Microsoft unveiled mobile phones about two weeks ago on Facebook. The handsets, the Kin One and the Kin Two, aim at a younger crowd who live in social networks. Rather than wait for the product launch, Microsoft reversed the order and unveiled the campaign first. Verizon Wireless holds the exclusive deal in the United States for the phones made by Sharp. Both become available mid-May. And although they have yet to launch, the Facebook page supports more than 100,000 Fans. All that love prompted Microsoft briefly to put the brakes on the campaign. Facebook Fans are important -- but Mich Mathews, chief marketing officer at Microsoft, told attendees at the exclusive 40-exec invitation-only PTTOW event in Dana Point, Calif. that when brands play in social, it's just as important to follow the writing on the wall, whether it's positive or negative. Marketing experts who gathered for the two-day event agree that it has become a continual learning process to integrate social media into campaigns. And it's even tougher when the audience becomes consumers ranging in age between 14 and 34. This age group tends to discuss likes and dislikes online more freely. They talk about brands whether or not those brands have official sites and pages on Facebook or YouTube. For brands, the real question becomes how to participate and become more social with consumers. But some have begun to wonder whether the name reflects the real essence of the campaign. Mike Murphy, Facebook's vice president of global sales, prefers that folks do not call Facebook "a pure social media site," but agrees that's the name that will stick until the industry can collectively create a better definition for the success it has seen. "We have a long way to go to figure out the best model," he says. Brands are slowly figuring it out. Facebook Fan pages have become "a sustainable asset even after the campaign ends." And while it gives brands a "social" platform to continue the conversation, it also means that marketers must tend to the upkeep and keep consumers engaged. Carol Kruse, vice president of global interactive marketing at Coca-Cola Co., likens social media campaigns to puppies. Everyone wants a puppy. The problem is that puppies grow into dogs that need walking, feeding and lots of love and care. "Social media is like a puppy -- everyone wants to start a community," she says. "What they forget is the 24/7 365 reality TV show. You have to provide the content, engage the community and focus on what's important rather than just let it fall." Brands that start a community must keep it alive. Coca-Cola has millions of members -- about the most of any company on Facebook, and those members run the community. It keeps the Fan authentic and the community members brand advocates. Fans tend to educate those who comment on negative stuff. "We have a well-fed, well-walked dog," Kruse says. "It's a couple of years old and thriving." Whether or not brands have an official presence, they are being discussed online. Allowing the community to talk among themselves becomes one way to keep costs in check and content fresh, says Hunter Walk, who heads product development at YouTube. "We get 24 hours of new content uploaded every minute," Walk says. "It's the best thing about my project, but also one of the most challenging, because we need to help the user find what they're looking for without a struggle." Aside from social media, the brands on the panel have begun to dabble in mobile campaigns. Kruse says in South Korea and Japan about 70% of the digital views for Coca-Cola come from mobile phones. Everything leads with digital in Africa. Creating an iPhone application continues as the biggest disservice that ad agencies can do to clients when introducing a mobile strategy. And it happens more often in the United States. Kruse wants to see more text-based campaigns reach all the people who text. Not only does Coca-Cola add mobile, but three different kinds. More of the marketer budget has moved over to not only target teens and young adults, but everyone. Microsoft has begun to experiment with location and mobile. The company has been working on a platform that allows the handset owner to view a street in Bing Maps as the merchant serves up a coupon for the store, Mathews says.
Amid a flurry of interest in social buying startups, LivingSocial on Thursday announced the completion of a Series C financing round worth $14 million. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, along with participation from U.S. Venture Partners, Grotech Ventures, and Steve Case's Revolution, LLC. Engaged in an industry-wide land-grab, LivingSocial plans to use the capital to expand into additional markets, bringing its LivingSocial Deals platform to more domestic cities this year. "We're constantly receiving requests from our users to expand and launch in their markets, and this recent funding round will allow us to do just that," said Tim O'Shaughnessy, co-founder and CEO of LivingSocial. As such, LivingSocial on Thursday announced the launch of its Deals program in four new markets -- Portland, Orange County, Charlotte and Philadelphia -- bringing the total to 18 cities. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the startup raised $25 million in a Series B round just last month. Since then, social buying leader GroupOn secured $135 million from Russia's Digital Sky Technologies, along with Battery Ventures. (Rumor has it that the round valued GroupOn at about $1.3 billion.) Like GroupOn and its many copycats, LivingSocial offers deep discounts on local deals on everything from spas and sky diving lessons to hotels and restaurants. Discounts range from 50% to 70% of the normal prices. If enough people buy into the offers, everyone gets the deal. LivingSocial collects payment and passes it on, minus its fee, to the business. Like GroupOn, what makes the service so compelling is that people have an incentive to get their friends involved to make sure the minimum is hit. The company is launching "hyperlocal" deals for the Seattle area, which will be designed to provide merchants with ever greater reach. Founded in 2007, LivingSocial now claims an online community of 85 million people.
A recent joint study from Nielsen and Facebook, titled "Advertising Effectiveness: Understanding the Value of a Social Media Impression," analyzed survey data from more than 800,000 Facebook users with regard to more than 125 Facebook ad campaigns from 70 brand advertisers. The report provides quantifiable data that can be mapped to trusted advertising benchmarks: Ad Recall, Brand Awareness, and Purchase Intent. Studies have shown that consumers trust their friends and peers more than anyone else in making a purchase decision. The authors acknowledge that it's critical to understand advertising not just in terms of "paid" media, but also in terms of how "earned" media (passed along or shared among friends) and social advocacy contribute to campaigns. Percent of Respondents Trusting "Completely or Somewhat" in Selected Forms of InformationForm of Information% of Respondents Recommendations from people known 90% Consumer opinions posted online 70 Brand websites 70 Editorial content 69 Brand sponsorship 64 TV 62 Newspaper 61 Magazines 59 Billboards/outdoor advertising 55 Radio 55 Opted-in Emails 54 Ads before movies 52 Ads fromSearch engine results 41 Online video ads 37 Online banner ads 33 Text ads on mobile phones 24 Source: The Nielsen Company, April 2009 The study took a close look at 14 Facebook ad campaigns that incorporated the "Become A Fan" engagement unit and sliced the effectiveness results three different ways, by each of the types of ads available on Facebook:
This piece was updated 4/29 -- see addendum below:One piece of advice for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg whenever he meets with New York senator Chuck Schumer over the social network's privacy: bring a translator, who can explain technology in layman's terms. Because most of the world -- including some very influential organizations, and millions of Facebook members -- have no idea what the Open Graph does, or doesn't do. In case you hadn't heard, Zuckerberg is meeting Schumer, a senator who has rarely found a consumer protection bandwagon he couldn't jump on, over the new Open Graph social plugins that Facebook announced to great fanfare last week, including from the Social Media Insider. News of the meeting comes one day after Schumer and three other senators wrote Zuckerberg expressing concern over "instant personalization," which is at the heart of the Open Graph initiative, since it lets users see how their Facebook friends have reacted to content on other sites, while they are on those sites. Of particular concern to the senators, according to The New York Times, is "that this feature will now allow certain third party partners to have access not only to a user's publicly available profile information, but also to the user's friend list and the publicly available information about those friends." Meanwhile, MoveOn.org has started a "Respect My Privacy" group on Facebook, currently at about 21,000 members, which says: "[Facebook has] launched a new program that shares info about you and your friends with external websites-whether you want them to or not. "They're calling it 'instant personalization.' We're calling it a major violation of your privacy. Again. "Facebook is testing this new scheme with a small group of partners, but they're hoping to expand to more sites. We need to make it clear now that using our personal information without our permission is not acceptable." Scary, huh? Except it doesn't look like either the senators', or MoveOn's, interpretation of instant personalization is true. According to my understanding of Facebook's announcement last week, and the Facebook blog, this isn't happening. The blog, in answering the question about what information Facebook is sharing, said: "None [emphasis theirs] of your information-your name or profile information, what you like, who your friends are, what they have liked, what they recommend-is shared with the sites you visit with a plugin. Because they have given Facebook this 'real estate' on their sites, they do not receive or interact with the information that is contained or transmitted there. Similarly, no personal information about your actions is provided to advertisers on Facebook.com or on the other site." This gap in understanding (and I'm going to leave open the possibility that even my own research is leaving something out) is why Facebook is now facing its "death panel." Like the misinformation in the healthcare debate that turned end-of-life consultations with doctors into a belief that the government would decide when to off Grandma, the belief that Facebook just opened its databank to third-parties is taking on a life of its own. And, unless Zuckerberg & Co. hire a translator, this belief is going to persist. In fact, it's even possible that "Facebook privacy" has become an oxymoron to so many people by now that hiring all the translators won't make a difference. The problem, in addition to Facebook's customary naiveté about how people will perceive its actions, is that technology has become so complex that it's hard for many people who use it to understand how it works. That can be viewed as mildly disturbing when a consumer is cookied and the sharing of data is anonymous, but it's at a whole new level when a new technology -- such as Facebook's social plugins -- makes it appear as though you and your best Facebook friends have shared your digital fingerprints with the staff of Yelp or Pandora. If you were a layperson, and you were just going on appearances -- as in what a site that has enabled social plugins looks like when you log on - of course you would assume that, in order for a Facebook frame to reside on a third-party site, that site must also have access to your information. After all, you're seeing your information on their Web page. It's very simple to understand, even if it isn't true. But Facebook still hasn't learned to think like a person who doesn't know html from Hotmail, which, since it's now at almost 500 million users, probably represents the vast majority of its customer base. The entry on the Facebook blog I referenced above didn't show up until Monday, five days after Facebook announced the program. Meanwhile, it has largely let external sources, such as GigaOm, walk people through how to turn off instant personalization. It should have taken the lead on both counts, even if helping consumers opt out hurts its business plan. The social Web is all about transparency ... isn't it? I've taken a considerably darker tone in this week's column about the Open Graph as compared with last week's, written only minutes after the announcement. I'm still enthusiastic about the technology and what it can do, but, if Facebook doesn't get better at explaining what it's doing, even the best engineer in the world won't be able to code its way out of the killer virus it's dealing with right now -- which is misperception. Addendum: OK, there is a loophole that makes what Schumer and MoveOn are concerned about real. The 11th (!) question on the Facebook blog post, asks "Why does a blue bar appear on some sites telling me it's being personalized by Facebook?" The answer: "Separate from our social plugins, we have established a small pilot program with an exclusive set of partners-Microsoft Docs.com, Pandora and Yelp-to offer personalized experiences as soon as you visit those services. These partners have been given access to public information on Facebook-such as names, friend lists and interests and likes-to personalize your experience when you're logged into Facebook and visit their sites." (You can read more of it here.) On the one hand, obviously, I regret the error. On the other, I'm not at all surprised -- and I don't regret it the way I normally would. Why? Because, the whole time I was writing this week's column -- even after studying what Facebook was doing, watching last week's F8 keynote several times, and reading more about it over the last week -- I realized its complexity meant there was a much higher possibility than normal that I would make an error, for just the reasons I stated in the column. I also knew there was the possibility that even if there was a loophole concerning whether Facebook is sharing data, that most users wouldn't make the distinction between those sites and ones running a plain vanilla social plugin, so whether I was right or wrong, the "death panel" analogy would still make sense. In fact, though MoveOn uses the term "instant personalization" to describe what Facebook is doing with Docs.com, Pandora and Yelp, that's not the way Facebook director of products Bret Taylor used the phrase during the keynote. He described "instant personalization" in reference to social plugins. Further, though Zuckerberg mentions this pilot project 35 minutes into the keynote, he's not particularly forthright about how it works. He speculates about what it might be like if a few "trusted" sites "already knew the public information about all of their users" before launching into a demo of Docs.com. Maybe Zuckerberg's use of the word "public" is different than mine. If you look at the answer to the question above, you see that what he really meant was "public within Facebook." Most of us would think he was referring to data that was already in the public domain. Unfortunately, since none of us can get the terminology right, or what it relates to, this only proves my point. Thanks to my MediaPost colleague, Wendy Davis, for pointing out the loophole. (Editor's Note: OMMA Social NYC, scheduled for June 17, is shaping up. Take a look.)
Microsoft unveiled mobile phones about two weeks ago on Facebook. The handsets, the Kin One and the Kin Two, aim at a younger crowd who live in social networks. Rather than wait for the product launch, Microsoft reversed the order and unveiled the campaign first. Verizon Wireless holds the exclusive deal in the United States for the phones made by Sharp. Both become available mid-May. And although they have yet to launch, the Facebook page supports more than 100,000 Fans. All that love prompted Microsoft briefly to put the brakes on the campaign. Facebook Fans are important -- but Mich Mathews, chief marketing officer at Microsoft, told attendees at the exclusive 40-exec invitation-only PTTOW event in Dana Point, Calif. that when brands play in social, it's just as important to follow the writing on the wall, whether it's positive or negative. Marketing experts who gathered for the two-day event agree that it has become a continual learning process to integrate social media into campaigns. And it's even tougher when the audience becomes consumers ranging in age between 14 and 34. This age group tends to discuss likes and dislikes online more freely. They talk about brands whether or not those brands have official sites and pages on Facebook or YouTube. For brands, the real question becomes how to participate and become more social with consumers. But some have begun to wonder whether the name reflects the real essence of the campaign. Mike Murphy, Facebook's vice president of global sales, prefers that folks do not call Facebook "a pure social media site," but agrees that's the name that will stick until the industry can collectively create a better definition for the success it has seen. "We have a long way to go to figure out the best model," he says. Brands are slowly figuring it out. Facebook Fan pages have become "a sustainable asset even after the campaign ends." And while it gives brands a "social" platform to continue the conversation, it also means that marketers must tend to the upkeep and keep consumers engaged. Carol Kruse, vice president of global interactive marketing at Coca-Cola Co., likens social media campaigns to puppies. Everyone wants a puppy. The problem is that puppies grow into dogs that need walking, feeding and lots of love and care. "Social media is like a puppy -- everyone wants to start a community," she says. "What they forget is the 24/7 365 reality TV show. You have to provide the content, engage the community and focus on what's important rather than just let it fall." Brands that start a community must keep it alive. Coca-Cola has millions of members -- about the most of any company on Facebook, and those members run the community. It keeps the Fan authentic and the community members brand advocates. Fans tend to educate those who comment on negative stuff. "We have a well-fed, well-walked dog," Kruse says. "It's a couple of years old and thriving." Whether or not brands have an official presence, they are being discussed online. Allowing the community to talk among themselves becomes one way to keep costs in check and content fresh, says Hunter Walk, who heads product development at YouTube. "We get 24 hours of new content uploaded every minute," Walk says. "It's the best thing about my project, but also one of the most challenging, because we need to help the user find what they're looking for without a struggle." Aside from social media, the brands on the panel have begun to dabble in mobile campaigns. Kruse says in South Korea and Japan about 70% of the digital views for Coca-Cola come from mobile phones. Everything leads with digital in Africa. Creating an iPhone application continues as the biggest disservice that ad agencies can do to clients when introducing a mobile strategy. And it happens more often in the United States. Kruse wants to see more text-based campaigns reach all the people who text. Not only does Coca-Cola add mobile, but three different kinds. More of the marketer budget has moved over to not only target teens and young adults, but everyone. Microsoft has begun to experiment with location and mobile. The company has been working on a platform that allows the handset owner to view a street in Bing Maps as the merchant serves up a coupon for the store, Mathews says.
Amid a flurry of interest in social buying startups, LivingSocial on Thursday announced the completion of a Series C financing round worth $14 million. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, along with participation from U.S. Venture Partners, Grotech Ventures, and Steve Case's Revolution, LLC. Engaged in an industry-wide land-grab, LivingSocial plans to use the capital to expand into additional markets, bringing its LivingSocial Deals platform to more domestic cities this year. "We're constantly receiving requests from our users to expand and launch in their markets, and this recent funding round will allow us to do just that," said Tim O'Shaughnessy, co-founder and CEO of LivingSocial. As such, LivingSocial on Thursday announced the launch of its Deals program in four new markets -- Portland, Orange County, Charlotte and Philadelphia -- bringing the total to 18 cities. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the startup raised $25 million in a Series B round just last month. Since then, social buying leader GroupOn secured $135 million from Russia's Digital Sky Technologies, along with Battery Ventures. (Rumor has it that the round valued GroupOn at about $1.3 billion.) Like GroupOn and its many copycats, LivingSocial offers deep discounts on local deals on everything from spas and sky diving lessons to hotels and restaurants. Discounts range from 50% to 70% of the normal prices. If enough people buy into the offers, everyone gets the deal. LivingSocial collects payment and passes it on, minus its fee, to the business. Like GroupOn, what makes the service so compelling is that people have an incentive to get their friends involved to make sure the minimum is hit. The company is launching "hyperlocal" deals for the Seattle area, which will be designed to provide merchants with ever greater reach. Founded in 2007, LivingSocial now claims an online community of 85 million people.