IBM, Apple and Google brands worth $400 BILLION – what’s yours worth?
Posted by pjsweeney007 in Uncategorized on May 23, 2013
In a Dr. Evil-like post last week Venture Beat reported that IBM, Apple and Google have the worlds most valuable brands – worth an estimated $400 billion dollars.
That’s good news for me since I own both Apple and google stock – but is it good news for you and your brand? Yes, if you take just a minute to see how they built those brands up. IBM has been around for ever so let’s take them out of the equation. Apple and Google can sum up their brand value in a single word: Focus
If you want your brand to be valuable and increase the success of your overall company stay focused. This is even more true on social media than it is in the real world. Apple focused on one thing user-friendly innovation. Google focused on one thing: accurate search. Those single, well defined attributes catapulted the respective companies to the top of the list.
The other thing they both did was brand individual products separately. Gmail, Glass, Analytics and iPhone, iPod, iPad are all differnet than company names. Look at a company that is not in the top three but should be (HP). One of the reasons their brand is discounted compared to the company value is the lack of clarification and tightly messaged purpose. They also have terrible product names that muddy the branding water.
Build value in your brand – find your one well-defined message and speak that in all your communication via social media. If you enable great user generated content make sure you add your messaging there as well, and make it easy (frictionless) so that you have a bran
d champion speaking your one brand message.
Integrated Print Forum – where digital and physical meet in the ‘burgh
Posted by pjsweeney007 in Uncategorized on May 15, 2013
I’m key noting at the integrated print forum #IPF13 in Pittsburgh. Stop by this morning and see how conneting the real world and online world is a key piece in any marketing puzzle.
Facebook’s 20% rule – a little help from your friend
Posted by pjsweeney007 in Uncategorized on April 15, 2013
Many of you may know that Facebook relaxed it’s 20% rule for text on cover photos and posted photos. You can read the new Facebook 20% guidelines and see how they apply to you.
I came across a nifty tool to help you stay within those guidelines and wanted to share it with folks who are designing Facebook marketing programs to make your life a little easier. So follow this link to the Facebook 20% test tool. And enjoy.
Remember the most effective Facebook advertising has three attributes:
1. In the newsfeed
2. Subtle (think product placement)
3. Coming from user’s themselves (user generated content UGC)
Social media marketing is all about giving (or taking) a shit
Posted by pjsweeney007 in Uncategorized on April 14, 2013
What is the ROI of building up fans? I spent a while with two big brands recently – one is in the top three of cruise ship industry, and the other a global exercise clothing brand. The cruise ship company had a $10 million Facebook budget last year to reach a goal of one million Likes (for those of you who failed math that’s $10 a Like!). The sports brand has a huge budget that they have used to expand into Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and micro sites. Yet they had a rate of engagement on their Facebook page of less than 1%. So what is their ROI?
Back of the envelop numbers for the cruise ship brand suggest that they would have to sell $120,000,000 of cruises to break even on that investment. At an average cost of $4,000 a cruise – (which is probably way too high) they need to sell 30,000 customers. Did their million Facebook fans convert to 30,000 purchases? You’ll have to look in their annual report.
Both are building a fan base, and the athletic brand is building every flavor of the day it can find – with no regard for engaging in the right conversation for them. The conversation that is going to build brand and sell product. That’s the key – what is your brands right conversation platform and why?
My award for using social media optimally goes to Charmin – yes the toilet paper company.
They picked the right conversation to be having which is going to build brand and sell toilet paper. They built a social app called sit or squat that shows you any where you are the closest toilet and it’s cleanliness. Then after you use that nearby outhouse you can rate it for cleanliness. That’s a brand that knows how to have a conversation and get an ROI from social media, no buts about it!
Sit or Squat – Charmin’s Social App Wants to Know
What is your strategy to have th wright conversation which drives sales and builds brand?
How much spend is in Facebook Mobile Marketing?
Posted by pjsweeney007 in Uncategorized on April 11, 2013
Yesterday, dwinQ’s Mike Kelley reviewed Facebook’s new Home solution for Android. I don’t have Home but you may and the first question most people ask is “What’s is it?” In a word it is the News Feed always-on. It makes your lock screen and start screens all about your Facebook News Feed. It also makes it easier to connect and communicate with friends on your device without leaving Facebook. Let’s ee if this aligns with how people are using Facebook today:
Facebook usage on mobile devices
commScore estimates that Facebook consumes 22% of all mobile minutes. App analytics firm Flurry estimates that 18% of all mobile time is spent on Facebook. SO it’s easy to say that 20% of your time on your smart phone is used by Facebook. That volume aslo has a lot of frequency – an IDC report indicates that smartphone users check Facebook 13.8 times per day. Not surprisingly, IDC also estimates that Facebook has pulled within 4% of Google for mobile display advertising revenue. (Does this make FB a good stock to buy? I think so I owns a lot of shares.). We know directly from Facebook that News Feed placement is eight times more effective in user conversion than its other ad products.
Now we have the “rest of the story.” Users spend their time in the News Feed. The News Feed is becoming a valuable advertising channel. Facebook is changing the News Feed and making it persistent on mobile in order to drive more ad revenue.
Are People Persuaded by Facebook Ad Impressions
“Sponsored messages in your feed are changing your behavior—they’re getting you and your friends to buy certain products instead of others, and that’s happening despite the fact that you’re not clicking, and even if you think you’re ignoring the ads. This isn’t conjecture. It’s science. It’s based on a remarkable set of in-depth studies that Facebook has conducted to show whether and how its users respond to ads on the site… the findings show that people react to ads on Facebook in the same way they respond to ads on television.”
Facebook marketing effect on mobile devices
Image Courtesy of Action-Reaction Blog
I quoted this segment of a recent Slate article at length because it tells the story. When radio and television first emerged, it wasn’t clear how the new media of their day would make money. We now have decades of data that confirms how these passive advertising media influence audiences to take action. A similar data set is now emerging for Facebook. A recent study by Datalogix confirmed that 70 percent of 60 Facebook ad campaigns tracked had a 3x or better ROI and 50% rang up 5x.
Getting into the News Feed
The data shows that Facebook News Feed impressions drive consumer shopping behavior. The obvious question is: how can you get into the News Feed? Through Facebook you can now sponsor posts to your fans, sponsor posts to custom audiences and drive News Feed impressions. Beware that a recent Nielsen study showed that 33% of viewers held negative views of ads on Facebook so they have to be subtle. You must use this strategy judiciously and learn fro other industries like movies and TV where product placement has been uber-successful for companies like Apple.
Advertising in the newsfeed
Another approach is more natural and leverages friend-to-friend marketing. At sponsored events you can facilitate consumers creating story posts of their onsite experiences that carry a brand message with the photo, check-in, game score or other interaction. These posts go to their timeline and show up (with your brand embedded) in their friends’ News Feeds. This is an entirely new way to drive greater ROI on your event investment to influence consumer behavior beyond the attendees. How are you leveraging Facebook’s emerging ad model?
The Top 5 Lessons from Social Media World London 2013
Posted by pjsweeney007 in Uncategorized on April 1, 2013
See the top speakers in social media marketing and strategy talking about their Facebook strategy, how they use Twitter for marketing and if there is a place for Pinterest and Google+. This 15 minute video condenses two great days of learnign down to the readers digest for anyone in social media marketing.
Patrick Sweeney
Patrick Sweeney
Social Media Marketing CEO and badass adventurer
Patrick is CEO of dwinQ the real-world social media company. For event and sponsorship marketers, dwinQ is the social media engagement platform that deepens and extends event participation by turning every attendee into a brand champion
The dwinQ app creates fun social memories at events and venues by automatically capturing photos and activities and posting them in real time with no friction. More than 500,000 people use the dwinQ platform sponsored by brands like Facebook, Nintendo, Cadbury, Vail Resorts, Lexus and more.
Patrick is a technology visionary and serial entrepreneur. He started dwinQ to fill the void between social sharing and being fully engaged in a real world activity. He has started four successful technology companies and understands the future of technology and how it will impact business and life in a way that creates value and is truly 'making a dent in the universe." His vision has translated not only into successful start-ups but also more than half a dozen technology patents. He is a frequent contirbutor to CNBC on Social Media Social Media for Forbes and Socal Media Today. When he's not buildig companies he's looking for crazy challenges and trying to learn from them - like this three day moutnain bike race across Costa Rica he blogged about for CNBC.
