Tag archives: facebook

Is “The Like’s” 15 Minutes Up?

by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian), San Francisco Bay The half-life of online marketing miracles is notoriously short.

Is it possible that “the like” is about to join the podcast, the widget, and the QR code in the Museum Of Make-Believe Marketing Miracles?

It sure seems that way. There has been a whole lot of chatter lately about the dubious value of likes. While this chatter is about 2 years overdue, I guess it’s better than never.

First, Business Insider had a piece recently about Facebook’s new Giraffe Search. It was called, “Graph Search Is Really A Plan To Rescue The Like.”

They said that Facebook introduced Giraffe Searchbecause “recently it (the like) has fallen out of favor with advertisers.”

Next a blogger, engineer, and entrepreneur named Steve Cheney called the like a “con.” He went on to say that in the case of almost half the Facebook likes “there is no true affinity between the like and the object” and, in fact, most likes were bought by bribes.

Tech Law: Media insight — What changes to Facebook’s governance structure mean for users

by Paul Jacobson (@pauljacobson) Facebook’s changes to its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and its Data Used Policy generally attract a fair amount of attention and consternation. Its latest changes are no exception and while there is reason for some concern, the proposed changes won’t have the radical impact many fear it will.

Louise Marsland & MarkLives launches TREND.

MarkLives and well respected marketing and media commentator and editor Louise Marsland have teamed up to launch an exciting new market intelligence resource to the advertising, media and marketing communications industry in Southern Africa.

TREND. brings together the research savvy of Marsland with MarkLives’ cool and sexy take on the modern advertising world. TREND. launched this morning at trendlives.info and will focus on trend forecasting, in-depth reports, insight and analysis relevant to the broader marketing industry.

The site will serve as a central curated resource for local and international marketing and media research as well as create its own unique in-depth reports that sources and charts influential modern trends marketers and their agencies need to note.

As with MarkLives, TREND. will will offer its content free of charge, and will be supported by site and report sponsors. Ornico, Quirk, Machine Agency, 60layersofcake Cape Town and John Brown Media are the founding landing page sponsors for the site.

The first in-depth Dissect report to be published on TREND. focuses on socialising the enterprise. Compiled by Marsland and sponsored by Quirk, the report, which runs to over 11 000 words, sets forth the effects of a socialised consumer base on the modern enterprise. Content is broken in readily digestible pieces for the busy executive.

Social media is not about a suite of social networks and tools writes Marsland. “It is now about the social enterprise, the brand that integrates social across all platforms of engagement. It is about living social.”

Social secrets of the digital divide

by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) Our society is held back by many digital divides. Those who have computers and those who don’t. Those who have Internet access and those who don’t. Those who create mobile apps in their spare time and those who are over 21.

Seriously, though, the digital divide is real, it’s a drag on the economy, and it exacerbates the gap between the haves and have-nots.

The one digital divide that has been crossed, however, is the gap between those who could afford a communications device called a phone, and those who could not. Today, 80% of South Africans have a phone. That’s the good news. The better news is that, as the average phone becomes more advanced, it becomes a tool to help users cross several other digital divides.

The findings of the South African Social Media Landscape 2012 study, released by World Wide Worx and Fuseware, reveals startling secrets of social South Africa.

The key findings of the research were that, at the end of August, 5.33-million South Africans were using Facebook on the Web, 4,6-million were on WhatsApp ,2,43-million on Twitter, 1,9-million on LinkedIn. A huge 9,35-million were active on Mxit.

Because Facebook does not measure mobile-only usage among those who have registered via their cellphones, however, the full extent of its penetration is significantly understated: primary research by World Wide Worx shows that 6.8-million people were accessing Facebook on their phones in mid-2012.

Springleap – design crowd with marketing muscle

How do you turn a T-shirt company into a powerful marketing play? You provide access to your pool of 17 000 designers to brands needing beautiful and relevant content (through design) and utilise your social media skills and significant global crowd source loving fan base of course.

That’s just what Eran Eyal and his team at Springleap.com has been doing and so far the results have been positive.

The Springleap team has been proving their concept using the best possible case study – themselves – having grown Facebook their fan base 6000 to 193 000 in less than a year (it’s now closing in on the 200k mark). Eyal says at one stage he was testing 600 different Facebook ads to figure out best practice and what achieves the most success.

At its core sits 17 000 designers who submit designs to Springleap.com – these designs are then voted on by its community and as many friends as the designers can pull through their own networks to the site. The winners receive a cash prize and royalties from the resulting product, usually a T-shirt. Sales are handled by Springleap. Eyal looked at this talent pool and their social pull and realised it could be a powerful asset to activate design and brand fans.

Oreo gets Licked and Liked

What could be less controversial than the iconic Oreo cookie? Well, try an Oreo with rainbow crème filling. Nabisco, a division of Kraft Foods made a calculated marketing move in June 2012—which amongst other things is LGBT Pride month—by posting an image of a pro-pride cookie on their Facebook page. By Oresti Patricios, CEO Ornico

The imaginary cookie had a six-layer rainbow-coloured filling, reminiscent of the pride flag; below was the simple text: “June 25 | Pride”. It went viral, and attracted kudos from the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community.

Within 24 hours, the company’s Facebook post had 177 000 likes, 52 000 shares and 22 463 comments. There were negative remarks from anti-gay commentators, but most of the comments were supportive of Oreo’s marketing intent. And the debate has resulted in free publicity for the product, made by Nabisco, a brand owned by Kraft.

Bletchley Park wants to win the war by being real

Spending most of your time with problems makes you need to change your perspective on them, says Kelly Putter, Creative Director at Bletchley Park.

Social community WAYN travels to South Africa

Jerome Touze, the French co-founder of London based Wayn.com, the social travel and lifestyle community, is setting up an office in Cape Town from where the company can service one of its biggest clients, South African Tourism.

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