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”.

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.

By: Geoff Cunningham, Content Specialist

“Did so well at ninja school the instructor didn’t recognize me when I graduated.”

Can you guess what brand is rolling out this type of content on Facebook?

No?

Here’s another taste …

“I’m straight ballin’ – just got rims for my horse-drawn carriage!”

While the above statements sound like the musings of an over-caffeinated 13-year-old, it’s actually some of the messaging being pumped out on a Skittles® Facebook page that’s as much or more of a guilty pleasure to the brand’s fans as the candy itself.

The messaging is random, lacking direction and walks a razor-thin rainbow wire over a bottomless pit of insanity. And it’s perfect.

Talk of ninjas, unicorns, a chainsaw boom-box (what the hell is that?) is clearly resonating with Skittles’ 15.6 million “Rainbros” – the perfectly ridiculous term they use to refer to their target market (i.e. fans).

The bottom is Skittles® have people eating up their copy, which is helping to spread excitement and conversation about a brand that’s taken a unique approach to content. The above posts alone received more than 30,000 “likes”, which is only more amazing when you realize that such gems are regularly receiving 1,000 comments from fans.

Translation: People like what Skittles® has to say and they want to talk about it.

This is compared to brands like Snickers®, which has a FB following of roughly 1.5 million and whose content focuses on things like the celebration of “National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day.” Mountain Dew® has 4.5 million Facbook fans with M & M’s® drawing about 2 million fans.

When it comes to writing impactful copy for a website or social media medium, the key is making sure you first understand who it is your speaking to and actually communicating WITH them. You undoubtedly think your product is great, but selling this notion to your target audience means starting a conversation where existing and potential fans feel engaged with the brand.

Speaking to fans and potential customers in a language they can understand is crucial.

Capturing the vernacular they would use in their every-day conversations can be content gold.

Skittles® proves your content doesn’t need to be abyssopelagic (that means “super-deep” by the way) to be successful in engaging an audience. The suit and tie-wearing executives for the brand might not fully understand a single FB post the brand pushes out, but I’m sure they like the momentum their content is generating for their new “Blenders” flavor.

Skittles-speak most certainly wouldn’t work for everyone, but it shows the type of engagement that’s possible when you establish a brand’s voice that sounds a hell of lot like those likely to use your product.

Taste the Rainbow® or as Skittles puts in on their own website: “Lace the train slow.” Wow.

Those in the know, have often heard that “email is the most cost-effective marketing tool.” That can be true, but only if you know how to effectively leverage email marketing.

Your email campaign is only as strong as your database
Who are you sending to? How did you get their information?
Email marketing stats are directly tied to how your database receives your email. Can you depend on them to open your email? Better yet, are you willing to bet that they won’t consider it spam?
Make sure that your database WANTS to hear from you. When a user fills out a form on your website and “opts in” to receive more information, send them an email thanking them for signing up and remind them to look for more correspondence from you in the future. Provide clear expectations as to how often you will be connecting with your contacts.
Finally, provide a clear way for your contacts to unsubscribe. Respect their privacy. If a contact no longer wants to hear your messaging, make saying good-bye painless. Don’t waste time and money broadcasting your message to people who “just aren’t that into you.”

Reporting is the key to success
Set goals, meet the goals, repeat.
Make sure you set a benchmark for open rates, click-through rates and conversions. Use tools like A/B Testing to ensure that you eke out the best return on your marketing investment.

Which type of message gets better open rates?
Which button design (graphic or ASCCI) gets clicked the most?
Which message gets forwarded the most?
Which type of message gets the most opt-outs?

Use all of the tools at your disposal
The tools are there, just learn how to use them!
Test a subject line on 5% of your database, then choose the subject line that garners the best open rate to your remaining 95%. Companies like Blue Sky Factory are at the cutting edge of email marketing strategies like this.

Another no-brainer? Include social media links (post this on Facebook, tweet this on Twitter) within your email campaign. Let your audience become your evangelists.

Email marketing is not dead – it is just evolving. Make sure that your brand has not given up on email marketing.

Whether you hate or love Miracle Whip, you have to admit Kraft has some proverbial branding balls to roll out its recent “We’re Not for Everyone” ad campaign.

You won’t find too many companies willing to shell out hefty advertising dollars for television spots that feature actor and celebrity testimonials that bash the very product being pushed.

But that’s exactly what Miracle Whip is doing in a new “Pick a Side” ad campaign that has whipped up some legitimate exposure for a product category that is usually relegated to the back of the refrigerator and the back of most consumer’s minds.

“We’re Not for Everyone” rolled out in late February with television spots featuring celebrity and actor testimonials focusing on either their love or hatred for Miracle Whip – a sandwich spread Kraft has been pitting versus mayonnaise as the “edgy” choice.
While I’m not sold that younger consumers will subscribe to the pitch that condiment choice is a defining part of their identity, it certainly catches your attention when a commercial begins with a woman pegging her distaste for Miracle Whip at a “22″ on a scale of 1 to 10. Another testimonial features a man noting: “Miracle Whip tastes like lotion … but sweet. And who wants a sweet lotion sandwich?” Even Pauly D of “Jersey Shore” weighs in on the topic saying: “I would never eat it…I would never put it in my hair. It’s just wrong.”

Others in the commercial note their unabashed love for the product like one woman who notes: “If you don’t love miracle whip, you’re incapable of love.”

The campaign essentially conjures up condiment controversy by having the brand admit what most aren’t willing to – that their product isn’t the preferred option for many consumers. It integrates social media into the mix by directing people to a branded YouTube channel that allows users to view the advertisement, get free samples, comment on the product and click to either “love” or “hate” Miracle Whip with the tally recently denoting 14,000 plus supporters and around 1,000 haters.

Whether you actually subscribe to the messaging that Miracle Whip is the bold choice, you have to admit “We’re Not For Everyone” is branding in its most brazen form.

I don’t really care about Miracle Whip (I prefer mustard), but it’s saying something that I was among the 800,000 plus people who have visited the YouTube channel despite almost certainly having better things to do.

What is your brand willing to do in order to be part of the conversation?

This week we featured four game-changing Ubiquity contributors via Twitter:

Dairy Queen.  Serving up sweet memories.

ThinkGeek. And the Geek Shall Inherit the Earth.

Junta42: Pitch your niche.

We will be sharing featured Ubiquity brands every Friday so stay tuned by subscribing to our blog via email or RSS !

Think Big,
–Team Ubiquity

Many brands talk about sustainability as part of the position and message.  Since the beginning, Stonyfield has proactively sought new ways to further these initiatives.  With this announcement, Stonyfield is changing the game a bit.  While many consumers do their part by recycling post-consumption, Stonyfield has attacked this from a pre-consumption angle.  This is a paradigm
shift from the blue and green recycle bins.

And, it is not unexpected.  The Stonyfield brand is known for sustainability.  This, perhaps, helps position them as truly innovative.

Stay tuned – their page is in development.  Follow us so you can read more about Stonyfield’s successful moments that have led them to success.

By: Lizzie Ormiston
Director of MicroArts Ubiquity