Archive for the ‘Digital’ Category

Instagram? More Like Insta-Cash

Tuesday, April 10th, 2012

Matt Koppelman

Just recently moving out of Twitter’s former digs and into its own space in San Francisco’s South Park district, many thought photo-sharing and filter app Instagram would be taking their freshly minted million user addition, courtesy of their new Android app, and plunge neck-deep into another influx of venture capital.

Instead, Facebook, potential IPO cash burning a hole in its pocket, decided to double-up the previous valuation, acquiring Instagram for about $1 billion in cash and stock. The announcement took place (where else?) on the Facebook feed of CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this afternoon.

The feed, which has more than 12 million Facebook subscribers, focused on assuring the masses the Instagram brand would remain independent of the social networking juggernaut, keeping the app’s cross-platform functionality intact.

Facebook has made several acquisitions since 2005, though the majority of its M&A history has been with smaller companies – below $100 million.

The Instagram community, along with half-sibling Hipstamatic and distant-cousins Pinterestand Tumblr, have seen their influence rise with content marketers as brands move at a snail’s pace towards visual-heavy mediums for consumer engagement purposes.

Even prior to the Facebook acquisition, the magical twin-terms of “monetization” and “ROI” surrounded Instagram, adding fuel to the fire between social marketers specializing in the content creation/user engagement and the data-focused offspring of paid display advertising.

Perhaps it begs the question, but can any community balance the central dogmas of these two camps? While the transaction is expected to close later this quarter, app developers, community managers and brand marketers will be monitoring for changes in Instagram’s performance closely. Between the Instagram team staying on to continue app development and a working, if rather plain, integration into Facebook’s open-graph and Timeline updates, will be subject to increased scrutiny – mostly based on consumer feedback.

Matt Koppelman is a digital account executive at MSL Chicago. His expertise includes data collection and analytics, impact measurement, digital engagement and competitive and media auditing for a variety of consumer and corporate clients. You can follow him @mattkoppelman.

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SXSWi Recaps: PR Lessons, Data Tools & More

Monday, March 12th, 2012

The Floor at SXSWi 2012

Another full day in Austin — panels and people, as well as codification of some perspectives and new viewpoints on others.

The day began with confirmation of how critical it is for the communicator to have a seat at the table in making business decisions. I attended the “More Smart, Less Stupid” PR panel which underscored that through examples of public relations missteps and successes, including Susan G. Komen, American Airlines, Zappos, and Netflix. A key takeaway was that if you’re going to be bipartisan, decide in advance and plan out the scenarios — don’t react in-market.

I also attended two panels that approached data and the roles it can play in business in different ways. The first focused on integrating data into the narrative, exploring ways to turn statistics into thought leadership TOOLS that people can use and apply rather than just read and file. Visualizing data exposes opportunity that might otherwise be missed and brings it into the discussion in a compelling and shareable manner. The idea extends beyond simple quantitative data. Visual transformation of information can imbue it with new power and expose it to new audiences.

Another session I attended explored NEW ways that data is informing the editorial process beyond the impression and the click. The exponential increase in data availability along with new channels requires us to be smarter about what data we pay attention to and offers us the opportunity to begin to more deeply segment and categorize our audiences.

Later I attended a panel on creating “Great Events.” The speakers suggested that great events challenge and intrigue their attendees, have unexpected elements, and offer something aspirational. They also pointed out that allowing people to help shape their own experience can make an event memorable and continue the conversation long after the actual event ends.

The day came to a close with a deep dive into local marketing. The focus was both tactical and technical, offering insights into working with Google Places pages, mobile optimization, and geo-location search-term management. A key takeaway underscored the value of targeted social content, and how critical it is to ensure that your Google Places pages are correct, since many mobile apps pull business information from those pages. Keeping local sites in your reputation-management strategy is also critical given the power of online reviews.

I’ll close today’s post with some great data about the value of local marketing. I’m working on visualizing this data and will post that later this weekend!

–Google Places account for 33% of visits to local business websites.

–88% of people who search for local information on a smartphone take action within one day.

–67% of consumers would NOT purchase a product/service after reading one to three negative reviews.

Laura Chavoen is a senior vice president and digital practice director at MSL Chicago, with 20 years of digital communications expertise in food and nutrition, publishing, financial services and associations. Follow her on Twitter at @chavoen.

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SxSW Saturday Takeaways: Destroy Labels, Know Yourself

Sunday, March 11th, 2012

Mark McClennan, APR; SVP, Schwartz MSL Boston

Saturday at SxSW was much more interesting than Friday. I had the pleasure of attending a very wide range of panels. The topics included strategic communications, Dad bloggers, enterprise social media, the future of mobile wallets, a comedian/activist keynote, and a look inside Joss Whedon’s head. The panels were a mix of both aspirational visions and cautionary tales.

The sessions were all great learning experiences, but they present something of a challenge. How do you blend parenting lessons from Leviticus with social analytics and loyalty programs? While many of these sessions merit their own posts (and will likely get them in the future), I wanted to focus on overarching themes that I noticed.

I would say there were two key takeaways from these sessions.

* Destroy the labels

* Know who you are

From the Mobile wallet to NFC Chips to Dad bloggers, people and companies are too often failing to reach their full potential because they are succumbing to easy labelization. Don’t get me wrong, there is immense power in the study of groups and flocking, but if you too quickly group someone, you may come to the wrong conclusion or miss opportunities. I saw that time and time again today.

This is particularly insidious when it comes to Mom bloggers. Mom bloggers are too often defined by who they are rather than who they write about. Very few “Dad” and “Mom” bloggers blog about parenting. They are parents who blog. A mom blogger who writes about beer or food, should not be lumped in the same category as one who writes about technology or parenting. I personally have seen too many companies make this mistake. The lists created by influencer tools may serve as a good start, but influencers are not Oreos. Each is unique and needs to be understood and communicated with in context.

The same lesson applies to the mobile wallet. First of all, there is a blurring between mobile wallet and P2P payments and this line needs to be clearly understood. It also applies to enterprise social media when “employees” are lumped together as one audience as companies roll out solutions. Some of the best advice from IBM today was to understand what your corporate culture is like and what tools employees use to work and to communicate, and enhance those existing tools rather than make everyone conform to new tools. If you try to force people to do something they do not want to do, you will end up with an empty wiki, upset employees and wasted budget.

The second point is to know who you are. If you have a niche, carve it out. Just don’t let others put you in that niche.

Isis in the digital wallet space seems to clearly know this. They understand that in order to convince people to move away from contactless cards and Mag Stripe they need to offer more to retailers and merchants. They are betting their success on the premise that bringing loyalty cards and coupons into an integrated whole to provide consumers savings and convenience; and providing retailers a chance to impact consumer purchasing behavior before a transaction will push them over the edge. (That and retailers being penalized by the issuers if they do not adopt NFC by 2015).

I am not sure I agree with them completely, and I know not everyone in the audience did. Consumers have shown amazing willingness to stay with what works. As one panelist pointed out, 10 years ago the cover of Card Transactions was “Mobile Commerce is Ready for Takeoff” and we are still discussing its pending rise today. Additionally, consumers have shown a willingness to have multiple loyalty cards and apps, and there are other alternatives to impact pre-shopping behavior today (such as eGiftcards – technology from a client of mine – and location based deals).

The audience definitely did not all agree about the easy path of NFC. My most popular tweet of the day was “NFC being positioned as the Borg. Do not resist. You will be assimilated.”

Knowing who you are also helped many companies in the first panel I attended of the day. The reaction to Zappos’ data breach was much less negative than most breaches of its type. That was because Zappos quickly communicated in a way that was appropriate for its customers.

This post is getting long, so I want to wrap it up with the five most quotable observations of the day:

* Before you make a critical business decision, ask yourself – what would John Stewart say about it?

* Great ideas are not always great and not always well received.

* Bloggers have more influence over purchasing decisions than traditional celebrity endorsers do

* 48% of B2B CEOs say social media helped generate qualified leads

* Voice of customer research is not for validation, it is for discovery

Mark W McClennan, APR is a Senior Vice President at Schwartz MSL Boston where he heads the consumer technology, financial services and research group.

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Day One Recap at SxSWi: Implications for PR

Saturday, March 10th, 2012

Laura Chavoen

The first day of SXSWi was cold and wet outside, but vibrant and crowded inside!

I’m live-tweeting from panels at @chavoen – ping me if you’ve a question you’d like me to ask or a panel you want me to check out. My initial plan for attending sessions is below and you can find the full schedule at sxsw.com

At SXSW, my goal for every panel is to learn (at least) one new thing, and find a concrete example that will resonate with at least one client or colleague.

Today’s panel topics included brand authenticity, higher ed and social media, and social media for real-world activation. At each full-capacity panel there was much to be learned and shared.

First panel was on brand authenticity. At MSL, and most likely throughout the PR/Marketing/Communications world, the idea of brand authenticity and consistency is already in our framework, but a few critical thoughts were shared that resonated with the audience. (Full disclosure: I shared my thoughts as an audience member during this session and was delighted by the response.)

Thinking about the full customer experience is critical — being authentic ONLY in social doesn’t work. Social is a tool and can help define, refine, and extend the experience and voice, but the voice must be authentic and consistent across all touchpoints and channels.

One of the panelists made an outstanding point as well — a campaign isn’t authentic if you can just replace the brand with a different one. Specifically referencing the Old Spice campaign that went viral and garnered so much attention, he asked if that same concept would have worked for Mennen. Or Taco Bell. And if the answer was yes, successful or not, it isn’t authentic. That is the difference between a campaign and a brand experience.

Moving to the higher ed panel, I was excited to hear several ideas of relevance to our higher education clients in Chicago. The first was about audience segmentation, making the point that an institutional voice may only be one of several voices necessary for messaging to be relevant to a wide variety of audiences. Some specific strategies were discussed for involving administrators from across the organization into the marketing effort and integrating their ideas and support. There was also a great discussion around highlighting and harnessing student voices in a way that offers dimensions and perspectives critical for longevity.

Finally, the social activation panel identified several different pathways for translating social media activity into real world actions, proving that key PR activities around influencer identification and engagement are more relevant than ever in today’s multi-channel cross-media world. PR gets relationships, has been creating stories and content for centuries, and remains the discipline that can and does conduct the orchestra of digital, marketing, communication, advertising, media, employee engagement, and sales. When all of those are working in concert? The gorgeous symphony of an authentic brand, playing the music relevant to each audience.

Looking forward to my sessions today, including panels on effective transmedia strategies, data/analytics, and PR for better business. I’m still deciding between a panel on daddybloggers or one on local…. Tweet me at @chavoen and help me decide!

Laura Chavoen is a senior vice president and digital practice director at MSL Chicago, with 20 years of digital communications expertise in food and nutrition, publishing, financial services and associations. Follow her on Twitter at @chavoen.

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When Politics, Advocacy, and Social Media Collide

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

Stephanie Smith, North American Director of Media Serivces

Watching Susan G. Komen Foundation–Planned Parenthood story unfold over the last 48 hours has been a fascinating study in crisis communications, politics, and the power of social media.

It is the perfect storm of issues.
-The politicization of health issues in an increasingly divided government.
-An organization making a decision fundamentally at odds with the beliefs of its core advocates.
-The swift torrent of outrage in social media.
-Savvy reactive strategy to leverage the controversy.

Wherever you may fall on the political spectrum, the last two days have provided a window into how quickly public sentiment is voiced now and how communication strategy in turn has to evolve. Facebook, Twitter and other social media have played an increasing role in the narrative of major stories–that’s not surprising to anyone in the public relations industry. But the size, scope and swiftness of the online reaction to Komen’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood has been simply stunning. The flatfooted response from Komen seems to indicate that leaders at the non-profit had no idea the online and then real world backlash would be so immediate and forceful. In this era where social media is the ultimate sounding board and forum, people vote their dissatisfaction. Instantly.

It should be noted that the battle between these two non-profit giants is not exclusive to the left; this type of conflict could have arisen between two organizations on the right side of the political spectrum just as easily. The fundamental issue here is that two non-profits, ostensibly with similar values, ended up very much at odds.

Planned Parenthood-sponsored hashtag.

Planned Parenthood’s savviness.
The attempted demonization of Planned Parenthood has been underway for quite some time, and ironically the Komen decision has emboldened Planned Parenthood’s advocates in a way that attacks from opponents have not. Planned Parenthood’s handling of this controversy from a communications POV is spot on, taking to social media, emailing their supporters with fundraising requests, and engaging like-minded politicians such as Mike Bloomberg. Planned Parenthood has portrayed itself as the David in this David and Goliath story, and has savvily shaped the narrative to reinforce public sentiment in its favor. It is a case study in effective crisis communications.

Damage done.
On the other end of the spectrum is the Susan G. Komen Foundation. In attempting to recover, CEO Nancy Brinker has given changing explanations to justify the pulling of funds to Planned Parenthood. Komen now faces an uphill battle–creating a consistent message strategy and trying to allay the outrage from supporters. Management could choose to stick with their decision and simply withstand the criticism, hoping the controversy will simply wane. But the perception of having given in to what is a politically motivated issue is taking a severe toll on the organization. Brands, who account for millions in donations to Komen, may pull back, concerned that the organization is playing politics and has become tainted in the minds of consumers. Consumer boycotts are also likely to damage Komen’s fundraising efforts further.

Know your customer.
What is at the core of this controversy is that the Komen foundation either fundamentally forgot or misunderstood the beliefs and values of their core advocates. It’s critically important that a brand understands who its core customers are, who its advocates are, and what values they align with. By moving away from its core values, Komen has alienated a substantial percentage of their stakeholders. If Komen is going to stand for different values moving forward, then they will need to build a new base of support. In the meantime, Komen will become the cautionary tale for any major organization or brand.

Stephanie Smith is senior vice president, North American director of media services at MSL New York. She joined MSL New York from ABC News where she was a long-time network news producer who covered a wide-range of breaking news and feature stories for “World News Tonight with Peter Jennings,” “Good Morning America” and “Nightline.”

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