MMC is supporting Clairol’s new Facebook “Alter-Ego” tab, which is now live through the end of December, by sharing the news with leading online influencers around the country. The program centers on unleashing the hair color you were meant to have and showing consumers how to achieve that shade with the Clairol Try It On Studio, an interactive digital makeover tool. Online influencers had the opportunity to interview Clairol Color Director Marie Robinson and preview their hair color alter-ego with the help of the Try It On Studio. Marie also discussed the proper way to make that shade change at home with Clairol products. Online influencers including Mom Generations and Beautiful Makeup Search have tried the tool and shared their experience with readers.
Image courtesy of Facebook
In this week’s edition of Five for Friday, we’re switching things up and focusing on the biggest news of the week – the changes to Facebook’s platform known as f8. What follows is MMC’s five key takeaways for marketers on how these changes will affect social media marketing strategy for our clients on Facebook moving forward.
The Open What?: The introduction of Open Graph, an app development platform that aims to give users frictionless experiences, real-time serendipity and pattern identification, brings the notion of being seamlessly social to a completely different level. These apps no longer interrupt the user flow with pop ups asking permission to share every time you used them. Rather, a one-time permission acceptance allows these apps to publish all content on your timeline each time you take an action. This means that once you allow Spotify, Hulu or YahooNews, for example, access to your profile they will seamlessly update your activities every time you read, watch or listen to content. These new apps come with the action verbs “read,” “listen” and “watch” adding a new dimension to social activity.
This gives users more ways to connect through the platform by finding common music, movie, TV, cooking, running et c. interests. Third party app development also allows for additions of new action verbs, with endless possibilities, from “ate,” to “bought” to “reviewed,” etc. Questions you should be asking yourself right now as you adjust your strategy — how are my consumers using my products or services and how can I leverage brand fans to market to their peers for me? While many observers have raised privacy concerns in the past 24 hours, these apps will deliver a huge value to marketers by allowing Facebook to gather incredibly rich data on consumers. This will allow brands to target ads to consumers with almost unimaginable specificity. Imagine your target down to where she shops, what shows she watches on TV, what music she listens to and you can serve ads to EXACTLY that person.
A New Newsfeed: There is no longer the choice to toggle back and forth between “Top News” and “Most Recent” views in the newsfeed. Instead users see a single feed which displays a combination of “most recent” and “top news”. The ratio of “top news” to “most recent” is determined by how often a person logs onto their feed. The intent is to update users on potentially important posts they may have missed while away and conversely to allow those who come back often to see the latest. While Facebook has privately confirmed to us that posts will still be elevated into Top Stories based largely on engagement, it is still unclear whether Top Stories will play the same critical factor that it did when it was the newsfeed default setting. We’ll be doing some deep analysis this week to see whether the new format results in more or less engagement with users and a greater or fewer number of impressions…so stay tuned!
- Success Looks Different: With Facebook slated to roll out new insights and metrics in the coming weeks that will provide new specificity around how many people’s newsfeeds your brand appears in, evaluating success will continue to move away from fan quantity metrics and move towards the quality of engagement and the actual number of users reached. Adoption of this form of measurement by brands should cause a migration away from engagement ads meant to aid fan acquisition and put a greater focus on ad units like “sponsored stories” which are designed to allow individual posts to reach more people.
Additionally, a HUGE added plus to these changes are that Open Graph apps come with a custom set of insights which will tell brand admins who the true story tellers are for their brands. The extensive amount of activity captured in the Open Graph will lead to the ability to hyper target brand advocates and isolate them to take action to an extent a brand once only dreamed of.
- Maximizing Advertising Funds: Increased analytics, as noted above, will naturally lead into new capabilities for buying advertising and implementing an integrated paid model. Psychographic information and category preferences will be easier to pinpoint. Facebook will be able to capture such a stunning amount of detail about people through their activity that marketers will be able to target their ACTUAL consumers across multiple criteria. Along with a new emphasis on “sponsored stories”, Facebook ads will excel in spreading a brand’s individual message to an increasing specific target.
- The Only Constant is Change: One thing’s for sure, brands need to exercise the art of being nimble enough to course correct for whatever changes Facebook makes and figure out what elements of engagement provide the most value. As always a combination of research, software aided analysis, and observation of large numbers of users actual experience on the platform will inform our ever evolving best practices. This is not the first time Facebook has unveiled changes and it surely is not the last. So stay tuned for more on how brands can win with the new format!
If you’re a marketer, you’ve probably heard a lot of advice lately about your Facebook fan page and how the number of fans doesn’t matter as much as what you do with them. And if your target audience is largely women, you’ve also probably heard a fair amount about the decline in effectiveness of traditional media and how increasingly female consumers value peer advice far more than brand messages. The challenge can be translating all of that advice into something actionable for your business. Now, a new survey released by Marina Maher Communications (MMC) and Keller Fay Group shows how targeting and engaging the right women on your social media properties can dramatically increase the effectiveness of your Facebook strategy and geometrically boost your ROI by activating the women that women listen to.
The MMC Influence-Her Survey
MMC’s survey focused on what we call the “Influence-Her,” the 12% of women to whom all other women turn for advice about purchase decisions. You know her, she’s the one out there researching, sharing, commenting, “liking” things on Facebook, leaving ratings and reviews…the woman who knows all the trends and all the deals before anyone else. If she can reach scores of people in the analog world, chatting at work, having lunch, talking on the phone, she can reach thousands, perhaps 10’s or 100’s of thousands through the world of social media. Here’s why: she is 112% more likely to use media tools to give advice, 38% more likely to be your fan on Facebook. She’s 105% more likely to post a positive comment about your brand…and even more important, 125% more likely to post a negative comment. Chances are you already have some lines of communication open with her, because she is 38% more likely to give her personal information to an online marketing property. So when you’re reading comments on a brand Facebook page, checking reviews on Trip Adviser, viewing a video that’s risen to the top on YouTube, you are seeing the Influence-Her at work whether you know her or not.
Finding and activating her
Luckily, your Facebook page is very likely already overpopulated by Influence-Hers…simply because they “Like” pages twice as often. Just a few, very active Influence-Hers can have the same viral effect as thousands of regular fans. And the best part is that, as our study revealed, Influence-hers are extremely open to brand messages because listening to brands is one of the ways they stay “in the know.” That’s why it makes sense to develop a communications strategy that is specifically targeted to engaging Influence-Hers. Start by finding out where she and others like her live online, what they’re saying about your brand, then target their favorite sites to invite them to your page. Listen to what she’s telling you about your brand and engage her, providing the kind of good hard information that is the coin of her realm. Remember, she doesn’t want you to spam her with marketing offers; she wants tips and exclusive information and offers that not everyone gets.
She also wants to know you care about what she thinks. So are you asking her opinion? A Review tab is one of the best ways to engage her. Make sure that your page is staffed appropriately to answer her questions and engage her when she posts on your wall. She can be a powerful ally if you treat her with respect and a deadly brand assassin if she feels disrespected. Keep in mind that fans who are very active on your wall are very likely to be highly influential, so treat her like the special person that she is.
Juicing the Facebook Algorithm
By far, the most powerful effect Influence-Hers have on your page is the way they activate the Facebook algorithm. An active community of Influence-Hers can dramatically increase the number of people you reach when you post, geometrically increasing your ROI. Why? Because without the kind of engagement that Influence-Hers bring to your Facebook page, more than 80% of your posts may be virtually hidden from your “fans.” That’s right. Regardless of how much advertising you pump into your page, how much you invest in apps, videos and contests, if you never really engage your fans — getting them to comment, like, post and share, your posts will eventually stop appearing in your fans’ “top stories” view in their newsfeeds. Brands with very very high levels of engagement, thousands of likes and hundreds of comments per post, get pushed way up in Top Stories so that nearly all of those brands’ fans see them. Posts from pages with a low level of engagement get hidden. This is the mysterious Facebook algorithm at work. And nothing juices the algorithm like having a page full of Influence-Hers with whom a brand is truly connecting, commenting, liking, posting and reviewing up a storm. So Influence-Hers not only help spread your message to their own social graph, their participation on your page helps make your social graph much more…well…social, and therefore much more valuable by increasing your impressions numbers by as much as 500%. Now that’s ROI. After all, you created this page and invested in it in order to reach people… right? That’s why a strategic approach that focuses not on the number of fans, but on the “right” fans is absolutely essential, and why reaching those female consumers that influence other women is the best recipe for boosting your Facebook page’s ROI.
As Sheryl Trager blogged earlier this week, social media and TV are converging. While watching a big event on TV, many people post comments on Facebook, tweet their POV or share feedback on forums. For me, social media also serves as a companion to many of my favorite regularly scheduled shows. I look forward to reading recaps on TV/entertainment blogs, as they enrich my viewing experience and give me a snapshot of what both the experts and fellow viewers think outside of my network.
Now, both The X Factor and American Idol may be taking this companionship to the next level. Yesterday, news outlets teased both shows will allow Facebook voting. It will be interesting to see which show is first to market with this much needed upgrade. What a great way for the X Factor to make a splash in the U.S. pre-launch and distinguish itself from the competition – assuming they get to it first. Either way, it will be a huge leap forward from the laborious repeat dialing of yesterday.
More importantly, this will make it super easy for people to vote via a medium their viewership is already engaged with and probably will be using as a companion while they watch each week’s competition. All they need to do is give one more click to their mouse (or smart phone, assuming it will be mobile-enabled) and they’ve made their opinion known. Hopefully they will enable voters to see how others voted and allow comments/feedback, so viewers get a real time pulse check as to which competitors are leading the pack.
This is a lesson all marketers can learn from – make it easy for your consumer to interact with you. The easier it is, the more people will take action and they’ll do so repeatedly. My bet for either show is engagement soars and they receive an unprecedented number of votes because they’ve made the process so simple.
Happy Friday, everyone, and welcome to “Five for Friday,” a new weekly column spotlighting five “of-the-moment” Social Media developments.
Each week, we’ll be scouring the Web, reading scads of eNewsletters and combing though our RSS feeds for stories that matter – stories that we’ll share with you here.
We hope you find them useful!
For the week ending February 4, 2011:
- After much speculation, Facebook unveiled a plan to introduce a comments system to their ever-growing Network. (Source: CNET News)
- Promising to deliver “the most interactive Oscar Night in history,” ABC is giving the 83rd Academy Awards a Social Media makeover. (Source: Fast Company)
- Food safety, drug safety and pregnancy are among the eight topics driving online search activity for 80% of the US Internet population. (Source: Pew internet & American Life Project)
- Nearly 50% of all mobile purchases are conducted via tablet devices like iPads, says Forrester. (Source: Mashable)
- Social Mediaphiles in Egypt are back online after a government ban on Twitter, Facebook and the Internet is reversed. (Source: Mashable)
What stories caught your eye this week?
Can’t imagine using at-home hair color because of the messiness of it all? Afraid you just won’t get it right? Well, you’re not alone! Clairol research found 51 percent of women dislike the process but feel it’s something they need to do. Now, with new Nice ‘n Easy Color Blend Foam, these hang-ups are a thing of the past. To show online influencers how Color Blend Foam is changing the way women feel about at-home hair color and get them excited to try the product, MMC knew it was important to immerse these women in a complete hair color experience. Because influencers have the opportunity to go to any salon in the city for professional coloring services, MMC partnered with celebrity colorist and Clairol Color Director Marie Robinson, along with her talented staff, to help guide influencers through the at-home hair color process.
The experiential open house event took place on January 18, at the Marie Robinson Salon and was attended by 15 top NYC online influencers including AOL Stylist, Glamour.com and InStyle.com. Influencers raved that Marie helped them understand just how easy Color Blend Foam is to use. Additionally, as influencers had the opportunity to try the product first-hand on themselves, a friend, or a model, those who weren’t previously at-home hair color savvy mentioned the event helped them overcome the fears they’d associated with DIY color. Ariana Finlayson of RealBeauty.com reported “I know that a lot of women are afraid that they’re going to totally botch their hair color job, but it’s very easy to use!” They were also impressed the open house offered real women and not actual models to test the product on, further illustrating how new Color Blend Foam can make any woman feel like a professional.
Aside from sharing product news, this event gave MMC an opportunity to spread the word about Clairol’s biggest hair color giveaway of all time. 100,000 boxes of new Color Blend Foam will be given away on Clairol’s Facebook page from January 24 – 27! One blogger, Style It’s Sarah Conley was so excited, she wrote her post at the event, while many others Tweeted, even answering consumer questions about the product.
To claim your own box of Nice ‘n Easy Color Blend Foam, visit Clairol’s Facebook Page and hit ‘like.’
UPDATE:
With the 100,000 box giveaway coming to a close yesterday, MMC is pleased to announce the campaign was a huge success! Not only did Facebook fans increase from roughly 20,000 to over 253,000, MMC secured more than 300 placements and 45 million impressions in just a matter of days, well surpassing the team’s goal. Coverage appeared on influential sites like Betty Confidential, BeautyStat, Examiner, Sun Sentinel, and NJ.com, and not only drove traffic to the giveaway, but educated women about this new at-home hair color breakthrough, getting hundreds of thousands excited to try it when it hits shelves in February.
Did you get your box? Visit Facebook.com/Clairol to let us know what you think!
To take a peek of Tuesday night’s trial event at the Marie Robinson Salon, and to hear what influencers are saying about new Color Blend Foam, click Clairol Color Blend Foam.
