This week, in his WSJ column, Ralph Gardner reckons with himself about why it’s taken him so long to get on Twitter and what motivates some of his younger reporter colleagues to tweet in earnest. “I appreciate there’s an ulterior motive here, though I can’t say I fully subscribe. It’s about growing the brand.”
Gardner admits slowly and begrudgingly that Twitter is useful. No doubt, the people and organizations who are active on social media truly do add viewers, readers, followers, etc. by extending their reach on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The point he seems to miss is that today’s media environment is a two-way street, where we’re all the source of each other’s truth. As everyone from brands and celebrities to consumers and Occupy protesters broadcast their opinions on Twitter, they are also taking in a gigantic stream of inputs from the people and groups they follow.
These new vehicles of communication and collaboration have created a host of new uses and users for brands to think about when they consider their offer and outreach. We can think of the traditional “UX” as a metaphor for brand interactions today, with “users” describing anyone who interacts with a company or personality through digital media or technology. In a journalist like Gardener’s case, you could use social media to source topics for future columns, learn about your audience’s interests, and end the week with a chat about the column you’ve produced.
In his book Users, Not Consumers: Who Really Determines The Success of Your Business, Aaron Shapiro, CEO of HUGE Inc wrote that users can sometimes be “more intimate with and influential on a company than anyone who has completed a purchase.” It takes Ralph Gardner a little longer to get to a similar conclusion, but he eventually says it: “It’s all about establishing your presence in the ether.”
Indeed, just being there (and being accessible to users of all sorts) is an important half of the battle. And that applies for both people and brands.
Last week at Wolff Olins New York we held an internal workshop to talk to our own strategists, designers and account managers about how they can develop their own personal online brands. Some were worried that they didn’t have much to say—nothing worthwhile that could be eloquently (or forcibly) expressed in 140 characters. While it’s always important to contribute smart things, develop a unique point of view, and create and curate content that communicates what you’re all about, our workshop stressed a more fundamental point: The first important move with social media is to just be there.
Being there lets you hear what people are saying. It makes you discoverable and accessible to a host of different users. And once you’re there, listening to others helps you figure out what you have to add.
Since Splash.FM had its public launch a few weeks ago, co-founder Jason Fiedler has been busy watching the start-up grow and making constant changes.A friend of Wolff Olins, he took a few minutes to chat with strategist Sam Liebeskind about the early-stage site and his plans to engage more listeners and brands.
If you haven’t yet read about Splash.FM in TechCrunch, Rolling Stone, and Gizmodo or stumbled onto it on your own, put it on your radar.This young social startup helps you find new music that you’ll love based on what your friends and go-to sources are loving.It joins a crowded space of sites claiming to do just this (Big hitters like Pandora, Last.fm, iTunes Genius, to name a few), but unlike most others, Splash rejects algorithm-based suggestions in favor of human recommendation, pulling together the best features of sites like Twitter, Klout, and HypeMachine.
SAM: First, the basics. What is Splash and who would use it?
JASON: At its core, it’s a social network— ‘a Twitter for music discovery.’You create an account, you splash (post) music you like, and you follow others whose taste you trust.It’s an easy way to stay on top of the latest music. Most people don’t like the stress of deciding what to listen to, but they want music they like.
At the same time, it’s a place where artists and tastemakers can prove their influence.We recognized that for everyone who has trouble finding music, there’s someone that thinks they have the best music.So each user has a “Splash Score” that’s based on how successful they are as a recommender.It’s really powerful, and really addicting.
I could imagine.So is that why people should use splash instead of Spotify or Rhapsody?
They shouldn’t use Splash instead of those guys.They should use it in addition to them.We’re not really trying to play in mainstream music, to compete with Spotify or Rhapsody.We don’t want to be an all access music provider for people who know exactly what they’re looking for.
Paint me a picture of Splash.FM’s personality?
The company is really just [co-founder Alex Gatof] and me so the brand doesn’t fake anything.It’s just us, so that makes it easy.You want to be fun and social.But you don’t want to make too much of a personality of your site because you don’t want to alienate any type of person.Look at Twitter and Facebook- they’re innocent. You want to be subtle without being sterile.
On the platform, to splash means to share a song (think ‘tweet’).Ripple means to like/re-share a song (think ‘retweet’). I love the name and terminology.How did that come about?
After trying to just come up with a name for the site for like, 3 days, I stopped thinking on that level.I needed to think bigger- more about the concept- and put that into words.I just talked out loud to myself and I was like, ‘Domino effect, one person affecting another…then all of a sudden I got onto waves and thought, its like someone just splashed [into water].’Right when I heard that word, I just knew the whole analogy would work.
Right.And the interface of the site carries the analogy through.Can you talk a little about the site’s design?
We never sacrificed the interface and the look.We invested heavily on that. And spent a lot of time on the logo too.I came up with the idea for it after a lot of research. [Some startups] might want to try to skip it but you have to really put time in there early. I audited the logos of all the other music sites out there before designing the concept of ours.
Tone of voice was also really important for us.I took a course [at Penn] on writing copy…It really is an art.You have to always remember that people are reading all this.So I thought, what would I want to read?
I see Barstool U currently has the highest Splash Score. What opportunities are there for other established ‘non-music’ brands to leverage your platform?
Splash gives lifestyle brands specifically an additional channel to express themselves and cultivate their image. If you go with the notion of brand as a personality, the type of music you listen to and like is pretty core to that. You can imagine Nike splashing a lot of workout music, Lululemon splashing tranquil yoga tunes… The goal is the same as Twitter- to amass and connect with a large userbase, build and maintain a loyal following. With Splash.FM, lifestyle brands can add depth to their brand perception that they previously couldn’t.
BarstoolU specifically has influence in the college demographic, and as a result they’ve resonated really well with our current user base. We’ve featured them, and will continue to feature similar brands that make sense.
You’ve read our Game Changers report.Which of the 5 qualities do you think Splash really nails?
Definitely experimental.To be a good product guy you just have to never be satisfied.Actually, if we didn’t have a hard date that we set, we’d still be in private beta, and probably would be forever.That’s how we still think today.
So what’s the future of Splash?
Eventually, we want it to be about more than just finding music.
One way to potentially expand in the future is this “cannonball” idea that we’ve been playing with.In theory, you’d get a cannonball if a song you uploaded or rippled early really went big.They would accumulate and turn into a virtual currency that you could use to get concert tickets.Or maybe it’s just about having a high Splash Score.This might be used to get you into bars/clubs (we’ve already done a few things with clubs where if you have a splash store above 70, you get to cut the line).Ultimately, your splash store is going to be a big deal.
What does success look like for you guys?
The ultimate success is to have people using our words beyond the site—make “splash” synonymous with liking a song.
If you sign up for Splash, be sure to follow Jason (@Jason) and me(@sam_liebeskind).Give us some ripples!
Three months ago, I quit Facebook (and wrote about it on this blog). I had my sister change my password, so I couldn’t log into my account. It was a social experiment to understand the value that Facebook brings to the way people connect to each other.
After a two-and-a-half month hiatus, I am back on.
What inspired me to log in again was my birthday. Engagements, graduations, and birthdays are the only times when all 500+ of your friends simultaneously will write on your wall or send you a message. You get a highly concentrated level of positive feedback in a short period time.
Birthdays aside, surprisingly, I didn’t crave it or fear I was missing out on anything. There were a few friends abroad whose messages were left unread, but for the most part, my social life continued on as normal. For personal communication, I used email, text and chat; for broad communication, I used Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. For the most part, my online social habits have stayed the same.
Facebook currently serves as a personal directory for my “weak ties.” I seldom post updates, comment or check the newsfeed; I use Facebook to add and accept friend requests, receive messages, and view wall posts. And I only have it on my mobile browser (I still don’t have my password), so I check it about once a day. Even though it does not serve as my primary social channel, Facebook is still a significant utility in my life.
While Facebook has enhanced the way people around the world connect to each other, there are clearly social gaps that it fails to fill. Facebook’s recent acquisition of startup darling Instagram signals its ambition to become a more mobile, photo-sharing space. Social communities, like Instagram, offer a much more intimate, curated look into people’s lives. While people do over-share and promote on Instagram, there is a level of consideration you rarely find on Facebook.
And some would go so far to say that the over promotional nature of Facebook can be detrimental to your mental health. A new study shows that spending too much time on Facebook can lead to depression, while others have suggested it can also lead to loneliness. Because Facebook gives the illusion that people lead perfect, happy lives, people can feel like they are not living up to their peers.
A recent piece on Read Write Web called “Now is the Time to Quit Facebook” discussed people’s growing desire for more meaningful, authentic forms of engagement. I agree with them, but I’m back on The Book for now.
Melissa Andrada is a brand and content strategist at Wolff Olins New York. She’s passionate about the intersection between technology, social good and brand. @themelissard
How successful is social media’s impact on a socially responsible company’s bottom line?
This is the leading question framing a Social Media Week panel I’ll be speaking at this Thursday.
We know that social media has had a tremendous impact on society, but to what extent does it translate into real dollars? There are many metrics we can use to track engagement: number of followers, number of people writing about us, number of visitors, etc. However, it is still difficult to correlate the impact of social media on a company’s bottom line; it’s often an ecosystem of small, unordered interactions that lead to a click, a purchase, a donation.
However, for some organizations, the correlation is much clearer. There are many companies that would not exist without social media: Mashable, Kickstarter, Pinterest, Groupon. These platforms are social media, thus their entire business models are predicated upon it.
While not all companies can exist as social media, what we can learn from these startups is that social media has a greater impact on a company’s bottom line when it is treated as an integrated part of a company’s brand strategy, rather than just a marketing afterthought.
Social media should be less about platforms, more about people and purpose.
Being “social” means creating a brand of listening. It means creating a brand that engages in in dialogues rather than monologues, a brand that empowers people to do more. It means creating a brand that is driven by purpose rather than just the latest trends.
Your brand purpose, based upon the intersection between what people need and what’s special about you, should shape how and where you engage with your audience. Your purpose should be a unifying force that drives your entire business – from social media to business model to operations.
When social media is contextualized within the big picture, your brand presence on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms seems more authentic, human and individualized. When it is viewed as another tool for driving impact and profit, the correlation between a tweet and a new business prospect is much clearer. When social media becomes an embedded part of your company’s DNA, it becomes an even more powerful – and sustainable – force for good.
Here are a few guiding questions we ask our clients to ask themselves:
Given our brand purpose, what are the most appropriate channels for engaging with our audience?
How can we empower our customers to do more?
If we are trying to translate social media into real dollars, how can we connect the dots between action and impact?
As part of Social Media Week, on February 16, WONY strategist Melissa Andrada (@themelissard) will join a panel on “Doing Well by Doing Good,” hosted by SCENEPR in association with Design for Social Innovation (DSI) at SVA. With Brian Reich, SVP/Global Editor at Edelman, and others from Purpose, Roadmonkey Adventure Philanthropy, and Mark & Phil, the panel will explore how purposeful businesses can use social media for both impact and profit. Sign up to attend here: http://dogoodsmw.eventbrite.com/
Social media is a powerful booster for brand authenticity and personality, but how successful is it in converting a good cause to sustainable dollars? In an atmosphere where customers’ trust and loyalty is increasingly earned through transparency and engagement there are new paths to the bottom line.
As part of Social Media Week, on February 16, WONY strategist Melissa Andrada (@themelissard) will join a panel on “Doing Well by Doing Good,” hosted by SCENEPR in association with Design for Social Innovation (DSI) at SVA. With Brian Reich, SVP/Global Editor at Edelman, and others from Purpose, Roadmonkey Adventure Philanthropy, and Mark & Phil, the panel will explore how purposeful businesses can use social media for both impact and profit.
Last weekend, I did the unthinkable: I got off the world’s largest social network.
My sister changed my Facebook password, so for at least 30 days, I’ll be off the grid. This means no status updates, no news feeds or even Instagram integration.
It’s a social experiment I’m conducting to understand the value that Facebook brings to the way people connect with each other.
As Facebook gets ready to go public, Mark Zuckberg wrote a letter to prospective shareholders, sharing his mission and ambitions for the company. One of his goals is “to strengthen how people relate to each other.” To what extent can Facebook actually do that?
Malcolm Gladwell argues that “the platforms of social media are built around weak ties.” While I disagree with Gladwell’s critique of social media’s ability to create social impact, there’s some truth to what he says. The people I really consider my friends communicate with me through email, IM, text message, or in person. Of course, if you’ve lived in many places, Facebook is an effective way to keep in touch with friends who live in other parts of the world. Or, if you are seeking to promote your personal brand, it’s useful for staying on top of mind for your former bosses, clients, coworkers and employees. If you’re not on Twitter or Tumblr, it’s also useful for keeping track of news and inspiration through the pages you like.
But the user value tapers off there. If we are really honest with ourselves, we spend a lot of time on Facebook seeing people on our feed we really don’t care about: the middle school classmate we haven’t talked to in 10 years, ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, your old boss you never got around to de-friending. Even by curating your friends’ list, it’s impossible to game the Facebook newsfeed to see the friends you really want to see.
I thought getting off Facebook would be the equivalent of quitting smoking, but surprisingly, I don’t yet feel like I’m suffering from FOMO (“fear of missing out”).
My questioning of Facebook’s social value is actually part of a larger trend in the world. What I’ve observed is that the backlash against the “weak ties” we maintain on Facebook and other social media platforms has led to a demand for channels that create more meaningful, personal connections. We’ve recently seen this manifest itself through online communities like Path, a more personal network that limits your friends to 150, and Stamped, a sort of “stranger-less Yelp” that lets you keep track of the restaurants, books, movies, and other things your close friends have stamped with approval.
As people increasingly turn to other online networks and activities to keep “close ties” with the people they really care about, I know I’m not alone in questioning where Facebook currently belongs in my life. I’m not suggesting that people will soon stop using Facebook—last year Americans spent more time on the social network than any other website out there. But with its purpose and role in people’s lives always changing, it’s important that Facebook now focus on growing with its users and not against them. If it doesn’t, it could lose them, potentially for more than 30 days.
I’ll write a follow-up post once I’m back on Facebook, so stay tuned for post-fast thoughts.
Melissa Andrada is a brand and content strategist at Wolff Olins New York. She’s passionate about the intersection between technology, social good and brand. @themelissard
Spanning all age ranges, economic sectors, and walks of life, social media has easily been one the most talked about subjects of 2010. And few people really get it. How does one measure the “social-ness” of a brand when a new social network arises everyday? Is there even a measurable ROI? We know that social media drives sales growth; sales increase by 18% at companies with the highest levels of social media activity and decrease by 6% at companies with the least social media activity (Source: Erik Qualman, Social Media ROI Socialnomics). But we wanted to see if there was a direct correlation between social media and brand value. We conducted some research using Interbrand’s list of Best Global Brands of 2010. We originally hypothesized that in order to make the top of this annual list, the companies must have a solid grasp on how to best utilize/popularize their social media platforms.
We were so wrong. We ran a regression analysis and it turns out that brand valuation and social media activity are not directly related. For example, the number 1 best global brand of 2010, Coca Cola, is worth $70,452 million this year and has over 12 million Facebook fans, over 122,000 Twitter followers and over 13,000 YouTube channel subscribers. These numbers are strongly correlated, however the number 2 brand, IBM, looks completely disproportionate. Worth $64,727 million, one would expect a more active social media presence than 13,000 Facebook fans, 11,500 Twitter followers and 1,000 YouTube subscribers.
Since there is no evident correlation between the level of activity of social media on a brand and the overall success on the brand, is it even worth it? Through our research, we have come to three conclusions.
Social media may not be appropriate for all brands. For example, the impact of social media on a B2C company (like Coca Cola) will be vastly different from the impact that it has on a B2B company (like IBM).
Social media is not everything and brand need to take a holistic approach to this phenomenon by focusing as well on advertising and communications.
Social media is not a push strategy. Brands need to engage in a relevant conversation with their customers because they are the influencers. Ultimately, these will be the people shaping the brand presence.
(Jean-Yves Minet) @acebrandage Photo courtesy of LA Hall
Gone are the days of avoiding the Internet. The prevalence of digital and social media has made it imperative for luxury fashion brands to have an active online presence. Facebook pages, livestreaming fashion shows and e-stores have made brands, like Gucci and Prada, more accessible to everyday shoppers.
The Internet has enabled high-end fashion brands to expand their reach, create a more direct relationship with their consumers and receive instant online orders. However, the problem with making luxury brands more accessible is it puts the risk of making the brand seem ordinary.
To quote Jean-Noel Kaperer, a luxury marketing consultant, “If too many people can buy it, the brand loses its exclusivity.” This is an important concern, but the services and merchandise that are available to the wealthiest and most loyal customers may not be accessible online. As Cori Galpern, worldwide marketing and advertising director for Tom Ford International, said on a panel at the Wharton Marketing Conference, “The core for a luxury brand is a customer with considerable wealth.” This means that luxury brands have to pamper and create vastly personalized experiences for their core customers.
Despite the ubiquity of digital and social media, the in-store experience is still integral to producing individualized experiences for high-wealth customers. “Even though the products are available to view online, it is not the same as the experience of seeing them in person,” said a business analyst at a high-end fashion brand in a recent interview. Viewing the product in a store enables you to touch it, learn more about the story about the collections and build a face-to-face relationship with dedicated sales associates. Digital and social media can amplify in-store experience for high-wealth customers, but shouldn’t necessarily be seen as a substitute.
Catering to the wealthiest consumers has always been a constant in the luxury industry, but fashion houses have to keep innovating on their customer experiences to stay ahead of their competitors – both on and off-line. When looking at ways to innovate, fashion houses should think about ways for not only core customers to keep coming back, but to inspire potential customers to become engaged with the dream of their brand.
The challenge for luxury brands is in evoking an aura of desirability across broad audiences, while curating individualized experiences for their core customer base. Luxury brands have to develop strategies that promote both accessibility and exclusivity. Digital and social media can help increase awareness of and perpetuate the myth surrounding the brand, but they must be carefully curated in order to maintain an impression of exclusivity. Furthermore, these channels should be viewed in the context of the store experience.
What do you think are the most innovative examples of fashion in digital and social media? Which luxury brands are creating the most accessible, yet also exclusive experiences?
Brand Value + Social Media + Corporate Responsibility
CSR reports have become the vehicle by which organizations put a moral and ethical face on their existence. At its core, it is a reporting exercise. It is usually reflective and without standards — but is that about to change? In autumn of this year, ISO (International Organization for Standardization) will release ISO 10668 – Monetary Brand Valuation. What does brand valuation have to do with CSR? Well, the back of this ISO offer has an interesting hook, SAM Group – the guys who produce the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) – intend to upweight businesses in the DJSI if they adopt ISO 10668. Suddenly, the criteria for exacting value on brands is directly linked to their sustainability ranking.
The upweighting is based on three key factors: Legal, behavioral, and financial analyses. Taking a look at behavior analysis, the brand must understand the size of the market and trends. What are the stakeholder attitudes? What are the economic benefits bestowed on the business by the brand? In many cases media is still used as a platform to talk at instead of enabling conversation with constituents and customers.
Here’s the reason why social media, brand strategy and CSR folks should start meeting by the water cooler more often. If we’re entering a new paradigm of evaluating brand behavior as well as CSR reporting methodologies representing the practice toward improved corporate citizenship, and if we agree that social media is the most relevant way to start and maintain conversations with people to share a brands values, how might we use this brain trust to help shape business strategy?
The following are 5 key challenges that, if addressed correctly, will differentiate leading brands and lead to greater customer loyalty.
1. Create value with Values- gain trust through responsible and transparent actions.
2. Visualize brand value (and risks) across the complete brand eco-system: the offer, culture, business model, and communications.
3. Stop approving obvious solutions; overcome incrementalism as the hallmark of efficiency engineering, and make change that people want and need.
4. Bring back experimentation and invention as business values, and open them up to collaborators.
5. Constantly challenge, inform and refresh people’s exposure with the brand over their entire experience- not as market segments with prescribed preferences.
Zappos’ innovative approach to customer service, Target’s social giving platform, Patagonia’s footprint chronicles, Proctor & Gamble’s the brandery, Interface Carpet, and Seventh Generation are just a few of the increasingly inspiring examples where brands have embraced the system of social communication, and embracing some or all of these challenges in a way that builds brand loyalty and value, while mitigating risk, reducing costs, and positioning the business for a new era of growth.
Is your brand fit for the future?
(Eric Wilmot)
photo courtesy of Victoria Garcia, Creative Commons
