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Wedding bells are ringing. They’re no longer just ringing at your ceremony, but all over the internet. Social media has expanded your wedding planning and day-of events to not only guests attending the big event, but to your entire social networks. Social media allows you to communicate with guests prior to the event and keep the memories forever. Since I’m getting married in less than a week, I decided to take a glance at how social media has changed the wedding process.

Wedding Proposals

Wedding proposals are getting more and more creative. Along with being creative, they’re being captured on video and uploaded to YouTube. There are more than 6,000 results when searching “wedding + proposal” on YouTube. Some of those proposals videos became so viral they have millions of views.

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Brands with longer sales cycles have grappled with how to leverage social media to maintain meaningful engagement with potential customers. The purchasing decision process for a residential solar energy system is squarely in this dilemma. Home solar installations have become a more understood product in recent months, and solar industry experts such as Ucilia Wang of Forbes have noted that solar manufacturers are making consumer marketing a priority as consumers become more interested in solar as a viable option for their home.

For most homeowners, the considerations around whether or not to buy a solar system can be daunting. From understanding a timeline for ROI, to appearance, to maintenance, the list of factors to weigh when considering a solar energy installation can be intimidating.With this in mind, SunPower has just launched the Solar Discovery Game as a means to help homeowners better understand the history of solar, mechanics behind the technology as well as the various opportunities a home installation can provide.

The Solar Discovery Game is hosted on Facebook as a completely custom built game, using a SunPower branded Google Maps interface to present solar trivia questions designed to promote solar education and energy awareness. The game supports ongoing engagement by allowing players to earn “badges” for unlocking achievements. These badges can be published to Facebook friends via wall posts as they progress throughout the experience. The game also leverages Facebook Connect to show a custom leaderboard of just your Facebook friends to drive some friendly competition. Each week, SunPower will add new questions to answer, many of which are based on common misconceptions found in solar conversations online that have surfaced over the last year.

By playing, you can win the grand prize of a complete SunPower solar energy system worth up to $25,000 and will be entered to win more than 60 featured prizes, including plane tickets, video cameras, gift cards, event tickets, SunPower gear, and much more! In addition to offering prizes, we are collaborating with SunPower partners to develop unique questions, which will be placed on the map during the contest.

Come play the Solar Discovery Game, and let us know what you think! The game will run throughout the summer, from June 21 to September 14.We’re also looking for you to get involved! Tell us what questions you’d like to see in the game. Also, we’re still accepting partners if you’d like to promote your sustainability efforts, feel free to get in touch. Happy exploring!

Disclosure: SunPower is an Ogilvy client.

Social Media is no longer the shiny new object,  it has become more of an expected medium over time. Think about it, how often do you look for a company’s Facebook page before even visiting their website? As organizations begin to embrace the social sphere as a critical medium to connect with their constituents, I think it’s also important to remember it is a valuable tool  for the workforce as well. Social Media is often overlooked as a medium that can strengthen a workforce and create efficiencies.

Not to long ago, I worked for a Global 100 company that employed close to a half a million employees. We had a saying that was repeated almost daily and it was: “If only our company knew what our company knows”. And what we meant by that saying was that there was probably someone inside the company who could provide counsel or help solve any issue that might arise.  The mystery or the bigger challenge was always who and then how to get on their radar. And while email is definitely an important medium, it is not always the most efficient one as people may not be quick to respond to someone they do not know or to an email sent to a large group.

Social media is the medium that can help you get on the radar of the right person. There are many tools inside social media that can create operating efficiencies and strengthen the workforce by making it easy to reach across the aisle or the ocean whatever the case may be. The utility is endless.

For instance a wiki with a listing of employees and their expertise that is optimized and easy to search could help identify who is the right person to tap for the expertise that is needed for any situation. In a matter of minutes, an employee could narrow down the pool of people who could be of service to them. Public forums like Facebook and Twitter can boost employee moral by narrowing the gap between cubicle and corner office. We’ve identified five benefits of engaging with employees internally via social media:

1.    Education – listening and reacting to those within the community
2.    Collaboration – crowd sourcing, sharing materials and performing virtual brainstorms to ensure a diversity of opinions
3.    Communication efficiencies – using character and word limitation to your benefit while appreciating the gift of brevity
4.    Thought Leadership – encouraging free thought and collaboration can lead to thought leadership as your organization progresses
5.    Employee Development – creating an area for constant growth by asking questions and encouraging critical thinking

Gone are the days of blocking Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn  from office computers because they’re thought to create inefficiencies. While social media guidelines should certainly be in place for activity facing the world, there will continue be some gray space as we change our company model. As the battle for productivity and ingenuity continues, we must transform our organizational structure to accommodate the fundamental changes in human behavior. After all, it’s only natural.

Summer officially starts in one day, and I’ve got travel on the brain. Given the outrageous airfares and hotel rates I’ve seen of late, I’m looking to rack up as many points as possible through travel and hotel rewards programs. If you want to maximize point-earning opportunities or you’re in the travel or hotel business and looking for ways to expand your loyalty program, start taking advantage of location-based social networks.

Several loyalty programs are already in on location-based rewards. Intercontinental Hotels Group’s Priority Club® Rewards, Hilton HHonors®, and Caesars Entertainment’s Total Rewards® are among the rewards programs on Topguest, a platform through which users can connect their Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, Gowalla, and Instagram accounts to earn points, rewards, and discounts.

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One of the cooler aspects of Twitter is that it gives consumers a direct line of communication with everyone from big brands to small businesses. It also offers them a chance to talk back when they have a question, concern or complaint. And many of us do just that. But how often do we actually receive a response back?

A recent study* indicated eight in 10 Twitter users surveyed worldwide said they thought the answers businesses posted on Twitter were at least as trustworthy as those from regular people, and about six in 10 said they wanted businesses to respond to them on the microblogging service. Clearly this shows that twitter is more than a nice-to-have for businesses – it is becoming an important means of real time conversation with customers.

Actively engaging with your consumers can not only increase your awareness of what’s being said, but also affect people’s buying decisions. According to *Compete Pulse, Twitter is more effective at driving purchase activity than Facebook. 56% of those who follow a brand on Twitter indicated they are “more likely” to make a purchase of that brand’s products compared to a 47% lift for those who “Like” a brand on Facebook. This is further evidence that marketers can drive ROI with Twitter by engaging followers through compelling content. See the chart below for more details on usage outcomes across Twitter and Facebook.

While there are brands out there that have a great process in place, a lot of businesses are falling short. One reason I suspect this is happening is because businesses only pay attention to their @ replies and #hashtag mentions, and are missing out on a lot of valuable conversations. This may leave the consumer feeling unappreciated and ignored – which is bad for business. So what can be done to prevent that?

There are a few easy solutions. The first is doing a search query for your business name on twitter. Any tweet in which that query is included will appear in order of most recent. This method however is manual and requires that someone remember to do it.

Another, more efficient method, is to use a platform like *Seesmic that allows you to setup a query-specific timeline that will automatically populate whenever anyone in the world includes that query in their tweet. This allows the business to know exactly when anyone uses their name but does not @ reply them. But don’t forget to include common negative keywords, to ensure you are capturing all that is being said about your brand, not just the positive comments.

How would you convince your client to get into the conversation, and go one step beyond looking at their specific @mentions?

*http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008440
http://seesmic.com/
http://blog.compete.com/2011/06/13/four-things-you-might-not-know-about-twitter/

We’ve all done it. Some of us often and some only occasionally.

We’ve all been guilty of genericide at some point - or, when a trademark or brand name has become the colloquial or generic description for the product or service, i.e. when someone needs a bandage they ask for a BAND-AID® or they need a tissue but refer to it as a Kleenex®.  Or in the digital age, when people say, “Facebook me!” or “Tweet me!”

Last week the French TV regulatory agency Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA), determined that the French can no longer say the words Facebook or Twitter on television unless they are used in the context of a news story. The result of this is that the audience can no longer be asked to connect or interact via Facebook or Twitter to find out more, post a comment or ask a question.

Another example to consider is that earlier this Spring Twitter requested that one of its most used applications on Blackberry UberTwitter discontinue using the brand name Twitter in their brand name because of trademark infringement and privacy concerns. UberTwitter was quickly renamed to UberSocial and relaunched within days with new positioning that it is a broadened social communication tool.

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Can social media drive sales? One recent study found that about a quarter of social network users report having had their purchases influenced by social media.  On the other hand, another recent study found that direct clicks from social media sites didn’t generate notable sales.   But this type of click study doesn’t really capture the full extent of media influence on consumer behavior.

To take a more comprehensive look at the impact of social media, we tracked a sample group of Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) consumers’ exposure to a variety of brand ‘touchpoints” and obtained pre- and post-tracking data on purchase.

What we found

According to results we are previewing from this new Ogilvy-ChatThreads study entitled Integrated Social Media Sales Impact, there is a strong link between an increase in sales and exposure to social media.

In fact, we found that in the real world, social media exposure - by itself and more broadly when combined with other types of media exposure such as out-of-home, PR or TV ads - is linked with 2-7x higher likelihood of consumption and actual spend increases for some QSR brands.

Specifically, here are some key results, summarized in the diagram and below:

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Google. Facebook. Groupon. Yelp. LivingSocial. Amazon.

It’s a lineup of online juggernauts — all executing thrusts and parries to build an empire in the group buying space. In case you can’t keep up — and who could — Google is testing Google Offers in Portland, Amazon is playing around with AmazonLocal in Boise, ID, and Yelp continues to dodge cable cars in San Francisco and keep its Deals afloat.

Oh, and there’s this little company valued at $15 to $30 billion, a smaller, but emerging competitor in LivingSocial, Bloomspot, KGB Deals, Buy With Me, EverSave — ad infinitum. All of these socially-driven deals add up to an estimated 2,670,000,000 clams and growth rates continue to be astounding.

Yowza! The number of offers published has nearly doubled in the last quarter.

Logic would say — with the space’s proliferation — restaurants, bars, and yoga studios must be praising the day Andrew Mason and co. decided to bring cut-rate organic spray tans to the masses. Logic would say that, but it’s up for debate.

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Unless you are on a Wi-Fi-less tropical island (and if you are, my invite must be lost in the mail), you have probably seen or played with Google’s latest doodle honoring musician and inventor Les Paul. Maybe you are even one the talented folks successfully recording classics such as, “Stairway to Heaven” and “Hey Jude”. The doodle has enhanced user engagement by allowing visitors to record their own tracks and share a unique link featuring their tracks with friends.

Since its launch on June 8^th, the Les Paul doodle has gained serious traction in the social media space. According to Radian6, there have been more than 76,000 mentions of the Les Paul doodle on Twitter alone spanning the past two days. According to Steven Musil from CNET, there were nearly 4,000 musical recordings posted to YouTube by Thursday night. The Les Paul doodle has been such a hit that Google decided to extend the doodle through Friday.

The quirky nature and at some points seemingly random occurrence of the doodles (i.e. the 119th Anniversary of the First Documented Ice Cream Sundae) continues to entertain and/or distract online audiences, but also strengthen a brand that is already a global household name. Google has managed to further brand awareness, ignite online conversation, all while staying true to their brand identity. As a PR and word-of-mouth marketing practitioner, the Google doodles stand out as an example of an out-of-the-box, yet brand appropriate idea. What do you think of the Google Doodles? Do they catch your attention or are you indifferent?

In the meantime, check out some of the top Google Doodles.

Follow me on Twitter: @MollyKeyes

I recently attended Facebook’s first studio conference held in New York City in May, 2011. The conference offered an interesting look at Facebook’s culture and how success can be achieved through sharing. Several enthusiastic presenters spoke regarding Facebook’s marketing strategies and the culture for the company.  However, the session that intrigued me the most was “Social by Design” by Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s Vice-President of Global Sales.

Ms. Everson talked about how the capability to share is perhaps the most significant ingredient in making a design successful. She mentioned two particular case studies that resonated with me since I am a gamer and love the World Cup: 1) EA Halo vs. Zynga Farmville and 2) Nike’s 2010 World Cup advertising.

EA Halo is one of the top games for Microsoft’s XBOX and generates millions of dollars in revenue.  In addition, EA spends millions of dollars on creating the best graphics with cutting-edge technology for Halo. On the other hand, Zynga’s Farmville graphics are much simpler. But as Ms. Everson rightly noted, there are far more people playing Farmville than Halo. (Farmville has over 57 million players.)  In fact, Zynga has recently been valued at $8 billion by Bloomberg, which is more than the value of EA. The main reason that Zynga has been able to be so successful is that Farmville was built to share.

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