Performics and ROI Research just released a joint survey study of over 3,000 US consumers, with some compelling data showing that many consumers are actively using their social networks to recommend and to learn about brands*:

• 46% of respondents say they would talk about or recommend a product on Facebook
• 44% of Twitter users have recommended a product

© 2009. All rights reserved. Performics Inc. and ROI Research Inc.

The implications are clear: advertising on social networks can be powerful. At SocialMedia.com we are taking this idea to the next level by extending the power of social advertising beyond social networks and into the broader social web. We hope you’ll join us.

We’re excited to announce the formal launch of our newest product, Twitter Sparq. As the name suggests, we’re “sparking” conversations within Twitter in a natural, authentic way. We see this as another step in one of the many ways that the advertising world is converging. Traditional, tried and true tools for advertising are merging with the brave new world of social, conversational media and we’re creating tools like Sparq for advertisers to reach their consumers.

The basic idea behind Sparq is actually pretty simple. An advertiser creates an “ad” which is essentially a text-based prompt that asks a user a question and encourages them to share their opinion. That tweet is distributed to their followers and multiple conversations are sparked, resulting in awareness for the brand’s message and click-thrus to the landing page for those curious to learn more.

Behind this simple idea, there is actually a lot going on behind the scenes. We’ve designed a self-serve interface to keep up with the dynamic nature of the product, there’s keyword targeting to strengthen prompt relevancy to the end users, and analytics on the backend to report # of tweets, the audience for those messages, and click thru statistics.

We’ll be looking to scale up our publisher inventory to keep pace with our new advertisers, so please email us at sparq@socialmedia.com to learn more! We currently welcome all types of publishers, and are actively exploring the ways in which Twitter Sparq will drive maximum value for publishers and advertisers. If you’re looking to effectively monetize your client in a way that only adds to your user experience, this is the way to go!

We wanted to give as many advertisers as possible a chance to try out Sparq, so we’re going to open this up as a free trial for the next 2 weeks. So log-in and start sparking conversations about your brand today!

Twitter Pulse lets brands capture the stream of Twitter conversations related to their brand and promote them across the web. Twitter Pulse shows the latest Tweets from a managed feed around a topic or question and lets viewers submit Tweets of their own.

Setting up a campaign is simple. Twitter Pulse Ads feature a fully customizable skin and questions your audience can Tweet about right from the ad unit. Campaigns feature multiple questions (50 characters each) to optimize and add variety to the campaign. Ads are served in a 300 x 250 IAB standard ad inventory and can be delivered across DoubleClick and Atlas ad servers.

We were lucky enough to get commentary from two of the investors behind Twitter, Fred Wilson and John Borthwick. Fred, a partner at Union Square Ventures, was an early investor in Twitter, while John was an investor in Summize, a search startup acquired by Twitter.

Rather than posting the entire discussion, we’ve selected a few key videos parts of the panel.

Seth Goldstein on how social media gives new brands an opportunity to advertise online…

A role for brands… from Social Media on Vimeo.

Fred Wilson on why Twitter is a success…

The success of Twitter… from Social Media on Vimeo.

Fred Wilson on the power of passed links…

The power of passed links… from Social Media on Vimeo.

Somewhat related to Fred’s early point on Twitter’s platform, John Borthwick on the growth of Bit.ly

The growth of bit.ly… from Social Media on Vimeo.

Fred Wilson on social media as channels…

The next layer on the stack… from Social Media on Vimeo.

Fred Wilson on the greatest media ever created…

The greatest media ever created… from Social Media on Vimeo.

Some photos of the event:

Keynote from Seth Goldstein:

Social Media Principles by Nick Gonzalez:

Macy’s Case Study from Gedioen Aloula:

Joshua Stylman’s Presentation:

Ian Schaffer’s Presentation:

The best practices were announced in New York at the IAB Marketplace on Social Media. SocialMedia.com was privileged to be part of the committee of over two hundred companies who put the document together. The ingredients of a social ad can include profile data, social targeting (by encouraging people to pass ads along to their friends), and social interactions within the ad itself, such as sharing or commenting. I strongly suggest you take a look.

Social Advertising Best Practices

Additional coverage at: TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat.

Today we’ve pushed this vision a step further with the release of our “People Powered” ad suite. People Powered Ads creating meaningful advertising experiences by leveraging a viewers social relationships. With People Powered Ads, brands can inspire their audience to share product endorsements with their friends and communities.

We have People Powered Ad depending on how and where you want to advertise. The formats include Twitter, social networks, and web communities. Here’s a brief summary of our ad formats. Contact us if you are interested in advertising or are a publisher with a sales team looking for a value adding technology.

Twitter

Twitter Pulse

Twitter Pulse ads run within IAB standard units anywhere on the web. The ads show readers the latest Tweets matching the campaign’s filters and prompt them to share tweets of their own. Twitter Pulse can be enhanced with a community micro site called Twitter MegaPulse and targeted advertisements through Twitter Sparq.

Social Networks

Friend to Friend

Friend to Friend ads run within social networks. Users first see an opt-in ad with an option to share their opinion with friends. If the user decides to participate, their response will be shared with friends who visit a SocialMedia.com ad in the future in the form of a light, yet effective, endorsement.

Users can also share their opinions when they interact with a brand’s fan page integrated with SocialMedia.com’s people powered suite.

Web Communities

Community Poll

Community Poll taps into the opinions of a website’s community to deliver compelling feedback about how the audience feels about a subject. Community ads can run on any web content vertical.

Community Stream

Community Stream shares personal endorsements about your product from a web community’s pool of passionate readers.

The study covers the obvious shift in audience we’re all witnessing in front of our eyes. Newspapers are evaporating and social media sites are exploding.

Main conclusions:
Online web usage is getting a longer tail - McCann uncovered more website categories growing in popularity
Video and social media have the steepest growth curves
Long form video is growing
Mobile internet usage is exploding

Nielsen Online Global Lanscape

]]> http://blog.socialmedia.com/social-media-boot-camp-new-york/feed/ http://blog.socialmedia.com/social-media-boot-camp-new-york/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/socialmedianetworks/~3/xEKJ8v9TYpg/ http://blog.socialmedia.com/social-media-myths-that-irk-me/#comments Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:58:00 +0000 Nick Gonzalez http://blog.socialmedia.com/?p=719 Maybe it’s the recession, or maybe it’s because we ran out of coffee cups this morning, but I feel like it’s the right time to talk about the misconceptions about social media that really bug me. I hear it from agencies and I hear it from experts. Frankly I think we’re all just making this too hard on ourselves.

Social media is media that is created, modified, or distributed by its audience. The media can vary by how deeply it is social, but at the core, that’s what all of these social networks, photo sites, and blogs are doing. We don’t need a hundred different analogies about how “social media is like” this or that.

1 Social media isn’t media.

- This is the most common one and tied to myth 4 below. The idea is that “social media” shouldn’t be viewed as media because it’s can’t be bought and sold. Social media fits the definition of media by being a communication medium.

Although quibbling over the definition is a tab bit pedantic, it’s important that agencies understand you can buy meaningful advertising within social media as you can within other forms of media. It’s a evolution in FORMAT, not a revolution in advertising.

2 Social media is one product.

Too often I hear about agencies needing to “buy social media” and that consultants are “selling social media”. The fact is that there is often too much diversity how people use social media to talk about it as one entity.

First of all, a lot of the social media consultation going on is aimed at individual brand building and small businesses. These groups are turning to social media to give them greater voice for less money that they’d otherwise achieve.

Brands and agencies have very different needs that aren’t served by top ten tips for blogging. They need products that deliver reproducible and scalable results.

3 Social media buys need to be done apart from traditional digital buys.

This is a common belief debunked by some of the best campaigns out there. Traditional and social media buys can work together. Pepsi’s “Refresh Everything” campaign consisted of traditional display and video spots, but leveraged social media through their “Dear Mr. President” campaign to increase the depth and emotive impact of the campaign.

4 Social media is an uncontrolled conversation.

This is perhaps the biggest one. Brands worry that launching a campaign using social media tools will let the conversation out of their hands. Brands can control conversations simply by controlling the “gestures” participants can make. A more tightly controlled campaign would include only a few positive or neutral gestures users could make with a brand. Looser campaigns would solicit feedback, but filter the content they decide to promote.

5 Social media doesn’t have an ROI.

The ROI question comes up again and again. The difficulty is that the return varies so much across client needs. Comcast can measure their return by measuring customer satisfaction. Pepsi can measure it by looking at purchase intent.

At the end of the day it all just boils down to price. Does a social media campaign deliver the result at a lower price then comparable methods. Often times it does because you simply can’t accomplish what you want by any other means. Social media allowed Frank Eliason to engage with a large consumer audience in pro-active customer support impossible through other customer contact methods. Socialized ads allow brands to persuade consumers though endorsements from friends and communities. You can’t do this through standard broadcast media advertising.