Facebook Timeline: 9 Best Practices for Brands The Modern Media Agency Series is presented by IDG. IDC Infographic: Big Data Market to Grow 40% Per Year. Technology vendors of all sizes across hardware, software, and services stand to gain in the explosion of big data spending over the next three years. IDC predicts Big Data will become a $17 billion market. See what’s hot… Facebook Timeline officially rolled out to Brand Pages on March 30, but we're guessing that many marketers still don't know how to milk the new design for all that it's worth. Some best practices apply to all social media platforms — be human, be genuine, reply to fans, foster conversation, don't be gimmicky, and don't syndicate the same content to every social channel, etc. If yours is a small business with little budget for social media or marketing, you need not worry — you can get a lot out of Facebook for free merely by doing it well. 1. Timeline is much more image-focused than earlier iterations of Brand Pages, so start snapping. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
The Human Side of Brand Storytelling In his last three columns, Gunther Sonnenfeld explored how brands are “co-creating” meaningful experiences with people. This time he explains the connection between branded experiences and brand advocacy. Up until very recently, brands drove the business of media by buying ads, which were packaged with content created by media outlets. This has resulted in the creation of useful quality content, which has resulted in more empowered customers, leading to better, more relevant products. Two recent examples of this come from Whole Foods Market and Procter & Gamble. Branded lifestyles Whole Foods recently launched several new branded content initiatives through its highly successful YouTube channel called Thrive. The utility in these content experiences is clear: what you see inspires you to do things that can better your life, empowered by people you can relate to – Whole Foods shoppers and the food growers themselves. This isn’t just a means for Whole Foods to get its brand name out there.
4 Tools to Enhance Brand Engagement on Facebook Over the past few years, Facebook marketing has moved from the domain of early adopters to a mainstream focus for nearly all businesses. During that time, a large number of social media marketing tools have emerged to help companies reach and engage with fans, run promotions and contests, and even integrate Facebook Ad programs with the rest of their social marketing. But while most marketers are currently using the myriad applications that allow them to run their ongoing programs, they may not be as familiar with tools they can use to enhance their day-to-day activities and make their programs more effective. Here are four services that offer specific functionality to boost the impact of your Facebook marketing every day. 1. EdgeRank Checker Several billion pieces of content and “Stories” are shared on Facebook every day, so it would be completely overwhelming if the news feed showed all of the possible stories from your friends and the brands you like. 2. 3. 4.
FILMMAKING Famous logo designs and how much did they cost? Pepsi logo price tag: $1,000,000 The new Pepsi logo was designed by the Arnell Group in 2008. The listed prices include a complete branding package unless otherwise noted. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group logo price tag: $15,000,000 New Zealand Banking Group logo was redesigned in 2009. Accenture logo price tag: $100,000,000 The new Accenture logo was designed by Landor Associates in 2000. BBC logo price tag: $1,800,000 The BBC logo was redesigned in 1997. British Petrol (BP) logo price tag: $211,000,000 The BP logo was redesigned in 2008. Enron logo price tag: $33,000 The Enron logo was designed by the famous Paul Rand in the 1990s. Glasgow 2014 Games logo price tag: $95,000 The Glasgow 2014 Games logo was designed by Marque Agency and this price only includes the logo design. Google logo price tag: $0 The original Google logo was designed in 1998 by Sergey Brin, one of Google's founders in Gimp. Nike logo price tag: $35 The Nike logo was designed by Carolyn Davidson in 1975.
Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling « Aerogramme Writers' Studio These rules were originally tweeted by Emma Coats, Pixar’s Story Artist. Number 9 on the list – When you’re stuck, make a list of what wouldn’t happen next – is a great one and can apply to writers in all genres. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.Once upon a time there was ___.
10 Ways to Humanize Your Brand on Social Media Joe Chernov is the VP of Content Marketing for Eloqua. He is responsible for creating, distributing and measuring content that increases awareness and drives demand. Marketers are suckers for a catch phrase, from “join the conversation” to “think like a publisher.” Humanizing a brand simply means trying to interact with each customer on a personal level. 1. I recently asked Alfredo Tan, Senior Director of Facebook Canada, if the company distinguishes between business and consumer brand pages. 2. In Smart Business, Social Business, author Michael Brito writes, "while many organizations are trying desperately to humanize their brand, they are failing to understand that they need to humanize their business first." Take Maya Grinberg, a social media manager with social commerce platform Wildfire Interactive. 3. Not in all cases, but certainly in many, it's a good idea to keep executives off of company social media accounts. 4. 5. 6. 7. Want to prove your brand is human? 8. 9. 10.
PRESENTATIONS Startup Spotlight: ReadyPulse turns Twitter, Facebook followers into ‘brand advocates’ Srinivas Penumaka There’s no shortage of folks developing tools to help companies make sense out of social networking chatter. Last year, Salesforce.com gobbled up Radian6 for up to $326 million, while other Seattle upstarts such as Prosodic, Simply Measured and Visible Technologies also are attacking the opportunity. Nonetheless, despite the competition, ReadyPulse — founded by former Microsoft employees Srinivas Penumaka, T Vinod Gupta and Mihir Vaidya — believes it can make inroads. We chatted with co-founder and president Penumaka for the latest installent of Startup Spotlight. Explain what you do so our parents can understand it: “ReadyPulse helps marketers convert passive audience to brand advocates with audience, content scoring, segmentation, leaderboard and analytics.” Inspiration hit us when: “We realized that social marketers are spending a lot of effort in figuring things out and everything was being done in an experimental basis. VC, Angel or Bootstrap: “Seed round.”
10 Storytelling Elements That Works There’s a reason for why certain storytelling elements just keeps coming back, again and again. Well, it’s because they work. I’ve done some research and collected the different storytelling elements in one place. It would be quite fun and interesting to do a content marketing-series which followed these steps as an experiment, right? Click the image to enlarge and to share. The storytelling elements: 1. In the very beginning, you have to make a promise. 2. Keep it light in the beginning. 3. This is the event that sets everything in motion. 4. Just before the Point Of No Return, the main character learns what the story is really about. 5. The forces of good are faced with an impossible decision that concerns fear, safety, love, hate, revenge or despair. 6. Sorry, but you must allow the the forces of evil to have an epic win. 7. The moment where all is lost. 8. This is the possibility for one of the side characters to shine. 9. 10. Public displays of relief and happiness, love and forgiveness.
Visual Marketing Is Here – 5 Ways You Can Use It To Sell Your Ideas Editor’s note: Iris Shoor is co-founder and VP Product Marketing at Takipi, a service for managing software downtime in the cloud. Before that, Iris was co-founder and VP Product at VisualTao, a B2B web and mobile service acquired by Autodesk. For a long while I thought about marketing as wordsmithing – putting an abstract idea into a sentence, picking just the right words. But then things started to change – less text please, more graphics – we’d rather see it than read it. This year more than ever, visual content is going mainstream. I have to admit that I started using visual marketing not because I identified a trend but because as an architect by trade that’s the way I think – visually. “Say Cheese” – How A Team Picture Helped Us Get Better Reviews On The App Store After every update to the App Store/Google Play we used to send a newsletter to our user base, highlighting the newest features and asking to review the version. Want People To Remember Your Product?
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