Women's media network SheKnows is expected to debut a new social media platform Monday dubbed SheKnows Connect. With the new platform, SheKnows hopes to better integrate its content and community, allowing conversations to begin around news stories, columns and other various features. "The SheKnows audience connects around passion points," said Kyle Cox, vice president/GM of SheKnows. "With SheKnows Connect, we are better engaging users on site around content." In addition, strengthening community relationships has been shown to benefit ad partners. A recent study conducted by BlogHer found that blogs are more than two times more likely -- 63% -- than magazines -- 26% -- to have inspired a beauty product purchase over the last six months. Another component of the relaunch is the SheKnows Dares initiative, which will encourage users to "dare" themselves to be better. By incorporating SheKnows Connect with Facebook Connect, users can accept and complete all manner of dares. They can also challenge their friends via Facebook to do the same. "With SheKnows Dares, we are encouraging the community to get involved to create an experience -- not only on SheKnows but within their social networks on and offline," Cox added. Later this year, the company also plans to launch a product centered around the SheKnows CityGuide, as well as a pregnancy and parenting product allowing women to share the different stages of motherhood. Along with larger players like NBCU's iVillage, the Meredith Women's Network, and Glam Media, SheKnows competes against a long list of smaller players, including, BlogHer, Total Beauty, and Sugar Inc. Owned by Evolve Media Corp., SheKnows claims to reach over 50 million unique visitors, citing Google Analytics data.
Sports teams and leagues such as the NBA and the Miami Dolphins have invested time and resources in building their social media presence, and most now have hundreds of thousands or even millions of online fans and followers. Many are now creating innovative opportunities for marketers to reach their huge, engaged (and often local) social audience ... at a scale that can eclipse TV, local newspaper ads or any other advertising vehicle. While in the past, sports sponsorships might have been limited to TV ads, in-stadium signage or web site banners, brands can now work with their sports partners to achieve an unprecedented level of reach through social media. For example, to reach the LA Lakers ' fans, advertisers historically would only be able to market to them via a broadcast, on their web site or with in-stadium signage. For example, brands could buy a TV ad during the game (reaching 500,000), buy advertising in the arena (reaching 20,000 attendees), or try advertising on the Lakers web site. Compare that to running a campaign with the Lakers on Facebook, whose fan base numbers are over 7 million: a single campaign could potentially achieve the equivalent reach of an entire season's worth of advertising through other channels ... plus, it has the potential to be way more engaging, targeted and measurable. Now, consider the Miami Dolphins' presence on Facebook. The team currently has more than 600,000 fans on Facebook and 44,000 followers on Twitter -- the equivalent of an entire sold out season of football, every day. What makes this audience so special is that the Dolphins are incredibly active with their social media presence. On Facebook, they consistently add polls, Top 5s and other content that keeps the fan conversation rolling along. By keeping this social media conversation up, every day is "game day" for Dolphins fans ... and for potential sponsors. Think about all the possibilities for South Florida businesses to reach the Dolphins' huge base of local fans on Facebook. A local restaurant chain might sponsor a post in the Dolphins' news feed, in which the Dolphins suggest that their fans visit the restaurant before or after the game. A Miami car dealer could partner with the Dolphins on a location-based marketing program, in which fans who check in at the car dealer via Facebook Places get 50% off a companion ticket to a Dolphins game. This not only drives fans into the dealership, but also drives them to the stadium. While there's no end to the creative opportunities for joint marketing, one thing to note is that these social sponsorships must operate a bit differently than traditional advertising, primarily because the social media audience can so easily "opt out" if they feel like they're being marketed to. Social marketing communications need to feel organic and authentic, and the most successful programs will be tied to both the team and their sponsors' content. Finally, while traditional marketing methods are often limited to game time or during the season, social media has the advantage of being an ongoing communications channel throughout the entire year. Teams such as the Miami Dolphins are adding tens of thousands of fans each week, even in the off-season, and have thousands of fans engaging with their social content on a daily basis. We anticipate that leagues and teams will take advantage of this ongoing engagement to offer sponsors new ways to boost brand awareness and drive business year-round.
The business of webcasting has succeeded and survived for the last decade because it's not social, it's serious. Significant enterprises are leveraging and paying for technology to deliver a message. A range of business sectors, including internal corporate communications, investor relations and sales communications, is willing to invest in the distribution of actionable, high-value content to their constituencies. It's important to these businesses to develop and communicate a singular message to shareholders, employees, customers or partners, so considerable time and capital are devoted to branding, positioning, packaging and value proposition. The message is the DNA of these enterprises. After investing resources into developing the corporate "DNA," why would a serious business entity create an environment that could potentially pollute the gene pool? When Social Media Doesn't Work As executives scramble to create a social media footprint, they strive to integrate a variety of applications into their business strategy. Social media webcasting, which incorporates social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and other group chat functionalities into a live webcast, is one of the latest trends. However, it's simply that. It's a novelty advocated by digital agencies as an attempt to position companies on the cutting edge of technology. Social media webcasts distract attendees from the key messaging of a presentation because these points are overwritten by a Twitter feed or Facebook posting. Disgruntled employees, competitors and unhappy shareholders all have the ability to use a live social media webcast as a platform to complain. Is it worth jeopardizing your carefully crafted messaging? Additionally, social media widgets can be shifted on the webcasting screen so users may cover up, move or minimize company logos during a webcast. This, in turn, diminishes the corporate message and displeases marketing executives and sponsors. Although social media applications are useful to build relationships, engage and recognize clients, gather feedback and gain valuable insight, these devices should be utilized following a live webcast, not during. The disadvantages of social media webcasting outweigh any possible benefits. Taking the Social Out of Social Media Agencies often discuss and debate social media trends, nuances and positioning, yet they never clearly articulate the definition of success. Enterprises are directed by their agencies to recruit individuals with strong social media backgrounds in hopes of advancing the overall social media agenda. However, more often than not, new hires are also immediately introduced to the company's "Corporate Social Media Policy" and the dos and don'ts of what to say, when to say it and how to say it. There is a fine line regarding social media and corporate messaging. Businesses want to, and should, engage their clients in conversations where they feel comfortable to share their opinions and communicate openly, but on the other hand, companies are also trying to simultaneously leverage social media to manage brand perceptions. Once you create "policy and guidelines," you have removed the "social" from social media. It's difficult enough for companies to craft these social media rules; it's even more difficult to apply the policies. How do you police messaging for employees who blog, tweet and post on Facebook? More importantly, how do you enforce these guidelines? If an employee develops a following on Twitter and then leaves the company, does he/she take the following with them? What if they go to a competitor? Agencies are having a bonanza consulting large enterprises on the uses of social media. But this honeymoon might soon be over as more and more companies realize that they are creating an inerasable digital footprint. Agencies might be making money now, but soon will it be the lawyers?
You're invited to an awards show, or perhaps you pay a considerable enough sum to attend. Where would you rather be, in the room with the celebrity entertainers and everyone accepting the awards, or in the basement? Or would you rather follow along at home? A funny thing happened at the Shorty Awards, the annual event "honoring the best producers of short, real-time content." The main event often proved to be a sideshow. It perfectly demonstrated an effect I'll call the social iceberg. The award show, held at The TimesCenter in Times Square, took place in the upstairs theater. That's where you could see comedian Aasif Mandvi and various other celebrity presenters accept their awards, or broadcast recorded speeches. This was the hot ticket. It was the proverbial iceberg tip: highly visible, but with the participation confined to the relatively few people who appeared on stage. One would likely consider this group the most influential and the most coveted, but there are limited opportunities to reach them, and many there would consider themselves unreachable. Downstairs, the overflow room was a much different scene. Instead of comfortable seats, there were a few stools. Instead of seeing Mandvi live, you could see him on screens and occasionally hear him over the din of conversation. There were several advantages here, though: downstairs had an open bar, and it had hundreds of people talking to each other. It started off with a handful of people who showed up too late or paid too little to get into the big kids' room, and then ended up with hundreds who were happier to be there. Even with my green VIP pin that allowed me access to anywhere short of presenter Jerry Stiller's dressing room, I chose to spend my night in the dungeon. While literally down below the main event and out of sight, this layer just below the surface included countless social media luminaries, journalists, public relations execs to the stars, and some lushes who knew where the Dominican rum was flowing. No, there weren't the celebrities, or the people who garnered enough Twitter love to earn a slot as a finalist in the awards. Yet the room was largely self-selecting: a bunch of people who would rather create a meta-event alongside the orchestrated experience, full of unexpected connections and conversations with people passionate enough about their craft to partake in creating this parallel world. For marketers that make such a big stink about conversational media, this was the venue where it was possible to have a conversation. While drinks were sponsored (thanks, brands -- you know who you are), this was largely a missed opportunity, as there weren't those conversations between brands and participants. Then there were the people watching along at home. It helped that there was a live video stream of the event, so people who wanted to follow along could do so far better than those in the overflow room. While there was no live conversation along the lines of what happened downstairs at the event, there was much more breadth and variety in the audience, including countless people who couldn't or wouldn't travel for the occasion. This broader universe allows the best opportunity for a brand to take over the conversation. It's akin to what Nike did during the World Cup with its "Write the Future" spot. It couldn't get on the field (tip of the iceberg) or in the stands (just below the surface) but it could and did become top of mind for anyone with any remote interest in the event. It's not always as literal a scenario as you find at the Shorties: the few people upstairs on stage and watching it live, the disorganized but social crowd below, and the remote but wider audience that tuned in. It is a fairly common form of triage, though. As a marketer, you have the opportunity to plan in advance which part of the iceberg you want to focus on, and find a way to reach those participants accordingly.
Women's media network SheKnows is expected to debut a new social media platform Monday dubbed SheKnows Connect. With the new platform, SheKnows hopes to better integrate its content and community, allowing conversations to begin around news stories, columns and other various features. "The SheKnows audience connects around passion points," said Kyle Cox, vice president/GM of SheKnows. "With SheKnows Connect, we are better engaging users on site around content." In addition, strengthening community relationships has been shown to benefit ad partners. A recent study conducted by BlogHer found that blogs are more than two times more likely -- 63% -- than magazines -- 26% -- to have inspired a beauty product purchase over the last six months. Another component of the relaunch is the SheKnows Dares initiative, which will encourage users to "dare" themselves to be better. By incorporating SheKnows Connect with Facebook Connect, users can accept and complete all manner of dares. They can also challenge their friends via Facebook to do the same. "With SheKnows Dares, we are encouraging the community to get involved to create an experience -- not only on SheKnows but within their social networks on and offline," Cox added. Later this year, the company also plans to launch a product centered around the SheKnows CityGuide, as well as a pregnancy and parenting product allowing women to share the different stages of motherhood. Along with larger players like NBCU's iVillage, the Meredith Women's Network, and Glam Media, SheKnows competes against a long list of smaller players, including, BlogHer, Total Beauty, and Sugar Inc. Owned by Evolve Media Corp., SheKnows claims to reach over 50 million unique visitors, citing Google Analytics data.