Coca-Cola Quest - World Cup

New film from Coca Cola for the Football World Cup. I think it's great! Can't wait for the World Cup in Brazil in 2014!!

Coke Quest from Paranoid US on Vimeo.

A Place in Brazil

I was talking to my friend Jumoke last week about how people can’t live without “being connected” all the time. I don’t understand the reason why but people just feel the necessity of reporting every single thing they do to their friends and everyone else reading their online profiles. And people literally, sleep with their mobiles these days. 
 
The growth of Foursquare and the possibility of updating your location and sharing it make people even more likely to tell the world where they are and what they are doing. Definitely, as said Pete Cashmore - founder and CEO of Mashable, privacy is dead, and social media hold the smoking gun!
 
I was telling Jumoke about a place in Brazil (Chapada Diamantina) that I visited 2 years ago, where I had the opportunity to do a tracking on the forest for 4 days. The place had no electricity, no mobile signal and almost anyone living there. The only thing I could think about was the beauty of the place and how would I cross the next river or climb the next hill. The experience was amazing and I felt that I was living intensely every minute, not worrying about answering work emails, phone call or anything, only me and the nature.
 
Obviously, I enjoyed the time however I can’t imagine myself living a life like that, unaware of what’s happening in the world.
 
But it would be great if sometimes, I could just “turn-off everything” and go back to the peace and freedom of that Brazilian place.

My Experience with Second Life

As an experiment, I decided to try out Second Life. I know that it might seem a little late but as I am studying Digital Marketing and becoming more involved with social media all the time now, I feel the need of experiencing the online world as much as I can, even if it’s just to know how people are using it.
 
So, I began by signing up for an account and choosing my avatar name and figure. I have to say that this first part was funny. Picking a new name and figure made me feel like I could be anyone in the world, “playing” and experiencing what is it like to be a different person.
 
After that, I had to continue and to select a place to start. I thought it would be good to see what kind of Brazilian places they had out there, so I selected a Brazilian Portal, where I would get a “tutorial” about how to use Second Life.
 
Then, I had to download a 'Second Life viewer' to my computer and that didn’t make me happy, but for the sake of the experience, I decided to download it and keep going. They tried to sell me a premium membership of Second Life, offering a beautiful pre-built home and L$1,000 in bonus, but I was definitely not ready for that yet! 
 
Finally, I was “transported” to this island and I was able to see the “new me” on my “new world”. Unfortunately, from now on my experience was very frustrating since I didn’t even know how to walk…Yes, it was like being a little baby again, giving my first steps.
 
Some people started “talking” to me – do you need help? we are here to help you? - And my only concern was not to hit someone while trying to move around (at this point, I didn’t have the full ability to turn right or left...haha!). I know this sound silly but I’m not a gamer and really never had a lot of talent with it.
 
After a couple of minutes playing and figuring out how to live my new life…... I got tired of it and thought it was just too much for me!!

43-year-old woman is the average social gamer!

The topic of my Advanced Digital and Emerging Media class this week will be ‘Gaming and Virtual Worlds’ and while I was doing some research, I found a recent study about ‘social games’ that reveals what is the market of gaming today.

Just to make it clear, ‘social games’ are games designed to be played together with friends, using the infrastructure built by social networks.

The study was conducted by Information Solutions Group for the American casual game developer/publisher, Popcap Games and here are some interesting stats that I would like to share:

·    More females play social games (55% vs. 45%).
·    Social game players average 43 years in age.
·    The majority (41%) of those playing social games work full-time.
·    Fun and excitement (53%), stress relief (45%) and competitive spirit (43%) are the top three reasons people play social games.
·    71% play social games on a desktop computer, 50% play on a laptop computer, while 9% play on a mobile phone.
·    At 83%, Facebook is the primary social networking site social gamers go to play social games, followed by MySpace (24%) and Bebo (7%).
·    Ads promoting games on social networking sites (38%), and word of mouth are the primary ways Internet users hear about new social games.
·    A recommendation from a friend, relative or colleague (60%) is the number one factor influencing the selection of social games, followed by the familiarity with the title/played a similar game elsewhere (46%).
·    At 51%, PopCap’s Bejeweled Blitz is the most popular game among social gamers, followed by FarmVille (44%) and Mafia Wars at 32%.

As Playfish CEO, Kristian Segerstrale said in a recent interview, social experiences are more compelling than traditional gaming experiences for the vast majority of people. Add to that Facebook’s ability for users to tell their friends what they’re playing, even those who aren’t also playing the game, and the reach of these games becomes unprecedented.

To see the full study, click here.

iPad on the news!

The topic most talked on the weekend has been the release of the Apple iPad. My twitter is full of messages about it!
 
According to TechCrunch, sentiment is split on the ipad: people either love it, or hate others for not shutting up about it. But everyone is still searching for information about the iPad online (see the trending search term on Google).

*Google trend data (April, 4th 2010): Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of ipad in the last 30 days.

I still don’t know what iPad has to offer and its business strategy, but to tell you the truth, I would love to have one. I always like to try new technologies and every Apple new “gadget” is a temptation to me.
 
Yet when I stop and think, I question myself about the real necessity of having an iPad: Laptop, smartphone...why would I want to carry another device??
 
So, I will wait and see what others have to say about it. I’m sure it will be easy as per the volume of posts, tweets and discussions about it on the web his weekend. 
 
Given the history of success of Apple, I’m certain that they will find a way to show the value of the iPad to the world. I definitely see no explicit need for an iPad right now, but I don’t question Apple’s power to create a new need, that I was not aware that I had until now…
 
For further info on the iPad, check the links below:

Waiting in Line for the iPad [VIDEO]
HOW TO: Get Started with the iPad
Live Blogging the iPad’s Big Day
New iPad launch-day estimate: 600,000-700,000 sold
Hands-on with the Apple iPad: Groundbreaking Or Not, It’s Still Amazing
Laptop Killer? Pretty Close

 

The new bizarre online fad

Want to catch up with the latest online diversion? Then, check the video below.


chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

If you saw the video until the end, you now know a bit of Chat roulette, a website that randomly links users to one another through web-cam conversations -- and attracts some of the strangest people in the world.

For me it seems very weird to go to a website to talk to people you’ve never heard before and if the person thinks you are not good looking or don’t have an nice conversation, they can easily press the “next” bottom to spin the wheel to connect to the next random stranger. Obviously, the chances you find someone with whom you wish to actually speak are incredibly small…

And despite its weirdness, Chatroulette is in the roll. According to TechCrunch, the young website quadrupled in size in a month, attracting 3.9 million visitors worldwide in February, up from 944,000 in January, 2010.

I didn’t have the guts to try it myself, but I would love to know your thoughts if you ever decide to try it…

The importance of product reviews

While programming my Spring Break trip to California, I realized how important the reviews are today. In my experience they were very influential if not determinant of my choices of hotels and car rental companies.

As we all know, the Internet has become a key information source for researching products. According to Nielsen Online when making purchase decisions, North American Internet users trust recommendations from people they know and opinions posted by unknown consumers online more than advertisements on television, on the radio, in magazines and newspapers, or in other traditional media.

People read reviews because they try to get the most out of what they pay for and they want to know all the “secrets” about the product before they make a purchase. If the product page by itself does not make customers want to make a purchase, they will certainly look for more information before they go ahead and make the final decision.

Customers are looking for an honest opinion from someone they trust because money is tighter than it has ever been for many people and consequently, they want to make an informed decision. Reading reviews online can help strengthening a customer’s trust and belief on the product or brand.

So, it’s definitely very important for companies to pay attention to that and not to be afraid of the negative reviews. In fact, the majority word of mouth is positive. As said by BazzaarVoice, across all of Bazaarvoice US clients, 80% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5. And across all of Bazaarvoice UK clients, 88% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5.

While it is truth that people reading good reviews tend to sway towards the product because of the established trust other people have on that particular product or service, customers are also looking for negative reviews.

Negative and sincere reviews establish credibility. Customers know that if there aren't dissenting opinions about a product, then the opinions aren't real. If all they see are five-star reviews, they're reading testimonials, not authentic, credible customer reviews to help make a purchase decision.

As I said, reading customers’ reviews made a huge difference on the purchase decisions for my trip to California and it helped me to be more confident about my choices. So, as a customer and as a marketer I truly believe that reviews can help retailers to improve conversion rates, drive sales and increase customer satisfaction, since customer will know what to expect of the product or service they are about to purchase.

Nokia - Changing Context

Great presentation about "Conversational Marketing" - by Arto Joensuu, Head of Digital Marketing at Nokia.

Conversational Marketing

View more presentations from Arto Joensuu.

Some thoughts about Twitter

Despite the belief that brands use Twitter only as a channel to support customer service and PR activities, some brands are actually making money using Twitter.
 
After Dell reveling last year that they have generated a total of $6.5 million in revenue from their Twitter presence, now Sony announced that they made over £1m in sales through Twitter. 
 
It’s good to observe this examples and what’s the strategy that companies are adopting for Twitter. Unfortunately, many companies don’t actually have a strategy. They have a Twitter or Facebook account because someone thought it was nice to have a presence on social media sites or they just felt the pressure to get involved and hoped something would come from it.
 
But this lack of strategy can be very dangerous as the channel is open and the impact can be extremely negative if the company doesn’t have a structure to respond to customers that contact them through Twitter, for example. We have seen recently cases of customer complaints that became public because of social media, damaging companies’ reputations and costing them a lot of money. 
 
I believe that if the company is not willing to have a team dedicated to social media and take it seriously, it’s better to be out of it.

Movies go social

I was reading an article about How Lionsgate Plans to Take on 'Twitter Effect' for 'Kick-Ass' and I think it’s interesting to observe how a film success is increasingly dependent on social media efforts nowadays.

After Avatar’s massive box office success being attributed to all the word of mouth generated through their use of social media, I believe that we will definitely see more and more use of social media to help build online buzz around independent movies, television shows and DVD releases of blockbuster.

To promote the launch of the movie “Kick-Ass”, for example, Lionsgate is putting together their brand pages on YouTube, Facebook and MySpace under one unique platform. They said that the platform will allow them to integrate user comments, video streams and tweets (via a branded hashtag) on one place, with real-time metrics to show isolated and combined traffic statistics.

I’m curious to see if their tactic will pay-off, but it will surely be very hard for them to bit Avatar, which was ranked #2 highest grossing film of all times.

Social Media Example – Coca Cola

It’s nice to see how Coca Cola, one of the strongest brands in the world, has not stopped in time and is continually looking for the best way to interact with consumers.
 
With its millions of advocates worldwide, Coke had everything to do a great job on social media and apparently that’s what they have been doing. 
 
Here is a presentation by Michael Donnelly, Group Director of Worldwide Interactive Marketing for Coca-Cola, which compiles some great examples of Coke’s approach on social media. 

Coke's 'fans first' approach in social communities

View more presentations from iStrategy.

As another example of how the company is embracing social media and understanding the power of it, Coca introduced recently a Social Media Policy that empower and guides its employees on what they consider are the best practices for using their brand online.

Personally, I’m a fan of Coca Cola and I think it’s great to see a large corporation integrating social media into their existing principles of communication and how they are using it to enhance their brand.

5 ideas of how to make a video go viral

In my research about viral videos on the web, I was able condense some good ideas of how to make a video go viral. Check it out:
 
1.    The best videos are usually those that do not exceed 3/5 minutes. As thousands of new videos are placed on the web every minute, you have little time to attract the attention of your target reader.
2.    If you want to create a viral video, you should take into account that it needs to be provocative, interesting and unique.
3.    Optimize your videos with tags and a title that is easily found by most readers looking for videos in this niche. Create an attractive title and if necessary, change the title in the future to even more clicks and visitors.
4.    Create a series of videos. If your first video is a success, all readers will want to come back to see the other ones.
5.    Submit your video from a variety of video online websites (not only YouTube). Here are some video websites:

·    Collegehumor
·    Funny or Die
·    Life Leak
·    Metacafe
·    Dailymotion
·    MySpace TV
·    Break

Please, call me!

I was ready to change the subject from Facebook and talk about viral video, which would be the topic of my Advanced Digital and Emerging media class at NYU but I just couldn’t do it without this last post.
 
This week it was my birthday and of course, on that dates we always expect lots of calls from friends and family. Yet, this was not exactly what happened with me.  Instead of the calls, people just posted a message on my Facebook or Orkut!
 
Obviously, I was happy with all the birthday wishes through the website anyway and one could argue that some people only remembered it was my birthday because of Facebook. However, it made me think how communication and relationship between people has changed overtime.
 
This is not a new topic I know, and this has been debated as social media becomes more and more in vogue, but if we stop to think about how it has transformed our habits and the way we interact with other people, the reality becomes more evident.
 
While I believe that social media is a great way to interact and even, virtually “meet” new people, I also believe that it has prevent people from real “live” conversations which are very important for our socialization and ability to life in society.
 
Humans are social creatures. Think of how great you feel after sharing a laugh with a good friend. Through our relationships, we are sustained in our personal growth and development. 
 
So, this makes me think that “real” human interactions should never be replaced, but only enhanced through the use of social networks. Oh, and please, remember to call me next time, it can be on Skype if you prefer… : -)

More about Facebook

I was reading Vinci’s blog post about the article Social Networking Sites and Social Theory and I have to agree with her when she said that she had to “surrender” to Facebook.  Who is not on Facebook today? It’s almost impossible to be out of the network, even if you are only passively observing. 
 
I had to create a Facebook account when I came to NY since all my classmates used the site to interact, to send invitations to events, etc. Additionally, it was a great way to keep in touch with my friends and family in Brazil, who have migrated from Orkut, the most popular social network site in Brazil, to Facebook.
 
I am certain that it is important to remember that everything you post is out there for everyone to see so one should take care and create limits to what is really private and what is ok to share. I have to agree, though, that some people overcome those limits and make their lives an “open book”, divulging extremely personal and sometimes embarrassing information. 
 
It is clear that today, people search for you online to get references. I constantly do it, in order to prepare for interviews or to search more about a professor or coworker.
 
Therefore, I believe that as long as you have common sense, it won’t be prejudicial to have an account on Facebook or any other social networking site.

How brands can use Facebook effectively?

Today, over 450 million people worldwide are active on Facebook, more than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each week, approximately 1.5 million local businesses have active pages and 20 million people become fans of pages each day (source: Facebook)

Yes, the numbers are huge and it becomes almost impossible for a company or brand not to have a presence on Facebook. Companies of all sizes are moving quickly to get on the site and to create Fan Pages to attract customers and prospects. However, some lack a social media strategy and a deep understanding of what Facebook and other social networks have to offer.

Additionally, companies should first understand what their target audience is doing online, and determine what kind of relationship they want to build with them, based on what they are ready for. Forrester have released on January a new version of their famous Social Technographics ladder, which looks at how people use social media. By understanding what consumers are going online, companies can create what makes sense to them.

To be effective, a Facebook page should be continuously updated with good, relevant content. The more actions you take, the more you appear in a fan’s News Feed and this will make them remember you and your brand. It is important to offer fans an incentive to remain active and to visit and interact frequently.

Some companies are doing a great job and getting the most out of Facebook. On AllFacebook, a blog that covers all issues pertaining to the site, it is possible to find the ranking of top Fan Pages. Here are the first ten today:
 

On my research about Facebook I found an interesting presentation that provides an excellent guidance on how to get the best out of site, as a business, by creating brand pages. 

15 Facebook Learnings from the top 50 brands

View more presentations from Axon Alex.

All of this makes me think how important it is for companies today to be constantly listening, observing, engaging and trying new and innovative ways to interact with consumers.

New data on Social Media

This week I was reading a research conducted by PewInternet, about Social Media and Young Adults and I found some interesting stats that I would like to share.

According to the study, young people are losing interest in long-form blogging, as their communication habits have become increasingly brief, and mobile.

Since 2006 the use of blogs is decreasing among teens and young adults. On that year, the percentage of adolescents who maintained a blog was 28% and in 2009 it was only 14%. Additionally, blog commenting has also dropped among teens: 52% of teens’ network users said that they comment in their friends’ blogs, down from the 76% who did so in 2006. 

On the other hand, adults aged 30 years or more have shown growing interest in blogs. In 2007, 7% said that they maintained a blog and that number rose to 11% in 2009.

Moreover, both teen and adult use of social networking sites has risen significantly.73% of American adolescents reported to use multiple social networks websites – increasing from 55% in 2006 and 65% in 2008. Among adults, 47% use social networking sites, up from 37% in November 2008.

The study shows, however, that there is a difference in site preference and usage among different age groups. Young people are more likely to maintain a profile on MySpace (66% of young profile owners do so, compared with just 36% of those 30 and older) but less likely to have a profile on the LinkedIn (7% vs. 19%). In contrast, adult profile owners under 30 and those 30 and older are equally likely to maintain a profile on Facebook (71% of young profile owners do so, compared with 75% of older profile owners).

Another interesting finding is the low usage of Twitter among teens. Only 8% of social network users with ages between 12 and 17 utilize the microblog.  Among adults, the age group that most uses Twitter is between 18 and 24 years (37%), followed by those who are between 25 and 29 years (25%).

Listening in Social Media

Listening is with no doubt one of the most important strategies that companies can use to obtain advantage from Social Media. But, what does listening means? 
 
Listening in social media means observing your customers in their “natural territory”, where they are interacting with each other, your company and competitors. Your customers and prospects are leaving hints about their opinion, positive or negative, and are discussing your brand and products on their communities, with or without you, and it’s all out there for you and for the entire world to see. 
 
According to Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, on the book Groundswell, there are two basic listening strategies that companies should follow:
 
1.    Set up your own private community: A private community is like a continuously running, huge, engaged focus group – a natural interaction in a setting where you can listen in.
2.    Begin brand monitoring: Hire a company to listen to the internet – blogs, discussions, forums, YouTube, and everything else – on your behalf. Then have it deliver to your neat summary report about what’s happening to push the results out to departments, like customer service, that can address pressing customer issues.
 
While it can be true that hiring a vendor will help you to obtain more detailed and structured information, you can start now by searching what people are saying about your brand on blogs (e.g. Google Blog Search, IceRocket, Technorati), forums (e.g Boardreader) or on Twitter (Twitter Search). I am certain that you will find out that listening is an important way for you to understand what consumers care about, and get insights to what they think about you.