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Posts Tagged ‘Social media’

Nice video to understanding a bit more about Chatroulette
26 Feb 2010

Learn a bit more about this new internet phenomenon

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

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Understanding Coke’s approach to social media and fan engagement
23 Feb 2010

Coke’s ‘fans first’ approach in social communities

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Creating an event that spreads in awareness using Social Media – Coke
13 Jan 2010

Short videos are the perfect packages for a viral effect in the social media sphere. Now, what to put inside the package? How about one of those events that you would definitely tell everyone you knew if you saw it live at your workplace/school/Football field? That is exactly what Coke did. Within their new mantra theme – spreading happiness, they created an event at a cafeteria and transformed something simple and ordinary like a soft drinks vending machine into an unforgettable event:

You can be sure this video won’t need millions in adspend to reach thousands of people around the world.

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Hyper reality – from the movie Avatar to the your friend’s phone, everyone’s getting touchy-feely
11 Jan 2010

In Ridley Scott’s recent blockbuster movie Avatar, a human being could control another living creature through the power of the mind and a wireless connection. This is impossible in today’s technology, but this futuristic approach is not as far fetched and distant as you would imagine. Of course, the technology for controlling living creatures and receiving instructions from a human brain are still in their very early stages of development, but if you dive into the world of hyper reality, it is already possible to mix the virtual world and the real world, even with affordable consumer products. A few gadgets are hitting the market which promise to blur the difference between “Reality” and “Virtual”:

Iphone Quadcopter

Last week we featured the Quadcopter by Parrot on this blog: an IPhone remotely-controlled helicopter with 4 blades (hence Quadcopter). The onboard camera, together with the IPhone’s advanced processing capabilities made it possible to turn your living room into part of a hyper reality game scenario. Very cool. Of course we want one too

Light Blue Optics projection screen

I’ve personally always thought that screens should not have fixed sizes, they should adapt to your needs – you want a big screen for watching movies, a small screen for private functions such as texting, writing emails, etc. Light Blue Optics has come up with a multitouch projection screen that nearly achieves this. The screen projects onto any surface onto which you can interact with multi-touch gestures (now popularized by the IPhone).

Augmented reality (used to promote Avatar)

Not really a gadget but a technology, Augmented reality has become a reality on the web by the use of a webcam interacting with a physical object. This allows you to manipulate 3D objects as if they we in the real world. Because of its recent port to the widespread plugin from Adobe – Flash, the technology still suffers from a few bugs and performance issues, but promises to be a new option for many websites that want that more “tactile” interaction. In its marketing launch, Coke Zero created a special Coke can which could be used to interact with an online Augmented Reality demo of the movie Avatar. Some toys for the game will even have this augmented reality feature for fans to play with:

Microsoft Project Natal

Seemingly always playing technology catchup nowadays, Microsoft will soon launch its new games console – code named Project Natal. Trying to “one-up” the successful Nintendo Wii, which uses a wireless infrared control that simulates the users actions in the real world into the games being played on the television screen, Microsoft has completely eliminated the need for any extra controls, choosing instead to detect automatically the human body’s movements. We will have to wait and see if it works and whether not having controls is a step too far:

New gadgets and interesting ways of interacting have always been a successful attention grabbers. I remember being awed as a child in the Louvre using one of the first touchscreen computers to view the Louvre digital archive. You can be sure I told as many people as I could about this novel technology and interaction. And so do most consumers when they come into contact with a cool and novel technology. But the novelty soon wears off and we have to go off in search of the next big technology. This recently happened with multi-touch technology and the IPhone. Initially, a massive difference and selling point for the mobile phone, soon after its release, a myriad of copycat phones have sprung up in the market making the technology very common.

Having a cool feature is a great way to achieve outstanding marketing results in this age os social media, where one interesting finding on the web spreads from user to user like an out of control wild fire.

Now that touch is coming to the digital world, It should only be a matter of time before more of the human senses become digital. Can you smell that virtual toast burning already?

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Is your website Social Media Optimised? Answer our LinkedIn poll!
11 Aug 2009

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TED – Clay Shirky: How social media can make history
30 Jul 2009

An interesting talk on TED by Clay Shirky and how the internet and social media have changed communications and conversations around the world.

While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.
About Clay Shirky

Shirky, a prescient voice on the Internet’s effects, argues that emerging technologies enabling loose collaboration will change the way our society works. Full bio and more links

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People WILL talk about your brand online – will you be the one leading the conversation?
20 May 2009

In the role of a creative digital agency we spend a lot of time thinking of ways to use digital social mediums such as MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, etc. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that, right now, social media is AT THE CORE of our campaigns, no longer just an extension plugged into microsites, and virals.

So I will try and explain what it is about social media we like and how we are using it:

It’s an efficient and cost-effective use of ad spend

The cost of a successful social media campaign is almost the same as a failed campaign. Once created, scaling costs are minimal and it costs more or less the same if 10 people use it or 10 million. It is less about the money you throw at the campaign and more about whether people identify with your message and find it interesting enough to participate and pass it on to their friends. The key here is the intelligence behind the message.

A successful social media campaign will gain massive exposure through friend referrals. Because people are now more connected than ever, one individual can reach thousands of his peers easily through social networking, blogs and Twitter. And each person has the power to spread the word to his peers, creating an exponential word-of-mouth effect never before possible.

Successful social media campaigns have a potential to be incredibly effective, even with low budgets – if done right – as the online audience them becomes the media in which the message is carried, spreading virally from one friend to another without any ad spend costs.

The shift in thinking is from interruption advertising to branded content creation worthy of friend referral.

Done right, it will create an army of brand ambassadors and evangelists out of ordinary people

When people stop thinking about your brand as advertising and start treating it as content and a lifestyle option they become your fans. They identify with your message, visit your website frequently, actively seek out other individuals who are like them, who also enjoy your brand to trade experiences. We are, after all, social beings and long for peer interaction and social affirmation/confirmation.

It’s crazy for some of us who are a bit older to understand, but the new generations will defend some of the brands they consume with fervor only matched by sports fans. This contrasts with previous decades where interruption marketing would love to tell consumers what they should be doing and consumers would treat brands with a high dose of skepticism. Now it is our peers who are doing the selling to us and the lines between commercial and social are blurred.

An example of this is the Mac vs PC debate, where Mac supporters will spend countless hours debating why their choice is superior to PCs and proudly sport their support for Apple on their social media spaces and jump at the chance to defend the brand in any online medium.

People will, whether you want them to or not, talk about your brand online

And their message will be heard by millions. This is a reality and, depending on how people are talking, can increase or damage sales in a dramatic fashion. This is where we step in. We believe it is better to be involved in leading the conversation and engaging wherever the customers are then leaving them to talk on their own. We believe brands need to create tools for their fans to express their love and admiration for the brand and the lifestyle it represents.

Coca Cola PARC

(Porto Alegre Rock City)

We were recently commissioned to spread the word online about the upcoming Coca-Cola Rock Festival (PARC – Porto Alegre Rock City) and create a nice buzz with aspiring rock enthusiasts and fans online – an online PR seeding effort. Our first step was to identify a talking point, friend-referral-worthy – and luckily we had a great one – there would be a competition for amateur aspiring bands to win invaluable coaching sessions and pro tips to reach the next level in their careers.

Knowing that aspiring bands are very digitally influent, we knew that if we engaged with them and they liked our message we would be able to create a successful and seeding campaign as they would help us spread the word about the festival on their Myspace pages and Facebook profiles.

So what did we do? We interacted with our target audience online – through their Myspace pages, blogs, Orkut, Twitter and Facebook profiles identifying people who would spontaneously love to be our digital ambassadors for the event. Soon after, thousands of visitors started appearing at our competition site and we have since created a Twitter profile to talk about the bands that are signing up, thus creating a feedback loop, where more and more bands want to participate as they will not only get a chance to win but extra exposure.

Because they like you.

Social media is a new way of interacting with your consumers. It is all about giving up some of the control of your communications to your consumers. It is an incredible leap of faith for a brand, not without pitfalls, but done right, can generate fantastic results and make brand ambassadors out of ordinary people. And all because they love your brand and what it represents.

This post was written by Rodrigo Cauduro, one of the creators of w3haus and managing director of w3haus London. With a degree in Architecture and urbanism, Rodrigo abandoned all that when he met the Internet in 1994 and has been working with it ever since - advertising and promotion online.

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It’s Twitter Time! Why your brand should care about Twitter
30 Mar 2009

Twitter is the talk of the moment! We here at w3haus really like it (OK – some of us do!). Twitter is fun, nonsense, breaking news, cool links and our new web toy to play with and explore!

But, as a creative digital agency, helping our clients with their digital strategies, why do we care about Twitter and how does it matter for the brands we work for? To be able to answer this, let’s first talk a bit about Twitter:

Firstly, what is this Twitter thing?

So, what is Twitter? The basic idea behind Twitter is for people to answer the question “what are you doing right now?” in a short 140 characters message.These messages are then stored on the persons profile page. As well as write messages, users can choose to subscribe to other users messages, thus receiving updates on what other people are doing right now. In simple terms, Twitter is a hybrid between blogging and SMS text messages and technically there is not much to it, but the simplicity and realtime stream of messages combined with the social aspect of following others and being followed has many people hooked.

How Twitter has grown so much is one of those internet mysteries, but now you can find millions of people using it and the service receives more visitors worldwide than Digg.com and has grown 10-fold in the UK last 12 months and shows no signs of slowing down.

Here is a recent graph from Alexa.com of visitor reach to give you an idea of Twitter’s current reach and influence.

Who created Twitter? The service was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams founders of Obvious.com in March 2006. Evan Williams, had already created another successful web service Blogger.com – one of the first free blogging platforms on the web which was very successful and later on sold to Google. Twitter began life as a side project which grew so much that it has turned into the company’s main product.

The fact that Twitter is so simple technically and what it asks of it’s users is a key point of its success. Twitter is not confined to the desktop or laptop, it has also gone mobile. Users can Tweet from practically any internet connected digital device or SMS enabled mobile phone. This has generated many talking newsworthy events. Recently Stephen Fry, british QI presenter and actor, tweeted that he was stuck in an elevator in the Center Point building in the middle of London. He then proceeded to tweet pictures of himself and the people stuck in the elevator with him. The mainstream media picked up on this and the whole Twitter phenomenon. Fry now has 360,000 followers and growing.

Also recent news was Facebook tried to acquire Twitter for $500 million in Facebook stock but Twitter refused to sell believing in a better valuation in the future. Facebook execs liked Twitter so much,that they have redesigned it’s interface to be more twitter-like .

Here is Evan talking to the TED crowd about the Twitter:

How are people using Twitter? What are they doing right now?

So, how are people using Twitter and what do they put in their tweets? Well, a lot of things. Different people use Twitter in many different ways, for example:

- People are using it to follow other people they are interested in keeping up with in every update – friends in their social circle, celebrities, companies, NGOs, news outlets, etc.

- Famous people are using it to communicate directly with their fans (Shaquille O’neal, Neil Gaiman, Stephen Fry to name a few) and have hundreds of thousands of followers which read every tweet eagerly.

- Users are sharing information they find relevant, including links to websites, images and videos. A term soon to become vernacularly recognised: Re-Tweeting, or repeating someone else’s Tweet post if they liked it.

- Bloggers are using Twitter to let people know about new blog posts and news updates, using it almost as an RSS feed

- Publishers and companies are using it to let consumers know about promotions and product launches as well as engage in conversation

- Journalists are using twitter to gauge realtime reactions from events such as talks, presentations, shows, and other live events

With a big enough audience people get creative and many new ways to use Twitter will emerge and no doubt Twitter is already thinking about which new features to incorporate into the service in the near future.

But how can I use it for my brand? And why should I waste my time with it?

OK, now that we know a bit more about Twitter and what people are using it for, what can a brand or company do with it? The first obvious answer is communicate with your consumers or potential consumers. How? By offering something of interest to them, preferably something where the realtime/very new factor counts. Here are some examples:

- The first place to break news on promotions, discounts and new product collections should be Twitter. This will ensure fans of your brand are always tuned to your feed and remain loyal as they will have peace of mind you will tell them and other fans first!

- It’s a no-brainer that news outlets should offer latest news updates on twitter. this will not cannibalize your website traffic but in fact strengthen it as more and more people become aware of your new stories.

- Communicate with your clients via twitter for the whole world to see and feel enticed to interact with you as well.

- Integrate Twitter into your communications efforts, reinforcing promotions, websites, articles via Twitter and vice-versa. It’s a great branding vehicle.

Remember, Twitter is a social media above all else, people will follow you if they like you. And if they like you, they might just tell all their friends about you and what do you know? You might just end up with 50,000 followers in no time! With the replicating effect of re-Tweeting, this could mean hundreds of thousands of visitors with a very low cost attached.

We believe, pretty soon we will witness the “Twitter effect” on servers, when websites simply cannot cope due to Twitter users all passing along the same link and visiting the website at the same time. This already happens with websites that are linked on the front page of digg.com a popular social bookmarking website and is bound to happen with Twitter if it keeps up the frantic pace at which it is growing.

Names! Real world examples of companies already twittering:

Here are some brands using Twitter right now:

Reuters – breaking news and links to full articles on their website

Jet Blue – american airline talking about promotions, flight cancellations and changes – check here before you fly! Also a lot of interaction with followers answering questions

Amazon Latest deals from Amazon.com

Starbucks posts new offers and also participates in threaded discussions of these offers with their Twitter-followers.

Whole Foods Market asks what their clients like to read and watch, recommends new food podcasts and invites them to the company upcoming events.

Kodak Chief Blogger both posts the company blog updates and discusses them with the company customers.

I’m convinced! (or a little less skeptical) what next?

Start tweeting! Follow w3haus on twitter.com/w3hausuk Explore the service to see if you find ways you could be relevant on Twitter. If you’re stuck, get in touch so we can come up with some good strategies to promote you whether on Twitter or another digital location.

Send me your thoughts on this article to rodrigo@w3haus.com and if you would like to know more about w3haus and see some of our work please visit www.w3haus.com

This post was written by Rodrigo Cauduro, one of the creators of w3haus and managing director of w3haus London. With a degree in Architecture and urbanism, Rodrigo abandoned all that when he met the Internet in 1994 and has been working with it ever since - advertising and promotion online.

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