Who are your brand’s key constituencies and how do you keep them involved in ways that drive sales and growth?

First let’s start with your brand’s key constituencies.  What are they?  These are the groups that play roles in leading to brand consumption – salespeople at HQ, distributors, franchisees, route sales people, delivery & merchandising people, retailers, retail sales people, customer buyers, customer marketers, customers (b to b), consumers (b to c), consumer influencers – you get the picture – there are many critical groups that lead to the ultimate consumption of a product or service.  The level of involvement varies by group, but is important nonetheless.

Consider a brand that has developed and tested an innovative POS marketing initiative – the test target groups demonstrated a high propensity to become involved with the initiative and purchase the brand.  But what if the brand’s sales network is not informed and the brand’s dealers don’t know about the initiative or what it can do for their business?  The POS will not get installed as often, the brand’s target will not see it, and the initiative will not reach its full potential (this happens all too often).

So, how do you get key constituencies involved in the brand?  For some, it can be as easy as an email with a unique subject line.  For others it might require an incentive – points, chance to win, merchandise, etc.  Here is our approach to greater involvement:

• Map the journey of your brand from creation to consumption and identify the “key constituencies” along the way – those people that make decisions about your brand during the journey including the ultimate purchaser.
• Create personas for each of the “key constituencies” based on knowledge gleaned from sales, surveys, or quantitative/qualitative research.  The personas help create messaging and initiatives that generate the involvement needed to generate maximum ROI.
• Develop messaging/initiatives to make the overall marketing program relevant to each of the key constituencies – test them via online panels if possible – and determine the most effective communications vehicles for each key constituency – the ones that reach the audience when they have the highest propensity to become involved.
• Plan the timing of implementation to make sure the overall initiative has time to work its way through the journey prior to the program reaching the end user.
• Implement the initiatives, monitor the progress, and optimize them during implementation when possible.
• Measure and analyze the results with each key constituency to improve and optimize future programs.

Mastermind develops and implements social, mobile, digital, promotion initiatives that drive sales and ROI for its clients.

What is Google+?

Having been in the game since September 2011, people sometimes still question what Google+ is all about. Google+ simply put, is an amalgamation of various social websites and applications on one, easy-to-use, platform. However, user engagement on Google+ has been very lack luster since its launch and Google+ is doing all it can to stay in the game. Google+ is combining the social aptitude of Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, and Skype, and essentially surpassing its current capabilities to keep up with these social media giants.  We gathered a list of the social network’s newest features and further explanations of its current features (for those of you that still have questions.)

Newest Features:

• Ability to share bigger and better photos
• Easy-to-use interface
• Customized navigation banner
• Dynamic navigation elements
• Improved conversation capabilities
• Dedicated page to Hangouts
• A new Explore page that highlights new trends
• New chat list that puts friends front-and-center

You’ve probably heard of LinkedIn—with nearly 150 million members worldwide, LinkedIn has established itself as a useful professional networking tool.  So far, LinkedIn leads the industry in business social networking. However, Facebook is trying to give LinkedIn some competition recently with its network BranchOut, whose membership has doubled in the last month and has about 10.9 million monthly active users.  According to BranchOut, if you factor in the friends and connections of those 10.9 million monthly users, the network has the potential to reach over 300 million people.  That amounts to about 36% of all Facebook users worldwide and gives recruiters and businesses a huge opportunity to access the talent pool.

How It Works:

When a person signs up to use BranchOut, all of his or her Facebook friends are immediately put into the app’s database and sorted by high school, college, and employers (past and present.)  This allows BranchOut members and recruiters to see the connections of hundreds of millions of Facebook users even though only 10 million users have full professional profiles.  The service imports all of your work and education history from your Facebook profile but not all of your other personal information.  BranchOut imports and analyzes the data of all of your friends to create a network of first degree connections.  The first degree of separation data is extensive, assuming you have hundreds of friends, but where the network effect kicks in is at the second degree, where you can see the thousands of companies where the friends of your friends work.

Keeping work and play separate:

Off the bat, people assume that they would need to be friends with their bosses and coworkers in order to optimize their BranchOut experience.  Not so; BranchOut allows users to create a separate professional profile where they can connect with work contacts, companies and job recruiters.  Thus, your not-so-PC photos from college are safe from corporate snooping.

Why it’s succeeding:

BranchOut is built on the notion that people who lose their jobs turn to their existing connections for help—friends, family, and close relationships.  Similar to the way LinkedIn allows users to request an introduction, BranchOut allows users to request referrals from their friends. Facebook messaging is not as cluttered as traditional email inboxes and thus connections are expected to work better and happen faster.

What kind of employers/job hunters are using the site?

The top 5 categories where job seekers and employers are connecting are high tech, medical professionals, education, media, and consulting, and BranchOut claims to have a much broader array of fields represented among Facebook networks than on LinkedIn.  For example, JCPenney says it’s hard to find local Santas during the holiday season.  On BranchOut, there are currently 160 Santas available for hire!

We will definitely keep an eye on this rapidly growing network and its usefulness for brands. Have you created a profile on BranchOut? Would you consider using your Facebook friends for professional referrals?

Starting on March 30^th, brands will encounter a slew of changes to their Facebook pages.  Similar to the recent updates to personal profiles, Facebook is revamping brand pages with the new timeline format, cover photos, and unique opportunities to engage and interact with their fans.  We encourage you to visit your Facebook pages now to preview the updates before they become mandatorily live at the end of the month.  Use this time to strategize content, imagery, and promotions that will best feature your brand.  Do not publish the page until you are ready to use the new layout because there’s no going back!  Here’s the inside scoop on what’s changing and how to leverage these opportunities:

…Read more

QR codes. We’ve all seen them on signs, in magazines, in retail stores and of course on the web. By now most of us marketers are familiar with them (if not, here’s a run down: a QR (“quick response”) code is a specific matrix barcode that is readable by smartphones. In a nutshell, you would select your QR code reader app and “scan” the QR code to be taken to more information about a certain products, promotion or campaign.)

Some reports say that QR codes aren’t going to last because of the extra steps required by the user for these codes to work. However, according to the numbers, QR codes aren’t disappearing anytime soon.  ComScore reports that 20 million people scanned a QR code during October 2011 alone and 59% were scanned at home, meaning codes in print materials and product packaging are drawing attention.  Print advertisers and publishers are using QR codes more frequently with a 617% growth from January 2011 to December 2011 in top 100 magazines. Has your brand used QR codes in print materials yet?

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you consider using QR codes:

• Creating QR codes

It’s not difficult to locate a QR code generator. What should be remembered is what you input to generate your code. If you’re directing people to a URL; make sure the site loads properly. Also make sure your site loads successfully on mobile devices.

• Distributing QR codes

Remember that someone needs to scan your QR code in order to get the information you are trying to send them. Make sure your code is displayed properly and at the correct size. QR code scanners can be fickle; don’t create extra hassle for users by squeezing the codes in corners or bended areas.

• User Experience with QR codes

When marketing your QR code, keep the user experience in mind.  The stand-alone image of a QR code doesn’t usually entice a person. Include a brief introduction, directions for scanning, and what the user can expect to see after they scan the code.  Most importantly, include an incentive for making the effort of scanning the code – such as sweepstakes entries, rewards points, coupons, or exclusive content.

What do you think: are QR codes here to stay or on the decline?

As many of you have heard and seen, gamification is a growing marketing tool for brands. What does it mean? How are brands participating?  If you’re interested in getting involved in gamification we’d be happy to help you with everything from strategy to development.  Reports say social gaming will be a $5 billion market by 2015.  Here are five simple steps to get you started with your brand’s gamification strategy:

1)      Solidify your business objectives.

There’s more to gamification than leaderboards and badges.  You should design a game to engage and retain your users.  What do you want to accomplish from your gamification?  It could be increased sales of a certain product or service, more store visits, website exploration, and a bevy of other objectives.  Once you know your business goals, you need to know what motivates your users.  What prizes can you give away for engagement and retention?  Consider your audience and promotions that are already successful such as coupons, brand swag, rewards points for store cards or tickets to related events.

2)      Consider “social currency”

Reward the target for brand engagement (webinars, questions about features and benefits, likes, follows, viral pass along, etc.) The reward can be in the form of social currency (virtual dollars, points, etc.) that can be “spent” within the game or with the brand.

3)      Link to Social Media.

Allowing users to log-in via Facebook (or Twitter) is a great way to seamlessly include social sharing.  Provide opportunities for bonus points when users recruit their friends to play, allow users to announce achievements, and social media log-ins provide a quick, easy way to play instantly.  Successful games like Farmville encourage players to ask their friends for help on certain tasks, thus providing another opportunity to raise awareness of the game and brand.

4)      Guide user engagement.

Startup tutorials are helpful but pop-up instructions throughout the game are a great way to retain users.  As users progress in your game, provide feedback, compliments and most importantly, include a progress bar.  Humans have an irresistible urge to complete things and a progress bar will keep players informed of how close they are to completion—whether it is by level, quest, or finishing the entire game.

5)      Keep it simple!

If it takes a long time to understand a game, they are less likely to play or encourage others to play.  Simplicity is key.  If a Kindergartener can’t understand a game or explain it to others, you need to simplify the concept.  Do extensive user experience testing to ensure that it’s easy for players to log-in, share progress, return to their last position in the game (if applicable), and branded content is easily understandable.

Games require a bit of planning, development, and testing but they can be a great opportunity to build killer engagement in a fun and educational way.  The ultimate goal of gamification is to illustrate brand personality, demonstrate features of products and services, and expose consumers to the benefits of choosing your brand.  Games should have tangible rewards and teach consumers about the brand.  Read how a few how a few big brands are succeeding with gamification. As always, we’re here if you have questions about gamification.

“My company sells products or services, I should make a mobile app right?! Everyone’s doing it and if I don’t my competitors will have the edge.” Let’s take a closer look at mobile apps and why a business should or should not consider developing one for its customers. Make sure you can answer the 5 Ws: who, what, when, where and why.

Many thanks to eMarketer for its February 9, 2012 article on this subject, for raising a particularly timely issue for us: when to make a mobile app and when to simply optimize a website for mobile consumption. We’ve had more than one client come to us recently about this – often there is a push within the organization to develop a mobile app simply for the sake of it, without much regard to why. eMarketer’s article helps illustrate the point we most commonly raise to our clients who are considering an app – it sounds cool (and of course underscores our company’s commitment to innovation and the future of our business), but would a mobile optimized website fit the bill instead (usually for a much smaller price tag)?

First let’s define our terms. A mobile app is a software application custom built to do something useful (the weather app on your phone) or something fun (Angry Birds). The app takes up space on your phone, just like software you install on your computer, and needs updates periodically that the owner must download. A mobile optimized website, or WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) site, is like a mini website, reformatted to look good on smaller mobile device screens. So it can use the same software as your traditional website uses, i.e., HTML.

The first step in determining whether an app is a good tactic for your particular business objectives is to do some research and find out exactly what your customers or potential customers are looking for in a mobile channel from your company. Look at your web analytics to see what top content is among visitors from mobile devices. Are they coming primarily to search for information? To shop? Are they using an online tool you’ve developed that already lives on your company’s website? Many times, existing web applications can be easily optimized for mobile devices. Getting someone to a website is easier than getting them to bother downloading your app and remembering to actually use it. The Yahoo! And Ipsos chart below reveals interesting preferences among consumers’ mobile activities.

The 5 W’s of App Development:

• Who: which subset of my customers is going to use this app? How big a subset is it and can I justify the investment level to serve a target audience of this size?
• What: what are the required functionalities of the mobile experience? Search, account access, shopping, etc.
• When: when will my customers be using this app? Once in a while or frequently? How can I gauge this?
• Where: where will customers use the functionality my app will provide? Are they already at home? Will they be more likely to need this service on the go?
• Why: does this app satisfy my business objectives by enabling more sales, more searches, more interactions or more of whatever your target behavior is?

Like any item in your budget, make sure your team is thinking through the need, not jumping headlong into an investment that’s missing its business objective. We hope the 5 Ws of app development will help you think it through!

This coming Sunday, people all over the world will be watching the great American sport of football. While the sport hasn’t changed much, the way people watch and communicate about and during the big game has changed considerably. Social media is a way to engage fans and attendees in real-time, monitor sentiment, and react instantly to issues. This year the Super Bowl host committee finally recognized this opportunity and decided to take advantage of it.

The Indianapolis host committee for Super Bowl XLVI has developed a new way to deal with the madness that comes with managing the world’s biggest annual sporting event. The remedy? The Super Bowl’s first-ever social media command center. Strategists, analysts and techies will review and monitor the digital fan conversation via Facebook, Twitter and other platforms in a 2,800 square foot space downtown that opened the week preceding the Super Bowl. Raidious is the digital marketing agency for the Super Bowl and will be managing the social media command center. Some 150,000 people are expected to flood into downtown Indianapolis over Super Bowl weekend.

The social media team’s duties will include:

• tweeting directions to fans in search of parking
• directing visitors to Indianapolis’s best attractions
• standing by to provide information in case of a disaster.

Advanced search tools and analytics will help Raidious and the team in isolating fans in need of help by indexing key words and phrases. For example, a fan won’t need to tweet, “where can I find parking?” to get help; Raidious operatives will be able to pick up on a general phrase such as “parking sucks” to offer assistance. It hasn’t been an easy operation. The command center utilizes more than a mile of Ethernet cable and more than 150 square feet of networked screen space. More than 20 people have been handling the center for 15 hours per day.

Researchers from nearby Ball State University’s Center for Media Design will conduct a study of the command center, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses. Michael Holmes, Director of the center’s Insight & Research Unit, stated in a CNN article, that the command center is an example of the “the ubiquity of social media and the absolute necessity for companies, organizations and communities to use these tools to improve their relations with their customer, audiences and citizens.”  Both Holmes and Raidious said they would not be surprised if the Super Bowl’s first designated social media war-room sets a precedent for other major events.

What do you think about the Super Bowl’s first-ever social media command center? Would you like to see major events set up more operations like this? Let us know in the comments.

Last week was a big week for digital.  You may have heard of the recent controversy surrounding SOPA, recent legislation aimed at fighting piracy and copyright infringement. People have been protesting the legislation ever since its emergence but their protests grew to an organized blackout across major websites on January 18th.  This week we take a look at how various websites expressed their dissatisfaction with the proposed laws and how their actions influenced the legislation.

What was SOPA? 

It’s the Stop Online Piracy Act, aimed at preventing foreign-based websites from selling and sharing pirated movies, music, and other products.  Federal law enforcement currently has the authority to shut down such websites that are based in the US but the law would require internet providers to block international websites, block redirected URLs or require search engines to disable links to the offending sites. Opponents to the legislation worry that the broad language of the bill is too broad and would threaten free speech and target sites with user generated content, like Facebook and Twitter. The fever pitch, web-wide protest of these bills that took place January 18  made such an impact that the bill has been pulled from the Congressional docket by Lamar Smith, the chief sponsor of SOPA, “until there is a wider agreement on a solution,” said Smith. He also stated: “I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy. It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”

What’s next for anti-piracy legislation?

The success of the blackout has not derailed federal prosecution of file sharing sites.  International site Megaupload was shut down and their owners arrested, facing up to 55 years in jail just because one of their servers was in the state of Virginia.  Many cloud based file-sharing sites are beginning to implement regulations on non-original content to avoid prosecution and even YouTube, Dropbox, and Facebook have reason to be concerned with how anti-piracy regulations will affect their websites.  SOPA might be off the docket, but new laws are already looming in its fading shadow.  An international agreement called ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is being considered to create international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement.  It has been negotiated between various countries for the past 4 years and is expected to be signed by the European Union this week.  Will there be an anti-ACTA blackout internationally in the future?  Would the web-wide protest seen on January 18th be as effective if it occurred every time a new copyright law was brought to the table?  SOPA was the wrong bill for a very real problem that’s still out there and the powers that be will be working hard to find a new solution.

Here’s a look at how international websites expressed their dissatisfaction with proposed laws on January 18th:

Google

Google’s famous homepage featured a censored block across their logo and a link to an online petition.  Their homepage averages about 1 billion visitors per month, thus providing prime web real estate for its support of the protest.  Google reported that its SOPA page received 13 million page views on Wednesday and approximately 7 million people signed its petition.

Twitter

Twitter spoke out with a tweet to support the millions (2.4 million to be exact) of people that were tweeting about SOPA and PIPA. Even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg tweeted for the first time in two years!

Wikipedia

Many popular websites joined the blackout by updating their homepages in protest.  School children panicked when they could not use popular research website Wikipedia for studying and were forced to research the old fashioned way—using real books!  Wikipedia reported that more than 162 million people saw its blackout page and over 8 million people used Wikipedia’s  link to lookup their elected representatives to protest the measures.  WordPress, BoingBoing, GreenPeace, TwitPic, Firefox, Reddit and many others joined the blackout by updating their homepages by going dark and censoring imagery.

  WordPress

These are just a few examples of how huge, worldwide brands came together to protest against SOPA, but the impact was dramatic.  News coverage blossomed, social media mentions spread like wildfires, and the world took notice of legislation that had the potential to drastically change the internet we know and love.  In short, one day of updated homepages and open discussion made a huge impact informing the public about SOPA and PIPA and any new legislation that may appear in their wake.