Every brand needs an identity. A talking point. Something that distinguishes it from the rest. Do you know what sets you apart from your competitors? What makes you unique and great? Check out this short video where our CEO and brand strategy guru Peter Getman talks about what makes a brand special, and why it’s important to have an agency that speaks “you”.

This post is part of a larger series on the important role Influencer Outreach plays in Modern Branding. For the introduction to the series, please go here.

Are you finally getting the hang of this whole Influencer Outreach thing? You’ve identified potential Influencers on the web scene? You’ve checked their Klout Score™? You’re confident they’re spreading messages of significance? You’ve cross-referenced them with other, similar brands?

What is that last element, then, that will make them perfect for you? The last step in assuring they’re the voice you want spreading your word? The answer is finding Influencers empathetic enough to your brand that they feel emotionally compelled to promote it––or what is commonly called Tribe Building in modern ad speak.

1. Figure Out What Makes You “You”

Every brand should strive for a Unique Value Proposition, or more directly, provide something intrinsically different than anything that currently exists. And coincidentally, it’s that which sets you apart that draws others in. Being able to clearly define and articulate what makes you one-of-a-kind will drastically improve your internal and external communication, and allow you to easily disseminate your ideas to others, Influencers included.

Remember: The easier your brand is to emotionally digest, the stronger your tribe’s responsiveness will be.

Moreover, recognizing how and where your brand can align with people’s lives on a deeper level (than say, sellers and buyers) will help you discover Influencers inspired to tell your brand story. They’ll back what you do because you’ll have tapped into something beyond pithy wordplay or compulsion driven imagery. Finding a truly great Influencer means you may be able to organically stimulate their personal investment and passion.

2. Align Yourself with Strong Leaders

Defining what sets you apart may be easy, but it’s also important to know whom you should align yourself with. When searching for your ideal Influencer, listen closely to the language they use. Are they regurgitating someone else’s spiel on their blog, Twitter, and Facebook profile, or are they passionately sending their own message? Thinking their own thoughts? Sharing their own ideas? A great Influencer is both a free thinker and a brand advocate.

Finding a person who shares your message in a way that is authentic to them and their audience will give you and your brand immediate credibility, and it will empower your Influencer in a very intrinsic way. Having liberty over the message will embolden them! It will move them! It’s those –– the Influencers who are inspired by your values, who promote your growth –– who become the essential members of your tribe. And like any other tribe, this collective unit’s goal is to ultimately help the group prosper as a whole. It’s cyber-symbiotic: You win, they win. They win, you win.

These members will do their part in finding more people to bring into the fold. Like a chain reaction, those invested members will go out of their way to initiate more people into the tribe, until you have a thriving, talking, sharing community actively engaged in your little (but quickly growing) brand.

3. Add that Person(al) Touch

More than anything, Tribe Building is common sense. The more emotionally devoted a person is to your brand, the more likely they are to evangelize it on your behalf. Think of all the times a friend has championed a restaurant, movie, or band they loved; and their unsolicited recommendations probably held more sway over you than any advertising that could have been manufactured! Having a group of Influencers that resonates with that same fervor and affinity for your brand will help create interest in what you’re doing and motivate others to check you out as well. They will spread your story like wildfire because they will feel enthused by your vision.

Photo Courtesy of Stonyfield Yogurt®.

The deliciously clever yogurt company Stonyfield implored this tactic in their 2010 Barnstorming Tour promotion. The campaign targeted specific food and health Influencers to spread the word of Stonyfield’s organic yogurts by inviting them to visit the actual farms where their ingredients are grown. On top of the “mud on your boots” experience, the yogurt company gave $5k to the charity of choice for the finalists.

This simple call-to-action encouraged sharing the message, and tapped into the allure of meeting folks who actually grow what people eat––it was a logical carrot to entice their audience. The campaign built a strong community in which people could personally interact with one another, which strengthened their attachment to the brand. As word spread, potential participants poured in. Check out this blogger’s genuine gusto for the opportunity.

By going the extra mile and finding bloggers who were truly enthusiastic about organic farming, Stonyfield created a small army of Influencers tied to the success of the brand. Ostensibly, the yogurt company had built a tribe.

All right. Let’s recap! When Tribe Building, it’s crucial to:

• Find Influencers who you think would share an emotional bond to your brand. Having them form the base of your tribe will guarantee you’ll be supported by members who will work to see your ideas flourish.
• Identify your brand’s Unique Value Proposition and convey that definitively to would-be Influencers. They’ll appreciate that you’re trying to do something different, and are much more likely to board your train if they know you have a game plan that sets you and your brand apart from the crowd.
• Empower your tribe to spread your message as they see fit. If you’ve done your homework and found great Influencers, then their natural tone will lend credibility to what you’re doing. No micromanaging! The more their voice becomes infused with your messaging, the stronger connection other people will have to your brand as it gets passed along.

Ultimately, Tribe Building works because it involves community. It’s people talking to other people. One of the most important aspects of any marketing tool is to remember you’re always dealing with other humans––the same sentiments and appeals you respond to will ring true to them. Sure, the mediums have changed, but the message has not. Despite everything existing online or in the digital clouds, be cordial, be polite, and treat others with respect, and they’ll reciprocate that to your brand.

Finding and empowering the right Influencers will build you a tribe that will be digitally social, human, and unstoppable. Big-budget ad spends can’t buy that kind of cache, but some well placed investment in professional tribe building can. So spend less, do more, and start building your tribe.

Content Specialist

This post is part of a larger series on the important role Influencer Outreach plays in Modern Branding. For the introduction to the series, please go here.

The quality of what people are saying (and what their disciples say) matters when it comes to finding the right Influencer for your brand­­. And being loud is not the same as being an Influencer! Remember that person in school who talked constantly, yet said nothing of value? In the world of digital doers vs. digital sayers, you want people who walk the walk––avoid those who have their message received as gossip and target those whose message is taken as gospel.

Where Do Large Brands “Shop”?
A good tactic to ensure you’re unearthing Influencers who spread worthwhile information is to find proven brands, and check out whom they align themselves with. Your aspirational brands are most likely shooting for the same qualities in an Influencer as you, and they may have recognized a pattern or trend you’re simply not up to speed on. Drafting pacesetters means you get there quicker. And sometimes in life, being willing to stand on the shoulders of a giant is the only way to see as far as you need to.

In short… having one awesome, diamond-in-the-rough Influencer is worth more to your brand than twenty chatterboxes.

Do They Speak Your Language?
Every brand should have a distinct tone and feel to its voice; its own vernacular that makes its value promise more relatable, believable, and attractive to its target audience. Maybe your brand is confident and professorial? Perhaps it’s silly and good-natured? Whatever your brand’s attitude, your Influencer should be a direct extension of that––they are a brand partner in many ways. Do a little legwork here. Be thorough! The time you spend researching the ins and outs of your Influencer will payoff tenfold when they accurately articulate your brand’s mission with just the right expressiveness and tone.

How about a real world example?

Long before Ford was set to bring back its reinvented sub-compact, it launched the 2009 “Fiesta Movement”. This campaign gave 100 vehicles to web-savvy “millennials”: young adults born after 1979. Ford understood that some 70 million millennials would be driving when they launched the Fiesta –– and 77% of them use social media –– so Ford picked 100 driving Influencers and gave them a Fiesta for six months. The caveat was these “agents” had to share (online) their experiences as they took part in monthly missions.

Influencer Paul Stamatiou takes a photo of his unintentional crash test. Photo courtesy of http://paulstamatiou.com.

In a matter of months, the program generated 4.8 millions views of YouTube videos and 3.4 million Twitter impressions. Ford knew who they were selling to and used them to generate buzz around their product. Check out this Influencer’s take on the ride. Pretty honest.

Go Big or Go Home
Don’t be afraid to dream a little big as well! Too often, brands (especially smaller ones) will make the mistake of not pursuing those whom they consider to be the perfect catch––their reputed Big Fish of Influence. You’re in the same ocean as everyone else, and the only way to make a palpable connection may be to go for it. Good things come to those who ask. And if you want a little statistical courage, think of all the other brands out there not getting in your message’s way because they won’t be trying.

3 Keys to Assuring Your Influencers Are Saying the Right Things:

• Take the time to learn whom other brands are listening to. Who inspires your heroes? Who is doing a great job getting their message out? Taking a cue from those that have been there before isn’t just smart, it’s responsible.

• Establish that your targets are saying thoughtful, poignant things when they speak. And make sure those that are following them have some level of insight as well. Spreading your message to the masses doesn’t help if those masses won’t care.

• It’s okay to think large. Gigantic, exponentially large, if necessary! Go after those who you know can get your brand’s message out, no matter how out of reach they may initially seem.

When you think you’ve found the right person –– whose communication is worthwhile and aligned with your brand voice –– make sure you approach them with the tact and courtesy you would reserve for any other professional relationship. These are allies in your success. Cohorts in your brand’s ubiquity! As this series continues, we’ll dig into how to fine-tune your messaging to the strengths of your advocates, and how to assure they’re emotionally invested in your brand’s success.

Content Specialist

This post is part of a larger series on the important role Influencer Outreach plays in Modern Branding. For the introduction to the series, please go here.

The first step to reaching Influencers (who can provide a tangible lift for your brand) is learning how to single them out amidst the Internet buzz. This may seem like finding needles in haystacks initially, but a true trendsetter has the ability to make an announcement and generate a spike of activity in the digital world, similar to the wake created when a large ship passes by. These spikes can be measured in the form of how many people are in that person’s sphere of influence. Once you recognize the spikes, you can spot the Influencer creating them.

Locating these ripples in the digital abyss doesn’t require a web-psychic or a ton of intern legwork either. There are great tools that already exist that rate and categorize Influencers on the Internet. Here’s a free plug for one of the best: Klout®.

Klout® is a website in which people are given a number score based on their audience, the channels they frequent, and the true amplification of their messaging. For a fee, Klout® will even cultivate a list of Influencers within your self-designed niche. (There are other effective software programs and web processes out there that measure a person’s social influence, but currently, Klout® has the most… well… clout.)

How Heavy Hitters Are Leveraging Klout®
Using Klout® saves you time in identifying who matters and who doesn’t. And some pretty big names have already jumped on the brand wagon. This year, Audi ran a special San Francisco event where targeted Social Media users were given the opportunity to test drive the 2011 A8. The invited few were identified by Klout® as Influencers in the fields the automobile manufacturer has a stake in: cars, technology, consumer buying habits, etc. One special blogger even won a weekend trip chock full of driving––a sort of romantic getaway for the user and the car. By using Klout® to find the participants, Audi hedged their bets on the premise that these Influencers would write honest and persuasive thoughts about the event, about the Audi brand, and specifically the 2011 A8.

Their logic is simple: Genuine, positive insights from Influencers drive (pun intended) sales.

And Audi isn’t the only one to tap into these Klout Perks® programs. Influencers of the movie-going public were given the opportunity to see a private screening of NBC Universal Picture’s The Adjustment Bureau before it hit theaters. Prominent computer/technology bloggers were sent a HP Pavilion dm1-3020us Entertainment Notebook loaded with movies premiering at the Cinefest 2011 film festival. In both cases, the brands were banking on these select individuals to get the word out on the products they just used.

Kutcher's high score comes not only from his celebrity, but also from his advocacy for tech. startups. (Photo courtesy of Klout.com)

Klout® even released a list of celebrity chefs with their social scores, explaining that when these cuisine authorities tweet about a specific restaurant or post a recipe, their foodie followers move the needles.

Knowing Where Cool Kids Hang
Determining who is popular has always been a necessary and difficult task when branding, the only thing that’s changed is mediums! We know what you’re thinking.

And yes, it is kind of like high school. Except instead of counting the number of friends a person is surrounded by at the lunch table, you’ll identify how many friends, fans, or subscribers they have on Facebook®. How often are others commenting on their blog? Do they have a lot of Twitter® followers? All of these are great indicators of a person’s reach (or how many people they can digitally touch).

3 Keys to Identifying True Influencers Online:

• Make sure you look for a person who generates a tangible buzz after they disseminate something online. A genuine response within their sphere of influence means they are true Influences.
• Use the awesome and cheap analytical tools out there to measure a person’s true influential worth whenever possible. If several databases say the person have a high score, then they’re definitely worth your time.
• Always target a potential person who is fluent across various mediums (Facebook®, Twitter®, etc.) and who has a great following. True Influencers may prefer one to another, but they understand that the best way to be heard is to speak through as many channels as possible.

Once you find these Influencers, it is important to have a plan and the resources in place to build and nurture their relationship with your brand. They are after all, the potential spokesperson for your message. Our future posts will provide insights on how to maximize your outreach efforts, and what to say when you do make contact.

Content Specialist

If you’re one of the seven people who haven’t been on the Internet for a decade (and if you are, Welcome Back!), you’re probably a little overwhelmed by what it has become. Stunned by all the websites and the traffic being driven to things that weren’t relevant a year ago, let alone ten? You may have noticed almost every major brand, person, and pet now has their own Facebook® profile. Many have their own Twitter® handle, and possibly a blogging site where they write their thoughts, share photos, or pass on information they find useful. To state the obvious: It’s freaking crowded out there.

Social Media may have flooded the world with a torrent of information, but reading our proverbial tealeaves will weed out the winners from the whiners.

Despite everyone jockeying for the attention of everyone else, it’s actually become easier for small or mid-sized brands to have their messages heard. PR stunts, favorable reviews, and traditional marketing plans just don’t have the same impact on the everyday consumer they used to, and the days of giant agencies monopolizing the People’s Vote are over. Buyers now dictate what story they want to tell and how they want to tell it. This shift means little guys have the opportunity to find their voice amongst the throngs. Big ideas from small places can, for the first time, approach an audience on the same playing field as well-funded competitors.

There are also fresh, outside-the-box techniques that tap into this growing stratosphere––they use the online social world to sing praises for brands who get it right, and jeer those who don’t get it at all. Think of it as the modern word-of-mouth phenomenon! Understanding these marketing tactics means your brand can get its message out without resorting to an online shouting match, or spending tons of money advertising to people you hope will take what you say as meaningful.

One of the most effective, new tools of the trade is Influencer Outreach. Influencer Outreach is simply finding the right people –– who have the right voice, following, and emotional inspiration –– to help spread your brand across their online community. This practice should be an integral aspect of any contemporary agency, as it places the brand directly into the hands of those who can help launch it.

Like anything new, though, Influencer Outreach doesn’t come without its challenges. Understanding the best practices that shape the act, and how to avoid its hidden pitfalls are crucial to success. Luckily, modern branding is what we do best.

We have identified a few best practices to guide brands efforts in Influencer Outreach, including:

• Not Everyone Online Is a True Influencer – Every market has key individuals able to sway opinion and drive action, and the effort to identify the people who are fluent across mediums and can generate a response is critical.

• It’s Important Influencers Say the Right Thing(s) – The quality of what people are saying online matters––being loud is not the same as being an Influencer.

• Build a Tribe of Enthusiasts – Find Influencers empathetic enough to your brand that they feel emotionally compelled to promote it––or what is commonly called Tribe Building in modern brand speak.

In a series of upcoming blogs, we’ll outline some of the beginning steps to help guide you on this path, and teach you how to figure out whose ears are worth whispering into. 

We took a look at the full breath of how social media is amplifying brands at unprecedented levels. Here are 24 social media statistics and trends that are causing modern brand managers to rethink how they allocate marketing dollars to best reach out to consumers.

1. The average Facebook user has 138 friends and 50% of users check their Facebook news feed daily. Therefore, we assume each Facebook share can influence an average of 65 consumers (Facebook) simply by deciding to “like” a piece of content.
2. 68% of Facebook users “share” a product they like, which means each unique share can lead to roughly 44 more users being exposed to the product (Facebook)
3. Fans of a brand spend $71.84 more per year than non-fans (Syncapse.com)
4. Fans of a brand are 21% more likely to continue using a product. (Syncapse.com)
5. Fans of a brand are 41% more likely to recommend a product. (Syncapse.com)
6. Fans cost 15% less to convert to repeat customers than non-fans (TBGdigital.com)
7. Fans enable social advertising, which creates a virtuous cycle of organic word-of-mouth
8. The Internet has grown 14% since 2009 (Internetworldstats.com)
9. There are 152 million bloggers whose reach is staggering (Blogpulse.com)
10. 77% of consumers would use information from blogs to influence their purchasing decisions
11. 175 million people log on to Facebook every 24 hours (Facebook)
12. 65 million of the 175 million logging on to Facebook each day are doing so with a mobile device
13. There are 30 billion Facebook shares per month (Facebook)
14. Twitter marketing jumped from 3% of companies to 49% in 2009 (Econsultancy.com)
15. 84% of internet users view videos online (Comscore.com)
16. There are 2 billion videos watch daily on YouTube (YouTube.com)
17. The number of people using Facebook would equate to it being the 3rd largest country in the world
18. Google+ is the fastest growing social medium ever, being the fastest to 10 million, fastest to 25 million, etc. In fact, it took Google+ only 24 days to reach 20 million users, vs. Twitter: 1035 days, and Facebook: 1152 days.
19. $3.08 billion will be spent to advertise on social networking sites in 2011, a 55% increase over 2010
20. 53% of people on Twitter recommend companies or their product in Tweets
21. 43% of all consumers are social media fans or followers of a brand
22. There are more than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) shared each week on Facebook
23. A brand’s recall, based upon the rule of seven, determines that on average, a person must be exposed to a traditional ad 7 times before purchasing a product, however, 34% of users are likely to use a product immediately, if someone in their social media sphere of influence recommends it (i.e. word of mouth recommendations / sharing).  This represents a 66% reduction in cost.
24. A recent survey states consumers are willing to spend 9.7% more on a brand that provides good customer service (StellaService.com). Social media enhances the ability to deliver rapid customer service, while allowing other consumers to witness the positive experience.

Is your brand modernizing to take advantage of these trends?

By Peter Getman

If you haven’t yet, then “We’re starting TODAY” is the only right answer.

When was the last time you were compelled to modernize your brand’s marketing? When the World Wide Web was born? Remember your first website? Was it a KILLER website? Probably not … for most brands it took five generations of websites to meet expectations if they are even considered met today.

I remember when we built the first five websites for dozens of brands.

Each time, we got to do so because we identified new delivery mechanisms, mediums and digital practices that our client’s competitors had not yet discovered. If we hadn’t been ahead of the curve, their competitor’s agency would have been.

We’ve always been early. MicroArts Creative Agency purchased New Hampshire’s first Mac workstation for $14,000 in 1989. MicroArts.com must be one of the older URLs in New Hampshire having gone live in March of 1995. Our curiosity fuels our ability to consistently help our clients capitalize on the next big trend in brand marketing (hint).

So when did companies start getting websites right? It certainly wasn’t early. In the old days it was simply one-way communication from your brand to its target consumer cultures. The only way these consumers could find your site was if you specifically begged them visit as part of your advertising. Google wasn’t born yet and SEO was far from being an acronym anyone understood. It shouldn’t have been so hard to get it right. Right?

Heck, most eventually figured out how to work within the confines of enabling technologies. After a number of years we somehow pried the web site keys from the chief technology officer and chief information officer and turned them over to the chief marketing officer. This took place after an odd period when software programmers were forced to take on the role of website designers. And finally – following the stress of WAY too many go-live dates missed – the actual content on the website was properly funded and resources (plural) were allocated. Remember when the marketing director started writing the copy for a site, the week before the launch date? It was probably the most writing they had done since they completed English 101 as a college freshman.

You get the point. For most, it was a sh*t show that went on for WAY too long.

This wasn’t the time for technology, websites or marketing to evolve to meet business needs. It was the time when businesses needed to evolve to accommodate the new world of digital marketing. Websites had become the front door of their business. Open 24/7/365, it’s where the first stories were told and where customer purchasing decision were initiated.

CEOs hear me, WE’VE MOVED THE FRONT DOOR!

In fact … there are millions of them.
And many of these doors come with “opinions” built in them.

Your front door(s) is still where the first stories are told, but it now takes place on the social mediums where your consumers observe, learn, share, socialize, inspire, react, like, love and buy. It is your consumers who will be initiating most of the stories and leading the conversation. The consumers are influencing one another at an unprecedented rate and writing a new chapter in marketing history.

With all this change in our business, comes opportunity. So may the best brand win and I believe they will.

I think it’s awesome.

Modernizing can truly be at the core of your brand’s next differentiation strategy.

So start here:

1. Reallocate your 2011 budget significantly for 2012.
2. Start the agency review process next week.
3. Hire an agency that has the experience to guide the transformation of your business from the bottom-up to sync with escalating consumer expectations of your brand’s communications.

Which agency?

• If not the MicroArts team, hire the right agency. **
• Hire an agency out in front that has the experience to guide YOUR BUSINESS TO BE READY.
• Hire an agency with a reputation for teaching you. ***
• Hire an agency with a proven creative process disciplined by best practice principles for every modern marketing discipline they offer.
• Hire an agency to lead the integration of all marketing with a hub laced with social media amplification.
• Hire an agency with a team that wants to kick the living snot out of your competition.

Almost lastly, to my fortune 5000 friends and brand managers – you need to update your brand book right now. Your brand’s voice in social media (SoMe) is the new first three chapters of your brand book. Your brand will soon be “handled” by a 100 times more people than ever before and therefore the guide to do so must mature into a dynamic, living, breathing section of your brand book.

It’s the next generation brand book that guides your brand’s voice in social media with the protocol and methodology to scale with confidence to the demands of your modernized consumer.

Three years ago, I challenged myself with this vision and encourage you not to wait five generations to get it right.

PS: Hiring the college intern to do social media is a really stupid idea. It’s the voice of your brand and it’s VITAL that they are trained to communicate and amplify it.

** Our clients are growing fast, so we’ve grown to support them. At the moment, we only have room for one new client that is ready to modernize and thus position itself for fast growth.
*** If you only have your thumb on it, you need more thumbs. It won’t be long before your competitors have dozens of employees, trained and ready to seed, join and inspire conversations where your customers are making decisions today.

Be sure to check out Part II of this post here:
24 Reasons Social Trends Are Driving Leading Brands to Modernize

It is time for your brand to get emotional.

Consumers are emotional creatures. Their decision to buy one brand over another is more visceral than cerebral. They want to feel like they are making purchasing decisions that align with and better their lives.

So exactly why is it that so many brands are barraging consumer’s minds with gobs of feature/benefits messaging? Why not simply entice me with one primary reason to buy that simplifies my decision?

These questions surfaced recently when I researched pet food brands and realized that the vast majority have a lot to say but fail to appeal to that which makes us human – our emotions. It’s frustrating that big brand packaging is riddled with strategic messaging and positioning tactics. It’s a buckshot approach to branding that makes products less distinct, overly complicated and ultimately less understandable to consumers.

(psst: It appears that pet food brand managers are more concerned with what category the retail buyer considers them in ¾ as opposed to “the single unique reason why I’ll just have to buy it for my dog.”)

Position your brand to resonate with a single correlating emotion. It’s about aligning your brand with what your target demographic WANTS to feel or ASPIRES to be. Brand to a single aspiration to feel better, healthier, safer, sexier, tougher, cleaner, smoother, happier, thinner, richer, smarter or faster.

If you tell a brand’s story that captures your consumer’s feelings, you’ll naturally stand out on the shelf as the right fit for them. It’s the emotional ROI a brand promises the consumer before they buy.

It’s vital to introduce this story with the brand’s Why-to-Buy statement (WTB) – a single clear, concise and memorable statement that your consumer can read on your packaging when standing in the middle of the store aisle up to six feet away.

How you tell this story to the consumer is often referred to as the “big idea”.

The idea must first be capable of cutting through the noise of competing brands and capture the attention of time-challenged consumers. It must also resonate enough to convince them to try your brand’s new promise of value rather than buy their known and preferred brand, which is often sitting right next to your brand on the shelf.

Out of 17 brands I reviewed at this show, only 5 brands use strategy that capitalizes on these best-practice brand principles.

You’ve probably heard the hype, right? Smelled the unmistakable scent of Silicon Valley anticipation in the air? The tizzy started at the F8 Developer’s Conference in September, when Facebook® (the social media behemoth with over 800 million active users worldwide––you’ve probably heard of them) announced it was going in a different direction. Co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised the newest site upgrades would re-think and redefine how people use the Internet. Those are pretty bold proclamations, but are they worth this much fuss?

Well… yeah. Don’t worry, we’ll explain why.

One of the additions introduced during this rollout is called Timeline. This feature will now allow Facebook® users to curate what information is shared, and essentially control the way the social media world views them as a person. By creating dynamic and distinctive custom pages, the social network believes users will be better able to tell the story of who they really are to their community at large, leaving a much more unique digital footprint.

The other new way Facebook® plans to share information is with its Ticker feature. This addition will update less static data from its users –– including minute details like what they ate for breakfast, what they are currently working on in the office, etc. –– and tell the story of users’ more trivial activity; or as Zuckerberg aptly coined, “a lightweight stream of everything that’s going on around you.” The social network even partnered with companies like Spotify®, Hulu®, and Netflix® to give its users updates of the songs their friends are listening to, shows and movies they’re watching, etc.

The easiest way to distinguish between the two may be to consider Timeline as the big picture vision of a user’s social media persona, whereas Ticker will track more mundane, day-to-day activity. Both of these features, however, will play equally pertinent roles for future branding and marketing campaigns!

How, you ask?

Authentic Demographics

Well for starters, as more and more users refine their profiles with Timeline, the Facebook® landscape will slowly settle into self-defined demographics (the new look of a profile is shown below). Users will be able to easily augment their profile so it reflects how they perceive themselves, which in turn gives marketers the opportunity to learn what people truly like and dislike.

Just think: a quick glance at a person’s profile will now establish if a user views himself or herself as a passionate but realistic careerist, a stay-at-home parent, a pet-loving artist, so on and so forth. Moreover, this information won’t be determined by conventional means, but by the people themselves. No more hoping surveys, focus groups, cryptic university data, computer generated algorithms, or old stereotypes of the industry will tell you what a demographic really cares about. Timeline has the potential to turn intimate, consumer communication into low hanging fruit for everyone!

Photo Courtesy of Facebook.com

Genuine Storytelling

Being able to tell a compelling, authentic narrative with Timeline isn’t just relegated to users either. Often the hardest aspect of starting a brand campaign is conveying its foundational beginning, and its aspirational mission. Now your Facebook® profile will take care of that. Naturally. So your humble origins and growth will be tracked by fans, and create a relatable launching point for wherever your success takes you. What’s not to like about that?

Speaking of “Likes”, these expanding options also include a widening user vocabulary. Ambiguous words will be eschewed for more expressive terms that will help you dial into a specific audience.

Instant Gratification

Don’t be fooled by Ticker’s “lightweight” descriptor either; it too will revolutionize the way consumers are targeted. With the torrent of information it provides, marketers will get real time responses to campaigns they launch, and can adjust according to the desires of the very people they’re aiming for. Users will have more information at their disposal too, and since Facebook® promises to control the noise-to-content ratio, things like “Shares” will have added value.

App Potential

While the new format may force brands to leverage themselves a bit differently, the opportunity for innovative app integration (some examples below) has grown exponentially. Having a stellar digital arts team means you can find different ways to share your product with consumers, who can then share that information with their friends and family. Or the random people from high school that have friended them.

Photo Courtesy of Facebook.com

What advice, then, do we have for brands out there: Be smart. Be aware. Be proactive.

Treat those like a mantra.

Ostensibly, both Timeline and Ticker mean you will have a better grasp of whom you’re speaking to, and given a bigger megaphone to get your message heard. The new Facebook® will be a social platform in which all the things its users do, no matter how small, will be recorded and shared. You’ll have to think creatively and re-imagine how your brand can become integrated with your customer’s social identity––successful brands will be the ones that incorporate their products seamlessly in the lives of their customers.

Yet understanding what motivates purchases or turns people away from your product will be easier than ever before, with genuine data and analytics being produced (literally) every second of every day. Use what it is around you to help grow your brand into what you want it to be. Go out and intelligently find and isolate your market, but do so with thoughtfulness and sincerity. And finally, be the real people you are! Just because Facebook® users have greater options to tune you in, doesn’t mean they won’t just as quickly tune you out.

So you’re right, Mr. Zuckerberg, these are pretty powerful feature additions. And Facebook® may very well change the way everyone uses the Internet. Again. But still no “Dislike” button? Damn. You can’t win them all.

Eat, Sleep, Breath, Tweet.
A study last year found that the average young American spends nearly every waking hour online. Whether they are on their computer, iPad, smart phone, TV, gaming system, or other device, they are constantly connected.

Many parents might panic at the idea of pale, bleary-eyed kids sitting in the dark brainwashed by media when they hear this statistic… but the older crowd is no less accustomed to having internet access whenever we want it. Who hasn’t–at some point–pulled out their tablet PC on a bus ride to catch up on the news, checked in through a location-aware app at their favorite restaurant, or (gasp) taken their phone with them into the bathroom?

Dr. Michael Rich, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital Boston who directs the Center on Media and Child Health, said there is no need for concern. Constant access to media is unavoidable, and is “like the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat.” Basically, if you are a parent: get over it… And if you have a brand: make sure everything you do to market your brand has a way to interact for these constantly-connected consumers!

Even the most traditional media can become interactive. For example, billboards have turned into an interactive game for McDonald’s. As a promotion in Stockholm, the fast food chain has created a product-themed arcade game on a massive digital billboard. Passersby can go to a website (http://picknplay.se/) from their phone to connect directly to the billboard and play the game live projected for everyone in the area to see. If they beat the 30-second challenge, their phone automatically is sent a digital coupon for a free McDonald’s treat.

Packaging has turned into a social media success for the SpecialK cereal box. They are using the entire real-estate on the back of their package for a “What will you gain when you lose?” interactive promotion. Consumers write a word in the branded word bubble design on the back of each box, take a picture of themselves with that word and upload it to the brand’s Facebook page.

Even a local letterpress studio I recently visited is using their 19th century printing machine to print a QR code pointed to their website on takeaways for customers who leave the store. Ironic? Perhaps. Effective? Definitely.

It’s time to connect.
More and more brands are finding creative ways to make their printed materials transcend their traditional confines. How can you transform your offline media into an opportunity for more interaction?