Banyan Branch

2011 saw a multitude of changes in the world of social media. Familiar sites look nothing like they did just a year ago, while many new players have reshaped how brands and individuals can present themselves online. Gone are the days of “What is social media?”, replaced by “How much is social media a part of our business strategy?”

Let’s take a look at how a few major social media sites have refreshed or expanded the game for brands – and what to look forward to in 2012:

1. Facebook

   
   The world’s #2 most visited site (after Google) grew to over 800 million users this year. Even though Mark Zuckerberg and team make changes to the site almost regularly, Facebook only seems to grow more. Perhaps the biggest changes ever to hit the social network were those announced at F8. Touted as “a new way to tell our stories,” Facebook recently rolled out Timeline and Cover to all users, with Social Apps like Spotify and Washington Post reader integration launched soon after F8. At this time, it remains to be seen if brand pages will enjoy the exact same Timeline format, but it’s a sure bet that marketers are already re-thinking how they reach their target audiences on FB. EdgeRank, which influences what shows up in user news feeds, has already changed dramatically thanks to Timeline, and Sponsored Stories within user Timelines are coming soon.

2. Twitter

   
   Twitter saw many a milestone this year, with the first-ever Presidential Twitter Town Hall and tweet-per-second records broken world event by world event (at this time, it’s held by the announcement of Beyonce & Jay-Z’s baby.) Users responded well to a new interface design for Twitter.com as well as TweetDeck and the official Twitter mobile app. For marketers, it’s also been a great year on Twitter. The site opened up its API to developers for its photo-upload and analytics systems, and introduced Promoted Tweets, Hashtags, Stories and Profiles – with a self-serve platform to fine-tune your Twitter branding strategy. New Branded Profiles should roll out to brands in early 2012.

3. YouTube

   
   Did you know that YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine after Google? Millions of videos are watched or uploaded every day to the site by millions more individuals. Last month, YouTube underwent a major makeover, with big changes to its homepage and user profiles. This year, the video network also launched Channels, allowing marketers to create better branding presence and integration with the rest of the site.

4. LinkedIn

   
   The professional networking site made a lot of feature improvements this year to appeal to brands. In addition to the launch of official company pages, Linked In introduced more advertising options, status updates for pages is better integrated with feeds from blogs and social media sites.

5. Tumblr

   
   Though micro-blogging site Tumblr is four years old, it really took off in July 2011, doubling its unique visitor traffic and quadrupling its total number of Tumblrs over 2010 stats. For brands who don’t want to fuss with a WordPress, Blogger or custom blog, Tumblr has been a great resource for releasing product information, event information and general business news. Its “reblog” functionality lends itself to naturally viral posts – Tumblr users just click once to share other users’ posts with their own Tumblr network.

6. Instagram

   
   Instagram took off this year and now arguably leads the crowded market of iPhone photography apps. With its simple interface, fun filtering options and easy integration with Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and more, it caught on like wildfire. Brands, though they only have access to individual profiles just like you or I, have also taken to Instagram to reach their audiences in real-time. The fashion and news industries especially have taken to the photo app, crowdsourcing outfit and world events photos from around the world with a few clicks of a button. The band The Vaccines even crowdsourced the first music video made from Instagram photos this year.

7. Pinterest

   
   There’s a lot of hype around Pinterest, the “vision board” of the internet, especially since it’s quadrupled its number of users just since August. At its core, Pinterest is a way to organize and share the things you find on the internet with others. Since its pinning features and boards are focused on images and video that you pull from articles or sites you’re reading, it’s all about the visual appeal of your pins that attract followers, comments, likes and repins. Many have found it useful for fashion tips, sharing recipes and home decor inspiration. Seattle-based brands Nordstrom and (interestingly enough) the Seattle Seahawks have already begun experimenting with marketing on Pinterest. 2012 will no doubt see a lot of brands dipping their toes in “pinning” to reach their audience.

8. Mobile

   
   Though not one specific network or website, we’d be remiss to ignore the major shift in internet user habits to include mobile. A sizeable share of the world’s internet usage, video viewing and news is received through a mobile device. With the constant battle between iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and others for the best smartphone, the most coverage and the best wi-fi, it’s absolutely crucial for brands to have an appealing mobile presence. Brands who have yet to take a look at what their website, blog or video look like on mobile have a lot of catching up to do in 2012.

9. Google+

   
   Google officially threw itself in the social media platform game this year with the launch of Google+. This fall, they also introduced Branded Pages. Though G+ launched with much fanfare and includes great features like Hangouts, Ripples and integration with the most popular search engine in the world, it remains to be seen how brands can find unique success on this social network. Many users rushed to claim their individual profile and later, their Branded Page, but the site sees just a small percentage of regular users. Hangouts seems to be the standout feature. Maybe in 2012 we’ll see G+ used as a new business resources for webinars and forums.

10. Klout

    
    While the social media industry has spent a lot of time developing analytics tools for traffic on various sites, the standards for determining who the influential users are is still up for discussion. For this, it’s worth mentioning Klout, which is the standout for measuring social media influence of any given individual. Klout announced a major update to its secret algorithm for determining Klout scores and now incorporates everything from WordPress and Blogger to Instagram and Flickr. Perhaps the bigger statement here is that as brands define their marketing strategy, accurate measuring tools for finding key influencers in their niche will be crucial in the coming year.

Written by Mary Black, Sales Planner

Every holiday season, businesses continue to embrace the latest social technology to provide people with varied methods for sending holiday greetings, and this year is no exception.  Sending e-cards to friends and family is only scratching the surface of the creative ways businesses are creating holiday joy for givers and receivers alike.

Here are some of our favorite digital holiday experiences from this year divided by category:

Search Engines

Bing Holiday Calendar

Bing produced a holiday calendar in the style of a digital advent calendar.  Fans have been checking in on the calendar every day since December 1^st, unlocking fun infographics, celebrity interviews, short-term contests and  adorable Bing-produced videos. It’s not too late to join in the fun.

Google “Let it Snow”

Search for “let it snow” in Google, and the search page becomes filled with frost and snow that accumulates during the time you spend on the page. As your view becomes frosted over, you can click the “defrost” button to start all over.

Interactive Gift Tags

American Express Talking Tag

American express designed a gift tag users can print up and attach to a gift. When the tag is held up to a webcam while chatting with someone, the viewer will see fun animated images such as a goofy mustached mouth.

JCPenney Santa Tag

JCPenney has designed gift tags with QR codes that allow the gift-giver to record a personalized message for the recipients. Video instructions are found on the JCPenney site to help walk you through the simple process.

Personalized Messages from Santa

Gmail – Send a Call from Santa

I’ve personally had a lot of fun with this one, sending  goofy messages to all of my loved ones. The application prompts the user to answer several questions about the call recipient.  There is a wide assortment of responses from which you can choose including some really fun options. You can make the message as serious or silly as you want. After responding to the questions, users can watch a video and/or listen to a message developed based on the responses before passing the joy on to the recipient.

Telefonica 02 – Video Message from Santa

Telefonica 02 designed a campaign to allow people to tweet messages to loved ones using the hashtag #santa02. Upon receipt, Santa made a video message repeating the contents of the tweet, to be delivered to the recipient.

Retail

Ralph Lauren’s Rugby Line

This year Ralph Lauren’s Rugby line designed its site to allow consumers to create a holiday card that doubles as a catalog.  You design your message by selecting the images/items with the appropriate letters and sending to your friend or family member. Once the recipient receives the digital card, they are able to go directly to the products displayed with the messages.

Christmas Trees lit by Social Media

Heineken Social Christmas Tree

Heineken set up an 11 meter Christmas tree made out of 48 screens. Fans create their own Social Christmas tree by entering messages and tagging friends using a Facebook tab. Once that is complete, an individual Social Holiday Tree will be developed based on the information entered. A video of the tree is recorded, and each video can be found in a gallery on the Facebook tab and can be shared with friends.

Christmas Spirit Tree

Canadian company Canadian Tire developed a Christmas tree with lights powered by Christmas messages found across the social web. Each of the following categories illuminate different colored lights: social networks, blogs and forums, news media and Christmasspriittree.ca.

Here’s your weekly roundup of major news points from the social sphere:

• Are you ready for the new Facebook Timeline? It’s here for all users!

• Twitter also launched a major redesign last week. Check out our round up of the New New Twitter here.

• While we’re at it, here’s a look at YouTube‘s recent (long overdue!) makeover.

• Facebook Timeline is available for Android users – but not on iOS just yet.

• Zynga launched its IPO, and saw its stock drop quickly right after.

• Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is among a group of startup leaders fighting the SEC’s shareholder rules that may cause startups to go public too soon.

• Will the next iPad have a smaller screen?

• WordPress‘s latest update gives love to its mobile interface and multimedia.

• Google+ is working on adding a check-in feature soon.

• FourSquare continues to grow both in users and office size!

• Looks like YouTube‘s working on beefing up its music offerings by buying royalties management company RightsFlow.

• In case you haven’t heard, Gowalla‘s been swallowed up by Facebook.

• Facebook looks to combat suicide with its new prevention tool.

• We are so grateful to be included in Forrester Research Inc.’s October 2011 report by Sean Corcoran, “How to Choose the Right Partners for Social Media Marketing.”Check out the report here!

Happy holidays!

Written by Mary Black, sales planner. 

Media reports about the hottest toys has become as much of a holiday tradition as drinking eggnog, putting up an obnoxious number of lights on your house, sitting on a jolly and possibly scary guy’s lap to have your picture taken, and listening to cheesy holiday tunes throughout the season.

In years past, some of the buzz about top toys has lead to an outright frenzy involving long lines, swarms of people breaking out into fights and even trampling!  Remember the Cabbage Patch Kids craze of 1983 or the “Elmo-Mania” stampede in 1996 where 300 people rushed into a Walmart overcome with the desire for a Tickle Me Elmo?

This year, customers have demonstrated much more restraint with regard to their toy purchases if not their waffle iron purchases. We conducted our own research this year, and found some fun looking toys that are creating buzz this year but not inciting rioting…yet.

Air Swimmers probably garnered the most buzz within our office. These are inflatable sharks and clownfish that swim through the air with the help of a little helium and a remote control.

Some of the other most wished for toys are:

(more…)

Yesterday, Twitter revealed its first major redesign for its web and mobile interface in over a year. Twitter’s redesign comes on the heels of Facebook’s Timeline launch and other major changes, and Google+’s Branded Pages announcement. While the New New Twitter is a change for everyone, how will it affect the way brands market themselves on the micromessaging social network?

Before we launch into Twitter’s new Brand Pages, let’s briefly go over the major changes that all users see on their profile:

Me

The overall profile size seems to be a bit smaller than last year’s redesign. Users’ main info, including: profile image, bio, link, follower, following and tweet counts and profile edit button now live on a static horizontal bar that sits atop the stream of your latest tweets and the sidebar (which is moved to the right and includes: lists, recent images, trending topics and Twitter’s sitemap.)

Homepage

The new homepage draws more attention to trending topics, follow suggestions and the stream of tweets from users you follow. Very similar to the “Me” page, but without the profile box on top.

Connect

Twitter’s roped in “Mentions” with “Interactions” (retweets, favorited tweets and new follows) and housed them under the Connect tab. Use this to see who’s been interacting with you.

Discover

Hashtags, Twitter’s main way to track major events, trending topics and other search keywords, is now part of the Discover tab. Twitter Stories are the main focus in this tab’s interface, along with local trending topics.

Brand Pages

So what can marketers look forward to with the new Twitter design? According to Twitter’s Advertising blog, Brand Pages will have two major features:

Larger header image for displaying your logo, tagline, and any other visuals.

The Promoted Tweet: You can also control the message visitors see when they first come to your profile page by promoting a Tweet to the top of your page’s timeline. This Tweet helps you highlight your most engaging and important content and better connect with your target audience. The Promoted Tweet on your profile page will appear auto-expanded so that visitors to your page can instantly see the photo or video content that you link to from your Tweet.

You can see below how Nike and Best Buy, two of the first brands to receive a Brand Page, are using the new features to promote current campaigns and holiday promotions:

These changes, along with Promoted Tweets, Accounts, and Trending Topics, will allow for much better brand visibility within the Twitter interface. Marketers will have more opportunity to highlight major campaigns and initiatives, and control over what their followers see and when.

Click here for our updated guide on creating your background for the New New Twitter.

With the announcement of Google+ Branded Pages just weeks after Facebook’s major changes, there are a lot of changes in store in the way brands represent themselves on social media.

While we are keeping on top of the latest trends and news for our clients, here are a few November articles we’ve contributed to on these changes.

• The Future of Social Media: 38 Experts Share Their Predictions For 2012 (Business 2 Community)

• For a Crystal Ball of Google+, Look to Facebook’s Early Adopting Brands (Business 2 Community)

• Marketers mum on Android patent lawsuit (Direct Marketing News)

• Buddy Media Turns a Page (AdWeek)

• Will Google+ Pages Quit Flirting And Get Down To Business? (Fast Company)

• Forget Facebook: 4 Reasons Your Company Needs a Google+ Page (Inc. Magazine)

• Interview: Google + – Time to Get In for Businesses? (Social Media Today)

• Google+ Branded Pages Are Shiny and New, But Keep Your Eye On The Prize (SociableBlog)

• Understanding Google+, the new big player in social media (Media Life Magazine webinar)

• The 15 Best Facebook Pages You’ve Ever Seen (HubSpot)

• When to Hire a Social Media Agency (Forrester)

• What Facebook’s FTC Privacy Settlement Means to Marketers (Forbes)

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The second most-visited site in the world got a much-needed makeover! YouTube boasted a brand-new look today, complete with a new homepage and simpler navigation to your favorite video channels. What’s new on YouTube? Here’s a quick rundown of the changes in its makeover:

Overall site design redux

The new YouTube homepage boasts a simple look that looks a lot like how Twitter and Google+ are structured now, with one sidebar and a main content stream. YouTube’s made it much easier to sign in on the left navigation sidebar, which also features links to your Channel subscriptions.

Channels

A few weeks ago, YouTube announced Channels, enhanced brand experiences that make marketing and advertising much more worthwhile. The new interface integrates these Channels to benefit both users and brands. Users can organize their favorite channel subscriptions straight from the homepage and find new ones by category, while brands have various templates to choose from in building out their Channel to their needs.

Facebook & Google+ Integration

Social media is all about an integrated experience right? We’ve been able to share YouTube videos on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and now Google+. Slowly but surely, YouTube is folding these sites within the YouTube.com experience. Now, you can see what videos your Facebook and Google+ friends have posted right from your homepage sidebar navigation. It’s only a matter of time before Twitter and other sites are incorporated as well.

What’s a YouTube redesign without an instructional video? Check out all the changes here:

Here’s your weekly roundup of major news points from the social sphere:

• Twitter launches a self-serve ad platform for promoted tweets, accounts and trends.

• Japan’s mixi social network teams up with Twitter.

• Facebook settles with the FTC on privacy issues. Read Mark Zuckerberg‘s statement here.

• Hey New York! Facebook is headed your way with a new engineering office.

• YouTube finally gets a fresh makeover.

• Spotify launches apps for its music listening platform.

• Could Microsoft be after LinkedIn & Netflix?

• Google+ enables free phone calls within Hangouts.

• The latest in Zynga IPO news.

• Check out the Radian6 social marketing cloud from Salesforce.

• Alterian‘s board approves SDL’s takeover bid.

• Text messaging turns 19 tomorrow! Check out Tatango’s timeline of how texting has evolved during the years.

• We are so grateful to be included in Forrester Research Inc.’s October 2011 report by Sean Corcoran, “How to Choose the Right Partners for Social Media Marketing.”Check out the report here!

Have a great weekend!