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Wednesday, March 21, 2012
March 2012 Newsletter
Monday, March 19, 2012
Social Engagement Strategy: 5 Tips for Brand Ambassadors
You’ve created your accounts and set up your page. Your brand ambassadors (and decorators - boo) are already talking about your brand and you’re listening. You’ve got every tool at your disposal (including Social Conversation Manager and Brand Monitor from thismoment), but you’re still not sure when, or more importantly why and how to engage.
Now is the time now to create and interact in conversation. While it’s important to know what folks are saying (and why they’re saying it), start with defining how and why you’re going to interact with your audience by doing the following: learn, voice, collaborate, measure and commit.
Learn
Make a list of your top 3-5 direct competitors and check in on them frequently. See what they're doing on the platforms you're engaging with and compare apples to apples.
Go even further and check out leaders in the Social Media space such as Ford, Zappos, Comcast and American Express (find more leaders and their social URLs via SocialMedia.org’s Big List). These brands are known for their engagement via social media and are taking risks and reaping the rewards. What are things you can learn from their habits and even their (public, oops!) failures?
Voice
Define your brand’s voice and share this internally and with your collaborators. Creating a Social Media Style Guide is a great way to set a baseline for your communicators as well as help you define your audience. If you’re a technology company, it may make more sense to have a more strict voice, while a retail company may be able to be more casual.
As your brand learns and grows, update your Style Guide as necessary, remembering to collaborate, but speak with one voice.
Collaborate
Not every organization has a team just to handle social engagement (if only dreams came true!). It may be that you have to roll ahead, generating your sales pitch internally, to invest in social media - whether that be tools and/or people. But never fear! Start now and use what you have to form a team of internal advocates and a brain trust.
If you already have a team (high five!), ensure they know the brand’s voice, but encourage them to use their own communication style - they’re people, after all. Ensure you get regular feedback from your team, no matter who it’s comprised of.
Build from within and practice by engaging internally before engaging externally. Don’t neglect setting up clear leadership that defines the voice and leads - hands-on.
Your users will determine where your brand should engage. Don’t fall into the trap of having a presence just because everyone has one. If your customers are there, you should be there.
Measure
So, now that you know where your brand needs to be, it’s time to measure - but what? Define your goals.
Define exact metrics you’ll gather and evaluate these regularly. Make sure your definitions are relevant to the social sphere and how users are interacting with your brand. Ensure the metrics are ones you can get and find using the tools at your disposal.
Commit
Be frequent in your communication with your audience. If your brand will commit to social, you have to be social.
Understand that you cannot control what your audience says, you can only control what you post in reply or how you reply privately. Deleting a negative comment can draw more attention than just leaving it alone. If your brand is not ready to take the bad with the good, you may not be ready to engage your audience in the social space.
Start here and you will have a good foundation to become your brand’s lead ambassador. Look at your brand’s social media strategy as a living, breathing thing. Always be ready to learn from those brands around you and from your brand’s own success and failure. Establish your brand’s voice and refine/expand it as the social sphere and your brand’s place within it grows and changes. Lead your team and collaborate. Measure your success and be transparent with your clearly defined metrics. Finally, commit to a long-term strategy that will ensure your brand’s success with social engagement.
- Amelia Kleymann
Sales Engineer, Chicago
Now is the time now to create and interact in conversation. While it’s important to know what folks are saying (and why they’re saying it), start with defining how and why you’re going to interact with your audience by doing the following: learn, voice, collaborate, measure and commit.
Learn
Make a list of your top 3-5 direct competitors and check in on them frequently. See what they're doing on the platforms you're engaging with and compare apples to apples.
- How often do they update their YouTube channel?
- How do they engage via Twitter?
- What do they use their Facebook brand page to convey?
- What can you learn form what they're doing well and what are they are lacking that you can do on behalf of your brand?
Go even further and check out leaders in the Social Media space such as Ford, Zappos, Comcast and American Express (find more leaders and their social URLs via SocialMedia.org’s Big List). These brands are known for their engagement via social media and are taking risks and reaping the rewards. What are things you can learn from their habits and even their (public, oops!) failures?
VoiceDefine your brand’s voice and share this internally and with your collaborators. Creating a Social Media Style Guide is a great way to set a baseline for your communicators as well as help you define your audience. If you’re a technology company, it may make more sense to have a more strict voice, while a retail company may be able to be more casual.
As your brand learns and grows, update your Style Guide as necessary, remembering to collaborate, but speak with one voice.
Collaborate
Not every organization has a team just to handle social engagement (if only dreams came true!). It may be that you have to roll ahead, generating your sales pitch internally, to invest in social media - whether that be tools and/or people. But never fear! Start now and use what you have to form a team of internal advocates and a brain trust.
- Who in your organization or via the partners you work with can lend a hand?
- Who communicates out to the press or media?
- Who already participates on behalf of your company on social media sites?
- Who’s the one who tells everyone about everything in the office (or at least the important business-related items)?
If you already have a team (high five!), ensure they know the brand’s voice, but encourage them to use their own communication style - they’re people, after all. Ensure you get regular feedback from your team, no matter who it’s comprised of.
Build from within and practice by engaging internally before engaging externally. Don’t neglect setting up clear leadership that defines the voice and leads - hands-on.
Your users will determine where your brand should engage. Don’t fall into the trap of having a presence just because everyone has one. If your customers are there, you should be there.
Measure
So, now that you know where your brand needs to be, it’s time to measure - but what? Define your goals.
- If you’re on Facebook, a “Like” or “Comment” may be a metric
- On Twitter, it may be “Followers” and “Re-Tweets”
- YouTube may lead to “Views” and “Comments”
- What does a Facebook “Like” really mean?
- What is a follower on Twitter - and do they matter? Why?
- Do re-tweets matter? Why?
- What content are users sharing and how?
Define exact metrics you’ll gather and evaluate these regularly. Make sure your definitions are relevant to the social sphere and how users are interacting with your brand. Ensure the metrics are ones you can get and find using the tools at your disposal.
Commit
Be frequent in your communication with your audience. If your brand will commit to social, you have to be social.
- Set the pace and tone, clearly committing to keeping things updated, fresh and interesting, just like your brand or thingamabob
- Be ready to answer users’ questions
- Prepare for sticky situations and have workflow defined in order to handle uncomfortable situations in line with your brand’s voice
- Look at sentiments, volume and trends using tools like Brand Monitor
- Have plans to interact to positive, negative and neutral events happening surrounding your brand
Understand that you cannot control what your audience says, you can only control what you post in reply or how you reply privately. Deleting a negative comment can draw more attention than just leaving it alone. If your brand is not ready to take the bad with the good, you may not be ready to engage your audience in the social space.Start here and you will have a good foundation to become your brand’s lead ambassador. Look at your brand’s social media strategy as a living, breathing thing. Always be ready to learn from those brands around you and from your brand’s own success and failure. Establish your brand’s voice and refine/expand it as the social sphere and your brand’s place within it grows and changes. Lead your team and collaborate. Measure your success and be transparent with your clearly defined metrics. Finally, commit to a long-term strategy that will ensure your brand’s success with social engagement.
- Amelia Kleymann
Sales Engineer, Chicago
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Thismoment Announces New User-Generated Content Engine for YouTube Brand Channels, and Global Support
SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Mar 15, 2012) - Thismoment, a provider of social content management software for brands, today announced that it surpassed 650,000 user generated content (UGC) submissions through its flagship product, the Distributed Engagement Channel (DEC).
The latest release of the DEC UGC contest engine allows brands to collect video, photo, and text content from users directly through YouTube, Facebook, and brand site pages, and offers full moderation and workflow controls to manage submission data. At a brand's discretion, the UGC contest engine also allows users to authenticate with their social service of choice, including YouTube, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, and Instagram. The new turn-key system enables Thismoment customers to build and deploy creative and engaging UGC brand channels on YouTube at a faster rate than ever before. Additionally, with offices in all international YouTube markets, brands can enjoy quick-to-deploy UGC engagement solutions that extend reach and drive deep engagement globally and with full local language support.
Since partnering with YouTube in 2010, Thismoment has launched over 100 YouTube brand channels for customers within all major industry verticals, including more than 100 Fortune 500 brands. Throughout this time, Thismoment has powered some of the most inventive uses of YouTube APIs in the deployment of engaging and flexible brand experiences on YouTube.
Current Thismoment customer brand deployments with YouTube:
- 100+ deployments of YouTube brand channels; more than any other company
- Most robust set of YouTube specific functionality including:
- Integration with existing YT playlists
- Dynamic syncing of YouTube playlists to the Thismoment CMS
- Uploading of content to YouTube directly from Thismoment CMS
- Full suite of YouTube templates for brand customization
- Integration of multiple content types including videos and photos from YouTube, Facebook, and Flickr into YouTube channels
- Dozens of deployments into mobile brand channels (on m.youtube.com)
- Numerous UGC contest executions including some exclusively around photo and text assets (featuring non-video call to action)
Quotes
Vince Broady, CEO and Founder, Thismoment
"Given our successful relationship with YouTube to-date, we are pleased to broaden the reach and scope of our UGC contest engine. We're seeing an increasing demand for user content enabled engagement programs in all international regions that YouTube supports. This is a clear indicator that YouTube is approaching brand relationships more aggressively and openly than ever before and underscores the value that custom YouTube channels provide to brands."
Ankarino Lara, CPO and Founder, Thismoment
"We see this latest milestone as a tipping point given that our customers are demanding more and deeper user generated content programs in general and on YouTube brand channels, specifically. Enabling our latest UGC engine release, Google and YouTube have taken a huge and critical step towards addressing a brand's broader social strategy, making it easier than ever for brands to maintain a highly engaging and differentiated presence across many and varied global distribution points. We're excited to offer full international language support and to continue pushing the envelop in allowing users to engage more easily than ever before on YouTube brand channels."
About Thismoment
Thismoment is a pioneer in the development of Social Content Management Software for brands. Its Distributed Engagement Channel (DEC) is a real-time platform for managing a brand's digital presence, including social content, conversation and creative assets across earned, owned and paid media channels on web, tablet, mobile, and digital outdoor devices. Launched in March 2010, DEC is already used by more than 100 Fortune 500 brands. To learn more, please visit thismoment.com.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Power Your Social Media Campaigns With Compelling Content
Some companies jump onto the social media bandwagon with enthusiasm... running campaigns, promoting their brands etc, only to find their pages resembling virtual ghost towns after the fervor fizzles out. The featured content is soon outdated or is slowly dying.
Producing creative promotional content requires considerable time and effort; we say the returns are worth the hard work. The recent content marketing explosion got the research team at Thismoment to study and understand why quality content is believed to be imperative to a brand's success online.
Although the aim of campaigns is to 'promote' something, today's digital audiences are not receptive to content that resembles a sales pitch.
eMarketer's research shows that creating original content was the biggest challenge marketers faced. Although most marketers know that content is king, many aren't sure what kind of content they should be creating. Here are some suggestions to make this a less daunting task:
Smart marketers keep the sales talk to minimum and subtly disguise promotions in the form of captivating narratives and stories. Here's how it's done:
Mazda's (Canada) Defy Convention Campaign: The YouTube Campaign (powered by Thismoment's DEC platform) was launched to promote Mazda's new 2013 CX-5. Instead of focusing on the car's improved performance, this campaign is in the form of a narrative featuring surfer Logan Landry who defies convention. There are two factors that make it stand-out:
A social campaign's shelf-life is largely dictated by its content. While most businesses today have a social media page with some content thrown in, campaigns sometimes fall short of expectations due to lack of foundation in the form of goals. Creating promotional content isn't simple; yet, it's not rocket-science either. Less sales talk, more storytelling, engagement and listening with a dash of contests thrown in is the perfect recipe for dishing out compelling content.
- Shama Ahmed
Thismoment
Producing creative promotional content requires considerable time and effort; we say the returns are worth the hard work. The recent content marketing explosion got the research team at Thismoment to study and understand why quality content is believed to be imperative to a brand's success online.
- Among the top goals of content marketing is creating brand awareness (Content Marketing Institute); we believe this is one space marketers will focus on during the campaign creation process.
- The scope of content marketing is more than PR and advertising. A big part of it involves keeping campaigns alive by focusing on industry-specific topics.
- Too many marketing messages and repetitive content are major reasons brands are unfollowed on Facebook. It's not about how often you post; it's about how interesting and relevant the content is.
Although the aim of campaigns is to 'promote' something, today's digital audiences are not receptive to content that resembles a sales pitch.
- Driving Interactions: Campaigns that sound too pushy leave no room for interactions. Interactions pave the way for engagement; therefore, following the 'less sales-like and more interactive/engaging' formula while building marketing content is advisable.
- Contests Can Keep it Interesting: The recent Sprite-Uncontainable Game YouTube campaign (powered by Thismoment's DEC platform) is an excellent example of how contests can make campaigns interesting. The campaign's content was designed like a fun and engaging contest, simultaneously promoting Sprite's 'sporty' image, without directly doing so.
- Defining Campaign Goals: Defining your campaign's objectives definitely makes the content creation process a lot simpler. Once the goals are established, marketers can move on to the next step of producing content.
- Listen First, Create Later: Marketers churning out content regularly can sometimes run out of ideas. In situations like these, it's all about knowing where to look. This is where social media monitoring tools like Brand Monitor help. By listening to conversations, marketers can understand trends, get new ideas and generate some interesting promotional content.
Smart marketers keep the sales talk to minimum and subtly disguise promotions in the form of captivating narratives and stories. Here's how it's done:
Mazda's (Canada) Defy Convention Campaign: The YouTube Campaign (powered by Thismoment's DEC platform) was launched to promote Mazda's new 2013 CX-5. Instead of focusing on the car's improved performance, this campaign is in the form of a narrative featuring surfer Logan Landry who defies convention. There are two factors that make it stand-out:
- While the focus remains on Landry, the CX-5 is subtly endorsed with shots of the car appearing at regular intervals without any promotional messages. Landry, for instance, is shown taking his surf-board from the car, highlighting how spacious it is.
- The campaign generates content with a UGC contest that calls for personal stories of achievement.
A social campaign's shelf-life is largely dictated by its content. While most businesses today have a social media page with some content thrown in, campaigns sometimes fall short of expectations due to lack of foundation in the form of goals. Creating promotional content isn't simple; yet, it's not rocket-science either. Less sales talk, more storytelling, engagement and listening with a dash of contests thrown in is the perfect recipe for dishing out compelling content.
- Shama Ahmed
Thismoment
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Making Your Brand's Social Media Content Sharable
With content witnessing rapid growth in the digital marketing space, it is unsurprising to see brands increasing focus on creating compelling content. However, no matter how interesting your brand's content is, it is of little use unless shared. Although promoting marketing messages via social media is a common practice, the key to content sharing lies in expanding its reach beyond your brand's followers. By this we mean making it easy for your audience to share this with their connections. The Thismoment team researched how content sharing improves social media interaction and how this can be beneficial:
A 'Pinteresting' Way to Share
While the skeptical few are still testing the waters, big brands like Revlon are making the most of Pinterest. What makes Pinterest today's hottest social sharing site?
The Ingredients for Shareable Content
Most brands today are scrambling to create their presence on the plethora of networking channels out there; but the smarter ones focus on increasing exposure for the content they create. What makes their content sharable?
Preventing Content Stagnation
There are several reasons why some brands find their online content bitten by the 'immobility' bug. Despite having followed the content marketing guide, there are some chapters that might have been missed.
Conclusion
The golden rule of content sharing is to not make it all about you. Content sharing is synonymous with UGC, hence creating content that is sharable, interactive, and industry-specific is the key to extending its reach. That said, brands cannot directly influence or completely control content sharing. What they can do is ensure that their content does not stagnate. A good marketer creates high quality content; a great marketer focuses on improving social media interaction by sharing this content.
- Shama Ahmed
Thismoment
- According to the AOL and Nielsen study, social media is a rapidly growing medium for sharing content.
- This is good news for brands; the more they encourage content sharing the better chances of having their products recommended and further shared by others.
- Besides improving visibility, content sharing increases social media chatter pertaining to your brand, opening up opportunities for engagement.
A 'Pinteresting' Way to Share
While the skeptical few are still testing the waters, big brands like Revlon are making the most of Pinterest. What makes Pinterest today's hottest social sharing site?
- Although Facebook, YouTube etc are great for sharing content, Pinterest's impressive referral traffic makes it the much sought-after kid-on-the-social media block.
- If this isn't reason enough for marketers to get on board, the visual appeal of Pinterest encourages users to share content with others.
- Pinterest can be used for more than just crafting up a sales pitch. This is beneficial for companies who want to promote their brand minus the sales talk.
- The Thismoment DEC platform supports sharing via Pinterest, with more powerful features coming soon.
The Ingredients for Shareable Content
Most brands today are scrambling to create their presence on the plethora of networking channels out there; but the smarter ones focus on increasing exposure for the content they create. What makes their content sharable?
- Industry Specific Content: Users logging on to brands' social media pages mostly expect to see industry-specific information. While the occasional general chatter is okay, overloading audiences with irrelevant content does not make it worth sharing.
- Video Sharing: Videos are great promotional tools if you're looking to increase the reach of your brand's content. The Facebook and YouTube pages for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 (powered by Thismoment's DEC) generated +15 million views globally. This campaign was a massive viral hit thanks to the highly creative promotional videos that were shared by Potter enthusiasts.
- Encouraging UGC: UGC promotes content sharing. Allowing people to contribute to your webpage and talk about your brand is a great way to make your content go viral.
Preventing Content Stagnation
There are several reasons why some brands find their online content bitten by the 'immobility' bug. Despite having followed the content marketing guide, there are some chapters that might have been missed.
- How Do I Share? Not finding the 'share' button near the content can discourage visitors from sharing something interesting; therefore, featuring the 'share' button in a hard-to-find place is not advisable.
- It's All in the Headline: Headlines that are either too long to be tweeted or don't stand out can hamper the 'shareability' of an otherwise interesting article. Our advice? Keep it short and interesting.
- Display Related Posts: Displaying links to related posts is a good way of reviving content that would otherwise be archived.
Conclusion
The golden rule of content sharing is to not make it all about you. Content sharing is synonymous with UGC, hence creating content that is sharable, interactive, and industry-specific is the key to extending its reach. That said, brands cannot directly influence or completely control content sharing. What they can do is ensure that their content does not stagnate. A good marketer creates high quality content; a great marketer focuses on improving social media interaction by sharing this content.
- Shama Ahmed
Thismoment
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Thismoment Reports 3x Growth for 2011 as Need for Full-Range Social Content Management Systems Increases Among Global Brands
Significant Revenue Growth, New Customer Acquisition, Venture Capital Funding, Google Partnership, and Acquisition of Position2 Brand Monitor Make Thismoment a Growth Leader in the Social Content Management Space
SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Mar 6, 2012) - Thismoment, a provider of social content management software for brands, today announced explosive growth for 2011 due to increased demand for Thismoment software by global brands seeking to expand and manage their social marketing campaigns.
With more than 100 Fortune 500 brands adopting Thismoment's Distributed Engagement Channel (DEC) platform, the company is quickly becoming the ideal solution for all brands who want to unify their social channels and consolidate management of online assets. DEC allows brands and their agencies to simultaneously drive content engagement and customer conversation management across multiple social media touch points.
With the addition of Brand Monitor, Thismoment can now provide customers with a closed-loop framework to address content, creative, conversation, and analytics. DEC is the only offering of its kind featuring a social content management system which possesses both listening and engagement features.
2011 Performance and Milestones for Thismoment
- Revenue growth of 3x in 2011 over 2010
- Over 4x growth in brand accounts in 2011 over 2010
- $8.3 million in its first institutional capital round led by Sierra Ventures
- Acquisition of Position2 Brand Monitor, a leading social media monitoring and engagement platform
- Strong Google partnership making DEC the number one platform for custom YouTube Brand Channels, with more than 100 channels launched in 2011
- Naming of Thismoment as a preferred Developer for both Facebook and LinkedIn
- Rapidly growing workforce including the establishment of new offices in Europe, Latin America and Asia
Additional Statistics
- To date, more than 100 million media views served on the DEC platform
- Grown in every major industry vertical: Automotive, Consumer Goods, Financial Services, Food and Beverage, Health, Insurance, Entertainment, Retail, Technology, and Travel
- 8 of top 10 US Automakers
- 6 of top 6 Major Movie Studios
- 4 of top 5 High Tech Companies
- 20 Super Bowl XLVI advertisers pointed to pages powered by DEC
QUOTES:
Vince Broady, CEO and Founder, Thismoment
"2011 was a year of great success and momentum for Thismoment, but it is just the beginning. As brands and their agencies continue to see the importance of customer engagement and conversation management across all global social platforms, and understand the importance of measuring social marketing campaign performance, our significant growth will only continue. Our 2011 results reinforce our vision and mission in the unification of social channels, and consolidated management of online assets. Our high customer renewal rate is a testament to our product quality and excellent customer service levels. The pieces are in place for 2012 to be another record breaking year."
David Overmyer, SVP and CFO, Thismoment
"Our significant growth in revenue was driven by operational efficiency, market responsive product development, deeper market penetration and a supported trajectory of the social content management and social brand management space. In this burgeoning industry, scalability continues to be of critical importance with the byproduct being the need for full-range software/services. Solving one-off pain points in the Social Media Marketing and Social Content Management space is no longer enough. Thismoment is well positioned to address that growing need and this is yet another reason we anticipate continued, significant growth in 2012."
About Thismoment
Thismoment is a pioneer in the development of Social Content Management Software for brands. Its Distributed Engagement Channel (DEC) is a real-time platform for managing a brand's digital presence, including social content, conversation and creative assets across earned, owned and paid media channels on web, tablet, mobile, and digital outdoor devices. Launched in March 2010, DEC is already used by more than 100 Fortune 500 brands. To learn more, please visit thismoment.com.
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