14 June 2011

So how much is an invite to a Facebook page worth? I’m sure there’s various conflicting studies out there, so I thought I’d do some research of my own.

I asked people how much they would charge a brand to invite all their friends to the said brand’s Facebook page. Some said flat out they wouldn’t do it, others said they would do it for free and quite a few people said it would depend on the brand.

With a sample size of 15 of my Facebook friends, here are the results.

So there you have it, conclusive research suggests on average, an invite to a brand’s Facebook page is worth 13 cents per friend.

If you’re taking this seriously (you shouldn’t be), this figure is of course from the point of the consumer, not the brand. But what this does mean is that if a brand can offer something worth more than 13 cents for each of their friends, it will be worth an invite.

Also, some of my friends are sellouts.

Posted by Zac Martin

05 June 2011

Sean Cummins wrote a pretty serious piece regarding anonymous comments on the internet.

Here at Pigs Don’t Fly I’m a fan of the anonymous commenter. I mean, I’ve received everything from abuse to death threats, and just last week in a very witty comment I was called a “homo”. Yet I still allow anonymous commenting.

I do it because complete anonymity is a rare thing and it’s one of the interesting unique features of the interwebs. Of course this has it’s problems, but let’s not forget the anonymous produce some of the most creative stuff on the internet (and not to mention LOLcats). They also do some pretty impressive stuff offline.

Sure, some anonymous comments are shit. But you have to take them for what they are. By allowing people to comment anonymously, they’re more likely to do so and more likely to express an honest point of view. Sometimes this comes at the cost of your ego or confidence, but they’re certainly not going anywhere.

(In before anyone, yes I’m expecting a lot of “homo” comments on this post.)

Posted by Zac Martin

31 May 2011

For the whole of May, I decided to go without my iPhone. Effectively, I went without my iPod, camera, email, calender, Angry Birds, Google Maps and Facebook.
It was interesting to say the least. Here’s my takeout;
  • Over the course of the month, only once did I wish I had responded to an email faster. Everything else could wait until I got home or got to work.
  • Only a few apps were truly missed; Tram Tracker and Shazam being up there. Everything else is really good at eating up your time and making you very unproductive (mostly games).
  • Instead of listening to music and podcasts on the tram each day, I read three books over the course of the month. Unfortunately this meant I could also hear the amount of rubbish people talk about in public.
  • I stopped checking my phone every five minutes. However, having been involved in a ‘news scandal’ during the month, it would have been nice to be connected to watch it play out.
  • I could drop my burner on the ground and it didn’t even matter. That was kind of nice.
  • And last but not least, I only had to charge my burner three times during the course of the month, and didn’t once worry about running out of battery.

Good fun, I’m going to try and read one book a month on the tram and it’s fair to say I’ve become less dependent on my iPhone. If you’re interested in taking part, I have a free phone you can use, all it will cost you is a beer.

Posted by Zac Martin

18 May 2011

A few months ago a water feature was installed on the corner of Swanston Street and Collins Street in Melbourne. For a while, the large stone wall with water cascading down one side remained untouched. But then slowly people walking passed realised that the leaves from the trees surrounding the feature could be stuck to the wall. Quickly, messages and pictures started appearing. A walk passed this wall each lunch time would have a new piece of art every day.

As I’ve said before, people like to think they’re creative. Yet not enough brands create things for people to interact with. This water feature is the perfect example, and it wasn’t even intended to be.

I wonder what a digital/mobile version of this would look like.

Posted by Zac Martin

28 April 2011

The gents over at Native Digital ditched their iPhones. And I thought I’d do the same, so for the month of May I’ll be iPhoneless, instead using this Samsung “burner” I picked up for $20.

For 31 days I’ll be without reliance on a permanent connection, satisfying my digital communication and technology needs through only a desktop. It could be a long month.

I’ll post the results here, but in the mean time you can follow my progress on Twitter through the #iphoneless hashtag. Although I’m not too sure how tweeting will go without my phone.

Posted by Zac Martin

23 March 2011

Here’s some fun statistics for you that I promise I didn’t make up.

  • 71% of peeps are becoming more selective regarding the pages they Like on Facebook
  • The two main reasons people leave pages are because updates aren’t relevant or are posted too often.
  • When this happens 19% of peeps do nothing, 38% block the posts from their News Feed and 43% unlike the page.

As more and more brands jump on the Facebook bandwagon, the market gets to a point of saturation and fans start to get choosey. There’s only so many times you can click the Like button.

The first-mover advantage was a win if you got there, but you probably didn’t which means you really need to be doing something of value on your page.

Most brands think the solution is to launch with a campaign and a media buy to build a foundation audience. Which usually works. But once that’s over, they spend the rest of the year when their budget runs out pumping out pointless status updates.

There’s only so many times you can ask someone to Like a status or fill in the blank. I know I’m guilty of it, where you write bait posts to crack a good level of engagement. But at some point people are going to start seeing past these shitty pointless status updates that don’t mean anything.

Instead, you need to be entertaining or useful. There’s enough brands trying the former (most of them failing), but not enough for the latter.

And I reckon one really useful post does better things for your brand and page than 20 pointless ones.

Posted by Zac Martin

05 February 2011

Nearly everyone likes to think they’re creative (even if they’re not).

I’m certainly one of those people. We like to flex our creative muscles where we can, but never really go out of our way to do so. We express this in the everyday things like updating our Facebook status with something witty. Or writing a funny product review on Amazon. In fact, here are my recent feedback posts on eBay…

The brands that do community and content management the best are the ones that let their consumers be creative without having to go out of their way. Running a UGC campaign isn’t always about asking people to film the next Super Bowl commercial, upload the next big viral on YouTube or be a pro in Photoshop.

Just let their inner copywriter run free. It’s usually free (because people like to show off) and it creates good content to feed back into the community.

Posted by Zac Martin

02 February 2011

The Advertising Standards Board (ASB) regularly receives quite a few ridiculous complaints. Thankfully, most of the time they’re dismissed.

But I wanted to test it out myself. And what better way to do so than with this recently released Pure Blonde ad…

 

 

Here’s how it played out…
23rd November 2010
I submit the following complaint on the ASB website…
 
“On the weekend just passed I was enjoying a cup of delicious tea while watching some Sunday night programming only to be confronted by an appalling commercial for Pure Blonde beer.

I am sure I am not alone when I say winged-horse enthusiasts like myself will be outraged at the disgusting lack of treatment regarding the magnificent animal in this commercial. The rare creature is clearly depicted in distress and suggests it is later physically harmed or, god forbid, killed. While some consider these beautiful beasts nothing but mythical, this ad supports animal cruelty for those of us who know the truth and it must be taken off the air.”

24th November 2010
The Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code (ABAC) Adjudication Panel dismisses the complaint regarding any breaches of the ABAC Code.

13th December 2010
The complaint is scheduled for submission to the ASB for a potential breach of Section 2 of the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) Code of Ethics.

2nd February 2011
After consideration, the ASB dismisses the complaint and issues the following response…

“At the time of writing this, the commercial had been on national television for over 3 weeks and has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. In relation to the complaint […] we’d just like to state that no harm to the ‘Pegasus’ (a mythical horse that has wings – brought to life here through special effects) is depicted. Whilst the horse is clearly startled when the mountain starts to crumble – as are the humans featured – and does move with the mountain as it gives way, the horse does not come to any physical harm in the commercial.

In addition to this, given the horse has wings it’s completely reasonable to extrapolate that it flew away to safety.”

“This is the only complaint of its kind that we have received.”

I can’t believe it’s someone’s job to waste their time considering and responding to people like me.
Posted by Zac Martin

01 February 2011

Yesterday I arrived home from a trip around the world in 21 days. For the final unit of my degree, we traveled to Hong Kong, London, Milan, Madrid, Paris, New York & Los Angeles. Over the three weeks we visited brands and agencies such as Google, Ogilvy & Mather, DDB, L’Oreal, Citroen, Arsenal and Zara. Good times.

And tomorrow I start my full time career at George Patts.

I think I just hit a new stage in the life cycle.

Posted by Zac Martin

05 January 2011

I’m going to call it the popularity paradox, where something becomes too popular and peeps turn away from the lack of individualism. It’s in every aspect of our lives from avoiding mass fashion and art to paying out on mainstream music to not buying an iPhone even though you secretly want one but everyone else has one therefore you can’t.

Here’s some interesting examples from Facebook…

1) As parents jump on Facebook, their children turn away.
2) Bigger fan pages tend to have lower levels of engagement because when something already has 3,000 comments I’m less likely to add my own.
3) Exclusive access for college students was arguably the key to Facebook’s initial success.

So how do you stop something becoming too popular? By the time it happens, does it even matter? And how can brands use social media to minimalise mainstreamism?

I really don’t know, but I haven’t posted in a while and that’s what was on my mind today.

Posted by Zac Martin