For those who aren’t yet clued up on the USTREAM vibe, it’s really a network of self made TV channels where people lifecast and live video stream whatever they want (except porn). It’s got some wicked features such as socialstream and live chat that has helped the site gain over 2,000,000 registered users who generate 1,500,000+ hours of live streamed content per month with over ten million unique hits per month. So it’s not exactly the niche site…but will it take off twitterstyle or even become as popular as YouTube?
Well…Media channels have jumped on the USTREAM band wagon…
CNET and other techy outlets have also joined in on the action streaming product reviews and discussions like the one below:
Ashton even used it to celebrate surpassing $1mill followers on twitter.
So maybe it’s getting there but does it have the mainstream pull of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook?
There are obviously business implications for the use of USTREAM….every single company can now create their own live TV show, infomercial or Q&A sessions – the recorded media can even be pasted into your facebook page….so sounds pretty awesome right?
But it seems that the thing that is missing is you! 10million hits aren’t a lot considering the Numa Numa guy has 7million on his own. It seems that especially in Australasia people don’t seem to be super keen on the USTREAM vibe.
I’ve searched high and low and I’m still not sure why this – so I’d love to here what uThnk.
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Oh and if you’re looking to start streaming check out this vid – tiz amazingly helpful!
For sometime now Ben Young aka Bwagy has been prompting me
to think about the how exactly you would go about justifying ‘Free’ to your shareholders. I can honestly say that I struggled with this idea, so to put this post together I’ve collaborate with Phil Osborne – enjoy.
What do shareholders want?
Excitement , a ridiculous return on investment and absolutely no risk….
Pretty reasonable, but maybe just a tad unrealistic. In my past role at a financial planning company it was self-evident that all investors really want is ‘peace of mind‘. They want to know that they’ve backed a winning horse and that everything is going to be all right.
So how do you give them this peace of mind?
It all depends on the business model…
If you were pitching ‘Free’ to Google shareholder you’d have a simple 3 step process:
- The more free products/services we make that enable people to generate content
- The more advertising space we have/the more adwords get clicked
- You’ll get more $$$ + a more stable your investment.
For a traditional business selling widgets it’s generally a be trickier, however the same 3 step process can still be applied:
- We’ll give away something (a platform) that results in enhancing the consumers experience in your industry
- We’ll set up a process to make sure that you are able to collect revenue (directly or indirectly) as a result of this increased user experience/involvement in your product area
- You’ll get more $$$ + a more stable your investment.
But we’re not Google, we can’t afford to give our products away…
For most small business (esp. service business) the marginal cost of an additional client = $0.00, therefore by judicious use of ‘free’ you can tempt new clients to try your service.
So let’s say you’re a hairdresser….
- Assuming your salon is open six days a week
- Costs are pretty much fixed, wage, rent etc
- So even if no hairdressing done costs stay pretty much the same
- Therefore having a day when appointments are free, adds little cost to the business – especially if it’s the traditional ‘quiet day’
- This allows the barriers to entry to be lowered and supercharges Viral Buzz
While obviously there will be ‘product’ costs, this could very well be offset as marketing expense – consider what an ad in your local paper costs. Best of all ROI can easily measured by the conversion rate of free trails that convert into paying customers.
Ok, so not everyone can give away free haircuts, some products are just a bit more expensive. In such cases it might help to…
- Work out where you really make your money
- Separate your service into high and low profit areas
- Then think about giving away a portion of the low profit part of the service, in order to encourage people to start using the high profit product or service
Telco’s understand Free very well – giving away mobiles so that you sign up to a 24month contract is absolute genius – I know it’s sucked me in at least twice!
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You might be thinking that based on the tittle this is going to be a typical old school vs new school marketing argument, but that’s sooooooo 2008. In 2010 it’s no longer an either or situation, nowadays it’s definitely all about both.
So how do you combine engagement and promotion without selling out?
Good Example: Dunkin Donuts (1.2mill Fans)
The Dunkin Donuts “Keep it Coolatta” is a great example of effective social media promotion. It was a short term campaign to boost both Facebook fans and sales of Coolatta iced drinks. This short term promotion was combined with an ongoing customer focused social media strategy which made it a huge success.
Some of the key features of this campaign which have helped Dunkin Donuts succeed with their use of social media are:
An on-going focus on fans
Dunkin Donuts actively celebrates and rewards their fans. This is evidenced by both their enduring ‘FAN OF THE WEEK’ campaign and the tag line “America runs on Dunkin’, and DD Facebook runs on You.”
Incentives for fan engagement
Rewarding fans who engage in both the short-term competitions, as well as those who engage in the fan page on an on-going basis is a vital part of making the fan base feel valued for their efforts.
Offline/Online cross-over
Through the “Coolatta” promotion Dunkin’ have helped bring their fans’ off-line experience with their products into the virtual world.
Not so good example:BMW (3000 Fans)
The BMW What Drives You – Graffiti Car Contest is a great example of how you can make a huge impact in social media and then have your fan base die off due to lack of sustained effort and energy. The Graffiti Car Contest involved a custom built Facebook application that allowed fans to colour in an outline of a BMW i-series and then submit it their entries to win a The top 5 creators won BMW Art Car models by artists such as Andy Warhol, while the 1st prize winner gets a $100 gift card to Amazon. In the 48hours after it was launched it received a one entry per minute. There were over 9000 submissions in the first 7 days. Sales increased over 12% during the 3 month campaign.
Some of the key features of this campaign which with its initial success are:
A Novel Facebook Application
Creating a fun creative and dynamic Facebook application was a huge part of the success of this campaign. The application allowed fans to unleash their creativity, and also automatically shared their designs with friends which created the viral spread of the campaign. Friends and fans chatted about the submitted designs and speculated over which one deserved to win.
Incentives for fan engagement
There were no major or on-going incentives for fans who engaged in this campaign. There was only the prospect of winning a minor prize, however this combined with the enjoyment gained from creating new car graphics enticed thousands of people to make submissions.
Why does BMW only have 3000 fans today?
The BMW Graffiti Car Contest while incredibly innovative and clearly successful ultimately it was a short term gimmick geared to generate hype for the 1-series. It’s now been over half a year since it was launched, and unfortunately it now has had a limited impact on the BMW brand, whereas Dunkin Donut’s social media engagement is a focal point of their marketing activities. The crucial element that is missing from the BMW campaign is the on-going community focus. Dunkin Donut consistently celebrates their fans and encourages them to share their Dunkin’ experiences with other fans. So while the Coolatta campaign may have been short lived the fans Dunkin’ gained through the campaign have become part of something bigger (1.2mill and counting).
Promo matters….
You might be a social media purist, in which case you may very well believe that promo shouldn’t be a factor in social media because promo is a numbers game and social media is not. But as much as it ‘shouldn’t be’ social media is a numbers game too.
The world of business is still run by balance sheets and board rooms, this means that when business take up the social media challenge it’s gotta be a worthwhile investment, and social media is a cost. So the reason promo matters is because promotions boost fan numbers, followers and page hits, and all of these are critical in squeezing out more coin from balance sheet.
Why do you need more coin?
- To fund the engagement side of social media (funding the time)
- To build applications/sites that add value to your community
- To reward your community
- To keep pushing the boundaries
So next time you see a promotion to boost fan or follower numbers thnk about why they’re doing it…is it a cheap trick or are they promoting to innovate and add even more value to their community.
I’d love to hear what uThnk about social media and promo…is it right or wrong? Is the amazing short term social media gimmick that BMW put together ok with you?
Now that so many people have jumped into the socialsphere some may have realised that they’ve unwittingly opened up their brand and unleashed a co-creative platform.
Take facebook pages for example, many have now mirrored what all the cool kids were doing and created a page for their business or organisation. In doing so some have opened themselves up to not only great community generated ideas but also slander and ridicule. This openness has definitely freaked some peeps out.
There are varying levels of co-creation and all have reasonable amount of openness. One of the biggest decisions anyone will face when entering the social space is the trade-off between providing an awesome open platform for your consumers/enthusiasts or opening up to be destroyed by people who hate you.
My advice on this is: “If people hate you figure out why and fix it fast” – if you’re not sure whether people hate you open up and find out – but be willing to change.
So what are the right tools and how open do you make them?
There are so many social tools out there and they all have various setting. The truth of the matter is that there’s no one size fits all cookie cutter lot of tools and settings to use.
So how on earth are you or anyone else supposed to choose the right ones and what sort of questions should you be asking your self when fine tuning your setting? Some of the questions below might be useful as a starting point for making the tough decisions about how to attack your social media efforts. Enjoy!
Basics – why would people follow you?
- What is your business good at? – Are you good enough at what you do to have fans and followers?
- Why are you getting into social media? If the answer isn’t to do with adding value to your customers experience – then don’t bother.
What platforms to use
- What is the clear and measurable purpose behind each platform you’re using? – how are you going to use each platform to achieve it?
- Where are the social spaces that your enthusiasts hang out?
- What are the people you’re engaging with excited about?
- Do you have extra value-add to bring to each social media platform?
- What are you excited about?
- What are you good at? (writing, story telling, conversing)
- How much time are you prepared to give it?
- Are you willing to change the way you operate?What do you want out of it ? – it’s an ugly question but it needs to be asked, if you’re doing it for fun you’re unlikely to take the steps necessary to create the extra value-add needed to be truly outstanding
Fine Tuning Your Settings
- What would your enthusiasts want to be involved in?
- What’s the incentive for people to engage with your organisation?
- What value do you want to add & then receive back from your community?
- What are the benefits for you and your community?
- What are the risks for you and your community?
- What do you people to be able to do on your social platform (fan page/account etc)?
- What’s your strategy for dealing with slander and hatred
- What is the potential impact of slander and hatred? – it could be a positive learning experience?
Would love to hear what uThnk about social media strategy and settings!
In most cases co-creation has definitely been hailed as an online phenomena but it doesn’t just happen in a digital space, it happens whenever a platform for engagement is created. This can be as simple as allowing people to customise something and attach part of themselves to it.
Consider two different ice-cream shops, one that allows you to mix the flavours of ice cream, add whatever treats you want and one that sells you stock standard ice cream.
“Custom Made” VS “Stock Standard”
How much prouder are you of how good that ice cream tastes?
How much more did you enjoy the interactive of experience buying ice cream?
How much more likely are you to tell a friend about the mixture you created?
The interesting thing about this is that the ‘platform’ for the co-created ice cream, wasn’t a website that allows you to upload photo’s or even a forum that you could project your unique opinions on to, instead it started with the simplest of questions….
“What would you like?”
The only thing that changed with the co-created ice-cream is that the person on the other end of the counter now actually listens and has put in place a system where they can give you exactly what you want! Imagine how powerful this could be if all businesses could sincerely asked those four magic words.
This is another guest post that I wrote for Social MediaNZ…enjoy.
Now that every man and his dog are well and truly in the socialspace how much further does it have to go? Can companies become fully integrated social enterprises?
The first hurdle has already been passed
So far the biggest challenge in social media consultancy is reassuring potential clients that they can gain more than they stand to loose by ‘opening up their brand’.
But, this is less of a challenge than it was even six months ago now that so many more businesses are experimenting with the socialweb. So many of us have become a fan of something on facebook or followed a company or two on twitter and the real freaks amongst us will even be the occasional reader of a corporate blog.
So even if your business isn’t in engaging in the social revolution it’s likely that you’ve had some exposure to the successes and failures that other companies are having in their social exploration. So now that we’ve all got some sort of understanding of what social success and failure is & most have gotten over their fear just how far can we take it?
The Next Step In Social Evolution (is also here…)
One of the things that is emerging from my research into corporate blogs is that people like transparency. Peeps didn’t seem to enjoy corporate blogs had unnecessarily invisible control. For example many of my participants prefered comment systems where they were able to have some control moderation, e.g. using digs/votes. Most people also seemed to enjoy being able to give feedback to companies as long as those companies were open and responsive.
Combining open and responsive listening with feedback seems to be a winning combo, but surprise surprise it already exists. UserVoice (which is now 100% free) and Get Satisfaction are two of the most well known consumer feedback forums, all sorts of techy and web based companies are using them to help make ’wiser’ decisions…(as shown).
Now we’re just waiting for the masses who saw the potential for growth and embraced Facebook and Twitter to realise that it’s just as important to make informed, open and transparent decisions.
What Does The ‘Marketing Renaissance’ Really Look Like 
Once again…it might just be here already. I’ve already written one post on how amazing threadless.com is and for the life of me I can’t understand why more business peeps haven’t made moves towards the Threadless.com model…it just seems so perfect.
Business by the community for the community. Tiz a beautiful thang…what do you think?
