Facebook recently launched a new ad unit called Sponsored Stories. It turns peoples likes or checking in at a place into a branded ad. The ad will only appear on the right column of that persons facebook friends pages.
The controversial aspect of this new ad is that people can’t opt out. So, if a customer has liked a brand and this brand have bought Sponsored Stories they have no say whether this gets made into an ad to show their friends.
However, when people ‘like’ or check-in somewhere they are, in effect, advertising to their friends aren’t they? What do you think?
Australians are getting mobile in more ways than one. This year we’ll see an even bigger increase in smart phones and a wider choice of tablet devices at lower price points. With an increasing number of customers getting mobile they will be expecting location based information and deals and richer experiences.
Location Based Deals
Foursquare and it’s check-ins were certainly one of the digital darlings last year. With 9 million Australians on Facebook,Facebook Places and recently launched Facebook Deals are set to be the most widely used location based service this year. What’s likely to engage customers in 2011 are deals or rewards in exchange for checking in. Brands can layer location based rewards with existing loyalty programs and consider how to reward customers for checking in with time/location based deals.
Tactile and rich in media
If you own or have played with an iPhone, iPad or Kindle you’ll agree it’s a tactile experience. You navigate through content by stroking, pinching and tapping. Customers expect brands to design tactile tablet experiences. Brands need to design tablet experiences with the tactile experience in mind.
Customers want to play with ads on their iPads. Last year Neilson reported 39% of iPad owners consider ads on their devices as “new and interesting” and 35% saying they actually enjoyed viewing ads (especially multimedia ads). After viewing an ad they are also more likely to make a purchase. Brands should experiment with targetted iPad ads using multi-media and the tactile functionality.
There's a couple of areas we want to cover when looking at 2011, that of being social, and going mobile. I've split them in to two posts to keep these nice and short. Firstly, we take a look at the changes in social media we see in 2011.
Thanks
Emily
BE SOCIAL (don’t just do it)
Customers want brands to display social etiquette - listen, value opinions and remember information about your acquaintances and friends.
Show you are listening
This year customers will continue to share their frustrations and good experiences with their social networks. They’ll be asking questions in forums and the likes of Quora. They want brands to recognise and respond to their rants, raves and questions. Brands can set up social media monitoring and response guidelines to show they are listening.
Peer opinion rules
Before customers make a purchase decision they want to know what other people say about brands through peer reviews, forums, videos, photos, Facebook ‘likes’ and location based reviews through the likes of Foursquare, Facebook Places and Urbanspoon. To demonstrate how they value customer opinion brands can include social functionality in their websites, feature customer reviews and opinions alongside product information on their website and in-store
Get more personal as you get to know them - Social CRM
This year the brands who are jumping into social media monitoring will have access to a whole new world of ‘social data’. They will learn what their customers are saying, key themes of conversation, the kind of language being used and where conversations are happening. Customers are essentially telling brands what’s important to them. The brands who can translate this into their customer relationship management to tailor and improve the customer experience will have a real advantage.
If you don't know Contagious, you should as it's an excellent resource for all things Creative across the world. Their end of year wrap is excellent, and covers some of the best creative campaigns of the year, from social, viral, PR and brand experience, it also takes a look at technology and the brands themselves.
This shows what an incredibly creative year 2010 has been.
Facebook love to tinker with their pages on a reasonably regular basis, and they've done so again - announcing a new look, and new features last night. The video below gives you an outline of what they've done, as ever - designed to make us even more social than we are.
As expected, they've made Facebook Places more visible, showing your check in's, in their attempt to steal the location world of Foursquare and Gowalla. You'll see your recently tagged snaps at the top of the profile (don't worry you can change them...), a better navigation and the ability to group your friends in to 'best', 'work' etc which is to depict the depth of relationships, and give people the opportunity to filter out what they hear from whom.
