For quite some time now we have been talking to clients [clients of Quango Interaction Design] about the immidiate impact that the SMB audience can see when utilizing social media channels; prodominantly Facebook. As if 50+% of the online population in the US wasn’t enough to captivate marketing manager imaginations, Facebook has taken it upon itself to push the subject.
SMB Facebook Window Decals!
Tuesday afternoon, Richard Rosen and I continued to prepare for our DMA 2010 Though-Leadership lecture. Working with Richard is fun, to say he knows his stuff when it comes to Direct Marketing is an understatement—and as a Creative Director of Quango Interaction Design, a proven Social Media agency—I find that we often try and tackle subjects over a glass of wine or a mug of coffee, that are far beyond the how-to implementation and BKM’s of marketing.
Even though we feel like we might have hit-gold on how to give Direct Marketers at the DMA Annual a model that ties in their marketing wisdom with the medium of today, what interests us most is the evolution of the Facebook like button, and what it means.
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I’m not a gambler, and I certainly do not have a crystal ball. However it is becoming pretty evident that location based social networking will continue to grow. Simply put, a higher degree of mobile device integration by some big players [Google: desktops will be replaced, Intel: showing their hand towards mobile , Apple: the iPhone was successful, what if we made it bigger? ] continues to cater to the demand for continuous connectivity—and more importantly, support for seamless real-time-location interactions.
This is not a new principle—but if we were talking about social networks as a whole, in human-development they would just be entering into adolescence. They are hormonally challenged, seeking an identity, loose with their privacy, frenetic, and awkward—all while having a great deal of potential. To boot, they have a look that they all will be ashamed of in 10 years.
So what does this mean for Foursquare?
While reading mashable.com this morning I stumbled across an article by Shiv Singh, the VP and Global Social Media Lead for Razorfish—a reputable agency of which I have watched evolve over the years. What Shiv brings to our attention is an algorithm which he champions as the SIM Score.
It is no mystery that clients are demanding, and should continue to demand, more and more detailed analytics into their social media endeavors. I have been saying it to my clients and readers as much as possible—the days of friends and followers were limited, frenetic, and are now nonsensical. With that said, I first applaud Shiv for taking a crack at the indexing of influence on social media. Shiv uses simple math, and in my opinion simple is best for communicating business objectives.
Here is where it falls short though: Continue reading →
In recent news, Foursquare has gone global, allowing for users to check-in from anywhere in the world, at any business. As GPS based social networks are poised to be the hottest expansion [in my opinion] in 2010 it is only right that small businesses understand what a little social-media elbow-grease can do for them.
ROI is quite possibly the most abused term in marketing. It was just a matter of time before white papers, articles, and ROI evangelists hit social media without the pedigrees of a seasoned CMO or CFO to set them straight. Furthermore to frame this short write-up, ROI is a valuable tool for the measurement of a business investment, but has failed marketeers for decades just the same.
Let’s take a quick refresher on why ROI fails: Continue reading →