360DigitalInfluence

With the new year upon us and 2011 in the rear view mirror, it’s time to pay attention to where social media will go this year. In December, the Ogilvy Digital Influence New York City team hosted its year end 2011 Social Trends Lab. The team predicted 12 trends we think will shape and influence 2012. Is there a prediction you don’t see on this list? Let us know!

And now without further ado, here is the Ogilvy Digital Influence crowdsourced Top 12 in ‘12 list of predictions in social media trends (in no particular order). continue reading

Here are a few funny, entertaining and inspiring things I collected along the way this past week.  The only common thread is that I’ve seen all these things discussed in numerous places, both online and offline.  What did I miss?

GOOOOAAALLLLLL

If you missed the US Women beat Brazil to advance to the World Cup semi-finals, you missed one of the greatest games I’ve ever seen.  In the final seconds of overtime, Megan Rapinoe landed a ball on the head of Abby Wambach, who finished with authority.  This sent the match into penalty kicks, where the US prevailed (since then, the US has advanced to the finals).  The Internet exploded with excitement, and despite FIFA’s best efforts, it can be found here (the break starts about 5 seconds into where I linked the video).

By the way, this is what you get on YouTube when you search for the official video clip of the goal [insert sad trombone here]:

Kenny Powers - MFCEO Of K-Swiss

Not since Old Spice have I seen a brand receive so much Internet love as K-Swiss did this week.  Eastbound and Down is an HBO show about a has-been professional baseball player called Kenny Powers.  Kenny is pretty much the most despicable character on TV, but in a really funny way.  Anyhow, K-Swiss broke a brilliant campaign this week in which Kenny Powers is named CEO of K-Swiss.  There are a series of great video clips on Funny or Die (NOTE: the language is not for the modest) and a cleaner TV version.  Like it or not, this is a brand doing something big, bold and inescapable.

GIFs GIFs Everywhere

Animated GIFs were all the rage this week, apparently because you can post them to Google+.  GIF Shop seems to be the go-to source for creating them yourself, as I’ve done.  Fascinating, I know.  My apologies for not including a cat, which seems to be pretty standard.

How New Yorkers See The Rest Of The US

Thanks to Ogilvy’s Gavin Becker for this gem.  As a former New Yorker I know there’s a lot of truth to it.  The LA-SF note is my favorite.  Click on it to expand.

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.

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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Looking back on last week’s Social Media Week 2011,  one thing is clear.  The event that was born in New York in 2009 has certainly secured the title of “Best Newcomer” on the conference circuit. And Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence jumped at the chance to host events in several hub cities including London, San Francisco and New York.

Since February marks Facebook’s seventh birthday, what better way to celebrate in NYC than to host an interactive workshop with partner and Facebook powerhouse Buddy Media? Entitled “It’s 2011…How’s Your Facebook Strategy Doing?” this session brought together the industry’s top experts in branding and platform development to share their experiences.

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This week, Ogilvy is launching a new initiative to publish Red Papers of our thought leadership. Red Papers are Ogilvy-ized white papers meet books. I mean with the emergence of the iPad and even the iPhone as reading formats, I am having a hard time understanding what is a “paper” and what constitutes a “book.”  This one is a bit long - almost 8000 words - not there is valor in length.  I wanted to share some of my experiences in a practical way and therefore I get into some nuts and bolts for planning really effective social media.

What is it about?

For the past few years, we have been helping established and emerging brands apply social media in the most impactful way possible. That means getting beyond tactical and often token gestures at applying social media-based approaches. We work with enterprise to help them not just realize marcom programs but also change they way they interact with customers and organize themselves. While every brand is different, there are common experiences. My Red Paper outlines these and offers a foundation - practical and high-minded - that brands can apply to ensure their own approach is as strategic or as impactful to the business as possible.

Get it now

The Red paper is available for download now. It sits alongside another excellet read in Dimitri Maex’s Red Paper Learning to Read the River which is all about understanding the flood of data and metrics available to us as marketing experts.

When I first started at Ogilvy, our Digital Influence team was an average-sized practice scattered across a few time zones. Now, as the sun sets on the second quarter of 2010, Ogilvy Digital Influence is a large network of experts from around the globe. An all-hands-on-deck staff meeting requires a NASA-powered satellite up-link.

All of this global growth comes with, well, global opportunities. For me this means closing up shop here in Washington and heading half way around the globe to Ogilvy, Hong Kong. In just a few days, I’ll be saying goodbye to the nation’s capital and moving to Hong Kong in an effort to help grow Ogilvy’s digital practice in Asia.

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The 2010 FIFA World Cup kicks off this afternoon, but you don’t have to be in South Africa to be a part of the crowd.

Emirates, a sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 2010 started the Twexican Waveto get rabid football (soccer) fans amped for their favorite teams within the context of the Emirates brand. Users go to www.twexicanwave.com and register their “wave” profile picture (a pic of themselves with their arms in the air) then tweet using #twexicanwave. If #twexicanwave is tweeted without a registered picture, the wave breaks and a new one begins. So why participate? If you are part of the longest wave you’ll be entered for a chance to win Emirates FIFA World Cup packages…so it might just be worth uploading a ridiculous picture of yourself to your Twitter profile, and getting all of your followers to to join the wave.  

As of today, the longest wave is 125 people. We’ll be watching this one closely to see if the virtual wave makes it around the digital stadium.

Besides its relevance to World Cup kick off we like this initiative because it reminds us to think about simple ways to build brand awareness by connecting fun and familiar behaviors with established social media platforms.

* Special thanks to my colleague Annabel Brown in Sydney for bring this fresh thought to the table.

We are very excited to announce that we are a proud sponsor and participant of an upcoming virtual conference brought to you by our friends at PRWeek next week. With new applications and social media tools emerging every day, staying up to date on the latest trends in social media innovation is critical to our business as PR professionals.

The PRWeek Lab will take place Wednesday, June 2 and Thursday, June 3, 2010 and will provide an online resource for PR professionals on the most recent social media trends, tools, and strategies, thought leadership, and case studies- all without leaving one’s office. The online platform includes live webcast sessions, keynote speakers (such as Jeffrey Hayzlett, CMO of Kodak and Ben Edwards, VP of Digital Strategy and Development, IBM), as well as exhibitor booth environments for follow-up questions, live chats, and material downloads. PRWeek Lab will be a fully interactive experience, with Q&A throughout, as well as polling of all participants on the quality of the content and the future of social media. No other PR event will bring you closer to the action that is driving today’s social media innovation.  Please visit here for additional details.

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