Banyan Branch

Did you notice anything unusual about the conversations you had on Friday, May 4? Star Wars fans and nerds everywhere know the fourth of May is a special day, but some of you may have been surprised to hear your cashiers and coworkers uttering phrases like “May the Fourth be with you,” throughout the day.

Contrary to popular belief, #StarWarsDay is not tied to the film’s anniversary or even the official Star Wars Day (May 25). It was created by clever Star Wars fans who simply couldn’t resist seizing the opportunity to make a play on the film’s famous phrase: “May the Force be with you.”

It’s been a few days since the fourth (we hit a little snag in the space/time continuum here at Banyan Branch), but we felt it would be exciting to examine Star Wars’ cultural impact. How does a low budget sci-fi movie from the 70s come to define so much of modern American culture? Here are some of our favorite examples of how Star Wars fans are pushing the envelope to replicate the future (or the past, if you want to get technical) they fell in love with as a kid:

• “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”  – Princess Leia. Scientists in the UK are busy trying to create holographic projectors just like the one R2D2 used to deliver his all important message from Princess Leia. Tupac may have been the first hologram to break into mainstream entertainment, but he won’t be the last.
• “In my experience there is no such thing as luck.” – Obi Wan Kenobi. NASA is working on creating “smart SPHERES” inspired by the hovering droid that shoots lasers at Luke Skywalker when he is learning to use the Force. Would you expect anything less from the engineers who grew up with Star Wars?

• “Imperial troops have entered the base! Imperial troops have entered the [static]” – Rebel commander on the ice planet Hoth. Researchers working for the United States Military are working on technologies that would give our troops a serious leg up (or four) on the battlefield. Designing military grade walking robots can’t be easy, but these nerds are no doubt having the time of their lives working on real-life AT-ATs.
• “Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.” – Emperor Palpatine. The design of the new window on the International Space Station looks a lot like the inside of a Tie fighter. Sure, there are plenty of science-based explanations for why this is (pressure distribution and stuff like that), but it’s not hard to imagine these engineers were influenced by the Star Wars design aesthetic.
• “Do or do not do, there is no try.” – Yoda. Now for my personal favorite: In the UK you can actually mark “Jedi” as your religion on the census form, and in 2001 almost 400,000 people declared their allegiance to the light side of the force.

What does all this mean for your brand? #StarWarsDay was only “formally” established in 2011 after a totally organic grassroots movement of dedicated fans built it up. George Lucas and Co. knew a good thing when they saw it and have since encouraged the movement to continue by offering special e-cards, events and deals to celebrate the day.

In today’s YouTube society, artists and musicians also recognize the value of encouraging and celebrating fan art and fan covers. Can you imagine Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” becoming the hit song it is without the many fan covers that have been released since it came out?

Not all brands can hope to achieve the gravitas of Star Wars, but letting your fans influence the marketing and communications decisions you make is a lesson everyone can learn from. The (likely) increase in sales of Star Wars merchandise on this day alone should prove to every marketing manager why encouraging fans to show their creativity can be a huge boon to the bottom line.

*Photos licensed under Creative Commons: Legoland Star Wars by elfidomx and Jedi Training Academy by Armadillo444.

 

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

• Facebook officially signed papers for an IPO, possibly coming in May. See reactions to Facebook’s IPO here. Can the social network keep growing?

• Pinterest is now on par with Twitter and Google for referral traffic.

• Facebook debuts a Timeline Movie Maker for its new profile layout.

• Twitter updated its policies on censorship in various countries. Founder Biz Stone explains how here.

• How many of your tweets are actually worth reading?

• Facebook‘s profile changes have boosted visits to its partner sites.

• Twitter rolls out branded pages to more companies, including NBC and Al Jazeera.

• President Obama hosted the first-ever presidential Google+ Hangout, fielding questions from YouTube, G+ and more.

• What did Seattleites tweet about during the snow & ice storm last month? KIRO TV included our snowpocalypse analysis here.

• Best Buy trades in celebrities for tech innovators from Instagram and Square for this year’s Super Bowl commercial.

• Which Super Bowl team is winning in social? ESPN breaks it down, with a little help from us!

• Bill Gates hosted a live webcast yesterday, fielding questions on the Gates Foundation’s latest efforts:

A Conversation with Bill Gates: Global Development Opportunities from The Gates Notes on Vimeo.

• While Apple gains in the smartphone market, Android still dominates.

• Microsoft lays off a part of its marketing staff in a restructuring of its marketing efforts.

• Google updates its privacy policy, and Microsoft takes the opportunity to show its advantages over the updates.

• YouTube looks at subscription-based services for its channels.

• Tumblr looks to hire writers and editors to talk about…Tumblr.

• Twitter and ExactTarget set up camp at the Super Bowl as a real-time hub for marketers during the big game.

• Looking to ramp up your social media strategy this year? Check out our list of suggestions for balancing your social media diet, and Soshable’s reading list.

• Need to refresh your Twitter background? We’ve updated our handy guide to creating backgrounds for Twitter.com to reflect the new profile layout!

• We took a look at LinkedIn for brands in our latest “What’s the Hype?” post. Get your company page up to speed with these latest features.

Have a great weekend!

Written by Derek Belt, senior content manager

The Super Bowl has long been an exciting part of our national identity, and thanks to social media the past few years have really kicked off a new level of fan interaction with the game.

Last year, the Super Bowl truly went social. From the more than 4 million tweets shared during the game to the advertisers who pre-released their multi-million dollar spots before the game on YouTube and Facebook, 2011 ushered in a new era of Super Bowl marketing. And we, the fans, are better off because of it.

What’s in store for this year’s game? To fully understand what the 2012 Super Bowl has to offer, let’s take a quick look back at what took place last year. Then, we’ll explore just how fans can get the most out of Super Bowl XLVI, featuring the New England Patriots and New York Giants.

Year in Review—Twitter Gives Ads a Boost

Online conversation surrounding the 2011 Super Bowl was up 9% over the previous year, which isn’t a surprise considering how vocal football fans are. This group is one of the most active on social networks—see the record-setting tweets about Tim Tebow (9,420 tweets per second) and the fact that in 2011 the Green Bay Packers’ win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV was the second most-popular Facebook status update in the world behind the death of Osama bin Laden.

The 2011 game saw more than 4.5 million total tweets and roughly 4,000 tweets per second at its peak, as many viewers took to their mobile devices to talk extensively about the commercials, Christina Aguilera’s botched rendition of the national anthem, the wild halftime performance by the Black Eyed Peas, and, of course, the football game itself.

Best Buy, Doritos and Paramount’s teaser for Transformers 3 all garnered nearly 50,000 mentions on Twitter in the six-hour period surrounding the game, while Pepsi Max got the greatest lift from its spot and boosted its social media shares by 3,000%. Many of these brands released their marketing spots before the game even started, building significant buzz in advance of the big day.

Social Media Warms Up the Crowd

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As marketers look to spend more of their budget this year on online advertising, it’s clear that social media’s cemented its place as an essential piece of brand marketing. Take a look at how brands have advertised over the past few decades in this infographic by InfoLinks:

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

• Google debuted “Search + Your World” this week, further integrating its own Google+ network into search results and possibly putting Facebook and Twitter at a disadvantage.

• Could we see a billion Facebook users and over 500 million Twitter users this year? It’s possible!

• Facebook is capturing more share of brands’ online spending this year.

• How are marketers spending money on Twitter? Find out here.

• First Lady Michelle Obama joined Twitter this week.

• With the London Olympics approaching, volunteers are receiving strict “No Tweeting” orders.

• How much does the average LinkedIn user make?

• Spotify breaks hearts by ending its free unlimited streaming service.

• Vimeo launched mobile apps for iPhone & Android this week at CES.

• Want to be a YouTube official music publisher? You have through this weekend to sign up!

• Reddit plans to shut down for 12 hours next Wednesday in protest of SOPA.

• You have Klout…but do you have Kred?

• Ever wonder who spends their time in online gaming?

• Bing overtakes Yahoo in search queries for the first time.

• Turn off your iPhone at the Symphony, or this might happen!

• China halts iPhone sales after crazy riots.

• Who are some of the top brands on Twitter and Pinterest? Take a look.

• Instagram traffic continues to grow each month.

• Looking to ramp up your social media strategy this year? Check out our list of suggestions for balancing your social media diet, and Soshable’s reading list.

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

Have a great weekend!

Try saying that three times fast!

The Twitter bird’s been transformed by the folks at AllTwitter into a month-by-month breakdown of the biggest trending topics of the year. Take a look at the major world and pop culture events that shaped Twitter conversation last year.

Full image credit via AllTwitter

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:

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Written by Amy Rainey, account manager. 

As it faces off against the iPad and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, the new Kindle Fire is a tough competitor in this holiday season’s tablet wars. After a week with the Kindle Fire, I’m very satisfied with my purchase.

I wasn’t very interested in the first iPad when it came out, particularly since it lacked a camera and microphone. I was busy editing videos, Skyping with friends on the other side of the country, managing my blog and playing with new photo apps on my phone. Why would I want a $500 device that was purely for media consumption, not creation? Nearly two years later, I now long for such a device.

I want to be able to check my email, participate in a tweetchat or flip through photos on Facebook, but I also want to be able to enjoy long-form content, whether it’s a movie, a magazine cover story or a novel, without distractions. That’s where the $199 Fire comes in. For me, the Fire represents a break from incessant pings and notifications. I love my constantly connected life, but I also love taking the occasional break to focus.

Although I’m happy with my newfound distraction-free device, it, like all tablets, has its advantages and drawbacks. Let’s take a look.

Highlights

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Seattleite Rainn Wilson, primarily known for his role as Dwight Schrute onThe Office, returns for a special, hometown-only evening of music and comedy with special guests Mindy Kaling, Andy Grammer, Chris Pratt, Anna Faris, Visqueen, Colin Meloy (of The Decemberists), Phoenix Jones (real life superhero) and more to be announced.

All proceeds from the show benefit our client, Mona Foundation. For those of you who aren’t familiar,  Mona Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting grassroots educational initiatives and raising the status of women and girls worldwide.

We hope you can join us on Saturday, November 19th! You can purchase tickets here. Make sure to follow Mona Foundation on Facebook and Twitter. See you there!

Written by Julia Allen, social marketing research analyst. Graphics by Adam Cornille, senior visualization analyst.

The old marketing adage has always been “A happy customer tells one friend, an unhappy customer tells ten”–except now i’ts more like 3,000.

On July 12th Netflix announced that it would separate the current DVD/steaming-live subscription into two separate plans. About two months later, on September 18th, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced in a blog post that the the DVD section would split off and be renamed Qwikster. Posts erupted berating the 60% price increase and the bi-login, bi-payment, bi-web page mess. Shaken by the slew of negative sentiments Netflix announced Qwikster’s dissolve less than a month later.

It’s not surprising to see a company of Netflix’s size being overtaken by voices in the social sphere. Those tweeters and posters are loud and have a long reach. We here at Bayan Branch were curious to how the announcement and dissolve was received and if conversation has started to take a turn for the better.

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