 Years?

A question worthy of some pondering. And we would add that the consideration isn’t just about a single channel, but whether our own activities and participation in a social graph bears the scrutiny or weight of 10 years. Will 10 years of Tweets make any sense at all? When Facebook unleashed Timeline it gave us the opportunity to turn the prism of our Facebook participation and look at our activity as a historical record. Extrapolating that out ten years, what does 10 years of curated activity look like? A library? A cacophony? A life?

 

Remember you can see stories like these and more, as they happen, when you read our regular posts on Facebook and Twitter!

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Dec
28

Happy New Year!

by Feedback

Feedback celebrates the year that was 2012, which was in many respects an Olympic year – from an office opening in London with bold new clients and Feedbackers therein – to a reinvigorated Richmond office curating the largest research and strategy projects to date among an ever-expanding kaleidoscope of industries. And 2013 looks to be even MORE incredible… Happy New Year all!

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Aug
13

1st Social Media Olympiad

by Feedback

There are many firsts in London 2012.  The first city to have hosted 3 Olympic Games. The first Olympic Games to feature women’s boxing. The first Olympic Games to calculate its complete carbon footprint. There is another first which has had an even bigger impact – the first Olympic Games to be completely surrounded by social media.

This is significant on many levels and social media has underpinned a lot of the success.

Inspire a Generation – The official motto of London 2012 was designed to make sure the competition would lift the aspirations of youths across the world, create role models and stimulate dreams.  In a modern media world teens are as likely to have a screen saver on their mobile featuring Jess Ennis as they are a bedroom poster. 245,000 people follow Sir Chris Hoy, ten times more than follow the Prime Minister. Usain Bolt’s victory had 2BN people tune into watch and 48hrs later another 10M had seen it on YouTube.

Social Media is taking the message of the Games to people and places that previously weren’t even prospected. How many posts were there on Facebook featuring Phelps’ achievements?

Elite to Ubiquitous – Social technologies are breaking down the barriers of elitism in sport. There is a waiting list at local clubs for archery and fencing, sports that previously would struggle to operate year round. Twitter and FB images from the athletes’ village show in detail what aspiring Olympians might expect; suddenly it seems possible and somehow quite ‘normal’. Suddenly the glittering excess and fantasy of Premiership footballers seems more and more vacuous. Now we really know the athletes and we are on the journey with them, sampling the joy and elation of victory or the unadulterated pain of defeat in real time.

@chrishoy

@chrishoy

@BeckAdlington

The ticketing process initially was derided, but social media announcements around ticket availability and news bulletin alerts via 2012 digital channels insured touts couldn’t operate and fair distribution. Most people applaud the process, if not the result, since most people got something.

Network Integrity – We have all experienced the frustration of being at an event and eagerly wanting to share it only to see “Network Unavailable” as it collapses under the weight of activity. It doesn’t matter if it is Glastonbury, the FA Cup Final or the Queen’s Jubilee, we expect communications to seize up like a sprinter with a cramp at the critical moment. Not so at 2012.  At the Olympic Park there were in excess of 250,000 people all sharing and connecting on mobile devices and the network kept functioning. Photo and video uploads, results downloads, accurate geolocation check-ins. The Olympic legacy has gifted us a blueprint on how it can work for replication by organisers at other global events.

Memes Upon Memes – As the social media universe is wont to do, with every batch of images, video and stuff of emotion came a waterfall of humorous memes. Whether it was from scrappy gymnasts or just general comments on the games themselves no one was spared, including the Queen.

The other triumph of social media was its ability to dispel the media scaremongering. While headlines announced a travel network likely to meltdown, the travellers responded ‘live’ refuting media myths by saying how efficient it worked. The doom merchants seeking viewers warned us security was compromised, yet attendees were delighted to meet our servicemen and used Instagram to take pictures with them. Some said it would be too wet and crowds would stay away, but weather apps allowed us to anticipate the showers and pull on ponchos ahead of time.

Pessimists/Traditionalists (0) – Social Media Users (3)

Feedback loved The Games – the performances, the stories and the technological triumphs. For some, the Games will be remembered for the charismatic opening ceremony; for others it will be the achievements of the great Michael Phelps or perhaps even the outstanding success of Team GB. Few will recognize the impact of social media, and that in itself is an achievement immeasurable, since social media was so integrated we barely took a moment to appreciate its presence or contribution.

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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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