Social media revolution updated

You'll all be familiar with this, but figure it had to be shared as it's been updated. This is the social media revolution v4. Usual gig, Moby soundtrack and lots of stats about social media and the changing world. Enjoy.

Nic

Fantastic response to Facebook 'rant'

This 'rant' was placed on Bodyform's Facebook wall, last week.

This was Bodyform's response.

Watch the video response here:

What a great example of a brand truly interacting with it's Facebook audience.

Thanks to Mikey for pointing this one out

Em

Social Media Predicting Stock Prices? Say What!

No one can dispute that social media is big, but is it big enough to predict stock market prices? Many traders are saying yes and the rise of start-ups offering financial sentiment analysis services based on social media platforms like Twitter are more than confident that it can.

Companies like SNTMNT,  HedgeChatter, DCM Capital and CrowdIndex (still in BETA mode) claim to be able to classify investor sentiment but how accurately can one classify emotions like fear and greed using algorithms? Pretty accurately actually as Johan Bollen, a computer scientist at Indiana University Bloomington, discovered. In a study published in 2010 Johan investigated whether measurements of specific moods derived from large-scale Twitter feeds correlated to the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) over time. The algorithms he devised actually predicted the direction of the Dow Jones closing price within 87.6% accuracy. His sentiment analysis measured mood in six dimensions (calm, alert, sure, vital, kind and happy). He discovered that the index rose over a few days of "calm" tweets and dipped after a few days of more "anxious" feeling tweets.

Pretty neat huh? The question is how long will it take for social media platforms to not only predict stock prices but actually begin to influence them? 

Parental Persuasion Program

NewEgg.com, an electronic website have come up with a 'Parental Persuasion Program'. It's designed to give students the tools to convince their parents to buy them new electronic goods for their education.

It's a clever use of personalisation, re-targetting and good-old fashioned pester power. 

After students have created a wishlist, a custom URL link is sent to their parents in a personalised email. Once the parents click on the link they are 'cookied' which enables the site to retarget them with online banners, with different messaging based on the profile their child has picked out for them (like penny pincher or helicopter parent).

Take a look here: http://www.newegg.com/back-to-school-shopping/

A Quick Snapshot of How it Works

They start by creating a wishlist of the goods they want.

Next they select which type of parents they have (penny pincher, helicopter parent, workaholic, BBF or geek..) This information is used to customise messaging in emails, banner ads and videos.

Then they give their parents names and email and their own name and email and approve email, banner ads and posters to be sent to their parents. 

Email example:

 Banner ad example:

thanks, em

An Augmented future...

A fascinating and fun short film looking at an augmented future. The fruit ninja chopping particularly good, as is the start of dating scene. You know this all could happen.

Enjoy, be frightened, scoff. Etc

Cheers

Nic

iPad Inspiration

Today we are straying away from a marketing related post and looking at a good dose of thought-provoking inspiration.

Like TED? Then take a look at their new venture - TED books for the iPad and kindle.

For those who don't know of TED its worth checking out. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. They bring together unique perspectives on the world around us through entertaining speakers and capture it all on video. Most talks are are between 7 and 45 minutes.

TED books is a series of ebooks which build on some of the most popular speakers at TED. The books are long enough to explain a powerful idea, but short enough to be read in a single sitting, available on the Kindle and iPad. They are currently offering a 'founding member' subscription price on the iPad where you can download all the ebooks for 3 months for $14.99. Bargain.

Enjoy.

em

Many lightweight interactions over time

Here is a great talk on building relationships in Facebook. 

As you know, when you meet someone new it usually takes many small interactions to develop a relationship. Same thing goes for brands. So it makes sense that Facebook is most effective when brands make many lightweight interactions over time.

‘Heavyweight’, immersive interactive apps play an important role but because we are asking people to spend a lot more time with us it’s far more effective once you’ve built a relationship from many small interactions over time.Many brands launch with heavyweight apps, when they would get a lot more traction if they spent the time to develop relationships first. It’s like throwing a big party. It’s going to be a much bigger event if you invite people you’ve built relationships with, rather than strangers. 

Just one app does not make an effective social media strategy. We need to think about building relationships through many small interactions, over time, as well as the big hitters.

View the video: http://www.thinkoutsidein.com/blog/2012/07/newcreativecanvas

Em