A Killer Review – Social Networks as Critics
Will my friends kill Killers?
Recently I wrote about how input from my personal social network compelled me to go see a movie that critics had panned. Now, it seems, the critics are being bypassed by some of the movie studios.
A recent article in NorthJersey.com revealed that the movie studio Lionsgate was planning to launch the new movie Killers without the customary practice of screening it for critics. According to the article, Lionsgate would rather take their chances with reviewers on Facebook and Twitter — that is, people who are probably closer to their target audience.
Lionsgate marketers are, pardon the pun, hoping for a killer review of Killer on Twitter.
As the media continues to evolve with new technology, the opinion of your friends has much more impact and influence than some anonymous reviewer. Sure, there will always be certain reviewers that we know and trust, but they are a fading source for information.
Marketers at Lionsgate recognize this and hope to ride the wave of buzz. It’s an interesting experiment, typically reserved for genre films. They figured (probably correctly) that the reviewers would hate their genre flicks, but that it would appeal to the target audience.
Now, they’re going straight to the audience. It’s the ultimate in buzz and viral marketing. It’s a new media stunt that garnered buzz for a movie property that was probably struggling for attention.
As far as I am concerned, I am now more interested to check out Killers. Now, at least, I know that I can trust the critics, since they are my friends.
And if they trick me into going to see a movie that I hate, well, I guess I need new friends.
Buzz, Tweet, ShareThis
ShareThis Logo
With all this talk of Buzzing and Tweeting and Facebooking, it’s easy to overlook the true value of social networks, at least from the perspective of content marketing.
Content marketing can help you effectively articulate your brand story to allow customers to evangelize it. Lots of products rely on evangelists to share messages because a personal recommendation goes a long, long way.
Consider the following scenario: You’re thinking of going to the movies this weekend. So you check the movie listings, and every film is lavished with the typical hyperbole. “Brilliant!” or “Laugh out loud funny!” or “Triumphant!” (Whatever that means.)
You check out the movie reviews, but the reviewers can’t seem to agree on anything, except the names of the stars.
Suddenly your friend sends you a mobile message on Facebook that says, “dude, you have to go see this movie. Ignore the reviews. You will love it!”
Which matters to you most? Is it (a) the review in the newspaper, (b) the ad that proclaims this to be “triumphant!” or (c) the message you got on Facebook?
No big surprise, right? You’re going with the recommendation from your friend, because (theoretically) your friend has little to gain personally or financially from you going to that movie. You trust that your friend knows what you like. Sure, the message may appear in a Tweet or on Facebook or on Google Buzz or whatever, but that’s just the channel. The most important thing is the social context of the recommendation. Content is king, but context makes it relevant.
It’s this social context that makes brand evangelists (and social networks) so valuable to the health of a brand. A recent study revealed that Facebook drives 44% of social sharing.
So if you have a brand, be sure to include social sharing features on your website that allow people to easily evangelize your brand message. Remember, your brand can be something that people go out and purchase…or it can be your own personal self-branding effort (i.e., Brand You). Whatever it is, you need to make it easy for people to share.
Check out the bottom of this post. You’ll see a little widget from ShareThis that will allow you to share my blog. Go ahead and share it with family and friends
Especially if you want to proclaim it “triumphant!” (Whatever that means.)
LINKS – NOT NECESSARILY ENDORSEMENTS:
- Apple and Brand Evangelists
- Email and Social Sharing
- Sharing and ‘Socialgraphics’: Why Marketers Should Be Paying Attention
TV Apps Kickoff – 3 Things You Need to Know
The 2010 Superbowl officially kicked off the Age of TV Apps. The technology has been around for a few years and is already available to many people. But Vizio’s TV app Superbowl commercial was the kickoff heard ’round the world.
So what are TV apps? In a most basic sense, TV apps are like the applications you download for your iPhone. Small, limited-use software that allows you to personalize your hardware.
New stuff that was once only available for your computer — and then for your iPhone — is now available for your television. If you have Direct TV or Verizon FiOS, some of this is already baked into your cable box. Obviously you can get TV apps on the Vizio TV, but also on many Samsung and Sony televisions as well.
You can already use things like Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook on your TV.
Here are three things you should know about TV Apps
1. The technical field is relatively open.
Sure, there are some key players like Yahoo who have already set themselves as leaders, but that can change. Currently, Yahoo controls the application and administers the software development kit (SDK). Note: From our personal experience, Yahoo was somewhat slow in distributing the SDKs to developers. That’s unfortunate because that could irritate programmers who could create an open-source system that could render Yahoo’s TV Apps technology obsolete. If you have the desire to create apps (or even a completely new OS), the time is now. The tech is in place for you to build the next great widget, gadget, social network, or living room app.
2. TV apps will present design challenges.
Weather TV app available through DirectTV
TV apps will face several user interface challenges. The most notable is that most people don’t have a keyboard on their television remote control. Sure, you can pull one up on the screen, but as you can imagine, typing with a little remote-control button is a pretty poor user experience. If you’ve used a Wii remote to create a Mii character, you know how tedious it can be to type out a long name. Designers will clearly make the difference between apps that succeed or fail. The old design rules will need to evolve to take advantage and address the limitations of a 10-foot interface.
3. Content & marketing opportunities will need to evolve.
The iPhone and other smart phones forced content developers and marketers to rethink the way we package messages. Long-form had to give way to shorter, more relevant messages. If not for mobile communications limitations, Twitter would have never gained a foothold in society. Face it, a 140 character message fits better on a cell phone screen than, say, a PowerPoint presentation. People who mastered the Twitter format (including URL shorteners) emerged pretty quickly as masters of the medium. And the marketers quickly caught on with brand messages. That’s a long way of saying that the new language of TV apps is still in flux. If you want to create content or marketing messages for TV apps, try to figure out what works with this new interface.
If you’re already exploring TV apps, congratulations. You’re probably going to have a head start on this unique and exciting new communications channel. I look forward to seeing what you create.
LINKS, NOT NECESSARILY ENDORSEMENTS:
Book-o-Tweets
Give a TweetBookz for a gift. Or not.
Just when you thought you’d seen it all…there’s TweetBookz. Yes, now you can take your funniest, most compelling Twitter posts and bind them into a handsome coffee table book.
Roll that around for a moment: A. Book. Of. Tweets.
In a world of temporary ‘Net culture, it’s ironoclastic that you can now bind your Twitter posts into a book. New media now migrates back over to dead tree media.
Publish an ebook of your tweets? Nah, forget that. You deserve the slaying of a tree.
And you know what? Don’t even correct your bad grammar, misspellings, or emoticons. You need to be you. Be real.
Your every fleeting 140-character thought can now live on in a grand library, enshrined forever in print. Bill Shakespeare has nothing on you.
- Tired of standing online at K-Mart? Publish it.
- Feeling itchy and hungry at the same time? Get that in hardback.
- Feel like sharing an inside joke, retweet, or just an LOL? Wow, call Gutenberg and tell him to preflight the manuscript. You, my friend, were born to be published.
For extra irony points, include your your favorite rants about how old media and print are dying a slow death. You ironic icon, you.
Too Socially Networked?
So this morning I checked my email and discovered that someone had subscribed to my FriendFeed. Huh? I have a FriendFeed account? Turns out, I do.
Started going through some of my bookmarks, which helped me remember some of the other sites where I’m registered.
Get this. I’m registered at Facebook and Flickr and Picasa and Twitter and MySpace and Yahoo and AOL and Mahalo and Google and YouTube and Shelfari and Amazon and eBay and CNet and New York Times and Technorati and Eons and Wikipedia and LinkedIn. And…and…and…hoo boy.
And that’s just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head! I’d forgotten about FriendFeed up until today. Last week Squidoo emailed me that they updated their site. Great. Um, do I have an account there? Oh yeah, I do. Thanks for reminding me.
Turns out, I am registered to everything under the sun. (Well, except actually at Sun.com.)
It’s not like it makes me cool or special or smarter, since it’s free to register at all of these sites. In a way, it’s a little…weird and slightly addictive. And since I rarely check most of them anymore, a bit of a waste.
Is there a social network for people who register for too many things? Is that Posterous? I may have to join that. Nevermind, I just did.
Facebook Status Off Video
Y’know, sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself. This video captures the geeky goodness of our obsession with Facebook status updates.
Lots of us in this age online celebrity are obsessed with self-marketing and Brand You to the point of silliness. I’m certainly guilty of trying too hard to be entertaining in my posts.
Anyway, watch this little viral video and have a laugh.
Of course, I’ll be posting this video to Twitter and Facebook.
Shorteners Getting Bigger
When smart companies all start doing the same thing, it’s probably a good idea to figure out what they know. If you haven’t quite noticed yet, there’s some sort of micro trend percolating in the biz of making web URLs shorter.
In the past few weeks, several important websites have created their own URL shorteners. You’ve seen shortened URLs, which make long web addresses much more manageable for sharing on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Among the most popular services are Bit.ly and Tr.im.
For the most part, URL shorteners are just an interesting utility, but it’s clearly something more powerful than most people realize. That’s a bit like search engines. In the beginning, search engines were important, but nobody could have predicted the massive Google empire. (Except Google, of course.)
Now, URL shorteners are shaping up to be a very interesting micro trend. Consider the fact that several important sites have announced their own URL shorteners in the last few weeks, including:
Will this be a big trend? Not sure. From a publisher’s perspective, there are certainly some advantages to having people use your shorteners, particularly since it gives them interesting data about where people are linking.
Several experts are raising security issues around URL shorteners, so this micro trend may have serious industry repercussions. Yep, shorteners are definitely getting bigger.
Is the world ready for a shorter URL for me? Like Bud.dy or Scal.ra?
Twitter for Marketers – A Brief Intro
As Twitter has grown in popularity, questions about how, why, and when to use it have skyrocketed. In advertising/marketing agencies, there is a responsibility (and pressure) to use new technology for branding.
According to Nielsen, Twitter is growing really, really, really, really fast. So, if you’re a marketer, you’re probably trying to figure out how to grab the tail of this comet.
For starters, you need to have something to say. I’m not kidding here. If you have nothing to say on a regular basis, don’t try to jump into the conversation.
Twitter is all about content. Messages, words, and insights. It’s fast, short, and fresh. If you or your brand doesn’t have something to share daily, you may want to sit out the Twitter craze. (Then again, most brands and categories have SOME industry news, so talk to your staff writer about info opportunities.)
Twitter content is legendarily short. Each message can run as long as 140 characters. Yes, you read that right, Tweets (a cute name for a Twitter post) are only 140 characters or less, including spaces, URLs, and line breaks.
(That paragraph actually ran 187 characters. Too much for a Tweet!)
There are plenty of tips and tricks for working within the constraints, community, and technology supporting Twitter. It’s a fun challenge for marketers, especially as the new opinion leaders begin to carve out their turf in this brave new technical world.
Future blogs will touch on how to leverage Twitter and some good examples of people who self promote using this “micro blogging” technology.
In the meantime, check out how I use my Twitter account to share ideas about content, marketing and technology at Marketing Buddy.
Converging on Convergence
As interesting new web technologies become available, I am overwhelmed by the sheer number of sites I need to visit….just to keep them fresh. (There are some feeds and whatnot to streamline these services, but that just becomes another site to visit.)
Recently, I’ve been trying to leverage these services by incorporating features into my personal website. As web technologies pendulate toward the middle, I am one step closer to converging on convergence.
My goal is to make my personal website a little more compelling for people who come to check it out.
Examples:
- This weekend, I added my Twitter feed to my personal website. It’s just a little piece of Flash code that I was able to drop right into my web template. Very easy and elegant. (Note: I tried to use the Javascript code, but it just kept breaking.)
- I also added a Facebook “badge” to my homepage. It’s really basic, but it looks kind of nice.
- Then I synched my Facebook with my Twitter. Sort of sounds dirty, doesn’t it? Anyway, now, when I post to Twitter, it automatically feeds into my Facebook “current status.” Nice.
You can check out my handiwork at: http://www.buddyscalera.com. Feel free to look at the code and see how it’s done. Very simple and easy to do, even for an HTML novice.
Eventually this blog will probably migrate over to my website too. I really like blogging here on WordPress, but I get frustrated when I can’t control my widgets or outbound links better. So, we’ll see.
Now, I am off to find new convergence tricks.
Twitter’s Magical 140
According to Wired magazine, blogging is dead. Sad that the venerable blog post…which broke down barriers of publishing…may be on the way out.
In some ways, it’s true. Blogging was amazingly democratic. Anyone could be a published author, just by posting a blog. For a little while, media giants reacted to the voices of regular people, some of whom became self-appointed experts.
Over the last two years, though, the media caught up. Many top blogs are part of the established media network. Professional journalists and media channels are using blogs to attract, well, us. Now, that democratic blog landscape is being claimed by mainstream media, decreasing the ability of regular people to become key opinion leaders.
Part of the problem is that the blog post…usually pretty short…is just too long. Our attention span is waning to the point that a few paragraphs is too much mental lifting. See Me Read Book.
The predicted replacement? Twitter.
So, if I seem a little long winded to you, check out my Twitter account at http://twitter.com/BuddyWeb
Twitter posts (called Tweets) are limited to 140 characters. That’s about the length of one long sentence. For me, that’s usually two punchy, short sentences.
So, if you like someone’s writing, you can subscribe to their Twitter. Their random thoughts can be posted to Twitter. In best cases, Twitter posts are sharp, interesting, or funny observations. In worst, it’s agonizingly dull people sharing their banal lives.
And, as marketers see this shift, they are discovering new and interesting ways of leveraging the Twitter channel. Or at least as much marketing as you can do in 140 characters.
All hail the short attention span. Just do it quickly because we tend to bore easily!
Flickr Feed
