Fed square always does cool stuff as part of the annual Light in Winter programme so we were thrilled to get the chance to help fan the flames on this one. We were asked to provide a social media strategy that would harness the anticipated chatter and build their existing online profile. They had already build up a solid following on twitter and facebook so we had a great base to work from.

The artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer saw his installation as a platform for expression, and felt the public would make their own symbolic projection and interpretation. Our strategy was to facilitate this, giving people an outlet for the emotion that would be conjured up when they laid eyes on this truly awesome sight. 

We used bought media to drive online engagement on twitter and facebook, asking people to share with others how they have been ‘enlightened’ by the installation. We incentivised them by offering a chance to win a weekly travel voucher from STA for their own journey of enlightenment.

Our ads appeared in the Sunday Age, mX, and on Facebook, driving hundreds of high quality inspirational  entries that were collected and published on twitter #fed_square and via a facebook app developed by FRANkVizeum and housed on the Fed Square fan page. Fed Square’s owned media assets were also used to stimulate interest with messages appearing on the web site, newsletter and throughout the square itself.

To penetrate further into the online social world we launched a foursquare page with special offers for foursquare users driving patronage to the all-important tenants, we created a Twibbon and donated $1 for every avatar change, and encouraged people to have their ‘tweet-ups’ as fed square by offering special deals.

Across the campaign period and beyond we also ran a targeted blogger engagement campaign via Nuffnang, highlighting events such as ABBA World, Tim Burton and Rupert Bunny exhibition as well as featuring restaurants and cafes generating over 80,000 blog reads.

The campaign drove a 51% jump in Facebook fans, a 32% increase in twitter followers, and web site traffic is up 16%. Great results from an integrated approach to social media strategy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

With the help of IDF bracelets developed by Publicis E-dologic people could “Like” real objects and activities in the park. On arrival every visitor was outfitted with a bracelet ID linked to their Facebook account and transmitting RFID signals allowing them to use the “Like” machines throughout the park. If a visitor “likes” a special feature of the park, it will automatically appear on their Facebook news feed. Additionally, a photographer was present and if you wanted to tag yourself in any image you just had to wave your ID bracelet to the photographer.
The images also appear automatically on the Coca- Cola Village Facebook fan page, fully tagged of course.

It is a very innovative way to connect the virtual with the real world and enables Facebook users to share their experience with their friends worldwide in a fun and new way.

Personally, I think I would have had a lot of fun “liking” things via my bracelet and being automatically tagged in photos. It is stuff I do anyway on Facebook and I don’t see the harm.  Facebook and Coca Cola just facilitated what people do anyway, only difference that is was in real time.

I would also argue that this exercise was a very clever way to revive the “like” button. These days the button means almost nothing and is just a virtual grunt of appreciation. By transferring it into the real world however, it becomes an association with a real emotion. Surely, that will result in a fantastic brand image for Coca Cola which in turn will result in more sales.

No doubt, Coca Cola gains the most out of this exercise and it has been reported that over the three day period 35,000 pieces of content was posted on Facebook. On average each of the 650 visitors posted 54 branded pieces of Coca Cola merchandise to their Facebook page.

While Coca Cola is famous for bringing the brand alive via events such as the Coke Zero and Mentos Rocket Car or the Coke Happiness vending machine, it is the first time Facebook has ventured outside the virtual world.

I am wondering if we really want Facebook in the real world and if Facebook will repeat this exercise in a different location soon.  It certainly is a trend to bring Facebook, your activities and “likes” into the real world, evident in the launch of Facebook Places in the US last week. Facebook Places, Foursquare and other real time location sharing apps will be gaining more and more popularity and possibly become the next big thing, at least for a while.

I certainly would have a lot of fun using the RFID signal bracelets and hope I get a chance to do so in the future.

Marketing magazine published a Gillard vs Abbott on social media yesterday from Nielsen which says “With many saying the race is neck-and-neck between Gillard and Abbott, the difference could be the influence social media has on voters who are yet to make up their minds,” said Mark Higginson, insights director of Nielsen’s Australian online division.

They talk about “Gillard” having 5X more YouTube views and 6X more Facebook fans than “Abbott.” I thought we’d look at sentiment, over the last 30 days, rather than volume in the land of Forums, Blogs  & web-based news sites (below).

What’s interesting? Well “Tony” has the most negative sentiment in all three arenas and “Bob” attracts the most positive sentiment in forums and blogs…”Julia” wins positive sentiment in news. The latter may well be a reflection of media ownership in Australia and that News Ltd is behind “Julia.”

MAP allows us to be a good deal more granular inc. demographics, geo, recency, most authoritative…and more but i’m keeping this top line.

One other note of interest, below, is the share of voice of Tony/Julia & Bob on twitter over the last 30 days. I wish all candidates the very best but i am inclined to agree with Mark Higginson that endeavour in the social space might be the tipping point.

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“She said the company’s success on social media starts with their bags and that social media tools have given them more powerful ways to connect.” – Darcy Gray, vice president at Tom Bihn bags.

Whilst that is important, it does not paint the broader picture of what social media is all about.  Conversations.  Conversations that help build advocacy, spreading the word (WOM), relationships and ultimately trust or loyalty.

At FRANkVizeum, we have illustrated this via our Conversation Venn Diagram.  By infusing the thoughts of Communities with traditionally 1 to 1 relationships between brands and consumers, we can clearly start seeing where brands sit.

Brands that communicate privately with consumers sit in “Closed Conversation.”   They could be feedback forms, newsletters, or surveys.  Whilst this is effective, it does not make use of the scalability of social media.  The metric here could be site traffic, email database, etc.

For brands that do not participate in any conversation but have consumers enjoying sharing experiences, stories, and news within the community, they sit in “Open Conversation”.  A great example is Nintendo Australia.  They do not participate in Twitter but there are a multitude of conversations, posts, RT, news, etc about the brand.  The metric here is volume of posts, tweets, RT from consumers.  The challenge is how do involve and mobilise the legions of fans?

Brands that use Twitter feeds as a way to broadcast news with little/no followers or active conversations sit squarely in “One Way Broadcasting.”  This is the traditional model in the social space with the focus on building traffic or news feed.  An example is TheAge twitter feed.  The metric here is growing Followers and/or volume of external tweets/post.

Ultimately, it comes down to the a brand’s objective.  Through these objectives we implement a strategy using the right tools and right metrics based on the above Venn Diagram. Eg. Traffic? News? Advocacy? WOM? Monitoring?

Our belief is Brands should find the right balance and should sit in the middle of all 3.  Not only broadcasting feed but to also build relationships to generate RTs and spreading the word to the community.

To support our thinking, there is recent research shared on Fast Company that looked at what is the most effective way to spread news on Twitter (a common client objective).  It shows “the most influential spreaders of news aren’t neccessarily those with the greatest number of online friends or followers.”

Source: Fast Company

We have known this for a while now (we even demonstrated this for GPO in our FRANkademy sessions), but this is the first piece of research that validates our strategy.  The trick is to find the right people strategically placed as the gate holder to people with larger followers that spreads the news.  These guys are hard to find as they aren’t immediately obvious (eg. through their number of followers).

By implementing the strategy that address the 3 points of the Venn Diagram, we can only find these “influencers” by a) increasing followers b) be active c) increase RT and conversations.  They will not only help spread the word, but build lasting relationships, loyalty, WOM, sales and traffic.

1. Yes, Interns know how to use facebook but do they know how brands should act on facebook? do they have the experience needed to comply with legal requirements, customer service or negative buzz? Knowing how to do something doesn’t mean you’re good at it and brands should realise it’s not a tech thing, it’s a marketing thing.

2. Interns usually leave quickly. They’ve done their part and left you with an excel spreadsheet with some sketchy strategy. There is no implementation, no buy-in from management and in most cases no one to pick up the project where the intern left it.

3. Interns cant see the big picture. They will usually be working on the “social media stuff” focusing on one platform (probably facebook) without considering other aspects of the business. Social media should be part of your communication strategy and if your intern isn’t part of that team in your business your social media strategy will be lacking.

What are your thoughts? Is an intern better than nothing? thanks to Drew for getting me to write this post.

Here’s something from Seth Godin in his post “Watch the money“: If you’re in the music business but you never buy tickets or downloads, can you really empathize with the people you’re selling to?… if you work for a non-profit and you don’t give money to charity, what exactly are you doing in this job?… Money is more than a transfer of value. It’s a statement of belief. An ad agency that won’t buy ads, a consultant who won’t buy consulting, and a waiter who doesn’t tip big—it’s a sign, and not a good one”.

If there is one rule when it comes to building your brand and business social assets it is to buy it from the people who invest in it themselves. They have probably faced the same problem you’re facing and have the hands on experience to build a sustainable social business solution. Do you think brands should have a community/social officer?

1.MUSIC: Artists are doing it for themselves – Superstar artists are now using social media to launch their new video/show/single using Ustream.tv and facebook: That’s right both Shakira and Chamillionaire did this in the last week against their record label’s advice and I expect to see many more artists doing this “social media” thing in the near future. So if you’re a record label or a music related business this act represent both threat and opportunity. When your artists know better than you how to reach their audience, there is a problem.  It’s up to you to keep up.

2.NEWSPAPERS: What will be the new model? Rupert Murdoch continues his war against google and wants to charge for online content. That’s great. Now he’s saying that without eTablets, “Newspapers Will Go Out Of Business.” Do you actually know anyone who owns an e-tablet? Any way you look at it, the newspaper model is broken (now they might charge you for a day pass?) . People are getting their news from other sources for free. Will people pay to get the same content on an e-paper? I don’t believe quality journalism is broken but I feel the delivery mechanism is. In a world where everything is shared by niches what’s the role social media and crowds can play within a publication? I’m sure Murdoch is working on it but if I was working for a newspaper or a magazine I’ll be thinking about it too.

3.ADVERTISING: The rise of the consumer-ambassador – When Coca-cola is doing it you know it’s real but they are not the only ones. More and more brands are using reality type “social” campaigns featuring real people to earn brand recognition, more fans/followers and the holy grail: organic google juice. Think about how many mentions your brand can get when people are constantly adding content, twittering and blogging about it, sharing the content with their friends and their friends friends. When the consumer journey starts with a google search, your first page is the most valued property you have. In this kind of world you need to be sure of what happens when someone is googling you.

Back in June we first spoke about Guvera . Well  it’s finally launching in a few weeks…15 December we’re told. The Guvera model is based on engagement in favour of the classic advertising-interruption model. From their eDM “Instead of advertising being perceived as disruptive or annoying, Guvera allows the advertiser to align their brand with their customers passions, allowing the brand to become the hero that provides new ways to find and get music, for free.”

If you think about your own experiences in meeting people you’re more likely to end up talking with someone who is approachable and listens rather than someone who just wants to talk about themselves.

 The Guvera approach allows brands to be able to fast-track engagement via an understanding of consumer preferences across a range of crieteria. Registering with Guvera is like speed dating for brands. To register you’ll be asked about your prefences on holidays, sport, music, gadgets & things, web activities, countries, books, films, food and charities. Just the kind of topics any one might ask in getting to know you.

I’m currently reading Mike Walsh’s excellent book, Futuretainment. In this he says “The challenge/opportunity for brands to benefit from an engagement-approach is to shift their brand strategy focus and to start behaving like media companies. Great brands engage consumers through telling stories. By learning more about the stories that surround a brand we can form our own impressions of their products/services and what they mean to our own lives and experiences. As audiences fragment one of the few ways for brands to achieve mass awareness is for their message to be compelling enough for consumers to do the distribution for you.”

It’ll be interesting to see how brands manage this opportunity with Guvera. In this emerging era of brand engagement it is clear that some brands (just like some people) are socially inept and there are likely to be degrees of sensitivity between the one-night stand approach and building longer term relationships.

As Mike says “the future of entertainment is not advertising- the future of advertising is entertainment.”