Talk Bite: Facebook Welcomes an App Center

Attention Farmville farmers, Spotify junkies, and Draw Something artists: you’re about to get a lot more company in your world of social apps – courtesy of your friends at Facebook. Last week, Facebook announced their plans of an App Center roll-out, a central hub accessible on the social network’s platform to locate all social apps.

Now, if you’re asking yourself, “Isn’t this already available on my Apple App Store or Google Android Play store?” the answer is, yes… and no. Big names like Words with Friends, Draw Something and Bubble Witch Saga prove that social apps have major mass appeal. And while Apple and Google stores are great for locating and purchasing apps, finding those that have inherent social features can be daunting. This move by Facebook allows users to skip these stores all together and use one central place to find it all, that is: mobile, desktop and web apps with social compatibilities. Is it competition for Google and Apple? Definitely. However, Facebook has stated that native mobile apps listed in the center will still direct users to Apple or Google stores. But no matter where you download, the intention is clear: Facebook wants to make all apps social apps. And since Facebook is 900 million users strong, I think it’s safe to assume that developers will want their product featured in this new marketplace.

So what’s the implication for the Facebook user experience? Facebook is measuring the success of an app listed in the App Center by its quality. They’ll be using a variety of signals to measure eligibility, including user engagement and user ratings. This means if your app isn’t performing,  it won’t be listed. It’s also an excellent way to cut back on those “spammy” apps that can clutter the user interface and interfere with user experience.

The announcement of the Facebook App Center is excellent news for both marketers and developers who are invested in the space. Facebook further expanding their interest in the booming apps and gaming industry allows users to easily discover, play, and share within the Facebook environment, ensuring they won’t have to leave the platform to play in another. This new development also speaks to the platforms commitment to expand and monetize their mobile capabilities. Furthermore, Facebook’s App Center guidelines indicate that the user experience will be prioritized, creating high engagement for repeat use, meaning even more regular traffic to the already popular social network.

So what do you think? Do you want search for your new apps using Facebook’s forthcoming App Center? Do you think we’ve found the be-all, end-all of app stores? Or is this just another Apple App Store/Google Android Play wanna-be in the making?

Saving Lives through Social Media

Now just about anyone with a Facebook account can save lives with a simple click of a mouse. This week, Facebook announced a life-saving addition to its Timeline feature, giving its members in the U.S. and the U.K. the option to share their organ donor status with friends. Through the tool, users can sign up as organ, eye and tissue donors, find quick access to their state’s donor registry and post videos related to the cause.

Facebook’s effort to publicize and unite possible donors and recipients through member statuses is just the latest example of how the company is leveraging its fan-base to create social change. It seems that Facebook has broadened its initial purpose of simply connecting people, moreover giving them the freedom to become catalysts for solving important issues, with the ability to spread information at light speed.

Facebook has become one of the greatest tools for the mobilization of friends and group organizations to spark conversations and take action towards issues they feel strongly about. It’s a vehicle to get people talking about or uniting on things they may had never known or spoken about otherwise.

The whole idea comes down to 3 simple steps:

“We never could have anticipated that what started as a small network would evolve into such a powerful tool for communication and problem solving,” said Zuckerberg and Sandberg in a joint statement.” As this happens, we hope to build tools that help people transform the way we all solve worldwide social problems.

With bullying being such a huge issue today, the company recently issued online prevention tools, such as Safety Center upgrades, downloadable and sharable content, videos and community resources to prevent cyber bullying. Additionally, back in December, the company launched the Lifeline feature, which allows people to alert Facebook if they feel one of their friends has expressed thoughts of suicide or self harm. From there, the company will issue an email with information including a telephone hotline and a link to a confidential online chat resource.

With adoptions of these programs still in the early stages, it remains to be seen what the overall success rate of each will be. It’s possible that a significant impact could be seen over the next couple of years; at least we can hope for this. One thing is for certain; that the possibilities as to what other types of issues Facebook could begin to help solve are endless.

When it comes to our business, work with non-profit organizations comes to mind. Imagine all the ways we could begin to help. Maybe Facebook too.

8 Year-Old Jae’s Thoughts on UX, Gamification, Hacking, Banner Ads, and More

I get my hair cut for free at my aunt’s salon, so every month or so, I go there to get my ears lowered. My favorite part of this routine is that I get to talk to my little cousin Jae. Usually, Jae and I horse around or chat about really important things (such as our mutual aspirations of becoming intergalactic space rangers). This time, however, I noticed that his attention was entirely devoted to the computer screen as he played an online game called Poptropica.

For the next 9 minutes, I interviewed little Jae on various topics such as UX, gamification, hacking, advertising, YouTube, and more. Below is a collection of various responses to some of my questions. Throughout this informal interview, I couldn’t help but be amazed at how natural certain concepts are to Jae. What we might consider as new and/or emerging media are simply the norm for his generation.

Particularly interesting are Jae’s repulsive disposition toward the interruptive nature of banner ads. At just 8 years old, he has already developed a hatred for these digital units and even shamelessly vocalizes his contempt toward them. He explains that the only time he clicks on them are by accident, and it’s easy to see why he gets angry when his gaming experience is interrupted. Initially, this would seem to imply a gloomy outlook for digital advertisers. However, when I ask Jae about his likelihood of clicking an ad if it was incentivized with some sort of in-game integration (E.g. a really cool sword item in Poptropica), his attitude changes. Jae’s shift in attitude may signify the role of contextual incentives in users’ propensity to click on digital ads. This further supports importance of proficiency in UX—that is, understanding users’ motivations and behaviors—when it comes to creating digital drivers and experiences.

Reflecting on our conversation, I’m further convinced that we are not in the middle of a marketing paradigm shift. Rather, the paradigm has already shifted, the game has already changed, and the space has already been disrupted. Indeed, I regard my 8 year-old cousin Jae’s natural aversion towards interruptive advertising, nonchalance towards finding solutions by hacking, and intuitive understanding of game mechanics as a final notice to marketers: Evolve or die.

On gamification and happiness:

On hacking:

On banner ads:

Talk Bite: Tumblr’s Paid Media Gamble

I’ve said it before: Tumblr is my favorite blogging platform, but there are a few barriers to its usefulness for brands.

Some have to do with the fact that not all brands are a right fit for the Tumblr community. Some have to do with the fact that there’s no native analytics dashboard, so ROI is tough to quantify. And finally, some have to do with the lack of paid opportunities that might open the doors to brands who haven’t dabbled in Tumblr, up to this point.

That all changes on May 2, when Tumblr will allow brands to pay to trump their wares in the Tumblr Radar (heretofore a post with popular content, curated by Tumblr’s editors and seen on every Tumblr user’s dashboard). With approximately 120 million impressions per day, that’s some pretty desirable space.

It’ll be interesting to see if the introduction of paid media changesthe dynamic of a very specific ecosystem; Tumblr’s a true community, and one that doesn’t take change lightly. Brands will have to have solid strategy behind their Radar posts, because (at least initially) the risk for potential backlash from a vocal, influential community, looms large.

Talk Bite: More than a “Like”

We can Like, Comment and Share status updates on Facebook.  Retweet and Favorite tweets on Twitter. Give a Thumbs-up on YouTube.  But in reality, we cannot “like” everything. There is much more complex human emotion beyond the passive “like.” As an experiment, developers Dee Kim and Bistin Chen went beyond this limited action and created an “I cried” plug-in on YouTube.

Google Chrome users can now install the “I cried button” on YouTube to use as an alternative to the thumbs up or thumbs down feature. With this feature, videos are rated on a scale from 1-5 tear drops instead of stars.  Users are able to search for specific videos and check out how many people teared up over the same video. The “Project Goodcry” website will show users the top videos that made people cried the most.

The project aims to further humanize the digital space by communicating a direct behavior and specific feeling. Social media already acts as a vehicle to allow people to share interests with their friends and families. And brands have been savvy to leverage their advocates, generating word of mouth and creating awareness amongst new consumers.

But what if brands were able to leverage more complex feelings and actions from their ambassadors, would social media be even more impactful? For instance, if I saw that my best friend teared up during the latest Publix commercial or died laughing at the Old Spice YouTube video through a social action such as “I cried” or “I laughed” would I be more inclined to watch the video than if I saw a mere “like”?  The idea of building technology and platforms around natural human behaviors has proven to be successful within the digital space thus far.  Brands must continue to find new ways to create emotional connections with their consumers to continue to build loyalty and ignite engagement.

Who knows, maybe an “I danced” button will be next.

Weekly Social Download: So you don’t have to stress out that everything just changed again.

Interactive Shoppable Music Video

An online fashion store called SSENSE collaborated with Iggy Azalea, FKi, and Diplo for their music release by creating a shoppable music video.  The musicians are wearing designer clothes from Phillip Lim, Givency, and Alexander McQueen and viewers can click on hot spots that will drive them to a commerce experience.

A Year in the Like

Microsoft and Facebook have partnered up to create A Year in the Like, a tool that takes you on a visual journey through the past year by pulling information from your Facebook Timeline.

Smart Argentina: Animated Twitter Ads

Smart Argentina used Twitter to do an innovative animated campaign for its Fortwo microcar in the South American market. Scrolling down on the brand’s Twitter page gives an idea of the concept, but doesn’t fully convey the intended effect, so there’s also a YouTube video combining the total of 455 individual tweets to show an animation of the Fortwo driving through Argentinian city streets, and ending with the tagline, roughly translated from Spanish, “It fits in any space. Why not in 140 characters? Smart Fortwo…a big idea for the city.”

The Value of Social Business: Exploring the ROI Question

Social is a new type of technology, one that’s much more freeform, unstructured, and unpredictable than the advances that came before it. This means much more innovation, variety, and volume will come from it. It also means it must be managed very differently. The ROI of a social business effort regarded and managed through the traditional IT project delivery process will look very different than a deployment and management effort matched to the technology.

Caine’s Arcade

The power of social media and young boy with imagination who raises over $140k for his college fund with one video.

Stop Blabbing About Innovation and Start Actually Doing It

These days, every established company is at risk of having its industry–and its own business–disrupted by a startup. Cognizant of this, companies devote a lot of time to talking about how important it is to innovate. But here’s the truth: most companies can’t innovate because everyone is paid to maintain the status quo.

Flavor Fanatics wins a WOMMY!

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas…unless it’s the Word Of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Summit in Las Vegas, in which case you’re supposed to do nothing but talk, right?

Emily Paradowski and Nathalie Espinol were fortunate enough to represent 22squared and Buffalo Wild Wings at WOMMA’s annual conference, where the summer 2011 Flavor Fanatics’ campaign received a bronze WOMMY Award for Best Use of Social Media.

Even without the shiny hardware, the Flavor Fanatics campaign is a major accomplishment, primarily because it’s one of the first truly integrated and socially driven campaigns 22squared has produced. The approach we developed and honed while working on this campaign is indicative of an evolving paradigm that 22squared is building, one that leverages insights derived from listening to consumers and ultimately drives everything from creative to media.

See you in Vegas in 2012!

22squared Wins Best Agency for Social Media

2011 has been, in many ways, an eventful year for all of us at 22squared. So the opportunity to represent our agency at the iMedia Agency Summit and the 2011 iMedia Agency Awards came as a much-needed experience to network with industry peers and refresh my perspective on the industry landscape. The best part of the experience, however, was having the incredible honor of accepting our award for Best Agency for Social Media.

While it absolutely humbles me to think that just two years ago, I was just a college kid sitting in advertising class, that same thought also invigorates me as I consider just how far I’ve come since then. I couldn’t have asked for a better place to begin my career than at 22squared. As the second hire to come aboard a budding social media department, being honored with an award that declares 22squared as the Best Agency for Social Media speaks volumes not only in regard to how much impact our social team has been able to have on the industry, but also to the agility and innovation of an agency with a rich history in traditional advertising. What excites me the most about 22squared being recognized as a leader in the social media space is that, as a team, we all know that this is only the beginning. The best is, truly, yet to come.

This year’s iMedia Agency Summit was my first iMedia experience, and I must say, the event was very well organized. Here are three things I appreciated most about the event:

1. 1:1 networking sessions coordinated ahead of time. I appreciate it when reps do their homework and try to approach me as an individual, as opposed to just another agency with money to spend. But ultimately, I’m a sucker for efficiency. The quick, 10-minute format for the 1:1 sessions was just the right amount of time to develop rapport and provide information regarding the agency’s needs and the seller’s offerings. Often times at industry events, I’ll end up being conversationally pinned down by a single sales rep that will not let me go. The 1:1 rotating format at the iMedia Agency Summit allowed agency people to be free of any obligatory conversational pressure and instead, get straight to the chase. At the end of the 1:1 sessions, I ended up with a three-inch stack of business cards from various companies, many of which I plan to follow up with in the coming weeks.

2. Seller variety. I’m in the middle of my transition from a strategist working purely in the social space, to one who works across digital as a whole to ensure cohesion and connectedness among brand experiences. Throughout this process, I’ve been introduced to all sorts of technology companies. As someone whose role it is to act as a strategic bridge among the various departments within our agency, the variety of sellers—from mobile ad networks, to location-based behavioral targeting, to cloud-based creative optimization—present at the iMedia Agency Summit allowed me to immerse myself in many different sectors of the digital advertising landscape.

3. Collaboration among buyers and sellers. This event truly brought both sides together. There was a sense of mutual appreciation among buyers and sellers that pervaded the entire event. This collaborative atmosphere isn’t promoted enough in the industry, and the folks at iMedia Connection deserve much appreciation and respect for the types of relationships they’re striving to foster among agencies and vendors. It’s apparent they understand the importance of developing strategic partnerships among sellers and agencies, and I applaud them for all the hard work they put into organizing the iMedia Agency Summit.

I didn’t even go into how beautiful the resort was, or how decadent and lavish the receptions were, because content and business opportunities are much more important when evaluating events like this. I’d definitely consider attending more iMedia events and wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to recommend it to any of my peers. Be sure to check out iMedia’s upcoming summits.

Jackson Hewitt Finds a New Lead Agency 22squared succeeds Zimmerman Advertising

Drum roll, please: 22squared wins the Jackson Hewitt account – yay, tax season!

“Experience with financial services was naturally a factor in Jackson Hewitt’s decision to hire 22squared as its new lead agency for its creative and media business. Just as important, however, was the shop’s ability to cultivate brand fans on Facebook…”

Read the full story here: Adweek.com