Facebook Timeline. It’s probably the biggest thing to hit social media since the Kardashians (or “last week’s Facebook update”). With all the hype about how great (or horrible) the new Timeline feature was, I was skeptical. Facebook changes things all the time, and I never seem to notice much difference after a few days of use. I didn’t understand how using Facebook as a scrapbook was going to radically change my life. Nonetheless, I finally decided that – given the fact that I’m a “digital strategist” and am supposed to be on the cutting edge of all things cool, new and digital – I should activate my Facebook Timeline. So I did.
And it’s awesome. I may have a different perspective than most, but here’s why I love the new Facebook Timeline.
I joined Facebook when I was a freshman in college. “Back in the day” when you had to have an “.edu” email address to sign up, and before every tween and their grandmother had Facebook accounts. This is a key element of Facebook Timeline. I spent many years uploading pictures, writing “notes,” posting on others’ walls and sharing information. When I activated Timeline, I went back through all that I had done during my college years. I saw where I’d been, who I had spent a lot of time with, what I had said about classes or current events.
Granted, I can see the drawback to this. You probably won’t like Facebook Timeline if you’ve spent a considerable amount of time being a goofball. By that, I mean if you were tagged in a bunch of drunken frat-party pictures and you’re less than proud of them now, you’re probably not going to love the new Timeline. But have no fear! Facebook has thought about that! They let you turn on Timeline for only you to view for a week so that you can go through and delete all of the junk you’re not proud of.
The Timeline might not be so great for you if you’ve gotten married and your spouse was not a part of your life that Facebook timelines. I’m just saying: All of those pictures of you and your ex-girlfriend and the “I love you, sweetlips!” posts on your wall are going to show up. And your new wife is going to see them. She might not be amused. Again, this is an excellent opportunity to use the trial Timeline and remove every post you feel could later incriminate you with your loved ones.
But you know who else will love the Facebook Timeline? Grandparents. Why? Because not only can they see what their children are doing, but they can look at the lives of their grandchildren without having to pester their kids to send them pictures. Look at it this way: They’re already keeping up with birthdays using Facebook – why not use it to remember what kind of birthday cake you made last year or who you invited to the birthday party?
Given the fact that Facebook lets you remove whatever you don’t want on your Timeline, you can, in a way, recreate yourself. Or at the very least, delete the less attractive elements. Here’s an example. Childbirth. It’s an important time in a mother’s life. Some people feel the need to take pictures of the new, exhausted mother, then post them on Facebook.
The new mother, no doubt, will not be happy with these pictures, especially in two years. Pictures of baby = OK. Pictures of Mom, cheeks void of color in a hospital gown = not OK. The mother may opt to take down those photos.
But how awesome would it be for brands like, say, Pampers, if they could target this mother and track the baby’s growth and promote products that fit that life stage? Not only right when the baby is born, but in a few years when they need pull-ups instead of diapers? Or maybe Weight Watchers has a potential customer as Mom tries to get back into pre-baby form.
Because Facebook Timeline can let people know when important events (like childbirth) happen, they also allow brands to use a little deductive reasoning and think about what other important events are going on in the lives of users. Sixteen years after that childbirth picture? Hello, car insurance companies…
One more thing I love about Timeline. The huge picture, what Facebook calls the “Cover Photo.” That’s right, you can highlight a much larger picture on your profile while still having your little passport-style “this is what I really look like” picture (that is commonly used for the token keg stand picture among my friends). This opens up a lot of doors for creativity.
Check out http://mashable.com/2011/12/08/facebook-timeline-ideas/#375873-Pao-Abella for some great examples of how people are expressing themselves with the Cover Photo.
It will be interesting to see if Facebook allows brands to activate a new Timeline page. Many brands on Facebook will be reasonably new, as it’s a great promotional tool for young brands to get some word-of-mouth coverage. It’d be really cool for brands with a lot of rich history. For example, I’d like to see some timelines like this:
Coca-Cola
- 1992: Clear colas: Failure.
- 2008: Tested Diet Coke with Bacon…did not go into production.
- 2011: Fans reject white Coke can, saying it “tastes different.”
Ford
- 1908: Model T introduced.
- 1914: Ford introduces a $5/day minimum wage, double the existing wage.
- 2011: Ford Focus electric unveiled.
- 2004: Facebook launches.
- 2006: Facebook opened to everyone ages 13 or older with a valid email address.
- 2009: Facebook users freak out about privacy changes.
- 2010: Facebook users freak out about change to live news feed.
- 2011: Facebook users freak out about new Timeline feature.
To close, I’d encourage you to try Facebook Timeline. The longer you’ve been a user and the more you’ve posted, the more interesting your timeline will be. Who knows, maybe Facebook Timeline will serve as a gentle reminder for people to be responsible? Like my grandmother always said, “Don’t do anything if you don’t want it posted on Facebook.”
The Buzz Holiday Edition
Before we go on break, we wanted to share with our loyal readers a few of our favorite holiday digital goodies to lead you into the new year. Happy Holidays from your friends and loved ones at The Buzz. See you in 2012!
Google Brings White Christmas to Your Web Browser
Mimi Wilfong
If you haven’t seen it yet, when you type “let it snow” in any Google search bar, snowflakes start dropping and the screen frosts up. If you’re on your tablet, you can draw in the frost.
Send a Call from Santa
Jill Krumsick
Another festive treat from Google helps you send personalized messages to friends and family from Santa himself. Give it a try at: www.sendacallfromsanta.com
Times Square Ball App
Sarah Voges
If New Year’s is all about watching the ball drop for you, the official Times Square Ball app will keep you up to date on the Times Square celebration, allow you to submit photos to be displayed on December 31 and watch a live stream of the crystal ball. After you’ve rung in the New Year, the app will provide news about Times Square events and entertainment.
Heineken Connects Beer Lovers with BeerFriender
Scott Luther
Heineken is launching a home draft product called “BeerTender.” As it’s the holiday season, they thought it would be fun to connect beer lovers who think it’s better to give AND receive with an app that allows users to mutually buy a BeerTender for each other.
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Do your customers find your brand’s digital presence easy to use and learn or difficult and confusing? Are your customers satisfied with how your products work? The answer to this question can be traced to the usability of your offerings. ISO defines usability as “The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.”
Usability is important to customers and often differentiates brands among their competitors. Look at Apple’s and Google’s success. Many of our clients ask their search to work like Google’s, and many of us can’t resist Apple’s products because of their commitment to simplicity, making them easy to use.
When customers use certain products or offerings, they have specific goals they need to accomplish or want access to information they believe those offerings provide. When customers experience your digital offerings, they don’t want to spend a lot of time figuring out how to use them. If they have a difficult time, they won’t be successful and will likely leave unhappy.
Get Your Design in Front of Customers
Usability testing is one of the most common techniques to assess usability and put your design to the test. During this process, observation is key – what customers say is often not what they do. You will find where the design hits the mark, as well as where users struggle that you may not have expected they would or find out there are aspects of the design they overlook.
Unlike focus groups where the collective wisdom of many is gathered, usability testing has customers participate in one-on-one sessions and asks them to complete common tasks as they normally would. Therefore, recruiting participants for usability testing based on relevant behaviors rather than marketing segments is key to ensure that you are seeing the right customers completing tasks they have performed before or would likely do on their own.
Based on what was learned from usability testing, you might need to make some simple tweaks like creating more intuitive link labels. Or perhaps you might find there were some showstoppers; for example, finding that most users were unable to complete the registration process. By seeing customers interact with your brand, your team is able to make more informed decisions on behalf of your customers.
Usability Is Not an Add-On
But usability should not simply be assessed with one usability test. It’s an approach that should be incorporated throughout the life cycle of the design process. When usability is a priority throughout the process, inefficiencies in design interactions can be caught early enough to make the necessary fixes when they are less costly and easier to make. Or once your product is in your customer’s hands, usability improvements can contribute to a reduction in customer support calls because customers can use your products without anyone’s assistance or they experience productivity improvements because they complete tasks more quickly.
As 2012 approaches, I’d like to propose that you make usability one of your New Year’s resolutions. Separate your brand from other competitors by making usability an integral part of your digital brand presence.
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Facebook to Launch Mobile Ads in Early 2012
Jill Krumsick
Facebook expects its next one billion users to mainly visit the network via a mobile device next year, so the brand is focusing on its mobile experience. Expect to see ads in your mobile Facebook experience in the next few months.
Procter & Gamble’s Mobile Coupon Strategy Reveals Broken System
Scott Luther
Procter & Gamble, a major packaged goods company, has partnered with small technology firm Mobeam to develop a mobile couponing system that addresses one of the last hurdles to adoption – redemption. Current mobile coupons are easily distributed and collected, but cannot be scanned through most POS barcode scanners. Mobeam’s solution could be available as early as 2012, taking the $3.7 billion coupon market to mobile.
Tablet Computers: The Must-Have for What Age Group?
Mimi Wilfong
Forty-five percent of this age group has downloaded more than 10 apps in the last year. Thirty-three percent of this age group has read QR codes on their smartphones, and 35% of them download movies from Netflix or other streaming providers. What age group is it? One more hint: They WERE Woodstock. Don’t underestimate the tech-savvy Boomers.
Your Life on Facebook, in Total Recall
Sarah Allen
Facebook rolled out Timeline to all of its users this Thursday. This profile option has been available in beta form to developers. Timeline makes a user’s entire history of photos, links and other things shared on Facebook accessible with a single click. For advertisers, the Timeline feature potentially offers a new way to target users.
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Back in October, Sarah Voges introduced Pinterest to the blog. The rise of this online bookmarking site has been exponential. As of November 2011, TechCrunch reports that Pinterest is up more than 2,000% since June. Its audience is mainly female with boards centered on wedding, food, décor and many more.
Brands are beginning to find ways to utilize this new kind of social media to speak to their consumers. The greatest potential for success in this space is the rise of social shopping because people trust recommendations by friends more than marketers. By sharing and viewing Pinterest boards with your Facebook and Twitter networks, you can easily see what your friends are interested in and recommending. Advertisers that work in the retail, food and fashion industries can obviously benefit from pinning their pictures or products on the site and being part of users’ social sharing.
Here are few examples:
Nordstrom, one of the nation’s leading fashion specialty retailers, created Pinterest boards showcasing gift ideas and holiday outfits. Once you click into the picture, you’ll be redirected to the product page on the Nordstrom site for purchase. How convenient!
Real Simple magazine creates boards centered around tips for decorating, recipes, gifts and overall holiday inspiration. Every one of their pictures links back to the article or picture on their site. The popular magazine reports more referrals from Pinterest than Facebook for the month of October. Below are some of their recent boards.
Whole Foods, the national grocery store specializing in natural and organic foods, is interested in Pinterest by using it to be part of people’s passion points. To show brand personality, they’ve created a board for gardening and sweets. To raise awareness of their community involvement, they’ve made a board for their nonprofit organization, Whole Planet Foundation. All their boards create conversation starters and establish the company’s personality without selling anything directly.
As Pinterest gains more users and views, more brands will take notice and join the movement. They have the opportunity to showcase their products, link back to their site for purchase, converse with their followers, raise awareness of their community involvement and express brand personality.
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The Grid System in action
Most everyone who ever went to school for commercial advertising learned the Grid System, a basic design convention where all elements on a page line up with each other on an invisible grid, much like a newspaper layout. Of course, designing completely on a grid was not a hard-and-fast rule, so it was easy to break out of, and with a static delivery system (like print), it was simple to do.
Then came a new medium with its nonstandardized viewing platform: the Internet. The first commercially viable programming language required that everything be placed in tables – essentially a grid – and designers spent a great deal of energy trying to create sites that did not reflect their boxy underpinnings. Viewing variables became a consideration, mainly how different browsers would display a site and what size monitor the majority of viewers had. A maximum build size was adopted and ad units became standardized. Site design became more complex and, in some cases, convoluted.
There has been a resurgence of late to simpler design with clear messaging. From a user’s perspective, this simplicity prevents a bombardment of messages and competing links. Used correctly, a grid design can be calming and self-assured. Navigation is clear and users can easily find their way around the site without feeling overwhelmed. Images can take center stage and users quickly receive the site’s message.
Now marketers are confronted with an even more varied viewing platform. Monitors, laptops, tablets and smartphones guarantee no standard size will accommodate all audiences. Many companies are building separate sites for each major platform, which may not be a viable solution for all.
A modern grid system has been re-created and updated to solve this dilemma.
A site built in boxes that can be fixed or flexible is often referred to as a fluid grid, and the practice itself is called reactive design. As different devices access the site, it resizes or reorganizes to fit the available space. In some cases, the boxes will change size. In others, the boxes will shift in layout with each box assigned an order of priority for display so the content is always positioned 
in priority of importance. See the two figures at right for an example of the same site displayed at different browser sizes.
A site built on the flexible fluid grid will display properly on almost any screen resolution without plug-ins, subdomains or mobile-specific URLs, giving the experience consistency and cohesion without requiring the building of multiple sites. Sites are created in a framework using variable boxes that can reorganize or resize based on the size of the browser window. This grid layout can be quite complex or deceptively simple.
This evolution in web design is because of the new CSS3 specifications that allow designers to take advantage of media queries. This effectively allows browsers to detect both the screen resolution of the user and the maximum screen width to determine if the user is viewing in landscape or portrait, and then apply the appropriate style sheet. The same single site for mobile, tablet and web devices means that when a user shares a page with a friend, they are seeing the same content, rather than a filtered, watered-down mobile version of the website.
No matter how the Grid System is implemented – flexible or fixed – it imparts a sense of order to the user. In what can be the Wild West, a harmonious structure with intuitive navigation can be a welcome respite.
Image References
http://christmas.biltmore.com/#/night
http://www.zackgrossbart.com/slidegrid/
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Twitter Joins Facebook, Google, Launches “Brand Pages” for Marketers
Sarah Voges
Twitter has unveiled a comprehensive redesign that includes brand pages for advertisers. The pages will allow brands to display logos more prominently, let them “pin” tweets to the top of their timeline and have selected tweets automatically expand to display YouTube clips or other content, among other features. The network announced 21 initial brand partners, with more pages from nonprofits and individuals said to be upcoming.
TV, Mobile See Gains in Viewing Time
Stephanie Wierwille
U.S. adults now spend more time with mobile than print magazines and newspapers combined, but are watching more and more traditional TV. Time spent with the Internet and mobile phones is up by 7.7% and 30%, respectively, while watching TV and video on a traditional television set is up by ten minutes from last year. While TV is getting its fair share of ad dollars, the ad dollars allocated to mobile are far less than mobile’s share of adults’ media time each day.
Google Expands Content Distribution with Currents
Scott Luther
This week Google has released its long-rumored social magazine service for Android, iPad and iPhone with more than 150 content partners offering full-length editions through its platform. This service aims directly at social news services like Zite and Flud, but at launch has only a limited integration with Google+ while not integrating at all with Twitter or Facebook.
Who Uses Tablets Most?
Alex Kenney
eMarketer’s estimate of U.S. tablet users shows that nearly 11% of the U.S. population uses a tablet at least once per month, with the highest penetration among Hispanics and Asian-Americans. Spanish-speaking Hispanics have the highest aspirational intent for tablets, with 41% planning to have one within the next year.
Record Online Sales This Holiday
Jill Krumsick
‘Tis the season for e-commerce! The latest holiday tracking reports are in, and spending is up 15% over last year, reaching $25 billion. And with Green Monday and free shipping week coming up, the 2011 holiday is shaping up to be a record-breaking season.
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Traditionally the Monday after Thanksgiving, Cyber Monday has been stretched to Cyber Week, as online sales remained strong not just on that one day, but the entire five-day period ending December 2. Market research firm comScore reported that U.S. consumers spent nearly $6 billion online during this period, a 15% increase over 2010. Three days of the week (November 28-30) topped the billion-dollar sales mark: Monday ($1.25 billion), Tuesday ($1.12 billion) and Wednesday ($1.03 billion).
Why the Increase?
Well, for one, more people are shopping online now than they were even just a year ago. Eleven percent more people made a purchase online during Cyber Week this year compared with last. But the average purchase amount was also up by 9%, so people spent more overall online, too. The increased amount of promotional activity is most likely a driver – is it just me, or was the email bombardment consistent and constant all week? Every day, I woke up to a dozen emails from my favorite retailers, and while typically I might have unsubscribed to cut down on inbox clutter, I didn’t this year. I didn’t want to miss out on an even better offer! You’re giving me 30% off today, Banana Republic? I’m pretty sure you’ll send me one for 40% off, plus free shipping tomorrow.
Free Shipping
Speaking of free shipping, that’s a huge part of this equation, too. According to comScore, 63% of all online transactions during Cyber Week included free shipping, an 11% increase compared with 2010. In their annual holiday shopping survey, more than one-third of respondents said that free shipping is “very important,” and they wouldn’t make a purchase without it, and nearly half said they would abandon their transaction if free shipping weren’t offered. With so many retailers offering it, free shipping has become practically an expected part of the online shopping experience.
Mobile
Watching mobile’s meteoric rise this year has been fascinating, and the holiday season so far is no exception. Thanksgiving and Black Friday were big days for mobile, when people were spending time at the dinner table and with family instead of on their computers at work. According to IBM Benchmark, 14.3% of e-commerce sites’ traffic came from mobile devices on Black Friday, compared with 10.8% on Cyber Monday. And in terms of actual sales, 9.8% of Black Friday’s sales were from mobile, compared with 6.6% on Friday. This is a huge spike from 2010, when just 2.3% of sales came from mobile devices on Cyber Monday.
As marketers, we need to think of mobile, in-store and website shopping as complementary to one another, not cannibalizing, and it’s crucial to optimize the experience on each platform so that it’s intuitive enough to make that purchase easily. As shoppers – don’t be surprised if that credit card bill is higher than past years. With the ability to make a purchase anytime and from anywhere, self-control may be harder than usual this holiday season. But we don’t need to think about that until January. Happy shopping!
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At least one thing is pointing up in this economy. And that’s the level of digital ad spending. The Interactive Advertising Bureau released its Q3 Internet Advertising Revenue Report reflecting a 22% increase compared to the same period last year. This is the eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year positive growth. In fact, the third quarter is always a strong performer, with increases occurring every year except three since 1996.
The major categories in terms of overall digital spending include Search at 49%, Display-Related at 37%, Classified at 8%, Lead Generation at 5% and Email Revenue at 1%. Within Display-Related, Display/Banner Ads make up 23% of the total pie, Rich Media makes up 5%, Digital Video is at 6% and Sponsorship rounds out at 3% of the total spend.
So does this mean you need to adjust your budgets to reflect overall spending trends? Here are some points and checklists to take into account before you jump on the digital budget bandwagon.
Where to Spend, Where to Spend?
As you begin to finalize planning for 2012, you might consider using the following as a budgeting checklist. To help with allocations or achieving business goals, you might assign a value to each effort – say 1 is “Extremely Important” and 7 is “Not Important”:
Owned Media
Company intranet/extranet
Brand website
Brand channels in social media (example: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter)
Branded content (content created by a brand)
Mobile site
Email marketing
Smartphone applications
Tablet applications
Search engine optimization
Paid Media
Paid search
Display ad units (including display ads on social networks)
Online video
Mobile display
Online sponsorships (online or integrated with cross-platform programs)
Branded content (produced as a part of a paid media effort)
Games (in-game advertising or sponsorships)
Earned Media
Digital word of mouth (including blogger outreach)
Social monitoring/listening
Online video distribution
User-generated content via social media
User-generated content via other online channels
Customer Behavior Matters, Too
You might also ask how the following consumer media behavior trends are occurring across your target audience and how they may impact the receptivity of your communications:
- Customers who migrate from device to device throughout their day
- Spending more time accessing the Internet via mobile device
- Customers who participate/access user reviews
- Watching more video and programming via a mobile device
- Increased use of location-based services
- In-store use of mobile devices (tablets and smartphones)
- Adoption and usage of digital couponing
- Downloading of apps or sampling content via apps
- Use and adoption of smartcodes or Quick Response (QR) codes
- Customers who are time shifting a majority of their TV watching
Now is also a great time to revisit your reporting and information resources so that you are making the best possible business decisions. Major digital measurement tools include:
- Digital campaign performance reporting
- Online brand impact studies
- Website analytics/reporting
- Search (PPC and SEO) reporting
- Mobile site analytics/app activity reporting
- Social media analytics
- Online listening/conversation analysis tools
- E-commerce sales performance
- Online audience measurement tools
- Online competitive site activity
- Online competitive advertising activity
Also consider some of the following major technology trends and how you might allocate proper resources to take advantage of the “next wave” of innovation:
- HTML5 development
- Mobile app development
- Tablet apps
- Near-field communications (NFC)
- Augmented reality
- Social gaming/social apps
- Gesture-based computing (think Xbox 360 Kinect)
- Digital displays/point of sale interactive experiences
- Digital imaging/exterior installations
Finally, you might want to check the last time you implemented a digital strategy. Has more than 24 months gone by? Not yet even taken the step to implement one? Well, now’s an excellent time to establish a current digital strategy to help with spending decisions…and so much more. And we know several savvy digital strategists who are ready to help (hint, hint).
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“Cyber Week” Sets New Record
Alex Kenney
According to comScore, online sales for “Cyber Week” that ended on December 2 set a new record, coming in at just under $6 billion. One reason for the increased spending? Free shipping. Sixty-three percent of the online transactions included that perk, up 11% over last year.
Microsoft’s Xbox Live Challenging the Cable Box
Brian Kress
Continuing its pursuit of the ultimate entertainment box, Microsoft has released an update this week that packs new content inside a new experience, all of it better than the traditional cable box. With provider-authenticated on-demand content from dozens of linear TV channels in addition to the same box that offers HBO GO, Netflix, Hulu Plus, ESPN and other content channels, and the games the Xbox 360 is already known for, the next Xbox experience is shaking up the set-top world.
Bacardi Uses Facebook to Simulate a Party Experience
Stephanie Wierwille
Bacardi launched a holiday promotion last week that uses Facebook data to create an immersive, personalized video experience. “Unwrap the Night” is a 360-degree interactive video that simulates a holiday party, inserting your Facebook friends into the experience and prompting you to get involved. With a Bacardi drink in hand, you can mingle with the crowd and mix tracks with the DJ.
YouTube Redesigns with Emphasis on Channels
Scott Luther
Continuing its move toward a more engaging experience for users, YouTube has redesigned its site experience to drive users to content groups called channels. Many channels will feature exclusive content from professional sources, but the redesign also encourages all video uploaders to think about where their videos will be most easily discovered. Also included in the redesign is a home page stream that highlights videos shared by users’ Facebook and Google+ contacts.
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