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Social Media

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Facebook Auto-Play – Game Changer in Content Delivery for Video???

Facebook just released the newest app in both iOS and Android which bows allow you to see video content in auto-play mode. What does this mean?

As you scroll down your news feed (via your iPhone, iPad, iPod, Android, and other mobile devices), video that was uploaded directly to Facebook will now auto play in the news feed. This means, when you scroll down the news feed to check out all the stories…you will notice a video might start playing. But, you will notice it does this in silently.

Many people have voiced both positive and negative reviews surrounding videos auto-playing when clicking onto a website. Lots of the feedback, mainly negative, specifically addressing the sound during the auto-play.

Other groups are experimenting with auto-play of video like Vimeo with their mobile apps. The Vimeo app on the iPad would auto-play your feed videos when scrolling, catching your attention with the motion of the video. This is the idea I think Facebook is trying to capture.

The Benefit:
Here is what makes this awesome…allowing people to explore rich media that they normally would not if the video was paused. By auto-playing the video, consumers see the motion as they scroll through the feed…potentially stopping to watch the whole video. This will be huge for communicators/marketers/digital strategist.

Compatibility:
This only works when you upload video directly to Facebook…hence another reason they are trying to encourage individuals to use Facebook as a video distribution channel. This will not work with any video links posted from outlets like YouTube, Vimeo, Vine…etc.

With the competition between Instagram, Vine, and YouTube trying to leverage people with their video distribution capabilities…Facebook recognizes they are the ones how hold the key to the mass audience. So…why not jump into the game.

TechCrunch writes:

“If Facebook can make auto-play video feel like a natural part of the feed, it could unlock a new level of proficiency in consuming the world.

Auto-play could give us quick windows into our friends lives that are almost as easy to skim as photos but much more evocative. News outlets could serve up footage from major events happening around the world or recent sports highlights. Imagine watching an epic interception returned for a touchdown silently filling you feed with a remarkable athletic achievement that you might not have clicked and waited to load, but you’re happy to see. And if you want to hear the hits and announcer’s commentary, one click and it’s like you’re watching television.

And that might be the goal of Facebook video. To combine the vividness of TV with the efficiency of reading.”

The Challenge:
Here is the one area Facebook really needs to get their act together…offering analytics for video inside their branded pages. If you can combine the opportunity for exploration of rich video via auto play along with an analytics package for communicators/marketers/digital strategist, their will be big play with big brands.

The Final Challenge:
As content marketers…are we pushing too much stuff from our branded pages onto Facebook? We are seeing a shift in demographics, shift in privacy, shift in closeness of this community, and a shift in the Facebook algorithms. Are people wanting less or more rich content? Or do they want rich content from people and brands they trust?

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Facebook “Star” Rating System Released –> GHS Life Center

Have you noticed the new five star Facebook rating system? It popped up on one of GHS’s Facebook pages  this week (GHS Life Center’s Page).

It looks like Facebook just released this new system and they are testing it out on certain pages. TechCrunch reported this new deal on November 7, 2013:

“Using a star system for place and page ratings isn’t entirely new; Facebook has been collecting star ratings from users on the desktop and via local search for quite a while now, and also seeking star ratings on content and apps via Timeline. What is new is making this information explicitly displayed on the social network itself, in a prominent place on a business or place Page.

This shift, if it moves from the testing phase to general adoption, has a couple major implications for Facebook users. First, for general members, it provides an increased degree of sentiment information surrounding places and content that goes well beyond the simple off/on attribute of the Like. “

For businesses, it’s not clear yet whether displaying this rating will be optional or mandatory, but if Facebook is making a play to compete with the Yelps, Foursquares and Angie’s Lists of the world when it comes to local discovery and service recommendations, it would make sense that they are required by default. That could mean a considerable shift in how businesses use FB, with more emphasis placed on customer service versus just maintaining a presence on the network. Likes are easy, after all, but getting users to fill up that star bar will require a lot more effort and interaction.”

Here is the comment from Facebook:
“We’re extending star ratings on Facebook from mobile to desktop – to make it easier for people to discover great businesses around them. This is beneficial for both businesses and consumers. Star ratings encourage more people to rate a business, making it eligible to appear in News Feed and help others discover a business they didn’t know about previously. For businesses themselves, this also leads to greater brand awareness.

As you may recall, star ratings launched in early 2012 with the introduction of Nearby on mobile. Now we’re bringing the visibility of star ratings to a more prominent spot at the top of Pages’ timeline on desktop and to the preview in News Feed.”

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Are people remembering then searching for your story?


Image credit: DailyGalaxy.com

I was looking around for the perfect billboard image and I thought this fit so well. I just read and article from SearchEngineLand.com surrounding the idea of attribution in the world of marketing.

What is attribution?
Attribution is the process of identifying a set of user actions (“events”) that contribute in some manner to a desired outcome, and then assigning a value to each of these events.Marketing attribution provides a level of understanding of what combination of events influence individuals to engage in a desired behavior, typically referred to as a conversion. (from wikipedia.com)

As I was thinking through this article, I began pondering some of my larger clients. I was thinking about how they spread their marketing mix (spend) across the spectrum and how it relates to the related online search.

One of the take aways: “The biggest conversion rate (90%) is the person that uses a single click or with the same keyword typed.”

So, how do I apply this to a large organization’s marketing/pr efforts…especially as it involves our social/digital efforts. Heck, let’s narrow the field to a large hospital system.

First…it is all about the search! On all media mixes, it is more important to make our searchable keywords (that drive traffic to our conversion rates) extremely apparent. From billboards, television, to digital ads; we have to consider visually displaying the keywords we want people to use to search Google/Yahoo/etc.

Basically, this is a typography/visual design exercise. When designing any media, the words that we want people to use to search for our final digital destinations must be most visible, most readable, and most apparent.

So this is a shift in thinking a bit, especially for me.

What is our digital keyword brand?
Think about a billboard on the interstate. As we drive by, which keywords do we remember from that billboard. Which keywords catch our attention? Are the keywords people remember the ones that match our branded message? Does our audience type those branded keywords correctly into the search engine to find our services.

Think about that television ad. Which keywords are used in the ad? Are the displayed words in the ad the same keywords we want people to use to search for that service? What will they remember?

Social Media/digital ads are different…we should be already giving links with updates as we point people to final destinations.

I would love to hear your thoughts as you read through this article. Maybe you are implementing this strategy, and I am wasting your time. But, I found this research interesting as it relates to large organizations (especially hospitals) that use a multi-channel media mix.

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Facebook is loosing steam with the Millennials and Generation Z


Image Credit: Mashable.com

I just read an OPED on Mashable.com today, it’s title: “I’m 13 and None of My Friends Use Facebook”. Yep…things are changing. Let’s look at a few statements in the article that peaked my interest. This article is from the viewpoint of a 13 year old. Her name is Ruby Karp.

“Facebook is losing teens lately, and I think I know why.

Part of the reason Facebook is losing my generation’s attention is the fact that there are other networks now. When I was 10, I wasn’t old enough to have a Facebook. But a magical thing called Instagram had just come out … and our parents had no idea there was an age limit. Rapidly, all my friends got Instagrams.

Now, when we are old enough to get Facebook, we don’t want it. By the time we could have Facebooks, we were already obsessed with Instagram.”

Yes…and there are so many other reasons why teenagers are migrating away. None of their friends are using Facebook. Why? There is no community for this generation.

Ruby continues:  “This leads me into my next point: Although I do have a Facebook, none of my other friends do. My friends just thought it was a waste of time. I decided to get a Facebook just to see what it was all about. I soon discovered that Facebook is useless without friends. My only friend is, like, my grandma.”

Her next point peaks my interest. She beings to examine the idea of  surveillance. She explains parents spend so much time on Facebook, some of which to monitor what their children are doing. As a communication consultant, I remember having a Facebook training session for a group of hospital marketing/pr staff members. The main reason they attended, to figure out how to watch what their children were doing, with who, and where.

“Let’s say I get invited to a party, and there’s underage drinking. I’m not drinking, but someone pulls out a camera. Even if I’m not carrying a red Solo cup, I could be photographed behind a girl doing shots. Later that week, the dumb-dumb decides to post photos from that “amazing” party. If my mom saw I was at a party with drinking, even if I wasn’t participating, I’d be dead. This isn’t Facebook’s fault, but it happens there.”

So who is the average user on Facebook? Buffer’s blog shares some demographics. “According to the research, it’s a young, 25 year-old woman, living in a big city, with a college degree and a household income of more than $75k a year.”

Above are some interesting statistics from Pew Research Center surrounding the Landscape of Social Media Users. Once again, look at the breakdown of social users and their choice of social media outlets.

With all this said, I think there is a unique separation between the Generation Z (born after 2000) and the Millennials (Generation Y). The Millennials look like they might be last generation of Facebook diehards. But…these diehards, the supporters of this social network that brought them together are slowly departing. They are tired of the “drama” and being overly exposed to the world.

Here is an interesting commentary on YouTube between a group of young professionals. They fall into the Millennial generation.

At :37 seconds into the video, the young man says, “There is always going to be something new.” And this is point of this blog post. We as communicators have to understand that Facebook taught us to adapt from our “traditional” mode of marketing/pr communication. And once again, it is going to teach us that we have to continue to evolve and stay true our goals as practitioners. We are communication practitioners and not technicians.

The moment we put all our eggs into one communication basket, we will be taught once again that this communication paradigm is going to shift once again.

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Sustainability of the #Hashtag – Who Is Making Fun Now?

It is here…it works…and it is not going anywhere. I just received my latest edition of Fast Company magazine and I was reminded why this community technology is continually transforming the way we converse.

Even this article #UNPLUG surrounds the conversation of turning off electronics so we can “power back up.” An oxymoron that is using the hashtag technology to connect people and conversations meant to fuel the need to disconnect digitally. The irony…using hashtags to fuel conversations about disconnecting from the mere technology fuels connectivity.

That is my point…the hashtag platform is beyond flexible…it is now integrated across multiple social technologies.

It was Spring 2011 and I was meeting with one of my clients as we were planning a series community events. A part of the strategy to aggregate and engage conversation, I recommended using a branded hashtag to engage regular Twitter chats.

I remember sitting across the room from another vendor who was coordinating this event. Their statement…no one uses hashtags and it will not work. They actually made small chat with comments under there breathe making fun of the idea. Then…they looked at me and asked about my contract with the client. I guess they had not been watching all the #TEDxGVL events. This Greenville community was engaging in conversations during these TEDx events…chatting from the event on Twitter along with those watching from the live stream.

That same year…that same month in 2011…regular chats from health care to blogging were powered by Hashtags connecting millions of people. From #BlogChat, #HealthCareChat, and even Major League Baseball’s #postseason chat…people were connecting, engaging, and sharing conversations.

Now...Google Plus is using Hashtags as a way to connect and engage conversations. Have you used Google Plus lately…well, I have and it is amazing the difference a few years has allowed this community platform to grow and innovate powerful conversations.

Take a look at Facebook’s announcement integrating hashtags into status updates, creating conversation portals.

Hashtracking.com has now moved out of beta and provides a powerful tool for monitoring and measuring the conversations during and after hashtag chats and conversations. They are placing metrics on the number of tweets, engagement, reach, most influential, and more.

I look at the hashtag as another technology connection people and providing a platform to record the documentary of the community conversation. We can now watch conversations evolve; see videos, pictures, and links shared based on a time stamp.

I wish I was back in that meeting from 2011…I would love to give the group of naysayers a simple lesson: don’t make fun of what you don’t understand.

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Amazon Kindle Paperwhite & Melissa Mayer in Socially Responsible Messaging

So when I first watched this commercial…I was first taken in by the little chit chat conversation between a guy and girl. Here the girl has the new Kindle Paperwhite and the guy right beside her had an iPad trying to read in the sun. Any of you iPad owners know…that is nearly impossible with the glare. I have one and I know. But…I am not going to take a device to the beach.

But as the commercial moves along, the little surprise in this commercial is the fact that a new Kindle was just released. The commercial claims the Kindle Paperwhite is smaller and easier to use outside than the iPad, especially in the sun. Yep…we have seen many of these Amazon commercials comparing the Kindle to the iPad, so nothing real new.

But underneath it all, we thought there might be some little conversation that might spark where a guy was using technology to “hit on the girl” beside him. But, our conscience would not allow us to consider the reality of that thought… especially since Amazon is about pushing products.

Guess again. They not only addressed the issue of this seemingly weird conversation where a guy hits on a girl…it turns to an acceptance of the other’s relationship getting them a drink. Both with husbands.

I think this is the first time I have seen a large company like Amazon address an openly controversial topic with such ease and matter of fact. This ad leaves us knowing that both gay and straight individuals are the center point of this new product launch.

From the Inquisitr.com:
“It’s no secret that Jeff Bezos and his wife are strong allies in the fight for marriage equality. Last year, according to Reuters, they donated $2.5 million to the campaign to legalize same-sex marriage in Washington state. Referendum 74 was approved by voters in Washington last November.”

“It’s a bold move for Amazon to take such a big risk when pitching its Kindle PaperWhite to potential buyers, but clearly Amazon thinks the cause of Marriage Equality is worthy of that risk.”

This ad is about business and the commitment to their social responsibility. Amazon is a worldwide brand that serves numerous different communities including those who are gay and support marriage equality. This ad just makes sense especially given the fact that companies like Amazon have an opportunity to become leaders in this multilayered conversation.

From Amazon to Yahoo…these brands are tackling issues right in front of us everyday. From marriage equality to gender equity in the workplace…the conversation is in the forefront and it is time get with the program.

From Harvard Business Review Blog:
“Marissa Mayer is no fool. She didn’t take over as Yahoo’s CEO because the company was doing well; she came on board because the stumbling Internet enterprise was an underperforming underachiever that had lost its way.

“So when Mayer decrees seven months into the job that she wants people to, you know, physically show up at work instead of telecommuting — or else — I’m pretty confident this reflects a data-driven decision more than a cavalier command. In all likelihood, Mayer has taken good, hard looks at Yahoo’s top 250 performers and top 20 projects and come to her own conclusions about who’s creating real value — and how — in her company. She knows who her best people are.”

Whether you agree or disagree with Amazon and Yahoo…the fact of the matter  is they are making a statement. And they are leveraging the digital times….because now people are not only talking about these decisions over coffee, they are sharing their thoughts online, in social outlets, and blogs like this.

By the way, the Kindle Paperwhite video was published on YouTube on February 20, 2013 and on March 4, 2012 (12 days later) the video has over 583,000 views. They are not only making a product statement, they are making a social statement and people are consuming.

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Social Media Is Getting Boring…Yawning Again

Yep…I said it. It is getting so boring and overused. How is it overused…well, let me put it this way…it is overused as a marketing/pr strategy that we have forgotten the social core.

Social Media is all around us and has become such a common place that the innovation that pushed us to today’s technology is no longer pushing for something more. Yes, there are new technology spin offs from the current platforms emerging each day…but it is the same stuff on a different day.

I walk into more and more meetings and the idea of social has been lost in the social media. We are using Facebook as a pure marketing outlet, sometimes the only social media solution in the bag of tricks. We are designing cover photos like billboards with branded messages…no social messages.

What is social about a logo and a tagline on a cover photo, nothing. It is just the same ole thing moved from our interstate highways to our information highways and is probably just as equally effective, maybe…yawn. Time for some coffee.

We are putting together spiffier quarterly and annual reports, including metrics from our corporate social outlets. We include engagement numbers, clicks, traffic increase percentages, etc…and why…because we can and it makes us feel good. We have successfully transferred our marketing accountability efforts to tracking social outlets like websites. This is the same thing as trying to take the broadcast news industry and transfer it into a website, just the same thing in a different delivery method.

What is so fun about that? We have bought into the routine, the routine we had before these social technologies began to emerge and excite us. We were excited because it was a new way to engage in new conversations. Now it is just routine because we are trying to track, react, and code engagement so we can justify our resources.

Why can we not just look at the social of the media and just accept it for what it is…it is a place have online conversations. Why can we not just find new ways to have richer conversations whether public or private and not worry so much about accountability? Oh yeah…the bean counters again. Yeah…traditional bean counters. Yawn again.

Where is the new innovative, executive leadership?

We are stagnant…we have become boring…and we are not giving our communities any other reason to engage in conversations other than getting our updates based on a daily metric.

Even the communities, the people truly using these outlets are getting used to the proliferation of marketing messages on these social outlets. We do not fuss as much anymore when we see sponsored messages come across our timelines. We just scroll by them like they did not exist. Why…because we are tired of fussing about it. Maybe we do not see them anymore. Or maybe they are working and we are actually clicking on them.

The social media innovators are stagnant as well…they now have to make money and focus less on the innovation that drove the social adoption. I meet more and more people either dropping their social outlets *or* they accepting the fact that this where they get their news and information. Is that social? Is it social just because it provides news updates that we now depend on?

It is time to take off our marketing hats, our pr hats, our community manager hats, and remind ourselves why we used social outlets in the first place. Because we wanted to connect with new people, find new ideas, engage in new conversations…not just market our widget or share our latest news item.

Time to break away from our new reality. Time to be social again and not marketers and pr professionals.

*Image from ADW.org’s blog: http://bbr.tw/13J20Mb