Nathan Jokers

Fans Get Creative With ‘Mad Men’ Posters On NYC Subway

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:26:00 -0500

Fans Get Creative With ‘Mad Men’ Posters On NYC Subway

So awesome. Just shows how early brands can make an impression.

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:37:25 -0500

So awesome. Just shows how early brands can make an impression.

Doing my part. #jobs

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 16:27:47 -0400

Doing my part. #jobs

StumbleUpon Referrals Drive More Traffic, Last Longer Than...

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:21:00 -0400

StumbleUpon Referrals Drive More Traffic, Last Longer Than Facebook And Twitter. Click for the full infographic:

Makes me fall in love with New York all over again. The...

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:47:25 -0400

Makes me fall in love with New York all over again. The cinematography is absolutely incredible.

I need to make time to read this.

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:21:32 -0400

I need to make time to read this.

So you’re running a Facebook contest…

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 21:00:05 -0400

Working in public relations, we’ve all faced this challenge. You stare at your Facebook fan page and ask yourself, “How do we get more fans?” Referring to my colleague Candace McCaffery’s post Making Sense of Measurement: Social Media ROI, sometimes quantity is okay depending on the program and the reach you are trying to accomplish but it should always be backed with quality and fan engagement.

Your company has seen organic growth, engaged its audience and seen a steady incline in its fan base over the years, but you’ve finally secured that budget and you’re ready to inject that into your social campaigns.

Sitting back and expecting people to discover you via a contest is just like sitting back and expecting people to discover you without the contest, so let’s ask a few questions.

Have you reached out to partnerships or charities? Cross-promoting a contest is a great way to get the word out there, and partnering with an organization that closely aligns to your brand or audience is even better. This is making the people you are trying to reach want to come over and check out your business.
Will users have to like your page to enter your contest? This is a no-brainer. This is your contest, and you obviously want to retain those users that enter your contest on Facebook.
Not only can users like the page, but they can opt-in to communications. The ability to have entrants opt-in to your company newsletter is social gold. It’s another way to market to your consumers since, many times, they aren’t tethered to Facebook during the day.
What is the barrier to entry? Let’s face it, more people will enter your contest if you make it easy. Don’t expect too many entries if users have to create a video, format it a certain way, jump through fiery rings, tame lions and upload it to Facebook. If you’re looking for content to promote your brand, just make it easy for your fans. Simplicity is the key word here.
Have you announced your contests across your marketing platforms? Maybe you have 528 Facebook fans, but 100,528 people in your email database? Sending an email to those already opting in to your communications channels is an incredible way to increase awareness. For example, in one of our latest promotions, here is the spike in contest visits with an email push:

You’ve done your research, found the contest that’s right for you, researched 3rd party vendors to build your application, secured partnerships, set your timeline and covered all of your bases. You’ve finalized your prizes, creatives have been…well, created and launch day is here.

Now what? Be prepared.

Keep a close eye on your fan page. Things can spiral out of control very quickly, so make sure you or someone on your team is there to monitor activity. Respond to users who are having difficulty with the promotion and guide them through the necessary steps. Remember, you’re dealing with a WIDE audience here – including Facebook novices.
Know your contest well. How can people enter? Can they enter on a mobile phone? Likely not. Facebook doesn’t allow many apps on their mobile site, so be sure to test this out in the beginning.
Read the fine print. Where can users enter? Due to trade and commerce laws, there are many locations (including overseas) from which people cannot enter. How are entrant and sponsor defined? What’s the estimated value of all of your prizes? These should all be included in your rules, published in your contest and kept handy.
People will come from left field to enter your contest. It’s highly likely that many people entering your contest will not be entering for…you. They are entering for a prize. This is common; you’ll have to deal with them and likely deal with the fact that they may unlike you after the contest. Remember, it’s no love lost since this isn’t your target market.

Coming out of your contest, ensure that you integrate your opt-ins into your email database and send off those prizes (with the necessary tax forms) quickly. You’ve been looking at the numbers the entire time. Would you do it again? How would you do it differently?

Now back to quality engagement. That’s what social media is all about.

See my original post on the Cookerly blog.

Brilliant QR code concepts for apps.

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:11:17 -0400

Brilliant QR code concepts for apps.

My new obsession: kerning.

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:00:05 -0400

My new obsession: kerning.

Real-Time Marketing Requires Real-Time Action And Technology

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:23:35 -0400

The world moves fast. Very fast. And it is pretty accepted that how we market is changing. Some may try to cling to world of building offers and pumping them to the four corners of the internet in the hopes of driving some traffic back to your site and, if the Gods smile upon you, selling something. But this is not going to work in the new world order given where consumers are spending their time and how marketers are now shifting their efforts and marketing dollars.

Eric Wheeler, CEO of 33across, recently declared that the “Campaign is Dead.” If you haven’t read the article go back and read it. He makes several claims but the gist is we have to market not based upon an arbitrary 6-to-8-week campaign window but instead must engage with customers 24/ 7/ 365 — even if you only have a marketing budget that only allows you to spend in heavy bursts of 26 weeks through the calendar year. Eric says spend all the time, just do it against the right people. Amen Brother! A marketer needs to have constant pressure (a steady rain shower of marketing messages as an old Marketing Prof told me) that surrounds the consumer and helps them to make a purchase.

Social media is obviously changing all of this. We aren’t waiting for people to put in a query to tell us that they are interested in us, we are constantly sharing and distributing our messages to our consumers to help them grow their brands. Marketers need to be turned on and dialed in 24/7 to what consumers are talking about and need to deploy their messages back to the customers at the pace of consumer conversations.

This phenomenon is called “Real-Time Marketing,” and is a formidable challenge for many marketers to master. In fact, IBM just released a study stating that CMOs are not sufficiently plugged into real-time data to make decisions. This is a huge issue since 82% of the CMOs plan to increase spend in social media but only ~40% actually listen to what people are saying. (And sure, this study is a great example of content marketing to convince you to hire IBM, but hey, we’re all marketing.) I like the cheat sheet on the study instead of reading it; if you are like me just watch the video below to get a feel for it.

The problem of converting insights from listening into action is not going away as the data in social media is unstructured — meaning that making sense of it is really hard. Not to mention the actual volume of data and consumer usage is still growing at a significant clip. Marketers can’t deploy their own technologies to solve these problems and the listening tools out there today do a good job of aggregating the signal but they don’t make it actionable for the customer.

We have written about the need of a marketer to bring technology to this problem - Rise of the Machine in Social Media. And we firmly believe in the real-time marketing scenario. We believe in storytelling. We believe that a marketer should use technology to help them figure out what they should say when. And now is the time for marketers and agencies to increase their technology to help them deliver the most relevant content to their followers.

via: livetout

Social Media & Peer Pressure: What Does It Take To Change Your Mind? [STUDY]

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 09:49:00 -0400

Social Media & Peer Pressure: What Does It Take To Change Your Mind? [STUDY]:

On one level, the research that emerged from HP Labs Friday is unsurprising: we tend to bow to peer pressure, and it’s as true in social media as in real life.

But how much peer pressure does it take, and what other factors come into play? The answers may surprise you. Read more.

Loving the use of QR Codes in this Diesel campaign. It’s...

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 16:30:44 -0400

Loving the use of QR Codes in this Diesel campaign. It’s smart, resourceful and the outreach potential is very strong.

I know I’ll be seeing this a lot down the road, and I’m looking forward to it.

The ROI of Social Media

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 10:53:00 -0400

Happy to have contributed to this!

Great collaborative project between incredible marketers and community managers across the country. Looking forward to more great discussions with The Collabs!

The ROI of Social Media

View more presentations from The_Collab

thenextweb: (via The who, why, and how of Twitter [Infographic]...

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 10:47:06 -0400

thenextweb:

(via The who, why, and how of Twitter [Infographic] - Twitter)

social nerdia: Tweet Link: How to Pre-Populate Tweets Using the New Twitter

Fri, 27 May 2011 17:39:38 -0400

social nerdia: Tweet Link: How to Pre-Populate Tweets Using the New Twitter:

socialnerdia:

Have you ever seen a link that leads to a pre-populated box on Twitter? Let’s call this a “Tweet Link.”

Unlike the official Twitter button and other ReTweet means like TweetMeme, which allow you to encourage content sharing on Twitter through javascript, a “Tweet Link” lets you convert…

8 Brands That Have Found Success on Facebook & What We Can Learn

Tue, 24 May 2011 20:55:34 -0400

8 Brands That Have Found Success on Facebook & What We Can Learn:

Dave Kerpen is the CEO of Likeable, a social media agency that has worked with more than 200 leading brands including 1-800Flowers.com, Verizon and Neutrogena. He is author of Likeable Social Media. Any brand worth their social media salt has a presence on Facebook. But just because a brand is…

Wanted to see this on the first night, but they’re having...

Tue, 10 May 2011 23:35:37 -0400

Wanted to see this on the first night, but they’re having a show every weekend this month. I’ll be sure to catch it before the sheets come down (the HQ is right down the street from me!)

mhandy1:

Love it great move by Coke! Happy 125th!

nicolegalletta:

Why the Coca-Cola headquarters building in Atlanta is covered in sheets.

If you’ve driven through midtown Atlanta this week, you probably wondered why the Coca-Cola headquarters building was covered in huge white sheets. On Friday night, we got our answer. The big secret was a giant illuminated thank you card for the city celebrating the 125th Anniversary of Coke.

The company is projecting the 3-D card, which runs on a 20-minute loop, on the building.

Via MYFOXATLANTA STAFF

According to new research completed by Dan Zarrella, almost 1...

Tue, 10 May 2011 10:18:08 -0400

According to new research completed by Dan Zarrella, almost 1 in 3 posts to the site come from mobile devices.

The research is based on a random sampling of more than 70,000 Facebook posts, large enough to generate a 99 percent confidence interval with a plus or minus .5 percent margin of error. In other words, this is likely to be fairly accurate.

(via: AllFacebook)

Most surprising from the analysis was that the vast majority of these updates came through m.facebook.com, not through smartphone devices (although iPhone and Android accounted for close to nine percent total).

So how is this changing over time? Unfortunately, we aren’t sure, but I’d be confident in guessing that mobile Facebook usage is continuing to grow rapidly.

BlackBerry, the device that parent company Research In Motion has been taking a lot of slack for lately, was actually the third most popular mobile device.

Given that Facebook employees themselves used to mostly use BlackBerry, it’s not surprising to see such statistics.

Personally, I’m an iPhone user and fairly satisfied with the Facebook mobile experience on it, however it looks like the vast majority of users still use “dumb phones” or simply prefer to use Facebook on their desktops.

How Frito-Lay Set Newest Facebook Like Record

Thu, 05 May 2011 09:57:01 -0400

How Frito-Lay Set Newest Facebook Like Record

Had this discussion today about geo-location services and...

Wed, 04 May 2011 21:56:00 -0400

Had this discussion today about geo-location services and ‘checking-in.’ This is a great visual to see what consumers thing and where they check-in. We know there are privacy concerns, but there’s a great line-up of what motivates each consumer base to check-in and what apps they use. Good stuff!