In case you haven’t heard, last night TechCrunch announced that Pinterest hit 11.7 million UMVs, becoming the fastest standalone site ever to surpass 10 million monthly uniques.

The #1 driver of consumer purchases is word of mouth recommendations from friends, and Pinterest holds the power to drive authentic “word of eye” recommendations in a way that is changing the landscape of social commerce.

How? The landing page for Pinterest is an endless visual stream of subtle product recommendations from the very people who influence your purchasing decisions - friends and strangers with good taste. This means that there is an endless opportunity for your brand and its products to be seen by Pinterest’s 11.7 million unique monthly users as endorsements from friends in the form of repins.

Currently availably stats show the average Pinterest user spends 98 minutes per month on the site, compared to 2.5 hours on Tumblr, and 7 hours on Facebook. Pinterest is most popular in North Eastern states, among females (estimates range from 58% to 70% female), and with people ages 25-44 (59% of visitors).

How it Works

In case you haven’t already joined the millions of others pinning products, here’s a quick overview of how Pinterest works: Pinterest enables users to “pin” images found around the Web into categorized collections, or boards. Think of it like an interactive, shareable scrapbook. Or as I like to say, it’s your virtual high school locker. Pinterest can capture the brand essence, personality, inspiration for product design, or company culture through visual boards. It could also be used to organically grow your brand’s reach through an influencer re-pinning strategy, to further engage with fans through themed boards, and to inspire consumers to action, perhaps through a “best board” or a “most pins” contest.

Why People Love It

“It’s lovely from a visual perspective,” says my colleague (and Pinterest addict) Sophia Aladenoye. Apart from Pinterest’s tactile and user-friendly experience, it helps people make visual mental notes of a life they aspire to, like a vision board. “Pinterest is personally helping me with my 2012 vision board exercises… helping me to more easily remember the images that represent my goals, wants or benchmarks for 2012,” say Sophia. Others claim that the site is helping them to “de-stress,” to plan their wedding, or help redecorate their home. And some say they honestly just like the fact that is invite-only and feels exclusive (or perhaps felt exclusive before its recent boost). Men are also jumping on the Pinterest bandwagon - my friend and colleague Maury posts vintage cars, and Grassroots Modern blogger Creede Fitch posts photos of modern furniture designs he finds inspiring.

How Brands Can Leverage Pinterest

1) Create a new social commerce touch point

With 11.7 million UMVs and counting, Pinterest presents an opportunity for brands to expand their audiences by going where the masses are. Consumers are always a step ahead of brands and its important for brands to follow behavior rather than dictate it. Your brand’s presence on Pinterest will create another consumer touch point and a way to be discovered by new people. The visual Pinterest boards would help invite new people into the fabric of your brand by setting a mood or encapsulating a lifestyle, helping users to imagine how your brand’s products, services or culture fit their lives.

2) Grow influencer networks

Brands can leverage Pinterest to find influencers with whom to engage. You can expand your influencer networks by following influential Pinterest users and boards, and repinning items to our own Pinterest boards, giving credit to the influencer. Brands may also choose to engage with influential bloggers and have them curate a board on their Pinterest page. Ask Ogilvy for advice on who to follow and repin, and who might be right to engage offline or on another brand platform.

3) Identify and engage super fans

Pinterest may also be a way to identify natural brand advocates or “super fans.” You can search for your brand’s products and discover who is most frequently pinning about your products and engage with those people. Surprise and delight super fans by rewarding them with products they pin to their boards. Eventually you may create a fan-curated board that allows super fans to add their pins.

4) Increase brand loyalty by sharing your brand’s culture

Pinterest is a fun, inspirational and highly visual atmosphere and your brand has an opportunity to engage fans in new and creative ways. Consider creating boards that align with product or service themes, for example, West Elm categorizes its boards by colors from its design palette, such as “Aquamarine.” Or create a board that reflects your company’s dedication to a CSR initiative. Or, compile pictures of everyday fans and influencers engaging with your brand, such as a board that features pins of people across the globe wearing a retail brand’s clothing.

5) Host contests for further engagement

Perhaps you can host a contest for fans to create the best Pinterest board with your products, and reward the winning fan with items from her board. Or, invite other users to co-create boards on your page around certain themes, and reward the winning team with product or a brand experience. For example, a travel brand can ask Pinners to create mood boards that reflect a destination like the French Riviera, and then reward the winning board with a trip.

7) Inspire repins (and purchases) through bold visuals

As mentioned earlier, the #1 driver of consumer purchases is word of mouth recommendations from friends, and Pinterest holds the power to drive authentic “word of eye” recommendations through a repin endorsement. To accomplish this, you’ll want to make sure that you have high resolution, professional quality, close-up photos to leverage. Photos of products should be taken in a way that enables the viewer to imagine herself wearing the product, engaging with an item, or taking part in the setting. Photos should taken in a way that makes them stand out in the visual stream that is Pinterest. For example, a bold-colored photo or a gray-scale photo might set itself apart from the photo stream.

Promote your culture first, products and services second

The trick with Pinterest is to leverage the “soft sell” and promote your brand culture over the products or services themselves. Pinterest is committed to maintaining a non-promotional atmosphere, and the hard sell could get you kicked off the platform. So to create the right atmosphere, think about what your brand has to offer and what the images say to people and what you want to ask, for example:

• A tech brand: “Do you like innovation? We’re innovative too, and here’s a photo of our developers making our first-ever app for iPhone.”

• A fashion brand: “Do you like bold, basic colors? We love everything bright and bold, and this painting by Matisse captures our upcoming line’s color scheme.”

• A home furnishings brand: “Do you enjoy a clutter-free living space? So do we, and here are three books we love that talk about a clutter-free home.”

• A credit card company or bank: “Do you imagine yourself living a lifestyle of luxury? Here’s a picture from the beach in the Virgin Islands where you could be right now.”

Through play and inspiration, Pinterest might just empower you to become the architect of your brand’s culture.

What do you think about Pinterest for brands? Do you think users will stay engaged once brands join?

Special thanks to Chris Heydt and Sophia Aladenoye of Ogilvy for their contributions.

It’s not everyday the folks from Facebook Palo Alto come to tour Hong Kong. In a rare visit to Asia, Ogilvy will host four senior leaders from Facebook’s Palo Alto HQ for an interactive  panel session on vertical marketing via Facebook.

“Facebook On: Advanced Best Practices for Brands,” a panel moderated by Thomas Crampton, Ogilvy’s Asia-Pacific director of social media, will offer brands and agencies advanced tips for leveraging the world’s largest social network.

Panelists include:

Mike Fox, Director of Global Vertical Marketing, Facebook

Doug Frisbie, Automotive Lead, Facebook

Maz Sharafi, Retail Lead, Facebook

Jane Schachtel, Tech Lead, Facebook

Moderator, Thomas Crampton, Ogilvy & Mather APAC, Director of Social Media

If you’re in Hong Kong on Monday, 13 February, please join us! Due to the focus and advanced level of this session, RSVPs will be accepted from brand managers and agencies only. Space is limited. Seats will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Request a seat here: bit.ly/advancedfacebook

With Social Media Week just a few days away, we’re proud to be hosting several events in Hong Kong, including “Social Media for Brand Managers,” a panel with Intel, Cathay Pacific, Sina and Synovate.

We often see companies who are fixated on driving fan acquisition. But what to do once you’ve gotten a ‘like’?

Join us Tuesday, 14 February as we discuss driving value through social media, not just buzz.

We’ll be kicking off at 2:30pm with a half hour of networking followed by a 1-hour panel discussion starting at 3pm.

Register online here: http://socialmediaweek.org/event/?event_id=1654

We look forward to seeing you!

If there was one thing that attendees at the Facebook Studio Live event “Aussies On Facebook” took away last Thursday 2nd February, it is that Facebook isn’t going anywhere any time soon. Not that we thought it was…

In the atmospheric space of some repurposed railway workshops in Eveleigh, the Facebook team certainly executed an impressive looking event – custom made posters decorated the walls and very delicious treats greeted us on arrival at the impressive Carriageworks buildings (check out some photos of the event on the Facebook Studio photo album). As the second day of Facebook Studio Live Sydney (check out my colleague Tanya’s blog post on the first day which she and Annabel attended), Thursday’s event focused around ongoing research from two research companies that Facebook has been working closely with. Nielsen Research Australia and Greenberg Brand Strategy were there to provide more insight into just exactly what Australian’s get up to on an everyday basis on Facebook. And it appears that it’s a lot. From an active online population of 16.4 million people, 10.8 million of them are on Facebook. On average those people are spending 7 hours and 6 minutes a month browsing Facebook – beating the US and UK to be the most active country on Facebook!

There were A LOT of stats that were shown and discussed during that very fast few hours – I was scribbling down numbers so fast that I didn’t even have time to put the context around them. Instead of sharing more of these statistics (potentially misinterpreted by me due to a lack of context), I wanted to use this post to share some of the key learnings I took away after the whirlwind presentations:

1) Just HOW different each region is – we were shown some interesting stats about what recommendations people trust the most. Friends obviously feature highly in this (part of the power of Facebook), but what was fascinating was that a blogger’s recommendation of a product or brand went a lot further in Hong Kong than it did in Australia – by a massive margin actually. What’s the learning here? Make sure your strategy is regionally specific, and set regionally specific KPIs. One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to social media.

2) Just HOW much Facebook forms a part of everyday life – as someone who has been on Facebook now since my university days, and now working in the social space for the last few years, this isn’t a revelation – but it was just reinforced by the information presented last Thursday. People are checking Facebook as a ritual, morning, lunchtime, then as they’re sitting at home watching TV at night they’re simultaneously catching up on what they missed during the afternoon on Facebook, chatting with friends through Facebook chat and sharing thoughts on the TV programs they’re watching. Which leads well into my next point…

3) Just HOW much dual consumption of media there is – again, not so much a revelation but a timely reminder. Even in the last couple of years there have been some very impressive integrated campaigns, and personal experience within our company is showing us that brands are getting better at integrating their agencies and ideas. But it’s still not quite there – there is a lot of opportunity lost. Across almost all demographics the highest activity times for Facebook was from 5-8pm – and people said that they were often watching TV at the same time. This dual consumption offers so much opportunity to brands – a longer lasting relationship that starts with an ad on TV, a sponsored story on Facebook, a friend liking a page, then YOU liking the page – and suddenly you’ve got an interested, interactive potential customer who’ll see updates from you in a space that they visit daily. Wow.

4) And FINALLY – the responsibility of Facebook – this was a comment from the audience during the Q&A session at the end, but it really resonated for me. A lot of Facebook’s power is that it is personal. Very, very personal. The number one activity on Facebook by users was “Posting messages”.  Number two was “Commenting on Photos, Videos and Links”, no. 3 was “Keep In Touch”, no. 4 was “Announce/Share some personal news” and no. 5 was “Post photos”. Those are all very personal activities, activities that brands need to step into very carefully. Integrating a brand into that space is a delicate job, but that’s not to say experimentation isn’t good either – in fact, Facebook very much encouraged it.

The above are just a few thoughts pulled from a very inspiring few hours – there was a lot more interesting information and realisations which came out of the day and will be making their way into future presentations and blog posts. For now, what is keeping my mind ticking over is the potential. If I was excited two years ago when I left university at the potential of social media, I’m even more excited now. As the online and offline worlds come together more and more, what new opportunities will open up? Well… that’s something we’ll discover together.

KakaoTalk vs Line

Koreans say ‘KakaoTalk me’ instead ‘Text me’. This phenomenon shows how KakaoTalk is actively used by Koreans. KakaoTalk has over reached a billion daily messages! The number of messages delivered on KakaoTalk is exponentially increased over the past year. The number of message amount sent over KakaoTalk per minute is equivalent to the number of Google search created and the number of stories created on Newsfeed of Facebook each minute. Read More 

While KakaoTalk is dominating Korea, Line is rapidly conquering foreign countries. Line currently retains a large number of users in Europe which became its driving force of the growth. Moreover, Line reported on January 27th that the number of users is increased by 5 million within a month after it reached 10 million downloads. Read More

카카오톡, 하루 메시지 전송 10억건 돌파 vs. 네이버 `라인` 카카오톡 아성 깰 수 있을까

요즘은 ‘문자해’라는 말 대신 ‘카톡해’라는 말을 한다고 하죠. 카카오톡의 위력이 정말 대단한데요. 최근 하루 메시지 전송 건수가 무려 10억건을 돌파했다고 합니다.

카카오톡이 국내에서 입지를 굳건히 하고 있을 때, NHN의 모바일 메신저 ‘라인’은 해외 사용자 증가로 급성장하면서 국내 1위 업체 카카오톡의 아성을 넘보고 있습니다.

NHN은 라인이 유럽 등 해외 사용자수의 급증으로 지난해 12월25일 1000만 다운로드를 돌파한지 한 달 만에 사용자 수가 500만명이나 늘었다고 27일 밝혔습니다.

Social Trend – Social TV, Social Game, LB Social Shopping

What’s hot trend in social media? Let’s look into latest news in social TV, social game, and LB social shopping.

1.     ‘Watch, Talk, and Share’ through Social TV

The idea of ‘TV+SNS = Social TV’ is catching users’ eyes and rising as a hot trend in social media. KTH launched ‘TV Talkers’ which allows sharing audiences’ opinions on the same program they are watching through smartphones. Also it allows app users to recommend TV programs each other to make their opinions are reflected on the program ratings. Read More

 2.     Naver, intensifying its business on social game by providing ‘App player’

Naver has launched an ‘App player’ which integrates the management system for social games. This benefits users to play with their friends more easily because it does not require the boding on Naver blog or Me2day between the players. Read More

 3.     NHN, launching a LB social shopping

NHN has announced that they are planning to launch a social shopping business with location based system in the first year of 2012. Currently many social commerce sites provide LB coupons to users. It is expected that NHN’s new business would go into a battle against social commerce sites. Read More

소셜 트렌드 – 소셜 티비, 소셜 게임, 그리고 위치기반 소셜 쇼핑

요즘 각광받고 있는 소셜 트렌드인 소셜 티비, 소셜 게임 그리고 위치기반 소셜 쇼핑에 대해 알아봅시다. .

1.    ″보고 말하고 평한다″…2012년 소셜TV 앱이 뜬다

종편 출범으로 지상파와 케이블TV 등의 시청률 경쟁이 더욱 거세진 가운데, TV와 SNS가 접목된 앱들이 주목을 받고 있습니다. 그 중 KTH가 최초로 선보인 ‘TV 토커스’는 같은 채널을 보고 있는 시청자들이 스마트폰을 통해 의견을 제시하고 추천글을 올리며 소통하는 앱인데요. 이전의 TV 앱이 방송을 볼 수 있게 하는데 그쳤다면 TV 토커스는 SNS를 통해 시청자들이 직접 시청률 집계에 자신들의 의사를 반영할 수 있다고 합니다.

2.    네이버 `소셜 게임` 강화…소셜 앱 통합관리 서비스

네이버가 소셜 게임을 통합 관리할 수 있는 앱 플레이어 서비스를 소셜 앱스에 추가하였는데요. 블로그나 미투데이를 통해 친구를 맺지 않더라도 친구 초대를 통해 쉽게 게임을 즐길 수 있다는 장점이 있다고 합니다.

3.    NHN, `위치기반 소셜쇼핑` 사업 나선다

NHN이 이르면 상반기 위치기반 서비스를 이용한 소셜쇼핑 사업을 전개할 전망이라고 합니다. 현재 소셜커머스 업체들이 위치기반 쿠폰 서비스를 이미 제공하고 있어 NHN의 새로운 사업은 소셜커머스 업체들과 경쟁하게 될 것으로 보입니다.

Daum provides a real time Twitter people rankings

Daum Communications provided a real time Twitter people rankings. This ranking is based on the frequency of mentions people talked on Twitter. Now, about 5.4 million Korean Twitter users are allowed to check who is the man of the moment. Read More

 다음, ‘실시간 트위터 인물 검색‘ 서비스 시작

다음커뮤니케이션이 트위터에서 많이 회자되는 인물의 순위를 실시간으로 확인할 수 있도록 ‘실시간 트위터 인물 검색’ 서비스를 시작합니다. 트위터 이용자들은 544만명의 회원들 중 누가 화제가 되고 있는지 실시간으로 확인이 가능해졌네요.

Trust SNS? Yes (43%) vs No (40%)

It is reported that 43% of the participants answered they would trust information on SNS whereas other 40% says ‘No’ to the question. Nonetheless, it is interesting the portion of young answerers have tendency to trust more SNS than baby boomers. In the age of 19 to 29, the portion of positive answers on the question was 47.7% which was 10% higher than the negative answers. This phenomenon was similarly showed in the age of 30s. In contrast, the negative answers on the question in the age of 50s and 60s were 10% higher than the positive answers. Read More

“SNS 신뢰한다” 43% vs. “안한다” 40%

TV와 소셜미디어의 결합을 통해 소비자의 시청 행태도 변화하고 있습니다. 최근 한 조사에 따르면, 한국 소비자의 55%는 외출시 모바일 기기를 통해 TV를 시청하며, 그 중 71%는 스마트폰으로 TV를 시청한다고 합니다. 이는 16개의 조사 대상국 가운데 가장 높은 비율입니다. 또한 응답자 중 76%가 ‘소셜TV’를 시청하면서 소셜 플랫폼을 통해 비슷한 관심사를 가진 다른 시청자들과 의견을 교환하는 것으로 나타났습니다.

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We’ve been watching social media chatter around the “big game” intensify over the past week – especially if you live in Indianapolis. But since Volkswagen first teased its teaser ad with the barking dogs (and garnered over 11 million views along with way), the ad community has slowly followed suit and rolled out their wares.

Consumers that wanted to gain clout (and Klout) passed it along as quickly as possible. But will two weeks of conversation or two minutes of 1.5 million tweets (like those amassed around Tim Tebow’s heroics this season) sway opinion, increase favorability or drive sales? Or are brands just trying to be “part of the conversation”? The answer to both is yes.

Sometimes we overlook the power of social media to actually drive business. We spend time counting tweets, status update comments and blog posts instead of sales. But with #SuperBowl being a promoted trend on Twitter all day and the social media command center created by the Host Committee in Indianapolis, this Sunday’s investments in more than just television airtime surely sound like a ringing endorsement from CMOs across the country that social media isn’t a nice to have, but a need to have.

That’s because social media makes the viewing party and the water cooler the next day exponentially larger. As we all look down to our phones rather than up to our neighbor to share our instant opinion of that play or that ad or that tweet, social media allows messages and implied endorsements travel much farther than Neilsen ratings on TV. Based on ever-increasing platform usage, consumers have told us that the size of our circles matter. And that’s why every star uses Twitter (and why the NFL has invested in a player’s application so they can own the content instead of Twitter).

Since I don’t really have a favorite in today’s game, I’ll be watching to see if Twitter crashes. And then I’ll see how long it takes for this giant conversation to fade. According to Google Trends, although the search volume peaks the week of the event and then subsides into the ether until the next year, the overall conversation volume continues to climb year over year. The goal of social media is for brands to take advantage of those event peaks to increase their baseline of online conversation. Intuitively, that should work better for those with lower brand recognition, rather than the behemoths that can afford to pay. We look forward to finding out how long the proverbially tail can actually be not just in the social media conversation, but also for sales, awareness and preference.

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With Facebook’s news today that it filed to raise $5 billion in an initial public offer and most analysts predicting that Facebook’s valuation will fall somewhere between a whopping $85 billion and $100 billion, everyone is talking about Facebook. Will Facebook’s IPO create hundreds of millionaires across employees and the tech industry? Will the site that had 845 million daily active users and earned $1 billion late last year on sales eventually peak with people everywhere clambering now as a result of the IPO filing to invest in the social network? Or will potential investors be deterred because of Zuckerberg’s majority control? No one knows for sure, but when our team at Ogilvy was offered the opportunity to attend Sydney’s first ever Facebook Studio Live event yesterday, we jumped at the prospect of getting the chance to spend the day with undoubtedly the world’s biggest and most powerful social network.

So, what happened at Facebook Studio Live? Hundreds of agency heads, clients and industry professionals gathered together on a rainy Wednesday afternoon at the trendy space at Carriageworks in Eveleigh. There has always been a cloud of mystery and secrecy that surrounds the Facebook brand, which was evident upon arrival. Small Facebook branded moleskins were handed out and guests not knowing what to expect were ushered into dark auditorium with microkitchens on either side of the room that included unlimited refreshments and snacks, we later learned a staple feature of every Facebook office. The crowd got to hear from superb speakers about the Facebook hacker culture, the evolution of Facebook over the past decade, creative solutions for advertising, and the deepest level of Facebook insights and metrics available to brands with additional ad spend (of course.) My top four key takeaways I took from the day are summarised below:

1) The most successful social campaigns have impact through ALL of the following: connections, engagement, influence, and integration. The best social marketers in the world don’t create campaigns that just have the BIG idea any more, they create social programs that scale in all four categories. How do you do this? It all starts with the standard creative brief and asking two key questions a) What is the key engagement insight? b) What is the social insight?

2) Don’t underestimate the power of the conversation calendar. More and more marketers are fighting for the same short-attention span on Facebook. So, what does this mean for brand pages? Facebook is about creating authentic relationships and creating a community management strategy and conversation calendar that demonstrates the following:

• Understand what motivates social behavior
• Have a clear purpose and authentic voice
• Create many meaningful and light-weight experiences
• Posting is like a dinner party, be a brilliant conversationalist
• Creative is both an art and a science

3) Facebook Studio online offers a fantastic wealth of global information and resources available to all marketers, brands, and agencies. The site aims to celebrate the great work of agencies and marketers and inspire others, while sharing resources to help strengthen existing Facebook campaigns. Take for example the Flair Fashion Tag campaign. This highly innovative and creative Facebook app developed by Belgian agency Duval Guillaume Modem allowed people to easily tag pieces of clothing in photos and share them with friends. All “fashion tags” were then displayed on the Flair Facebook Page and the top submissions were also featured in a magazine, a nice integration between Flair’s offline and online presence. This campaign was one of the first ever to be featured on the site and even earned a Media Lion at Cannes last year.

4) The possibilities for brands on Facebook are boundless. Facebook allows brands to connect with consumers in a digital world with the same authenticity as the real world. According to Mark D’Arcy, Director of Creative Solutions at Facebook, successful Facebook campaigns for brands focus on utility, relevance, caring/sharing, and light-weight design, rather than disruption. If used smartly and strategically, a Facebook brand page is one of the most amazing devices for storytelling and understanding consumer insights.

There are just a few of the takeaways I took away from Sydney’s first ever Facebook Studio Live. I will be sharing more content and key learnings over the next few weeks!

(Part 2? Yeah, check out Part 1.)

In case you missed it, Ron Paul supporters, ASU students, and VFX artists were among those that joined the fray since my last post. The variations continue to proliferate further down the tail, satirizing - and entertaining - more niche audiences. What does this add up to? Segmentation.

While I easily enjoy Sh*t ASU Students Say even though I’m not a Sun Devil - and haven’t even been to the campus - the video resonates better with those who were. Beyond that, the video’s arc is more relatable to students who enrolled in the past 5-10 years and drink socially - perhaps even deeper for students who were in the Greek system and enjoy campus takeout.

The point is, there’s a clear difference in the type of viewer who’s going to watch the video halfway through for a chuckle and a viewer who’s going to share across social networks. Those pearls of info are demographic, psychographic, and behavioristic qualities - in some ways digital has obscured their importance.

As segmented as some brands' social media programs get these days.

On-platform segmentation

On Facebook you can get granular with ads - age, gender, interest, etc. - but what’s the deepest a brand can go with a non-paid Wall post? Zip code - better than nothing, but hardly ideal. What’s the most specific you can get with a non-promoted tweet? Well, there isn’t any targeting at all. A brand can use hashtags, but hardly a guarantee it reaches the right followers and non-followers. The list goes on.

When considering the lack of earned and owned targeting, should we have been so shocked by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s recent study showing 1.3% of users who Like a Page also engage with it? There are a host of reasons - and it’s not panic time - but a lack of targeted relevance is likely a large factor.

Is there hope? You probably saw the Pinterest infographic shared far and wide yesterday. The standout points are a 429% traffic increase since September and a higher referral rate than Google+. The larger question is how we account for the platform’s explosion - my takeaway is self-segmentation. Users can very specifically choose what content they consume from brands. For example, a user may be more interested in HGTV’s Design Happens Blog board than its Party Planner board - and the user can choose.

Of course, we can’t always expect audiences to do all the work - that’s kind of our job - but content segmentation is likely a contributor to the platform’s growing popularity. This is also why diligent brands should use Google+ to group users and serve-up relevance by the Circle-full.

What are the lessons?

Segment your influencers - While mega-buckets like green and lifestyle are easy defaults, your influencers should be as refined as your audiences - and pitched with the same specificity. This involves additional research, but is worthwhile in the long-run. This principle is emphasized in our and freshly-updated Ogilvy Social Media Engagement Code. We will always work hard to have good reason to connect our brand or program with a particular influencer or fan.

Diligent application of paid - Sometimes paid feels like a dirty word in our idyllic world of social media and word-of-mouth comms, but it’s a huge value-add when used properly. If a brand has a strong, relevant message it feels will resonate with ASU students or VFX artists, paid could be invaluable in getting the value exchange to a receptive audience.

Be targeted in your research - Broad statistics about social media won’t get you far. You may see large trends, but it doesn’t say much about your audiences. Believe it or not, MySpace is still relevant to stand-up comedians and forums are strong in industries like health care. Research + expertise for insight. As quickly as the digital world changes, intelligence must also be refreshed regularly - and with rigor.

As we continue to hear what sh*t all kinds of people say, more lessons about marketing in a digital world will come to the surface. Including when a campaign has run its course. Exhibit A @ 1:29. (It’s still hilarious.)

Are there other lessons you took away from this meme? What niche do you think is underserved in social media?

Remember the old days where you would tack up a postcard, a few pictures of your friends and some inspirational or funny images you found in a magazine on a little board in your room? The board of inspiration to share with your friends and remind yourself what keeps you driven?

Pinterest – a fairly new social media platform takes this to a whole new level. Pinterest helps you aggregate your favourite content and share it on a virtual bulletin board. According to compete data between September and December 2011 Pinterest traffic increased more than fourfold and brought in 7.51 million UMVs in December. Interestingly the site (according to Experian Hitwise) is especially popular among women, accounting for 58% of Pinterest’s traffic. Is this just an indication of how women like to interact with content and the skew of female to male social application users or could this have deeper implications? Check out this infographic showing whether Pinterest is the next social commerce game changer: http://8.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pinterest-infographic.jpg

Is Pinterest the next social commerce game changer?

What I find so powerful about Pinterest is that it is content rich. The fact that you have to include an image in your posts helps drive people to think about how their message is received in a visual sense rather than slapping a slab of text down on the page and forcing people to come to their own unguided conclusions.

How it works for those of you who haven’t jumped ship (FYI – It is by invite only which adds to the exclusivity of it all, but side note- it is not very difficult to get an invitation!) is that you have the option to create multiple self-titled boards. This could range from “My favourite foods” to “Places to travel.” The idea is to get themes happening so people know what you are interested and there is more structure to your content. You can pin things on to your page by locating content as mentioned before OR scroll through other peoples content and re-pin it to your wall.  This would be the Twitter equivalent of Re-Tweeting. You can also perform the standard social actions of liking, commenting, sharing it on your social platforms and saving the images. In my opinion, Pinterest is kind of like the point between Instagram and Tumblr

As a business tool, Pinterest would be a great way to share your brand’s  products and services in a creative and virtual environment. Boards can be used as product categories and a way of engaging with people who would not normally see your products in a creative space.

This great summary by Mashable which explains the How To Guide for Pinterest and gives some great ideas of how the platform can be used for business. (See more here: http://mashable.com/2011/12/26/pinterest-beginners-guide/) Also check out the 21 Must Follow Pinterest Users: http://mashable.com/2012/01/29/pinterest-users-to-follow/

How can you use it for your business?

1. You can create boards for types of products you sell.
2. Add boards for “things we love this week” or “Sale items”
3. Service providers can create boards for “Tips and Tricks”
4. Create a public board where you can get input from your customers, such as “Top picks”
5. Once Pinterest opens its doors to everyone (and no longer invitation only), consider offering a discount to just Pinterest subscribers – all they have to do is follow a specific board or like a specific pin.
6. You can also tweet your pins.
7. Add a Pin It button to your website, or specific product pages so you make it easier for others to share your products/company with others.

What else can you do on Pinterest?

1. On a personal note, you can add it to your Facebook timeline, which you can’t do on any of the other social bookmarking sites yet.
2. Curate lists on specific topics and share them, or keep them private. For example, maybe you are planning a wedding or redecorating your  room in your home, you can create pins of your different ideas.
3. Bloggers, you can add a pin to your blog or website to allow easy sharing of your content.

I would highly suggest checking it out even if it may not be right for your brand – rather to get a sense of where content sharing is moving and how visual and content rich platforms are quickly becoming a 2012 social trend.

Sources:

http://mashable.com/2012/01/29/pinterest-retail-infographic/

http://mashable.com/2012/01/29/pinterest-users-to-follow/#453218-Style-Me-Pretty

http://blog.shareaholic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Pinterest_Logo.png

http://cdn2.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pinterest-cover-story.jpg

In the past few days of January 2012 India has overtaken Indonesia to become the second largest Facebook country in the world with 43,497,980 users. India is adding about 2m new users each month. The most significant fact however is not India dethroning Indonesia, but the fact that only 3% of India population has joined; only Pakistan, Russia and Nigeria have such relatively low penetration rates.  This leaves a huge growth potential for India, and as more people join Facebook it will likely transform the digital landscape there, as it has done in Indonesia and Philippines.

It’s also worth noting that Japan has added 500,000 users and Korea 347,000 users in the past month – Japan has the highest growth rate (8.01%) of the top 25 countries – so we also expect to see the social media landscape changing rapidly in both these markets in 2012.

Facebook Asia – January 2012 (as quoted from Socialbakers.com).

First of all, this isn’t new. We have had a social media-related ethics code in place since 2005. At that time, it was the Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics. It helped us decide what was ‘best-practice’ and what wasn’t. These are our ethics not something handed down through culture or a governing body. We simply believed that social media’s true power was grounded in trust — trust between bloggers and their readers; between brands and their followers; between marketers and customers.

The updated code covers more contemporary circumstances. Facebook for one. We have learned that there are principles that can guide our behavior in community management as well as influencer management. We have made a choice to embrace the principles of clear disclosure in our work everywhere even while only one consumer protection body that I know of, the FTC, requires it.

I wanted to share with you and certainly ask for input and feedback. This is a living document and can hardly ever be called “done.” Still, it will guide our global teams as we continue to design and execute complex, multi-market programs around the world. Check it out:

Great relationships are built upon trust. From the start, the value for marketers to use social media was to earn the attention, advocacy and action of customers, influencers and stakeholders. While there are ways to improve our odds at “earning” all of this, there are also perils at short term tactics that can undermine the circle of trust and effectively poison the well.

The relationships we grow online between brands and customer or stakeholders are the future of our business. The digital age has changed the marcom world. Our ability to grow healthy relationships, earn brand advocacy, earn a place in someone’s social graph, earn people’s precious time and attention - will define marketing and communications effectiveness.

Trust, transparency, and true value exchange are not clichés nor empty buzzwords. They are the difference between effective use of social media and word of mouth marketing and harming relationships between organizations and their customers and stakeholders.

We, at Ogilvy, have had a social media code of ethics to guide us since 2005. It began as the Blogger Code of Ethics and spoke to our commitment to doing things right. It’s grown but never wavered from what we know from experience is the right way to run our business and provide value to our clients.

So here is the latest generation of our engagement code. This is foundational to how we do things. It has been informed by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Code of Ethics as well as consumer protection laws such as the United States Federal Trade Commission’s Guidelines on Endorsements and Testimonials. This is a living document and will be refined periodically.

Beyond our commitment to doing things right in social media, never forget how David Ogilvy captured our approach to business, “Only first class business, and that in a first class way.”

Disclosure

• When reaching out to a Influencers & fans (these could be bloggers, journalist-bloggers, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, message board members - all of the influencers we might engage) on behalf of a client, we will always identify ourselves as Ogilvy working on behalf of our client, clearly disclosing who we are and who we work for.

• Within an initial outreach email, tweet or other communication, we will always fully disclose the purpose of the email as it pertains to the program or campaign, our disclosure requirements including a link to Ogilvy’s Social Media Engagement Code.

• In our communication we will convey why we think an influencer or fan, in particular, might be interested in our client’s product, issues, event or message.

• When blogging about Ogilvy, an Ogilvy client, or products and services, an influencer must clearly disclose their relationship with Ogilvy and the Ogilvy client, including any ‘material connection’ between Ogilvy or the client and the influencer (e.g. a product loaner, an event experience, travel expenses to a brand event, etc…). We follow the WOMMA Guide to Disclosure in Social Media Marketing for Disclosure Best Practices. This approach outlines our responsibilities in enforcing clear and prominent disclosure. http://womma.org/ethics/disclosure/

• Ogilvy staff will not publish (blog, tweet, Facebook post, etc…) about a client without the explicit agreement from the client that we can do so and then only with full disclosure of our connection to the brand (e.g. adding (cl) to a tweet about a brand to signify that they are a client) and in compliance with Ogilvy’s Social Media Guidelines for Employees

• In working with employees of brands as ambassadors, we will always enforce their full disclosure of their employee relationship in their external communications.

Transparency

• Whatever the influencer or fan chooses to write or produce should always reflect their honest and truthful opinion and actual experience.

• At the same time, we are responsible for the claims a blogger, whom we engage, makes about a product and when they make incorrect or false claims, we must correct the record

• When we engage with influencers or fans specifically about a client product or service, they are never required to create positive content about that product or service, no matter the type of experience they may have with us or our client. That is their choice and their opinion is their own.

• We won’t pretend to have read an influencer’s blog or other content if we haven’t, and we’ll always get to know an influencer before we reach out to them.

Relevancy

• We will always know who we are trying to engage and respect their position with their audience or community. If they are a professional journalist first and foremost, we will understand that role and treat them accordingly. If they are a busy mom blogger, we will be sensitive to their issues and needs. If they are a customer, we will treat them with care and respect.

• We will always work hard to have good reason to connect our brand or program with a particular influencer or fan. We know that everyone’s time is precious and will not indiscriminately contact influencers.

• We will seek to present influencers with a range of opportunities to work together around a campaign, so that he/she can create the best experience possible for their audience. We acknowledge that, when it comes to knowing their audience, they are the expert.

Value Exchange

• We will always be conscious of the value that an influencer or fan will receive for engaging with us (and how the brand will benefit) and work hard to make it relevant, inspiring and right-sized. And whenever it is something of value from a product loaner, to travel expenses in order to have an experience with the brand or dinner and drinks, we will enforce our disclosure policies.

• If we reach out to an influencer about a product, campaign or issue, we will not provide monetary compensation (e.g. cash, cash cards, similar cash-like offers) for them to produce positive content about the product, service or brand, because we believe it is bad practice to “buy” favorable reviews and do not want to appear as if we are.

• If we ask a influencer to review a product and, therefore, provide the influencer with the product to enable him/her to “experience” it, we will ask that he/she be transparent and reveal that he/she has been given the product temporarily, or permanently.

• If we engage the influencer or fan as an advisor or consultant on a specific project, we will consider providing compensation (agreed upon at the start of the project). This compensation will solely be for time as an advisor or a specific job and will not include an expectation that they will write favorably about the project, product or brand.

• If an influencer has advertising opportunities on his/her blog or media site, we will counsel our client to consider purchasing advertising as a way to reach their readers. We will make it clear, however, that paying for advertising does not mean that the influencer will post about the campaign or that, if the influencer does, he/she will do so in a way that is favorable to the brand.

• If we involve people in a contest that rewards sharing or posting of content, we will avoid any conditions that would promote people spamming others or falsely supporting a brand, topic or issue.

Privacy

• Unless specifically requested or opted in, Ogilvy will not send email newsletters or other material that could be considered as SPAM to any influencer or fan.

• Before we email an influencer, we will check out the site/blog’s About, Contact and Advertising page in an effort to see if he/she has said he/she does not like to be contacted by PR/Marketing companies.

• If an influencer tells us there is a specific way he/she wants to be reached, we’ll adhere to those guidelines.

In accordance with consumer protection laws (we use US law as a global baseline) we will not directly contact children under the age of 13 for any social media or word of mouth marketing program and will comply with all applicable laws dealing with minors and marketing, including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (”COPPA”).

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Consider the famous exchange from Pulp Fiction in which Jules and Vincent debate the rationality of abstaining from pork. Jules just doesn’t dig on swine, that’s all, because they’re basically dirty, like dogs.

VINCENT:     Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?

JULES:          I wouldn’t go so far as to call a dog filthy, but they’re definitely dirty. But, a dog’s got personality. Personality goes a long way.

VINCENT:     Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true?

JULES:          Well, we’d have to be talkin’ about one charming #@$#%& pig.

Indeed, we would have to be talking about one charming #@$#%& pig. Sure, people can “like” a brand. But most people don’t really like brands. Brands need to be more charming. For that, they need personality. Without it … well, we wouldn’t call them dirty. Just invisible. Like a ship passing in the night, to quote our founder.

In fact, I think to feel human might be the greatest feat a company can pull off. But letting your “you” come through is not an easy switch to throw. It takes knowing the central truth about your offering, and identifying the one cultural tension it can speak to. It takes a team of smart, honest people leading the dialogue.

And it takes a social platform that helps these people shine. To be personable is to be in dialogue. The consistency of traditional media is critical, but social media offers opportunities to be carefully inconsistent, like all humans. How? For starters, by not yammering about yourself all day. By listening. By developing a dynamic social cadence that steps away from your textbook tweets, and dabbles in your fans’ interests and even their voice.

Maybe then they will a) always know what to expect and b) be pleasantly surprised at the same time. Charm can run the gamut, from funny to sincere to Arnold on Green Acres. Some varied examples, below.

“It’s an English basement.”

That might not mean much to you, but it probably made you chuckle if you fall into one of the two groups:

1. Current or former D.C. residents
2. Viewers of Sh*t People In D.C. Say

Of course, this video is one of many variations of the Sh*t Girls Say series - which has a cumulative YouTube viewership of 20+ million and growing. You know the premise: Stereotypical expressions from people of a certain ilk, organized by gender, hobby, lifestyle, or geography. There are takes on skiers, hipsters, suburban moms, and even sh*t nobody says (a personal favorite) and the meme’s ’success’ reminds me of basic marketing program goals: generating word-of-mouth, stimulating co-creation, and targeting segmented audiences.

$1,400 for a converted sunroom? Not bad - better than an English basement.

First: Why do we care about sh*t other people say?

As a meme - both intentionally and by accident - these videos satisfy several of the 7 Drivers of Word of Mouth synthesized from Emmanuel Rosen’s work: there’s a good story, people can show their involvement, there is an implicit invitation to participate through their involvement, ’supporters’ can be creative, and, most crucially, there’s a clear value offering - comedy.

The power of these elements is not only clear in the 20+ million video views of the original - and millions more on the variations - but the number of amateur aueters who created their own. An absurdly unscientific calculation using YouTube shows 200+ videos using a basic search - let’s safely presume 50 are duplicates and 50 are spam. Even at 100 and with absolutely no prize, that’s higher participation than most branded video submission challenges get - save Survivor applications and Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl.

What’s the lesson?

This concept - again, presumably by accident - encourages marketers to revisit basics about constructing effective programs to generate word-of-mouth and cultivate co-creation. Here are a few quick ones:

• Establish a proper barrier to entry for a desired output - if you’re inviting the masses, you better make it low.
• Make it real - do a participants’ efforts really matter or is this just a marketing program? The former will help cultivate stronger long-term benefits.
• Allow for creativity - while some of the videos are mocking groups, I would confidently presume that most of them were created by skiers and D.C.-ites themselves.
• Let your co-creators own it - while everyone involved knows this is a marketing effort, no one’s interested in making a 6-minute branded video - nor does anyone want to watch one - so ensure the brand is seen through the lens of its fans, advocates, and consumers, not the opposite.

In Part 2, I’ll explore the concepts of segmentation as it applies to long-tailed messages and why - even if you don’t live in The District - Sh*t People in D.C. Say is still funny.

Why do you think this meme has become so popular? What are the other takeaways do you see that apply to marketers?