Strategic Public Relations

Instagram's Android Launch Complete's the Picture for Brands

With 1 million downloads made in the first 24 hours of its release, Instagram's long-awaited Android app has clearly been well-received.

The Android release was a bit of a tidal wave as you can only access the platform via its mobile app or using your app login to use web-based options that tap into the Instagram API.

More users mean more potential for your audience being on the platform. So here's a quick recap of Instacontent, from here and elsewhere, to help users get their sea legs with an app that's gotten a serious second-wind. 

Watch How Brands Do: There are a variety of brands with an established Instagram presence. Luxury and beverage brands have quickly taken to the platform, having found a user base. But the media are also using it to give you backstory access around events like the upcoming U.S. Presidential election.

But before you follow everyone's well-documented lead, ask how this fits into your larger social > online > marketing > business strategy. If it doesn't roll all the way up, it's not worth investing time and resources.

Manage Your Feed: Statigr.am, by far, looks to be the best way to manage your feed, track statistics and even organize your photos and the people you follow into lists. It even allows you to message each other users through the site,  gives you promotional tools and promotes contests from other brands and users.

Use Supporting Apps: If you're taking pics with your phone, you can access a handful of apps to make your images stand out and better represent what you're trying to communicate. And there's a lot of Instatips too to help you optimize your use of Instagram.

Back that Pic Up: You'll want to have a backup copy of your photos, right? Well Google+ app users have it easiest as Google+ can automatically backup your phone's pics. But there's also options for Dropbox users and everyone else.

Take It Elsewhere: Some brands are tapping into the API-provided portability of Instgram content. Starbucks streams relevant user pics into its online Coffeehouse. And any user can easily stream their pics into a Tumblr or onto Facebook for non-Instafans to check out their work. And don't forget sites like Animoto make it easy to turn your pics into a video.

Go Offline: Photowalks are a great way to get a handle on the app and its potential. I've organized two of them and they're fairly simple to execute. If you're not about socializing in real time, you can still use any number of sites to print your pics in a number of ways. I've used CanvasPop forexample and highly recommend it.

It's Deja Vu All Over Again
With apologies to Yogi Bera, I'm already seeing a lot of Twitter "how-to" content becoming relevant again. From filling out your profile and using an avatar to posting content before following a ton of people -- many of those basics apply here (and to Pinterest!). You can even project an Instafeed by user or hashtag, to create a visual back channel at events.

How's that for a link-laden, to-do list? It's not even taking into account Instagram-related content I've curated on Pinterest and Scoop.It. There's a lot of opportunity and creativity in this site. If your audience is not on it, you can still use it for your own personal reward.

Follow me on Instagram
Cross-posted to my work blog.
Infographic via Visual.ly 

Hunger Games' Social Media Lesson? The Need for Real-Time (Data) and Longer Lead Time

The word of mouth and promotional frenzy around Lionsgates' Hunger Games has been deafening. It helped the film break box office records -- before it even opened it seemed.

While I may never see the movie (I'm not the target audience), one thing I'm first to admit is that I really like how the movie was marketed.

According to this article in Forbes, the key to The Hunger Games' social media success can be attributed to the use of real-time input from fans and a healthy lead time to build momentum for the film.

"Lionsgate adopted a ongoing continuous process for  improvement based upon user data from their social channels. This is part of a trend where smart marketers are adopting a new approach, one that leverages dynamic customer input instead of the old style of phased, programatic marketing campaigns," says Vince Broady, CEO of thismoment.

Built for Change
It's easy to say, and no secret, that planning cycles and other operational processes need to be more flexible. We need to plan for change. And a steady stream of relevant data makes a more iterative cycle possible.

Whether they're in the digital or offline worlds, our efforts can be optimized for effectiveness and efficiency through real-time data much in the way Lionsgate did.

My data and analytics co-workers take this a step forward and suggest that data equates to a digital persona of the consumer. In a recent presentation entitled, "Humanizing Big Data for Insights & Action," they note that marketers must humanize this data if they are going to learn from it and act upon it.

Whether You're on Real-Time or Internet Time, Social Media Takes Time
For me,  the best part of this article is about midway through when the 10 month promotional build was revealed.

"It was back in June 2011 that Lionsgate and thismoment launched a series of social promotions on YouTube, Facebook, and other social sites to begin the social drumbeat around Hunger Games."

10 months. More than three quarters, but just shy of one full year. We've discussed the need for a committment as opposed to a campaign approach for social media. You cannot flip the switch in the way you can with paid media and create instant engagment with consumers.

So while people may tout social media's role in the success of The Hunger Games, I hope those same people acknowledge that it takes time to build a sustainable level of momentum.

Old Spice All Over Again?
The marketing sex appeal of the Old Spice case study created unfortunate misinformation shortly after Isaiah Mustafa took YouTube by storm. But P&G and its agencies worked long and hard to get things in place ahead of the online campaign. This includes a TV spot on the heels of the Super Bowl and its agency team embedding themselves in Reddit to build the street cred it takes to float a URL there with any success.

Tone Down the Infographic Pr0n
The 10 month factoid may not sex up "that infographic" you can bet we'll see wallpapering Pinterest as soon as I hit publish, but it's critical.

It's also another facet of social media's paradox. Real-data may be more important than ever to inform ever-changing marketing efforts, but it can't speed up the amount of time most marketing efforts require to get results.

5 Tips for Free, Easy Photo Edits

The news of Google's latest service shutdowns means picture editing is no longer a Picnik for many bloggers, Flickr users and others.

Google is shutting down Picnik and wrapping the technology into services like Google+. And while many die hard Picnik users are understandably miffed, the odds are good that several alternatives have come about to handily replace their de facto image editor.

Whether or not you use Picnik, here are five tips for free and easy photo edits.

1) Your Computer: Most laptops come preloaded with image editing software. It may only cover the basics, but it'll do in a pinch and they work whether or not you're online.

2) PowerPoint: This may be seen as Macgyver by some and MacGruber by others, but you can pull images into a powerpoint slide, edit them and save them out again as jpgs. This is also great if you don't have photoshop and want to combine images. Again, you're limited in what you can do, but you can do more than you think.

3) Pixlr: If you prefer Photoshop, but don't have access to it, check out Pixlr. It's a great, free online image editing tool that closely resembles the graphic design software.

4) BeFunky: I've used BeFunky in the past for some photo fun, but they've enhanced and expanded their offering with plenty of free options to edit and filter images, add special effects and more. Thanks to Matthew Dooley for the heads up on BeFunky's full array of options.

5) Picassa: I use it on my desktop. It also connects to Picnik, but it lets you do quite a bit of editing without it. It's also a great photo management tool.

Bonus Tip: If you're in love with a photo app on your smartphone? Use Dropbox or something similar to transfer images back and forth and simply edit on your phone. It's not as straightforward as the above options. But if there's a filter you're in love with on your phone, it's an option for the right shots.

UPDATE: Thanks to David Parmet for also tipping me off to the Aviary App which allows you to edit pics from/in Facebook. 

Picnik is a great site. Hopefully Google makes a quick and obvious integration of Picnik into all of its photo tools. In the meantime, the site's given refunds to all its users and is free to all until it shuts down in mid-April. This gives die hard fans plenty of time to find an alternative that might even improve upon their former photo editing habits.

Social Media Consolidation Leaving Users in Lurch

Picnik is just one of several sites changing their policies or shutting down completely. Co.Tweet's moving to paid only as part of Exact Target's product offering. Twitter bought Summify and it's shutting down soon.

Social Media is maturing and, as sites buy other sites or evolve, it's impacting users. Hopefully it means more from mainstream sites like Twitter and Google+ in the above examples. Just remember it's business. And it's something  we'll surely be seeing more of in the future.

And a thanks to ShannanB for inspiring this post. 

 

5 Examples of How Social Media is Changing the 2012 Elections

There are plenty of ways you can use social media to follow the long march from the Iowa Caucus to the November Elections. Several sites, including Instagram and Tumblr, are being used by candidates for the first time to engage and inform citizens.

From behind the scenes access from the media and each candidate's content to larger sites tracking how the candidates are doing overall, here are just a few sites to check out.

1) 2012 Elections Site | Google: By far, Google does the best job of a non-news organization tapping its products to bring you a complete destination for bipartisan election content. It's using search, YouTube, Google+ and even Google Calendar to fuel its efforts. And in addition to covering the elections, it has a toolkit to get voters engaged in the process.

2) Media Mentions | Washington Post: Media Mentions tracks how candidates are doing in news coverage as well as on Twitter. And The New York Times, with the help of Big Data, will tell you that candidates who do better than expected will get more media coverage as a result.

3) Tapping Klout to Rank Candidates? | CNN: CNN using Klout is a big win for the polarizing ranking site. I'm hoping someone also comes back to note how well ALL of the platforms did as a predictor of candidate success. As we've already seen, unexpected outcomes are standard fare. And we're already seeing folks use a single social platform to make assertions about which candidate might/could win. UPDATE: Mashable asserts Twitter can predict who's winning the GOP presidential race.

This is uninformed and it's already being seen that the correlation between quantity of Twitter followers, Facebook likes and YouTube views does not necessarily correlate to the number of votes. In fact, this gets back to the discussion of influence. If someone has all the social buzz, but not the votes....

4) See the Elections Unfold | Instagram: The "niche photo site" points out three major news organizations using the platform to augment their coverage. And it gives me a wicked idea (evil laugh).

5) Politics & Election News | New York Times: Book-ending our examples is the New York Times who is devoting significant resources above and beyond curating their own news to cover the election. In addition to a mobile app, its bloggers and interactive team are going deep to deliver some interesting insights and examples of social's impact in the 2012 elections.

Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn

A scan on my part shows nothing of permanent of note from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn just yet. Twitter is showing folks how to live tweet for a better election experience, noting how Twitter and live TV go together like peas and carrots. But based on its White House Town Square effort, I'm sure they're capable of a more substantive offering.

Facebook is being tapped for live chats as well. It's good to see an engagement platform being used more for, uh, engaging with voters.

Instant Social Traction
It's wild to see how quickly and thoroughly single moments in an election, or other nationally broadcast events, can unfold through social media. From Santorum's unfortunate shared meaning of his last name (no link, just trust me) to his fashion choices.

Social spoofs will be an interesting sideline to distract from the carpet bombing of political ads we'll see online and offline increasingly over the following year. In a year that election spending is touted as helping to save big media, you know we're in for some serious political noise this year.

But based on the above alone, I'll note social is helping bring a new experience to the the 2012 elections -- online, offline and on TV. It's early and we'll surely see more interesting examples of how it's used to inform and engage voters.

(RED) Taps Media Convergence to Promote Awareness

Some will tell you I've got an Instagram addiction. While I'm not sure about that, the social photo-sharing platform does have a loyal following.

Instagram has shown me some great examples of brands testing and learning the concept of No Channels.

Brand Power
Of the 35 or more brands I follow on Instagram, (RED) seems to have the most fun playing up the visual nature of its brand and the various partnerships it has with other brands.

But more than brand awareness, (RED) is smart about giving followers simple calls to action. In one example, (RED) is using Instagram to encourage users to tap into a promotion for the (RED)-branded Shazam app for music discovery on the go. The proceeds benefits the non-profit's push for AIDS awareness.

Convergence & Cross-Platform Thinking
The promotion starts and ends on a mobile device and it uses two niche apps to get users to support (RED). This is certainly not new. But it is a great reminder that thinking cross-platform doesn't just apply to multiple platforms. In this case it applies to a single-device.

Cross-Posted to my work blog 

#NOCincyBananaSplit & #bananasforCLT -- a tale of two hashtags

Can Twitter sway an international brand and its potential relocation plans?

That remains to be seen. But I’ll argue it can’t hurt.

#NOCincyBananaSplit
A few weeks ago, Twitter’s J.B. Kropp contacted me and expressed his desire to get organized around what is now known as #NOCincyBananaSplit. It’s our Twitter-based campaign to make sure Chiquita knows that Cincinnatians want them to stay in town.

It was inspired by the news that Charlotte, the other Queen City, was being considered along with a third city as possible spots for Chiquita to relocate. And it’s great to see how quickly we were able to tap into Twitter and show our support.

Here’s how a phone call turned into an online dialogue with Chiquita’s CEO in less than 36 hours.

On September 16, 2011 at 9am J.B. Kropp contacted me about the Chiquita news. As a Cincinnati native, he saw the opportunity to tap into Twitter to make a difference.

Within an hour, a colleague and I came up with #NOCincyBananaSplit and an initial email from J.B. went out to a small handful of local influencers. From there it snowballed into 140 character calls to action. This initial burst of activity got Ad Age’s attention. This in turn got the local media’s attention.

And by the end of the work day, the news had taken place, it was covered by the media and we all moved along with our lives.

Twitter a CEO Tool
That next day @FdoAquirreCEO responded to Cincinnati's show of support, via Twitter of course. And it’s important to note that, while Chiquita’s CEO’s use of Twitter is not unique, Fernando Aguirre is definitely more evolved than the average Twitter user. He understands more than the basics and uses it to engage with other users and not to simply broadcast messages. It’s a potentially humanizing tool and he’s using it to put a face with a large company.

Tweets continued off and on. And a week later, on September 24^th, @BrianDFrancis turned the Cincinnati campaign into a friendly competition by getting Charlotte organized for its own Twitter campaign.

CLT or CVG TBD
#BananasForCLT did as much to underscore the importance of these efforts as it did to make their own side of the story heard. In addition to giving #NOCincyBananaSplit a second wind, this whole exercise has reinforced a few things.

1) Offline & Online: While the vast majority of this, including media coverage, took place online, it all started with a phone call and an email. The need for more direct and personal contact should never be overlooked. And making sure online and offline complement each other is the easiest way to make this happen.

2) Less Can Be More: We talked about supporting the Twitter campaign with everything from a Facebook page and a microsite to larger, offline expressions of our love for bananas. But it didn’t make sense. @FdoAguirreCEO’s use of Twitter was proven and doing anything more would simply diffuse our efforts.

3) Professional vs. Personal: If this was more than a friendly-competition, I’d take several steps to generate a bigger impact. Creating a Twitter landing page to make avatar swaps and creating tweets of support dead simple for people to join the cause would be my first step. Paid ads, most likely on Facebook, would help drive folks to the page. And an offline way to express your support would also be made available.

4) Don’t Be a Jerk: With most any online effort, there will be trolls trying to take over your bridge so to speak. But it was great to see how friendly competition helped both sides out in the long run. It would be easy to get into trash talk with 400 jobs on the line. But there were even cases of members from each side policing their own supporters.

Twitter’s ability to sway the relocation of 400 jobs is still up for debate…even after Chiquita announces its selection. But it’s a humanizing platform and it’s helped @FdoAguirreCEO connect with consumers nationwide in this example. And its helped two cities make sure Chiquita knows exactly how much their presence is appreciated. Mission accomplished.

Facebook: Will You Subscribe?

Despite this post and my last parody post, I'm NOT trying to be the Weird Al Yankovic of social media (emphasis on trying).

But I was thinking about the new subscribe feature on Facebook. And thinking about "I will subscribe" reminded me of "I will survive."

So apologies in advance for all of the various federal and international laws of good taste I'm breaking. Just do me a favor and hum the song when you read the lyrics? Trust me.

** "I Will Subscribe" **
First I was annoyed
I got snarkified
Kept wondering why Facebook changed
its interface design
After I spent so many nights
Making custom Facebook tabs
They looked wrong
But iframes forced me to carry on

And now you’ve changed
You’re all f8
I just logged in for Spotify and
Scoble’s timeline’s in place
I want to cancel my account
Praying 750 million leave
But who are we really kidding
I meant the g-damn site is free?

Go on now Zuck, walk out the door
Take Parker with you
Cause you’re not welcome anymore
Weren’t you the ones making friend a four-letter word?
Our cookies crumbled
Web browsers laid down and die
What can I do?
I will subscribe
It’s the one big change they made
Keeping my Facebook love alive
I’ll get on my wall to moan
how the old design did pwn
But I’ll subscribe
I will subscribe.

If you thought I was mad
about the new design
Just wait till Apple fan boys
see the iPhone and say “SQUIRREL!”
and they'spend oh so many nights
just sifting through the iPhone pr0n
That phone may pwn
I’ve already got my own
and you see me
with iPhone 4
Chained to another contract
some time before I’ll renew
Until then I’ll save my hipster angst
for one more site tragically free
In fact I may unleash my snarking
for someone on Google+

3 LinkedIn Hacks

A recent upgrade of LinkedIn’s iPhone app made it look simpler and prettier. And while it's gotten some good reviews, I've heard some folks are left wanting more. Regardless of how you're using LinkedIn from a mobile perspective, there are other ways to get your fix without visiting the site.

Outlook Integration
As the defacto email platform for coporate America, odds are good you're also using Outlook. I've installed the LinkedIn/Outlook integration at work and it's pretty slick. Of note is that it's easy to install and setup, unlike RSS feeds in Outlook.

And for every person you address an email to their profile pops up at the bottom of the email with some of their latest LinkedIn activity, as this screen grab shows. It feels a bit like Gist's social CRM platform.

Cardmuch(ing)
LinkedIn bought the Cardmuch app and it's a free, dead-simple way to turn any print business cards you've recieved into LinkedIn/iPhone contact info. It works amazingly well. The only thing missing for me to give it two thumbs up is there's no obvious way to export all of this content.

Visualizing 
LinkedIn's API is being tapped in some more trendy ways as well. Visualize.Me lets you turn your profile into an infographic. You can customize it and create a public link to the outcome so you can show people how #winning you are -- instead of tell.

These are just three ways to extend LinkedIn and help your business networking efforts. What are some of your favorite ways to leverage Linkedin?

QR Codes: Marketing Hero or Zero?

ComScore's latest piece of share pr0n** focuses on QR Codes, serving up the headline: "14 Million Americans Scanned QR or Bar Codes on their Mobile Phones in June 2011."

Is that a lot? Well, It depends on whether your glass is half-empty or half-full perhaps. For context, I'll note there are approximately 312 million people in the U.S., so that translates to four percent of Americans.

But if you look at the 78.5 million smart phone users in the U.S., this percentage climbs to about 18 percent.

Ben Kunz, breaks down ComScore's math on his blog. He notes "the odds of any individual holding a smart phone actually scanning your code on a given day are 1 in 244. 

Hero or Zero: It's Usually Somewhere In Between
It doesn't matter if 14 people or 14 million people scanned a QR Code in June 2011. The question to ask is: "did MY customer scan a QR Code in June 2011?"

To ComScore's credit, they speak to this question, noting the 14 million are: "more likely to be male, young to middle-age and upper income. Men were 25 percent more likely (index of 125) than the average mobile user to scan QR codes, representing 60.5 percent of the scanning audience."

Pragmatic QR Code Conversations
I've written about QR Codes before and for every smart use of a QR Code, you can probably find at least three bad examples. We'll always see good and bad uses of the shiny new as we test and learn (which can turn into crash and burn).

But I'm not saying don't use QR Codes. There are a variety of applications where an element of utility, instant gratification or discovery makes perfect sense and a QR Code can be the best path to that goal -- assuming your audience falls into the smart phone user/scanner profile. Don't forget to track and analyze how the codes are being used.

Stop, Breathe, Think
Via Google+ Kunz nails the point in all the ComScore-fueled discussion. "Stats are good, but they need context and critical thinking."

And that sums up where I'm at with QR Codes, most any shiny new marketing technology and even sites like Klout. But that's another blog post entirely.

**To be clear: ComScore, its practices and its published work are all good stuff. I'm taking issue with the  knee jerk sharing that takes place when people see a stat that supports their assumption. It's that behavior that also makes me skeptical about the wisdom of the crowds.

Cross-Posted at my work blog. 

Can Facebook Reinvent Vending Machines?

Maybe the Bad Pitch blog has jaded me, but it's rare for a relevant pitch to ping my email. So when it does -- it sings. The latest siren comes from the National Automatic Merchandise Association (NAMA).

Vend Trend
In 2007, I noticed a lot of interesting vending machine concepts in play.** The above is a PSFK-inspired video for a reader-generated trend discussions. I even did a follow up post on the vend trend. Back then I learned Japan is the vending machine capital of the world, with more than 20 machines for every citizen.

Machines once serving up only shelf-stable snacks and cold drinks are now dispensing everything from gold bars to breakfast meat. But in the U.S., vending machines have less ubiquity than Japan and a bit of a perception issue.

Vend. Love. Win.
The NAMA is attacking this issue, in part, with a Facebook contest: Vend. Love. Win. According to the (good) pitch I received: "This online contest is...the beginning of a larger campaign designed to boost awareness and generate excitement among consumers about the vending experience. 

"The program is geared largely to Gen Y consumers due to recent NAMA research indicating that Gen Y prefers vending over convenience stores and grocery or drug stores."

According to Vending Market Watch a key challenge the research found is the need to overcome the perception that vending does not provide a good value for the money, along with not having the products consumers want and not being able to make a transaction without cash.

Mobile Vending Museum
In addition to the Facebook contest is the Gratitude Tour, "a mobile marketing tour of innovative vending machines that will dispense free products in large urban settings" that will kick off in seven cities in September. A mobile app focused on vending and nutrition is under development as well as games and a component targeting other associations -- Vending Vanguard. NAMA is communicating with Gen Y friendly associations focused on various facets of college.

"Will It Vend?"
Check out the Facebook page. I'll wait. What do you think about the contest and the rest of the campaign's components?

Without more context, the campaign feels more like a lot of stuff. But I will dispense with the criticism (see what I did there?) as I want them to succeed. I'm obviously pro-vending machine. And I'm hopeful there's an integrated thread running throughout the above list -- a thread that will make the campaign results sing to the NAMA in the same fashion as their pitch sang to me.

**Prior to 2007, my fondest vending machine memory was in this NSFW clip from the movie Slap Shot.