That was one of the real gems from the Brand New conference in SFO last week, a thought from Bruce Mau’s studio shared by Paddy Harrington. I love their thinking, their philosophy, their design and their modesty.
An insightful film comparing social media and internet activity around the world. Social media activity has proliferated with 126 million blogs on the web. Facebook has 350 million users and logs in at 260 billion page views per month. Plus, there are 84% more women than men on social networks. The best part (at 2:51) shows the Launch Dates of Social Media Networks, showing an evolution of what we’ve adopted (and abandoned) from 1995 to 2010.
With the recent news that Facebook has overtaken Google as the entry point to the web, there is no doubt that Facebook is a valuable platform to reach billions of people and future customers. Product searches are great, but often leads to Google generated web ads.
Today people experience brands in multiple ways, including built networks that allow for a closer interaction with the brand. It’s how users are trusting peer to peer recommendations or an active brand profile as opposed to a one-click search that is important. The marketing needs to be brand led, and have the capacity to take on different forms in order for the brand to be best brought to life.
(Janice Chow)
Facebook is stepping up its integration of social media and retail partners with its invention of “Facebook Storefronts”. Soon 20 stores can have more than just fans of their brand, but give their customers the ability to actually purchase items directly through Facebook.
“While retailers like “Sears, the department store, and Threadless, the T-shirt seller, both let users add items to their shopping cart on Facebook;” never before have users been able to purchase goods without ever leaving Facebook’s site as they will be able to soon. 1-800-Flowers is the first retailer to have constructed a free-standing virtual shop on Facebook, with more to follow in the coming weeks. Facebook, however, “has no current plans to organise the storefronts into an online mall, or to make money from them by either taxing the transactions that take place on its site, or by offering its own virtual currency.” [FT]
Definitely something to think about with any new project.
via Racked + Financial Times
(Melissa Scott)