09 July 2010

Posted at 18:20h in boost, cadbury, chocolate, chokito, facebook, mars, media, policy by

Regrettably, once again this blog turns into some kind of sharing of advice or knowledge that I've acquired recently from my life in the adland.Chokito is a chocolate bar. Naturally I despise it because Cadbury Boost is a client of mine.But if you were to jump into the DeLorean, travel back in time a week and look at their Facebook page, you would notice the name of the page was Chokito says No No No. However if you take a look now, it is simply Chokito.This is interesting because changing the name of a page is not something Facebook do.Unless of course, which is what I'm slowing learning, you're spending money. By investing in a shit load of media on Facebook, you can get away with much more.So use it to your advantage....

07 June 2010

Posted at 22:38h in facebook, pages, strategy by

Brands are quickly jumping on Facebook in massed. And most of them are putting a some money behind media and these pages to build strategy, content and a well managed community.Sooner or later though, there'll be too many brands on Facebook. There's only so much room in one's consideration set for brands they'll follow on Facebook, before they say no more. The quality of content, freebies that are given away and innovation will make a difference. So will the degree of how rad your brand is (banks and life insurance companies might struggle). Above all, I imagine given how lazy consumers tend to be, it will be survival of fastest. Those brands that get in early will probably succeed simply because people can't be bothered deleting them....

21 May 2010

Posted at 18:19h in facebook, myspace, social networks by

Unless you have a really fucking good idea, you're a band or you're targeting prepubescent emo tweens, do not set up a MySpace page.It's a waste of time and money, and it tells the consumer you have no idea what you're doing.I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's worse than setting up a Facebook Page for the sake of it. Or a Twitter account because everyone else is.#firstworldrants...

23 April 2010

Posted at 17:04h in facebook, fan pages, like, open graph by

People often complain about Facebook's regular design changes. Yet it improves their experience on the site and they forget about it a week later. But more importantly, these regular updates stop Facebook from doing a MySpace, that is remaining stagnant until a point of irrelevancy.Perhaps in one of their biggest revamps, today we saw Facebook introduce Open Graph. This is a game changer, and keeps Facebook relevant for an extra umpteen years. Combine that with the high investment many users have with their accounts (identity, networks, memories and content), Facebook isn't going anywhere any time soon.And Facebook's constant changes are the reason. So stop your whinging. And while you're at it, Like this blog by clicking the button below....

13 April 2010

Posted at 15:40h in community, facebook, fan pages, manager, twitter by

I think the social media community manager role is going to explode over the next year or so. These roles will be responsible for looking after a number of small communities or have a full time gig looking after one big one. Even those that are large enough to run themselves require moderation to an extent.And the role will be a broad one. They'll require customer service skills, an understanding of how consumers use social media and technology, analytical skills, basic design skills and the ability to produce and source content.And if you're looking for one, I reckon the place to start is with your favourite Twitter personality. Find someone who fits your brand, produces relevant, regular content and manages their following well. Then bring them on board....

07 April 2010

Posted at 00:02h in blogging, facebook, fan pages, gpyr by

When I started this blog two and a half years ago, I wasn't even on Facebook. Now I have a job, for the most part, because of it. And scarily, in another two and a half years, it may not even be around. In the mean time, I will do my best to continue to blog as often as possible. Fair respect for those peeps in the industry who are pumping out consistently good content....

15 February 2010

Posted at 15:47h in ads, database marketing, facebook, spam by

You know what the best thing about being in a relationship is? You don't get those annoying "Meet single 18 year old girls" ads on Facebook. Upon this realisation, it reminded me of an argument I once had with a tutor. The class discussion was about database marketing, and her advice to students was to never sign up to any competition because your details will be used to spam you. Perhaps it's the naive utopian young marketer still yet to be beaten out of me by the industry, but isn't the more knowledge a brand has about you the better? Of course there will be brands who sell this information on to others. But ideally, brands can use this to reduce the amount of spam you're receiving, not increase it. Ads become more targeted, personalised and therefore more relevant. At the end of the day, ads are inevitable. And I personally would prefer brands to know as much as possible about me to make these ads as useful and value providing as they can be. And by definition, they no longer become spam....

16 December 2009

Posted at 16:50h in facebook, self promotion, supa shake, twitter by

I've always found it interesting the degree to which marketing bloggers and people on Twitter promote the campaigns they're working on. I guess I've kind of come to expect it simply given the industry they work in. And I'm certain this is not a new concept, only replacing a group email to family and friends to give a campaign a bit of a kick start. But it does raise some questions about honesty and transparency. Especially when it goes beyond blogs and Twitter and into much more personal networks like Facebook. As a marketer or an advertiser, should I be pumping my work through something like a status update, even more so when it doesn't look like "work"? I've been thinking about it because over the next few months I'll be using a lot of my social networks to get people to Vote for Zac and Cookies 'n' Cream as the next SupaShake flavour. As you can see I've put a banner to your right and I'll be promoting it quite heavily through Twitter and Facebook until February. I think it's a bit different because this is somewhat of a competition not just a campaign I'm running, but still raises some questions. One of them may be, how many of you will get tired of me talking about it over the next few months?...

25 August 2009

Posted at 13:20h in facebook by

A month ago I changed my name officially on Facebook from Zac Martin to Zach Martin. I tried to change it to Sir Zac Martin but they wouldn't let me. Interestingly, just one day after I changed it I found this article about a girl who had changed it and Facebook wouldn't let her revert it. So yeah...

29 July 2009

Posted at 18:33h in facebook, six degrees of separation by

Under this theory, perhaps the Six Degrees of Separation theory is no longer relevant. The adoption of social networking has made the world a far smaller place. And an interesting side note, to get it down to Four Degrees of Separation, the average number of friends would need to be 289. ...