Answers, a network of Q&A sites, will build out social, personalized and ad services on desktop and mobile, based partly on a minority investment made by TA Associates, a global growth private equity firm. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. Answers previously raised capital from Summit Partners, which maintains a minority stake as well. The product road map transitions Answers into a platform rather than a Web site, turning the home page into a personalized destination based on the visitor through user-generated content, vertical search and social media, and a targeted ad strategy with a dedicated sales staff. The platform will sit at the intersection between search and social. Integrating Answers with Facebook and personalizing the home page when site visitors log in will be the next step to building out the platform. The integration will allow users to post questions and answers, tying it back to their Facebook account. Personalization means that users, when logged in, will receive information from categories that were previously viewed. Turning Answers into a platform means having a dedicated sales staff to bring in direct advertisers. Today, the ad-supported model relies on advertising networks. David Karandish, CEO of Answers, envisions any brand or advertising agency having the ability to come directly to the company through a dedicated sales staff. Karandish estimates about 100 million unique visitors monthly. On Answers.com, approximately 60% come from the U.S., and the remainder are international, he said. A suite of Facebook apps get about 35 million active users. There are about 150 million registered users across all the company's properties. A dedicated ad sales team will require the ability to segment ad units by verticals, so Answers will begin to slice up the content by category. "It was difficult to tell how much traffic ran through the site in any one specific category until we analyzed the data and found 12% of 100 million unique visitors are the auto category," Karandish said. "It shows we didn't do a good job telling agencies and media buyers about the strengths of the sites, so we're working on making it easy to do category buys." Aside from targeting and retargeting ad services, Answers will also launch a sponsored Q&A section, calling it a clearly labeled "answertorial" service. As an example, GEICO might sponsor a set of auto insurance questions, where it provides an "engaging message" in something other than a banner display unit. Answers, founded in 1998, emerged as a plug-in for Internet Explorer. The business morphed into a reference answers site, combining more than 250 data sources to help users find information on reference topics, including nondigitized sources. Then Wiki Answers emerged, growing to about 100 million unique monthly visitors.
In its ongoing attempt to win over women at every step of their fitness journey, Under Armour is introducing a goal-setting Web site called “What’s Beautiful.” Involving Twitter and Facebook, the site is “a competition to redefine the female athlete,” with an end result of three new “faces” for Under Armour, as well as seven brand ambassadors. It’s also an opportunity for the brand to max its ROI on social media, while building a closer relationship with its core customer, Adrienne Lofton-Shaw, senior director of women's marketing for Under Armour, tells Marketing Daily. “What we get really frustrated with is advertisers who talk about beauty in terms of how you look, not what you are made of,” she says. “So this site, which allows women to enter any kind of fitness goal, whether it’s competing in the Ironman or running your first mile, is about tenacity, and never quitting.” Enlisting people’s social networks is a logical way to get support, she says. “Every powerful woman’s brand starts with hearts and emotion, so we designed this contest in a way that uses her social community to help her.” Through the site, women declare a goal, and then post proof of their progress with videos, photos and diary entries. In addition, users will get 15 Under Armour Missions, as well as motivational content from guest trainers, UA’s athletes (including the likes of skier Lindsey Vonn and sprinter Natasha Hastings), gear giveaways and updates on other competitors. Ads, running online, push the idea of redefinition, and women themselves deciding what makes them athletic and beautiful. “We’re taking it back,” the voiceover explains, “from the marketers who want us to look Photoshopped, from the jocks who want us topless, from the people who think we should be happy just the way we are. How will you take it back?” Both 30- and 45-second spots are scheduled for Under Armour Women’s social media channels, as well as BlogHer Network, DailyCandy, Glam Media, Pop-Sugar and Stack. The idea, she says, is that the brand has something to offer the inner athlete in every woman, whether it’s someone who wants to lose enough weight to have a baby, or a hardcore boxer looking to rehab an injury so she can get back in the ring. Ultimately, she says, she’ll be pleased if just 1,0000 women complete the challenge. “The average woman has 235 Facebook friends, so if just 1,000 finish, we’ll have reached 235,000 people, many of whom won’t just be reading, but will actively encourage the woman. Of those who complete the challenge, Under Armour will choose 10, with three ultimately being christened as the new faces of Under Armour. The three will win a nutritionist for a year, as well as sessions with celebrity trainers and ample Under Armour swag. “We’ll use them in all our marketing channels,” she says, “even potentially in TV advertising.”
People at ice cream marketer Ben & Jerry’s like to think they wrote the book on experiential marketing, ever since founders Ben and Jerry started touring the country in the Cowmobile back in the 1980s. But maximizing its social media budget has been as perplexing to the Burlington, Vt.-based company as it is to the next advertiser. Jay Curley, integrated marketing manager at Ben & Jerry’s, tells Marketing Daily how using Twitter as an integral part of its sampling program has boosted its ROI. Q: Just about every marketer is using Facebook and Twitter, but not many are sure they are using it well. How did you start the Sweet Tweets program?A: We’ve always used sampling, ever since the Cowmobile. We humbly think we make the best ice cream in the world. But even with social media, we did it in a very old-school way. We’d say, 'Here we are in New York City -- come get ice cream.’ In the course of an afternoon, we’d probably reach a few thousand people. But in the summer of 2010, in just a little part of the program, we flipped it and asked our fans: 'We’re in New York, south of Houston Street. Who wants ice cream?’ It worked so well that by the end of the summer in our New York and Boston programs, 90% of the time we were just taking requests via social media, mostly from Twitter. Q: So you actually deliver?A: Yep. Right away, saying 'Who wants ice cream?’ generates a lot of conversation -- a lot of ways to connect with many fans on Twitter and Facebook. And then, let’s say, we select Bob, and go to Bob’s office with 20 people and serve them ice cream. Bob, of course, is tweeting, and likely has a few hundred followers and a few hundred friends. And we’ve made him the hero. His coworkers tweet. And when they tweet “I love Ben & Jerry’s,” it means more. So this is a much more personalized experience -- it’s more enjoyable … and while we’ve only give 20 full-sized ice cream cones away, we’ve potentially reached many more people. We’re scaling our sampling, so that one sample makes 600 to 700 impressions. And they are social impressions, coming from friends, so they reach people in a much more meaningful way than just seeing a truck on the street offering free cones. We always knew sampling was good and felt right for our brand, but we could never show an ROI like this. Q: And you’ve expanded to more markets?A: Last year, we took the program national and went to Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Boston. This year, we’re adding Washington, D.C., Portland, and Seattle. Q: Is the point really to introduce new flavors? Or just share brand love?A: In the past, we’ve sampled with core flavors. This year we are using sampling to introduce a new line, the Greek Frozen Yogurt. Fans love it, and so it is proving just as effective with a new line as with established flavors. We know we exist because of what happens when people try our ice cream. Those who love us really love us, and we try to love them back.
In today’s media-saturated world, consumers are bombarded by content in multiple channels throughout the day. Technology has spawned a profusion of publishing platforms, while it has enabled any individual to become an active publisher or aggregator. Unlike the past, consumers today can no longer rely on a few trusted editorial sources to filter the noise and deliver the most important news and information. Instead, consumers must make sense of the vast amount of information that reaches them daily and constantly make decisions about what to take seriously and what to ignore. Increasingly, they are turning to Social Curation -- the recommendations of others in their social networks -- to identify the most relevant and valuable content. Facebook is a dominant environment for sharing stories (and conversing) about emerging trends, politics and culture. It is unique in that recommendations are clustered within interconnected social groups. Because social groups overlap, a popular story or link on Facebook can gain an immense audience very quickly. Twitter is also widely used for sharing links, but the nature of social connections on Twitter is quite different from Facebook. Because connections are non-symmetrical on Twitter (followers versus friends) relationships tend to be open-ended and non-reciprocal. In this way, a few highly influential individuals can have an enormous impact on a wide audience. Socially integrated communications Perhaps more interesting than the specific social channels is the emergence of socially integrated communications. This phenomenon is enabled by the growth in open application programming interfaces (APIs) and authentication protocols. These are small applications that allow third parties to pull information from social networks like Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram and Twitter, and integrate personal information on their sites. Logged-on visitors to The New York Times or Huffington Post Web sites, for example, will now see which of their Facebook friends are online and what stories they are reading in real-time. Communications in the socially driven world has two significant implications for publishers and marketers: 1. Content will be judged less on its own terms and more by who recommends it and how it has arrived 2. Since recommendations vastly outperform media for driving content consumption, some of the attention (and dollars) that marketers traditionally dedicated to media must be refocused on driving adoption and recommendation in the social milieu Getting people to recommend content, to forward links or comment on your stories is entirely different than spending paid media dollars. Because a social recommendation is a form of personal endorsement, establishing a credible, trusted relationship with your audience is essential. While there are no tricks or shortcuts, there are best practices. Be honest Because your goal should be to have your communications forwarded and shared, it follows that you can’t control the context in which your content will be seen. This means that it may be mixed up with other voices, including your competitors, or the commentary of anyone from a loyalist to a skeptic. In this context it is essential to represent your brand honestly and responsibly. Engage Social communications occur instantly. Be prepared to respond to queries and comments quickly. Prepare statements to accurately correct misunderstandings about your brand. Think through how you will monitor social channels and who will be empowered to respond. Provide value Talking about yourself is no way to build a trusted relationship. Think about how you can provide valuable insights, information or support to your community. If messages about your brand are appropriately and sensitively integrated into that communication, all the better. But don’t hesitate to invest your time building a following based on providing value.Make things easy Avoid unnecessary enrollment forms. Consider using token-based authentication protocols such as OAuth and APIs, which securely allow users to sign in using their existing social network accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. In addition to making it easier for your audience to sign in, it will facilitate social linking and recommendations. Engaging social curation can positively increase the reach, relevancy and credibility of your brand. But social engagement is a multichannel dialogue that requires vigilance and timely responses to user comments and questions. While this requires an organizational effort, it can pay off not only in terms of reach, but also as a way to build lasting relationships with your customers and the community.
Answers, a network of Q&A sites, will build out social, personalized and ad services on desktop and mobile, based partly on a minority investment made by TA Associates, a global growth private equity firm. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. Answers previously raised capital from Summit Partners, which maintains a minority stake as well. The product road map transitions Answers into a platform rather than a Web site, turning the home page into a personalized destination based on the visitor through user-generated content, vertical search and social media, and a targeted ad strategy with a dedicated sales staff. The platform will sit at the intersection between search and social. Integrating Answers with Facebook and personalizing the home page when site visitors log in will be the next step to building out the platform. The integration will allow users to post questions and answers, tying it back to their Facebook account. Personalization means that users, when logged in, will receive information from categories that were previously viewed. Turning Answers into a platform means having a dedicated sales staff to bring in direct advertisers. Today, the ad-supported model relies on advertising networks. David Karandish, CEO of Answers, envisions any brand or advertising agency having the ability to come directly to the company through a dedicated sales staff. Karandish estimates about 100 million unique visitors monthly. On Answers.com, approximately 60% come from the U.S., and the remainder are international, he said. A suite of Facebook apps get about 35 million active users. There are about 150 million registered users across all the company's properties. A dedicated ad sales team will require the ability to segment ad units by verticals, so Answers will begin to slice up the content by category. "It was difficult to tell how much traffic ran through the site in any one specific category until we analyzed the data and found 12% of 100 million unique visitors are the auto category," Karandish said. "It shows we didn't do a good job telling agencies and media buyers about the strengths of the sites, so we're working on making it easy to do category buys." Aside from targeting and retargeting ad services, Answers will also launch a sponsored Q&A section, calling it a clearly labeled "answertorial" service. As an example, GEICO might sponsor a set of auto insurance questions, where it provides an "engaging message" in something other than a banner display unit. Answers, founded in 1998, emerged as a plug-in for Internet Explorer. The business morphed into a reference answers site, combining more than 250 data sources to help users find information on reference topics, including nondigitized sources. Then Wiki Answers emerged, growing to about 100 million unique monthly visitors.
In its ongoing attempt to win over women at every step of their fitness journey, Under Armour is introducing a goal-setting Web site called “What’s Beautiful.” Involving Twitter and Facebook, the site is “a competition to redefine the female athlete,” with an end result of three new “faces” for Under Armour, as well as seven brand ambassadors. It’s also an opportunity for the brand to max its ROI on social media, while building a closer relationship with its core customer, Adrienne Lofton-Shaw, senior director of women's marketing for Under Armour, tells Marketing Daily. “What we get really frustrated with is advertisers who talk about beauty in terms of how you look, not what you are made of,” she says. “So this site, which allows women to enter any kind of fitness goal, whether it’s competing in the Ironman or running your first mile, is about tenacity, and never quitting.” Enlisting people’s social networks is a logical way to get support, she says. “Every powerful woman’s brand starts with hearts and emotion, so we designed this contest in a way that uses her social community to help her.” Through the site, women declare a goal, and then post proof of their progress with videos, photos and diary entries. In addition, users will get 15 Under Armour Missions, as well as motivational content from guest trainers, UA’s athletes (including the likes of skier Lindsey Vonn and sprinter Natasha Hastings), gear giveaways and updates on other competitors. Ads, running online, push the idea of redefinition, and women themselves deciding what makes them athletic and beautiful. “We’re taking it back,” the voiceover explains, “from the marketers who want us to look Photoshopped, from the jocks who want us topless, from the people who think we should be happy just the way we are. How will you take it back?” Both 30- and 45-second spots are scheduled for Under Armour Women’s social media channels, as well as BlogHer Network, DailyCandy, Glam Media, Pop-Sugar and Stack. The idea, she says, is that the brand has something to offer the inner athlete in every woman, whether it’s someone who wants to lose enough weight to have a baby, or a hardcore boxer looking to rehab an injury so she can get back in the ring. Ultimately, she says, she’ll be pleased if just 1,0000 women complete the challenge. “The average woman has 235 Facebook friends, so if just 1,000 finish, we’ll have reached 235,000 people, many of whom won’t just be reading, but will actively encourage the woman. Of those who complete the challenge, Under Armour will choose 10, with three ultimately being christened as the new faces of Under Armour. The three will win a nutritionist for a year, as well as sessions with celebrity trainers and ample Under Armour swag. “We’ll use them in all our marketing channels,” she says, “even potentially in TV advertising.”
People at ice cream marketer Ben & Jerry’s like to think they wrote the book on experiential marketing, ever since founders Ben and Jerry started touring the country in the Cowmobile back in the 1980s. But maximizing its social media budget has been as perplexing to the Burlington, Vt.-based company as it is to the next advertiser. Jay Curley, integrated marketing manager at Ben & Jerry’s, tells Marketing Daily how using Twitter as an integral part of its sampling program has boosted its ROI. Q: Just about every marketer is using Facebook and Twitter, but not many are sure they are using it well. How did you start the Sweet Tweets program?A: We’ve always used sampling, ever since the Cowmobile. We humbly think we make the best ice cream in the world. But even with social media, we did it in a very old-school way. We’d say, 'Here we are in New York City -- come get ice cream.’ In the course of an afternoon, we’d probably reach a few thousand people. But in the summer of 2010, in just a little part of the program, we flipped it and asked our fans: 'We’re in New York, south of Houston Street. Who wants ice cream?’ It worked so well that by the end of the summer in our New York and Boston programs, 90% of the time we were just taking requests via social media, mostly from Twitter. Q: So you actually deliver?A: Yep. Right away, saying 'Who wants ice cream?’ generates a lot of conversation -- a lot of ways to connect with many fans on Twitter and Facebook. And then, let’s say, we select Bob, and go to Bob’s office with 20 people and serve them ice cream. Bob, of course, is tweeting, and likely has a few hundred followers and a few hundred friends. And we’ve made him the hero. His coworkers tweet. And when they tweet “I love Ben & Jerry’s,” it means more. So this is a much more personalized experience -- it’s more enjoyable … and while we’ve only give 20 full-sized ice cream cones away, we’ve potentially reached many more people. We’re scaling our sampling, so that one sample makes 600 to 700 impressions. And they are social impressions, coming from friends, so they reach people in a much more meaningful way than just seeing a truck on the street offering free cones. We always knew sampling was good and felt right for our brand, but we could never show an ROI like this. Q: And you’ve expanded to more markets?A: Last year, we took the program national and went to Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Boston. This year, we’re adding Washington, D.C., Portland, and Seattle. Q: Is the point really to introduce new flavors? Or just share brand love?A: In the past, we’ve sampled with core flavors. This year we are using sampling to introduce a new line, the Greek Frozen Yogurt. Fans love it, and so it is proving just as effective with a new line as with established flavors. We know we exist because of what happens when people try our ice cream. Those who love us really love us, and we try to love them back.