Cake New York » Twitter

Diminishing Cultural Latency and Old Spice

Rosie Siman — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:28:09 +0000

Ever since Faris Yakob wrote this piece for Fast Company on cultural latency, I have been fascinated by the idea.

What exactly is cultural latency, you ask? Latency refers to the lag time between cause and effect, typically in reference to gaming. The lower the latency, the faster the response time. With advances in technology, we continue to see diminishing cultural latency across a wide range of day-to-day activities – from communication (think snail mail vs. email or IM) to advertising.

Which leads us to the ridiculously awesome Old Spice videos that W+K pulled off.

In case you’re not sure what I’m talking about, first check out the original Old Spice ad here and the newly released sequel here. The concept is great, the copywriting is excellent. But here’s where it get’s good: For two days, Isaiah Mustafa, “the Old Spice guy,” was responding to the digital world in almost real time. What happened to the script approvals, post production work and lengthy edits? Gone – out the window.

[Side note: One of the things about advertising that has always annoyed me is the amount of time that it takes to get things done. From signing contracts to script approvals to shooting to post production, by the time it's all said and done, it's hard to keep track of where things started in the first place. This is probably one of the reasons I love social media - everything has to be quick, and so it is!]

After posting updates to various social networks inviting users to ask questions to Isaiah Mustafa (the star of the videos), they received responses from Demi Moore, Ellen DeGeneres, Digg founder Kevin Rose and even the guys from Twitter (who asked if Mustafa had any experience training whales.) In a single day, over 80 videos were created in response to tweets, Facebook comments and even 4chan postings.

The videos were genuinely hilarious, but they also felt extremely personal. But I suppose you could argue that’s nothing new – There are lots of creative people in our industry.

What was so crucial for this to work was the response time. Tweets fly by… Responding to a tweet months later, even days later, just wouldn’t have been the same.

But like all good things, the videos, too, come to an end. So what now?

Brands will be challenged with trusting the agencies that are producing their content even more and agencies will be challenged with creating content (that matters) on the fly. How are you stepping up to the challenge?

Chavez Joins The Twitterverse

Noelle Sadler — Mon, 24 May 2010 18:51:11 +0000

A few weeks ago I went to Venezuela for a wedding. It was my first time visiting the country and the most shocking thing, after the tinted-windowed, bullet-proofed cars, was the sheer number of young people glued to their blackberries. My husband’s cousins (one of whom was the groom) were so intently and constantly peering into their tiny smartphone screens – moreso than any of my friends in New York – that we finally had to ask what they were reading.

Twitter.

I was shocked. Venezuela is known for oil. For poverty and crime. For Hugo Chavez. But Twitter? Not so much. At least that’s what I thought.

Turns out, though, that Hugo had put a damper on anyone talking negatively about him in the press. And the press, as far as he was aware then, consisted of TV, newspapers, and radio. Twitter wasn’t really on his radar. So while anti-Chavez talking heads played nice on television, they bashed him in 140 characters where he wasn’t looking. Journalist Alberto Ravell was – and continues to be – one of the most-followed individuals in the Venezuelan twitterverse.

And, of course, it wasn’t long before el jefe Hugo himself joined in the fray. Joined in puts it lightly. He managed to top the Venezuelan Twitter leaderboard withing two weeks of joining. Of course he also claims to have over a 60% approval rating.

Now if only we can get Fidel Castro on Foursquare….

Totally Awesome

Rosie Siman — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 23:44:50 +0000

As much as I love bit.ly, I’m thinking that I may have to make a move to a different URL shortener soon – Totally Awesome, or Totally.Awe.Sm, creates a URL shortener from any domain you own.

The costs start at $99 for individuals which amounts to less than $10/month – a small price to pay in my opinion.

The personalization trend has already taken hold – I think it’s fair to say that we’ll see more and more people & companies using custom URL shorteners in the near future.

Customer Service In 140 Characters or Less #SXSW

Rosie Siman — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:42:22 +0000

Today I attended a panel titled Customer Service in the 140 Character World which discussed customer service within social media outlets – specifically Twitter. As a social marketing strategist who manages brands profiles online, I’m especially interested in the customer service aspect. As a consumer, I’m particularly annoyed with the way that most brands misuse these platforms that are almost built for their success. [I actually wrote another post here titled 'Customer Service is the New Marketing']

Why is social media built for customer support? It allows one on one interactions in almost real time. It avoids automated response systems, support forums and 1800 numbers that provide more annoyance than answers. There is a built in community element – sometimes I get answers from the community surrounding the brand instead of the brand itself.

Agencies talk about customer service with social media a good bit – It’s an unavoidable topic amongst marketers because social media lends itself to support. We’re consistently seeing consumers bypass FAQs and automated messaging systems for real people and real answers. But agencies talking amongst themselves only goes so far. On the panel today, we heard from brands who were not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. Sure, Zappos was almost built around social media – But Comcast? Dell? HP? These brands fall into that “traditional” category… And they are making it work.

A few key takeaways:

- Customer Support is Still Too Siloed. This is a change that has to happen internally. Are PR and Customer Support one in the same? The panelists said yes. They said it was essential to create a workflow that allows for quick approvals and answers from the appropriate people. It’s internal structuring and it’s a change that HAS to happen. How to implement? They advise to start with putting TweetDeck on the CEO’s desk with a Twitter search about the brand.

- Get Feedback and Do Something. As a company, you have to invest in the way that you listen to consumers. The most important thing about feedback is what you do with it. Feedback is worthless unless you are willing to make changes and show your customers that you’re implementing their suggestions.

- Give Answers. It doesn’t matter if someone has 1 follower or 1 million followers, they are all your customers. Give them the answers they are looking for in the platforms that they are on. Take time to explain “why” and give them the whole story even if it is technical and/or boring. If they understand the “why,” they are much more likely to support your brand for the long haul. The Comcast rep said, “We can’t make cable free, but we can tell our customers exactly why it costs what it does.”

Agencies can only do so much. People in the audience representing brands were advised to look to agencies as consultants. As consultants, they can help you understand the space; They can come up with forward thinking ideas; They can teach you the appropriate social interactions. But in the end, the brand has to be willing to make changes and talk to the consumers themselves.

Yes, it’s difficult. Yes, it requires organizations to acknowledge and embrace the power of social media. But it’s not impossible. Customers aren’t going anywhere and neither is social media.

What do you think are the best ways for brands to active customer support through social media channels?

[Full panel notes generously provided by William Hertling here]

Not at SXSW? Be There Vicarious.ly

Rosie Siman — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:45:11 +0000

This week, both Michelle and myself will be at SXSWi. We’re planning on checking out the panels, learning tidbits to share with you, meeting cool people, earning some new badges on Foursquare and attending a few parties here and there

If you’re not at SXSWi, watch this space for our golden nuggets of learning. You can also live vicariously by checking out (ba-da-boom cha!) Vicarious.ly, which aggregates all the geo-location “check-ins” in Austin in real time. While Foursquare is the geo-location app that has coined the “check-in,” Vicarious.ly also aggregates BlockChalk, Bump, Flickr, Gowalla, Fwix and Twitter.

While it’s a great tool to see clustering of people and overarching trends, it feels a bit overwhelming. At first glance, it also provides some topline insight on the Gowalla-Foursquare battle. While New Yorkers are used to using Foursquare, the steady stream of Gowalla check-ins in Austin shows that they’re becoming a major player in the geo-location gaming world.

Check in, check it out and of course, if you’re at SXSW, please do come and say hi!

You can find us on Twitter here: @rosiesiman & @miishi

Museum Of Modern Tweets

Shana Weiss — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:31:18 +0000

Failed to get enough culture in this week? You may not have a chance to run off to the MOMA or The Met right now, but you can definitely take a moment to visit The Museum of Modern Tweets.

Creators (or shall we say curators) of the site, Odessa Begay and Jordan Breindel, have made a very interesting and novel art form out of celebrity’s 140-character offerings. If you have ever wondered what dinner would be like with a Ms. “Chaincondom” at Lance Armstrong’s house, or what constitutes a good day for a Jonas brother, (jet-packing down a yellow brick road to a money-nourished unicorn?) then you will be pleased with your visit.

Check out a couple of my favorite illustrations below, all done by Odessa Begay. The museum’s collection is updated every Tuesday, so make sure to stay up to date with this new twist on celebrity tweets.

Creative & Social Filtering

Rosie Siman — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:32:18 +0000

I definitely think that will all the publishing platforms out there, we’ll see more and more around creative (and social) filtering. (Maybe we can even convince brands to play in this space?)

One iteration, by Kikin (a Firefox add-on), allows you to search Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, Google Reader, Wikipedia, YouTube, Bing etc, from within your Google search.

But then the cool stuff happens – If you connect Facebook or Twitter, you can choose to see public comments or comments just from your friends. If you’re looking at a product on Amazon, a Kikin bar will come up at the top of the page that shows you recent searches along with feedback from FB/Twitter.

What do you think about Kikin?

DOWNLOAD // EXPLORE // PLAY: http://www.kikin.com/

Socialympics – The Hits and Misses!

Noelle Sadler — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:00:43 +0000

It’s Day 4 of the 2010 Winter Olympics and, thanks to Presidents Day weekend, we’ve actually had plenty of time to watch the sports and enjoy some of the extras. Just a few days in, here are some thoughts on Olympic hits and misses:

Let’s start with TV. As we all know, we still can’t control what we get to watch on TV. NBC decides that for us at this year’s Olympics, and it can be very frustrating knowing that we’re stuck watching one particular sport while others are also going on. We’ve all known the frustration of watching figure skating recaps when we know hockey is being played somewhere. And don’t forget those tear-jerker videos about the difficulties each athlete has faced on the road to Olympic glory. Yawn. So let’s take control and move on to the …

Web!

NBC should be given some credit here. They’ve done a decent job of making their site as social and on-demand as possible. Some highlights:

Social: Users are given the ability to follow NBC Olympics on various social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook RSS, widgets, and mobile.

The website itself is a flurry of activity, from videos to Twitter feeds, to medal counts and player profiles.

Twitter: Aggregation of athlete tweets allows users to catch up on latest news and follow in real time. This is a cool feature, but would be made even simpler if a “follow” button were included on the main page. Instead, users must click on the athlete’s name, wait for a summary drop-down, and then click “follow.” The extra step slightly complicates things.

Video: Fans can watch complete events online, but must first jump through the hoops of proving they are cable subscribers. Full clips are raw, meaning no voiceover from commentators – which can be a positive or a negative, depending on how you feel about sportscasters. I watched the men’s 7.5K sprint biathlon in its entirety (yes I do have a life – Biathlon is surprisingly addictive!) and was at first slightly confused by the lack of commentary, but later decided I liked not having to listen to what can become rather annoying babble. I did have to read up on some of the rules without the help of commentators, but I didn’t mind that so much. On the negative side, none of the videos are embeddable. So I can tell you all about how the Korean speed skaters got greedy and edged themselves out of a medal sweep on Saturday night, but telling you about it is the best I can do since I can’t embed the video in this post.

So what happens when we’re no longer enjoying a long weekend and have to get away from the TV? Well fortunately for all of us, there’s…

Mobile!

NBC has created a pretty nifty little NBC Olympics app, which allows users to stay more or less up-to-date with what’s happening in each sport. I say more-or-less because I just checked the incorporated athlete Twitter feed, and the most recent tweets on the app were from Apolo Ohno several hours ago, though I know from the website that several other athletes have tweeted since then. There doesn’t seem to be a “reload” function on the app to address this. On the other hand, when you’re on the go and you need a quick medal fix, the Olympics app does the trick.

In other mobile news, Foursquare and the New York Times have teamed up to create a new badge for the 2010 Vancouver Games, the NY Times Olympian, which users can unlock by checking in at a Times-recommended venue.

Despite the fact that brands seem to be jumping on the Foursquare bandwagon every minute, this is still a pretty cool idea, but only if you’re lucky enough to get to go to the Olympics. For me, it’s just a grey badge on my screen I know I’ll never get to attain. Along with that Olympic gold medal. So sad.

Social Sponsorship

Noelle Sadler — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 04:56:36 +0000

This morning I attended a panel hosted by The Advertising Club about sports sponsorship, held at the New York offices of the USA Today, and featuring speakers from Mastercard, Nascar, Madison Avenue Sports & Entertainment, and MetLife. How I’ve convinced myself that 8am conferences are a good idea is beyond me, but after an almond croissant and a cup of coffee, at least I started feeling like a human being. What I really wanted to understand was weather the archaic sponsorship model (ie – pay outrageous sum of money, have name plastered on stadium or team jersey) is shifting to become more social and, as a result, more profitable for the sponsor and more appealing for the consumer.

As consumer faith in corporations stumbles and the public gets more antsy about how money is being spent, a brand that wants to splash its name up on a stadium or a sports tour really needs to think about why. Why this sport? Why this athlete? Why any sport? Why not … musicians? Or awards shows? Why will a sports sponsorship make consumers like us more and make them choose us over the other guy. Because while brands and corporations see sports as a way to tap into consumers’ passions and really engage, consumers are more often than not thinking “what’s in it for me?”

Which leads me to wonder… why do so many major companies have a sports sponsorship team, which is separate from the digital/social media team? (As has apparently been the case at Mastercard, we learned today, until very recently.) Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to work together? So when the sports sponsorship team inks a deal, the digital team is right there with them, figuring out how to give that activation legs online and make it work harder for the brand and for the consumer.

A great example is Target’s NASCAR sponsorship. Team Target has been a fixture at NASCAR since 2002, with Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya at the wheel since 2009. JP Montoya, who has previously raced in Formula 1 and Indycar, shares the latest news with his 125,000+ Twitter fans, building a following not just for himself but for Team Target. Two weeks ago, he proudly posted about the big rig hauler for the Team Target race car, and last week he posted a link on his Facebook page to a Target photo shoot, garnering over 150 “likes” and dozens of appreciative fan comments.

Is all of this in the Team Target contract? Unlikely. When JP and Team Target signed this deal, I don’t think there was any mention of how many Tweets he must send, or how often he should update his Facebook status. Should it be? Perhaps, and maybe in the future it will be, if only because athletes are human, and they make mistakes. But, more importantly, this is a relatively simple way to get more out of your big, expensive corporate sponsorship. Give consumers what they want anyway – access to great stuff, exclusive content, interaction with their favorite athletes and teams, and a better experience at the stadium, in stores, and in front of their computers. Because it’s not enough to put a banner up and toss some logos around the stadium. You’ve paid all that money… why not get more out of it?

Are you a Conversationalist?

Bea Villamor — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:56:47 +0000

There’s a new user label in the social media world: Conversationalists.

In 2007, Forrester developed profiles of social media users and visualized this in their “Social Technographics” infograph, which details each profile’s characteristics as well as its position in the social media hierarchy.

But behaviors change, and Forrester is now adding a rung for Conversationalists: Facebook and Twitter users “who update [their] social network status” on a weekly basis.

Conversationalists are ranked second only to Creators, individuals who create their own content and share it online.

Interestingly, 56% of Conversationalists are female and 70% are 30 years old or older. MediaPost has some detailed age breakdowns as well.

So, what does this mean for social media marketers?

The emergence of the Conversationalist profile reinforces that numbers do not determine one’s social media currency – a high number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers are only significant when the user regularly communicates with their friends and followers. There is greater value in an individual’s level of engagement, which determines their clout online.

So are you a Conversationalist? I know I am, so share your thoughts by posting a comment below or by pinging me on Twitter.