google Plus. Why it’s not about becoming another Facebook.

Juli 2nd, 2011 • 6 comments Social, Strategy, Tools, Trends
Tags: Facebook, Foursquare, google, Social, Social Networks, Strategy, Tools, Twitter

Unless you have been hiding under a rock you probably have heard about google+ or you are already registered user. And just in case you hid under a rock, I let the guys from NMA News explain what google+ is…simply because I love their videos.

So after testing google Plus for two days I am as positive about it as most others I talked to. google simply built a platform with more Pros than Cons. Something you can imagine to use in the future because it combines some of the best features of everything you already use and wraps them in one platform. Ooooh…and a couple of nice new concepts come with the package: google hangout for example (definitely a winner). And I guess Facebook really jumpstarts now to get the Skype cooperation up and running. Among other things.

Stupid debates usually start with terms like (fill blank) killer. Can you remember one game changing product that was announced as the iPhone/Facebook/whatever killer and lived up to it? Not one product out there. And I think the industry has become smart enough not to put this into the focus of discussions around google+ too much. Simply because it is pointless.

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OMFG. Facebook Eats the Web.

Juni 27th, 2011 • Social, Trends
Tags: Diagram, Facebook, Future, Media, Prediction, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Tech, Trends, Truth, World

About two weeks after the world almost ended Inside Facebook reported about a couple of people enjoying summertime instead of staring at their computer monitors 24/7 traffic drop on Facebook the opposite seems to be true. Facebook in fact eats the Internet.

Ben Ellowitz, Founder and SEO of Wetpaint writes:

When you exclude just Facebook from the rest of the Web, consumption in terms of minutes of use shrank by nearly nine percent between March 2010 and March 2011, according to data from comScore. And, even when you include Facebook usage, total non-mobile Internet consumption still dropped three percent over the same period.

Technically he separates between two different webs: The dominating Facebook-driven web and the web of documents. And the web of documents is under sever pressure. “The illusion of the growth of the internet is just that – a mirage caused by Facebook posting 69% growth over the last year.” (We are Social). Ellowitz’ conclusion: future companies will need to spend less time on SEO, and more time on optimizing for Facebook – the web inside the web.

Read the full article here. I don’t think Facebook can replace the document web. But to be honest, I don’t want to find out. It seems we are currently handing over the greatest invention of mankind to Goldman Sachs and Mister Zuckerberg. Doesn’t feel right.

Genius. Diesel launches Excelbook.

Juni 18th, 2011 • 1 comment Brands, Ideas, We like
Tags: Apps, Brands, Campaign, Cool, Creativity, Diesel, Experimental, Facebook, Fashion, Funny, Ideas, Lifestyle, Media, Tech, Tools, We like

I just stumbled upon this wonderful concept gem: the Diesel Excelbook. Even though its branding value as an application is close to zero it is just one more amendment to the great platform that Diesel created with its Be Stupid philosophy. Simple, fun, stupid…well done Diesel. Check out the video…it is pretty selfexplanatory.

via Digial Buzz Blog

Study. The World’s Top 100 Prestige and Luxury Brands on Facebook.

Juni 9th, 2011 • Brands, Strategy
Tags: Brands, Facebook, List, luxury, prestige, Reports, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Study

Prestige and Luxury brands used to have quite a hard time to deal with this phenomenon called social media. It seemed like a contradiction to what high value brands stood for. Being very exclusive simply did not seem to fit right into this new all connected world in which everyone is included.

Times are a changing and some of the planet’s really iconic (mainstream) brands are amongst the most successful players particularly on Facebook. L2 – a thinktank for luxury brands in New York – along with the guys from Buddy Media just published an extremely interesting piece of research: The L2 Prestige 100®: Facebook IQ measures the aptitude of 100 prestige brands from the Auto, Beauty, Fashion, Watches & Jewelry, and Spirits & Champagnes industries on the world’s fastest growing social media platform.

Key findings are:

• It is still not really about size: many of the brands that have been most effective at acquiring Facebook fans have fallen flat engaging them.
• Push only isn’t cool: Brands which allow their fans to post are more engaged Facebook brands than the 20% which don’t allow it
• Products are winning over promotions: Most engagement rates were achieved through product posts not promotions
• Facebook is still considered as an island: Too few brands integrate the social graph into their digital ecosystem
• F-Commerce? Nah! Only few brands are actively engaged in social commerce on Facebook

In short – if you deal with prestige and or luxury brands on Facebook this is the study to download. Get it here.

Page. 10 Challenges that keep Creatives awake at Night.

Juni 2nd, 2011 • Underway
Tags: Article, Creative, Facebook, Page, People, personal

This month’s issue of German design & advertising magazine Page has just been issued. And after my article about Amsterdam two months ago they asked me again to write for them and to answer one of the ’10 questions that drive creative nowadays’. I think I am about to become their digital guy. So if you cannot sleep at night because you do not know whether digital marketing from now on will just be a Facebook page. Find my answer to this question in this month’s Page.

Copycats. Intel and Deutsche Post celebrate Me, Me, Me.

Juni 1st, 2011 • 4 comments Brands, Ideas, Social, Trends
Tags: Bouygues Telecom, Brands, Campaign, Copycats, Creativity, DHL, Documentation, Facebook, Ideas, Intel, Life, People, Social Networking, Tools, Trends, visual, World

Sometimes you see a good digital marketing idea and you can bet your ass off that dozens of copycats will pop up a couple of months later. In November 2010 the (then) team around my friend (and new colleague) Branislav launched a (then) new idea for Bouygues Telecom in France: an app that turned your Facebook profile into a real book. 1,000 personalized books were gone within an hour of the promotion’s launch even though the campaign never really became as viral as Old Spice or Shoot the Bear.

Fast Forward 6 months. Deutsche Post DHL launches Social Memories, an application that turns your Facebook Profile into a (surprise, surprise) book. This is how it goes…

The app is here.

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Death? There is an App for that.

Mai 18th, 2011 • People
Tags: App, Apps, Creativity, death, Experimental, Facebook, Ideas, People, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networking, Social Networks, World

Imagine you get hit by this bus tomorrow on your way to work. Probably the last thing that comes to your mind is what happens to your social network connections. Anyway most platforms have clear rules on how to deal with your LOLCat pictures after you have deceased. And your Death 2.0 is alternatively very actively manageable through a bunch of other tools.

But now we have the one thing we very looking for for so long. If I Die is a Facebook application that allows afterlife Facebook status updates. You just leave behind your last message on Facebook, name three friends…and tell your loved ones what you really think of them.

via Digital Buzz Blog

Facebook. The 100 Most Engaged Brand Pages.

März 17th, 2011 • 3 comments Brands, Social
Tags: Analytics, Engagement, Facebook, Measurement, Metrics, Report, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Study

One of the tougher elements of my job is to benchmark client metrics against competing digital ecosystems. This is because it’s not very easy to keep track of competitor data beyond pure community size (such as engagement metrics). Allfacebook along with Wired and NYC based monitoring company FanGager have just published a very interesting overview over the 15 most engaging pages on Facebook, based on Feb 2011 activity. Well, thanks to @mitsuo it is actually the 100 most engaged brands. You can find the full list here.

Engagement is defined here as ‘fans’ (likers sounds too stupid) who either post, comment or like over the course of a month. Or in other words, the people who actually do something in your community. The brand pages mentioned here are huge players on Facebook. But as you can also see there is more than just a gap between their community size and the top of the pyramid which actually is actively posting or responding. It is not very surprising – but it shows once more that aggregating likes simply doesn’t make the world go round alone.

What do you think? Are you surprised by this quota as well? Did you expect that? Leave a comment!

Web Videos. Evian Rollerbabies vs VW’s The Force.

Februar 22nd, 2011 • 1 comment Social
Tags: Brands, Creativity, Evian, Experimental, Facebook, Sharing, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Twitter, video, Viral, VW, youtube

Even though I would like to shoot myself every time I hear the term ‘viral video’ there certainly is a social trigger that turns TV commercials into something users like to share online. Some of the most successful examples over the last two years were Evian’s Roller Babies and VW’s commercial ‘The Force’.

Check out how much reach these two ads generated. Particularly interesting – Evian definitely had more Youtube views, but interaction with VW’s film seems to be much higher (via Griffin Farley).

North Korea. If it had a Facebook Page it looked like this…

Dezember 6th, 2010 • Politics
Tags: Facebook, Funny, North Korea, Politics, Truth, World

Or to be more precise – if North Korea and its population had a Facebook page it would look like this. We have seen a couple of these fictional Facebook pages for History, God, or the USA during the Civil War. But most of them are quite lame. The fictional North Korea FB page is pretty close to reality. And guess what? They have even registered one under the Korean username “uriminzokkiri,” meaning “on our own as a nation”. Along goes a twitter and a Youtube page. My Korean unfortunately is too bad to understand what they say – but it most look a bit like the picture below.  If you are interested in the sad truth behind it…the dissident footages from the stalinist horror show are a bit more realistic.

via Cracked.com