Posts

Social Media for Social Good

/0 Comments/in , /by

It’s a good day for us in social media when we see it being used for social good. It’s an even better day for us in the Arab world, when we see it being used to help each other out. Let’s face it, there is A LOT of negativity floating around the web, lots of competition between rival companies and brands, so when you come across a story that warms your heart, you just get that ‘feel good’ sensation, and feel the need to share such a story. So here it is:

Just yesterday, a missing child in Saudi Arabia was found thanks to…take a wild guess…Twitter!

16 year old Faisal Fri vanished from his family home in Dhahran, and within minutes a hashtag was born: #FaisalDH . An image of Faisal, as well as the contact information for his family was tweeted and retweeted with this hashtag, and a mere 3 hours later he was found safe and sound. The initial tweet that started it impressively made it to the Top Tweet position due to the many times it was retweeted and mentioned.

On the same note, but in a different region, a similar thing happened to a 14 year old girl in London in a few months ago. Serena Beakhurst went missing in December, and thanks to the efforts of hundreds on Twitter and Facebook, was found a few weeks later in the exact spot she went missing . Her family sent various messages of thanks to people who supported and helped spread the word, as well as highlighting the power of Social Media.

It is indeed a heart-warming thing to see the Twitter community (or social network community) comes together from all walks of life, not knowing anything about a person, but driven by the innate drive to help others.

2011- The Year of Digital Media in the MENA Region

/0 Comments/in , /by

2011 is expected by many in the industry to be the year to see the highest levels of digital and online advertising, especially in the MENA region. 2010 already saw record highs in the amounts of mobile, social, video and dynamic advertising. The rapid growth of technologies has played a major part in the growth of social media platforms in the region.

Simultaneously, Facebook, Twitter, and other Social Media networks have seen a rise in their numbers of new users worldwide. In the MENA region, the Facebook sparked and Twitter promoted revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and currently Libya probably played a big role in the increased numbers of new users.

In addition, and in part due to the above, there has been an increase in the events and conferences in the region, catering to anything and everything Digital. Two of the biggest events are being held this month in Beirut, Lebanon: Twestival 2011 (or Twitter Festival) and Arabnet Shift 2011.

On March 24th 2011, Twestival will go ‘local’ in various cities across the globe. Events are held in any location to raise funds and awareness for a local cause that deserves it. An idea that one can work on an international scale and do good, without having to leave the city one lives in. Their website describes it best: “Twestival is the largest global grassroots social media fundraising initiative to date”. This year, Beirut Twestival will be fundraising for Breast Cancer, allowing women free mammograms, as well as psychological help for women with Breast Cancer.

Arabnet Shift, the biggest digital gathering in the Middle East, will be held over 4 days in Beirut, from March 22nd to the 25th. Each day has a theme, and is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs in the region to get exposure for their ideas and start ups. Each year, ArabNet brings together ‘big names’, and leaders in the digital sector. This year, there will be more than 80 speakers and 1000 attendees, meeting and discussing the latest in the digital sector in the region. At the end of the summit, 2 competitions are held with the aim of supporting and promoting start ups and ideas.

If anything, both events are excellent networking opportunities for anyone involved in this sector. Moreover, both Twestival and Arabnet use the power of social media to organize, promote and advertise these events to the region and the world.

The Times They Are a Changin’

/1 Comment/in , /by

Flashback 1991-

Waking up in the morning, birds chirping, having breakfast and listening to the gentle crackle of the newspaper s the parents are flipping through whilst sipping their coffees. The doorbell rings. It’s the postal delivery man with a few lovely (handwritten) letters from friends and family all over the world. The exact kind of hand written letters which give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside. After a while, the mother decides to make something special for lunch, and searches through her many big, heavy cookbooks for the perfect one, bookmarking her few selections to choose from.

A typical Saturday morning …

Fast forward 20 years-

Waking up in the morning, checking e-mail/Facebook notifications/tweets on the iPhone/Blackberry/Android/iPad/whatever is closest to the bed, ignoring the few birds chirping, getting stressed out reading the various messages/texts/emails/tweets whilst making coffee. I foresee no fuzzy feelings today…

Going into the kitchen, the parents are sitting reading news online and chatting away on their respective laptops. For the recipe of the day, the mother searches away on Google to find that perfect Saturday meal. When she does, she continues to YouTube, where she can see how to make said recipe. The cookbooks sit idly by, on the kitchens shelves, collecting dust. This is what ‘Vintage’ must feel like.

The point of this post (and yes, there is one) is the following:

When was the last time you actually flipped through pages of a book for a few hours before going to bed? With Kindle and other e-book readers, going into a beautiful bookstore and judging books by their covers is a thing of the past. To prove that point, Borders Books just went bankrupt.

When was the last time you checked an actual recipe book for instructions, or any other manual or encyclopedia for that matter, when you have everything online?

Have you tried writing a paragraph lately? Strange sensation to actually write using an actual pen isn’t it?

Do you remember how a newspaper even smells like anymore? With Twitter, everyone is a journalist!

Social Media, and other technologies in this day and age are indeed a blessing… a blessing in disguise perhaps?

Online Marketing Predictions 2011

/0 Comments/in , , /by

In the past 10 or so years, we have seen the Internet world go from barely there, to everywhere. Years of ‘Trial and error’ in Social Media Marketing and/or Digital Advertising have brought us to the point where they have become the number one form of promoting people, products, services, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

In 2010, there were many new technologies in the social media sector. To name and talk about them all would take all day, and probably thousands of pages, and maybe even a Hollywood blockbuster (think The Social Network). Hence, a few of them will be honorably mentioned below, finishing up with some of the most popular predictions for Online Marketing in 2011.

Who didn’t catch a glimpse of the arguably brilliant Old spice campaign on YouTube this past year? The “Smell like a man, man” campaign became an instant hit. More than 180 hilarious ads were shot purely in response to consumers’ inquiries. Very clever campaign indeed.

As for the tweeters out there, you may have noticed something new on Twitter called Promoted Tweets. Twitter took a thing or two from Google here, promoting sponsored terms, along with organic results, whenever a user searched for any term on the site. Organizations such as Coca-Cola and Virgin America claimed to have seen obvious increase in campaign engagement rates as well as sales rates due to those promoted tweets.

Everyone has now heard of Chatroulette, the random video chatting website, which allows you to chat with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Other than obvious perverts takings advantage of it, Travelocity added a nice touch in their advertising on this site. They added their little Gnome character that would appear in chat rooms holding signs saying this like “This would be more fun in Rio”. The idea was to promote travel for those sitting down chatting their lives away.

The next year to come holds a few interesting predictions for digital advertising. Let’s have a small look at three of those predictions.

To start with, local advertising will become relevant again with location. Facebook is expanding this technology with its new location platform, Places. There is a growing use of location platforms such as Foursquare, Yelp, Shopkick, and Google. Advertisers will start using these to alert shoppers of certain deals or sales when informing others of their whereabouts etc… This seems really exciting for the new coming year!

In addition, influencers will be the stars of the social web. Digital advertisers are always on the lookout for new trends, and new ideas for pushing their brands and services out there. Consumers are always online checking out where to go, what to buy and where to buy it, so it is only natural that brands are always seeking the next big thing in reaching out to their consumer base. Finding ways to be socially credible is a must for brands wanting to market themselves online to already established customers, or new ones.

Finally, although it is not yet clear exactly how and why Facebook ‘Likes’ are important, but one thing is for sure, they definitely are. Brands will be using facebook advertising much more in the coming year, and being savvy enough to know how to use it to gather more ‘likes’ for the best possible CPA (cost per acquisition) may be the make or break it point for your brand.

All that being said, feel free to share you’re ideas and opinions on these new technologies. What will you be doing to increase your brand awareness this coming year?

Facebook Groups Vs Facebook Pages

/0 Comments/in /by

Are you confused whether to create a Facebook Page or Group? In brief, Facebook Pages are conceived for businesses and organizations looking to communicate with their audience, whereas Facebook Groups should be used to centralize people with common interest and provide them with a platform to interact together such as an alumni group.

Feature Comparison

Below is a straightforward feature comparison which will help you determine the most adequate Facebook presence.

Mass Messaging
Facebook Groups: Enable you to send messages directly to members’ Facebook Inboxes, as long as the number of group members does not exceed 5,000.
Facebook Pages: Feature not available (see Targeted Updates instead).

Indexed By Search Engines
Facebook Groups: Are indexed by Search Engines.
Facebook Pages: Are indexed by Search Engines but they offer wider search engine optimization options when used in combination with the Static FBML application.

Stream Publishing
Facebook Groups: Enable publishing stories to members’ news feeds.
Facebook Pages: Enable publishing stories to likers’ news feeds.

Targeted Stream Posts
Facebook Groups: Feature unavailable.
Facebook Pages: Enable to target stream posts based on location and language.

Targeted Updates
Facebook Groups: Feature unavailable (see Mass Mailing instead)
Facebook Pages: Enable the Facebook Page to send updates. Updates show in fans’ inboxes but under a separate tab “Updates”, which is more efficient.

Applications Support
Facebook Groups:  Feature unavailable.
Facebook Pages:

  • Provide Administrators with great flexibility to customize Page.
  • Enable Administrators to create custom Tabs within their Page.
  • Enable Pages to host customized applications (See Sweepz Facebook Application to learn how you can brand and customize your own Facebook sweepstakes or contest).

Membership Restrictions

Facebook Groups:
1)    Provide the possibility to limit access to the Groups, using three levels of restrictions:

  • Open groups enable anybody to join.
  • Closed groups appear in Facebook search results but group administrators must approve all members of the group.
  • Secret groups are not visible in Facebook search results and are accessed by invite only.

Facebook Pages
1)    Are always public and there is no option to make them private.
2)    Provide the possibility to limit access by country, gender and age.

Event Inbox Messaging
Facebook Groups:  Provide the possibility to send event invites to Group members, as long as the number of group members does not exceed 5,000.
Facebook Pages:  Event information can be sent via the Page updates which limits visibility and reach. Therefore Facebook ads are more effective to promote the event.

Engagement Metrics
Facebook Groups:  Feature unavailable.
Facebook Pages:  Provides information about the Facebook Page likers’ demographics, and engagement level. (Number of Views, likes, comments etc.).

Promotional Widgets
Facebook Groups:  Feature unavailable.
Facebook Pages: Administrators are provided with the Facebook Fanbox widget to help promote the Facebook Page.

Vanity URLs
Facebook Groups:  Feature unavailable.
Facebook Pages: Help promote the Facebook Page using Vanity URLs (i.e: www.facebook.com/username) which are the unique URLs that redirect users to the Facebook Page.

Source: http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-page-or-group-2010-07

Promoting your Brand and Business on Facebook

/0 Comments/in /by

The fast growing demand for a simple and cost-effective solution to quickly immerse brands and businesses on Facebook, urged Eastline Marketing to develop Sweepz Facebook Application, designed to complement our online marketing solutions for clients who wished to leverage Facebook’s viral nature.

Sweepz is designed to achieve three core marketing objectives:

  1. Increase Fans/Likers.
  2. Build a marketing database.
  3. Generate a viral buzz.

The Sweepz Facebook Application can either support a contest or a sweepstakes. Whilst contests require more engagement from users, Sweepstakes are fairly straight forward. With Sweepz Facebook Application, both the contest and sweepstakes can be branded to conform to the visual identity of the product, service, or business you wish to promote.

Facebook Sweepstakes

If your campaign’s objectives are to build a marketing database, increase fans and generate a viral buzz, Sweepz Sweepstakes Application is the way to go! To take part in the sweepstakes and get a chance to win a valuable prize, users will have to fill in a form and answer a simple question usually related to the brand or product. Following a draw, the winner will be announced. Check the Motorshow example.

Facebook Contest

If your campaign’s objectives are to engage fans through a competition, opting for Sweepz Contest Facebook Application is the perfect choice! Sweepz Contest Application allows launching a contest that will engage fans by submitting a photo or video, and then to recruit votes. In order to win the competition, the contestants will need to gather as many votes as possible. Check the Laziza example.

Sweepz Facebook Application is recommended for all clients that are looking to quickly and easily utilize Facebook as a marketing channel and effectively promote their business and/or brand online. With Sweepz Facebook Application, you can launch a sweepstakes or contest and start gathering applications within 5 business days. Fill out the form for more info.

Five Rules for Killer Content

/0 Comments/in /by

Have you ever heard of the expression “content is king”? As a matter of fact, content IS king, especially when it comes to sustaining a successful social presence.  If you are running a social page (Facebook page, blog, etc.) you have most probably experienced difficulty in retaining your audience and keeping them engaged. Take it as a rule, that good content will intrigue your audience once, but its “killer content” that will keep them coming back.

Below are 5 rules that will help you generate and publish “Killer Content”:

  1. Original Content: In a socially crowded virtual world, getting you decent visibility is almost impossible. Even brands with high budgets to burn on advertising, find it difficult to incentivize and push their fans to engage with them. What you need to do to differentiate yourself and stand out is create your own original content that cannot be found anywhere else.  By investing in original content you are bringing value to your social presence and in turn building credibility and loyalty amongst your fans.
  2. Engaging Content: Producing original content is quite simple, making the content engaging is tricky. How many times have you updated your status and received no comments or likes? Users not responding to your content does not necessarily mean that they don’t like the content you are providing them. On the contrary, they might like it but they don’t feel that they need to respond back. That’s why you need to tell them what to do, and always ask them to engage. When creating your content, always keep your fans in mind and project to them the need for their opinion. Ask for their opinion and you will get it.
  3. Set-up a Trend: Be a trendsetter! At the end of the day you want your fans to convert into tangible results. When you become a trend-setter, you can easily increase your conversion rate and attain optimal performance. Usually, setting-up a trend is directly related to original content creation. What you need to do is make sure to remind your fans at every occasion possible about your content and ask them to promote it. If everyone is talking about it, it becomes a trend.
  4. Fan Generated Content: When fans are submitting content to your page, this means that you have attained the trend level needed to keep everyone engaged, hence reaching optimal performance. What you need to do at this stage is revert back to your fans, filter the content and support it. When fans start feeling that they are contributing and conforming to a trend they will automatically transform into ambassadors of your social presence.
  5. Viral Elements: You wonder why some YouTube videos get gazillion views? There’s no black magic behind it. People like to share original content because they like to get some recognition out of it. People get satisfaction when their friends comment or like their posts. What you need to do is make sure that your content has all the viral elements (funny, shocking, cool, amazing, impressive, etc.) that will incite users to promote it on their own social presence and get recognition from their friends.

The Almaza World Cup Game

/0 Comments/in /by

Talk about a World Cup Facebook game! While watching a football game with his friends, the 40-something year old Lebanese soccer player slams an ALMAZA beer bottle on the table and dives into the TV box. Zigzagging and dribbling his way through defenders, the player is supposed to reach the goal and score to get to the next level and accumulate the highest points possible.

To increase Almaza’s brand awareness on social networks, Eastline Marketing’s main focus is to reinforce mate-ship between friends while keeping Almaza as the consumer’s first choice of beer. At the end of the day Almaza consumers not only take pride in drinking their local beer but they also take pride in their local beer culture as well which reflects in the ALMAZA’s slogan “Haida Jawna. Haida Ne7na.” ALMAZA who undoubtedly has the biggest market share when it comes to beer consumption, chose to leverage the 2010 World Cup event to introduce one of the most addicting soccer games on Facebook today. Moreover, to build up to the release of the game, Eastline Marketing created a Greeting Card application “TA3ABEER“, mixing fun and daring Lebanese lines with inventive ALMAZA visuals.

The game which enables the user to choose his favorite World Cup team and take on swarming defenders and referees, adds a special twist with special moves that he can perform for extra points. The more the user collects cashew nuts and peas – yeah, nuts and peas – the more he has the ability to do special moves and brush off defenders and referees. The best part of the whole game is that players with the highest scores win a customized foosball table.

Logging over 30,000 registrations through the first couple of days, the ALMAZA IHTIYAT Game is set to become one of the biggest socially enabled soccer games on Facebook. I’ve been trying it out for a while and my highest score is somewhere around 75 thousand points.

Play the game here and try to beat my score?

Monetary Value of a Facebook Fan

/0 Comments/in /by

After putting the effort in building Facebook communities of fans, brands have been wondering about the monetary value of these fans. Virtue, a firm specialized in social media, has conducted a study to estimate the value of facebook fan at $3.60 per fan.

Virtue determined that each post that is posted on a brand’s Facebook page yields 6 impressions through fans’ friends’s news feeds. For example, with an average CPM of $5, Starbucks‘ 6.5 million fans are worth $23.4 million in media annually; however, not all brands get the same value for their fans. Some brands receive more impressions than others because their posts get shared and intereracted with by more users.

What makes users share and interact with a brand’s post? Open-ended opinion-seeking status updates, interesting industry-related news and other quality fan-related content that targets your fans’ intersts are guaranteed to receive interaction from fans. On average, a Facebook fan’s monetary value is $3.60; yet, the quality of your posts is what determines how much your fans will actually be worth.

The Social Media Syndrome

/0 Comments/in /by

You konw you’re a Social Media Addict when you:

1) Overshare

Your friends let you know that they pressed “HIDE” next to your recent status update or shared post because you’re updating too frequently.

2) Are always online

You get a message from your friend saying “HELP! My car broke down!” instead of receiving a phonecall from him/her because he/she knows that the fastest way to reach you is
through Facebook.

3) Twist the ratios

If you’ve met five of your six really good friends online – that’s 5 to 1.

4) Take few too many pictures

If you have 3 Facebook albums titled:

My New Car PART 1

My New Car PART 2

My New Car PART 3

…that’s a few hundred pics for your new ride!

5) Adopt things a bit too early

If your Twitter account shows the following consecutive tweets:
– May 15: I can’t wait for the release of the #iPad tomorrow!!
– May 16: I just got my Apple #iPad – I can barely wait for the #Android-Tablet!!

How addicted are you?