Periodic Table of Social Media Elements Reminds You to Optimze Your Social Media Plan

Rick Liebling has created a Period Table of Social Elements on eyecube that made me get thinking on brands use of social media. I included the image below, and the key can be found in the original post on eyecube.


In his words: Social Media really is a lot like chemistry. There is a huge pool of elements you can choose from and an infinite variety of combinations you can create. Twitter + sharing + commenting will give you a different result than blogging + LinkedIn + Flickr. Then of course there are the active ingredients - the people. A dash of Chris Brogan plus a big helping of David Armano and the whole thing changes again.

Often we are approached by brands and clients saying "I want a Twitter strategy" or "I want to be on Facebook." But not every brand that succeeds on Twitter will succeed on Facebook. @Comcastcares uses Twitter as a tool, but can you find a successful Comcast effort anywhere on MySpace?

As agencies, we need to find the right mix of social elements, and when appropriate, the right hyper-connected people to work with or learn from, to deliver the best possible Social Media Mix to our clients.

This gives a great image of all the different options in a quick-get way of understanding the mixing and matching capabilities of all-things social. You blow up a balloon with CO2 and it sits on the floor. Inflate it with helium and it floats.

Social 10: Facebook’s New Social Video Ad Unit is an Engagement Magnet

A few of us noticed a curious new ad unit pop up in our Facebook feeds yesterday. The unit is a video that also displays open comments from your friends circle about that ad. Real-time, ongoing conversation about the ad - which potentially gives advertisers a peek directly into the sentiment of the audiences receiving the ad. I think this is a game-changer for social ads.

Inside Facebook notes: Facebook will fill the sponsored home page slot with this kind of unit.

The behavior:
1)Clicking on the ad image opens a video player in-line
2)Comments on the video are visible to your entire friend list.

The comments around the ad dramatically increase engagement with the unit, as the highly visible comments provide an opportunity for users to simultaneously draw attention to the ad by drawing attention to themselves.

*While this could backfire if comments degrading the advertiser are abundant ("this movie is Lame"-type commentary could overwhelm - but hey, the comments are from your friends so it has a certain relevance to you), the ad comments take powerful advantage of Facebook’s social dynamics to draw attention to an ad in a way that is impossible without the social graph. When is the last time you heard 9 friends talk about an online ad in the same day?

Ad comments are an interesting step forward in the evolution of “Social Ads.” While this kind of ad may not work as well outside of a few advertiser verticals, expect that early advertisers will be pleased with its performance.

Aki's quick takeaways:
1) Ads will need to become more engaging and comment provoking or risk flaming commentary (or worse, not being worthy of notice and comment)
2) Advertisers will need to become reactionary to response...maybe change the ads up, or try 10 ads - monitor feedback/response/actions taken and let the top 2 effective ads move forward
3) Advertisers will need to become choiceful about what they put in this channel...relevance and interestingness will matter now more than ever
4) EVERY MEDIA will soon be made more accountable to results and data of this nature for every ad media buy

Fallon Planning Blog on Facebook

Fallon Planning Blog on Facebook, ya'll

don't stop, git it, git it
this app is still a bit *buggy*, so expect RSS feeds soonish...and "confirm" a brotha when you visit (or get my confirm email)...I can't activate the hot features til 10 peeps confirm that I'm me. Recognize.
Twitter feeds comin' soon, too, standby.

Social Media: This One Time, When I Googled Myself...

On a random curious tangent during an otherwise productive (hm...for the most part) day, decided to Google my name and see what popped up. Before I started at Fallon, I remember doing this same search and, while I expected the result, was disappointed that it returned nothing. While I'm no Aki Spicer (my paltry 52 web hits is childs' play), I'm doing a bit better than I once was.


Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace...whatever. All of this social media comes up in conversations all the time, and I for one often take for granted the impact all of it has because it's such a natural part of my everyday life. I check Facebook multiple times a day, and barely think twice about how amazing it is that I'm able to stay tapped into friends lives who otherwise I would've lost all connections to.

But as I scrolled through my Google search results, I quickly realized that without social networks, my name would fall into the category of "having no documents matched this search." And while this may be due to my age and level of experience, I wonder what a similar search reveals for the rest of you.

And I don't think it's really a bad thing. For one, I know that all of the superficial Google results on me were, in some way, influenced by me, so there's no surprises. That's not to say that someday, I wouldn't like to have some quotes from big shot sources to my credit (AdAge, still waiting for that phone call).

In the interim though, just happy that I'm Google worthy.

Prediction of social networking doom and gloom

Lance Ulanoff of PC Magazine writes an opinion piece on the inevitable death of MySpace, Second Life, Twitter, and the whole lot of social networking sites.

Some highlights:

"MySpace could be the first to collapse. It has now suffered the same fate as the millions of personal Web sites that sprang up in the mid 1990s: It's huge, ugly, unmonitored, unrestrained, and pointless."

I take issue with his proclamation that MySpace is pointless; I would equate that to the idea that letter writing or putting my photos in an album are both pointless, too. Not buying it.

More...

"Second Life could just as easily be the first to go. No one believes its reported participation numbers anymore, even though big companies, such as Circuit City and IBM, have built virtual stores (and Playboy is jumping in with both, er, feet this month). Some individuals are even claiming to make real-world money in there, but are they really?"

There might be some validity in the flaws Ulanoff highlights, but I think he neglected to take into account one important variable: innovation. If they sit, at stasis, until the end of the decade, these sites and utilities will probably lose their luster. But they're ever-evolving. The Facebook, for example, is shooting out new applications left and right. They're not solving global warming or emptying our prisons, but they are adding dimension to relationships. The new variety of closeness that we collectively have developed online won't go away, even if it does evolve into something different. But way to go for it on the prediction, Lance. I appreciate it.

Full article here

Mass Interactive: Facebook Diaries

Comcast and Facebook team up on reality series.

Users can submit videos they create in Facebook or Comcast's Ziddio.com for a new reality-TV series, under a partnership between the two companies. Filmmaker R.J. Cutler, whose credits include "The War Room" and "American High," will sift through the video submissions to create the series, called "Facebook Diaries.

The companies will begin taking submissions next month but have not set a date for the series premiere.

Cutler said he will organize Facebook Diaries around themes such as "Heartbreak," or "Who am I?" for the half-hour episodes.

"You build these things with dramatic structure and flow," Cutler said. "They'll tell their stories and send them to us and we'll put together thematically driven episodes for the series, which will be featured on-demand as well as on the Internet."

Jupiter Research analyst Todd Chanko said the partnership could help Comcast build a new audience. With 24 million cable subscribers already, Comcast can't expect to add significant revenues by signing up more customers to watch television.

Both Comcast and Facebook executives said they were seeking ways to create content that will bridge the gap between the Internet and television. As popular shows have made repeats available for viewing on web sites and Internet content gains the attention of bigger media firms, companies are trying to stake a claim in both worlds.

Revenues will come from advertising, though the companies have not announced any sponsors or said how they will share those dollars.


via Philadelphia Inquirer