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| Foursquare Says Farewell to Google Maps, Joins OpenStreetMap Movement | | Wednesday, February 29, 2012 11:53 PM | Zoe Fox |
|  Foursquare is parting ways with Google Maps in favor of crowdsourced maps created by the OpenStreetMap project. Foursquare announced the change in a blog post Wednesday, explaining its decision to make the big API switch. To power the new maps, Foursquare is partnering with MapBox, a startup which calls itself "a beautiful alternative to Google Maps" and uses data from OpenStreetMap. "As a startup, we also often think about how we can make life easier for other startups," the Foursquare blog explains. Foursquare says it chose MapBox for three reasons: its use of OpenStreetMap, which will continue to get better; it allows for design flexibility, so Foursquare can pick fonts and colors to match the rest of the app; and it's powered by the open-source Leaflet java script library. During the company's January hackathon, one engineer proposed the question "What would the world look like if we made our own maps?" and answered it using data from OpenStreetMap, a crowdsourced global atlas. Foursquare also sited Google Maps' pricing as a reason they were looking to make a switch. OpenStreetMap is one of the largest online group projects on the web. Google's relationship with the project has thus far been tumultuous. For instance, someone with a Google IP address was found to be vandalizing the project, inputting false information in several cities, such as directing one-way street signs in the wrong direction. What do you think Foursquare's departure from Google Maps suggests for the future of digital maps? Do you think this decision will pave the way for more new players to gain traction? Let us know in the comments. BONUS: Strange and Hilarious Google Street View Sightings |
| Tweets At the Table? More of Us Mix Social Media With Food | | Wednesday, February 29, 2012 11:29 PM | Joann Pan |
|  Social media is changing the way we eat. Many of us are giving up around-the-table dinners to dine with their computers or phones. A new study called "Clicks and Cravings" examines this trend -- and suggests it's not a bad thing. More than 29% of social media users are on a social networking website while eating or drinking at home. Outside the house, the figure is 19%. About 32% of us text or socialize on a mobile device at meal time. Not surprisingly, the youngest demographic in the survey -- 18-34 year olds -- tweet, Facebook and text during mealtimes at a higher rate of 47%. Eating at your computer doesn't necessarily mean you're antisocial, the study says. We're mostly using social networking sites to catch up with friends and family. We're also using social media to pick up on the latest food trends and learn how to eat healthy. Those users aren't necessarily putting that learning into action, David Emerson Feit, Senior Director of Quantitative Research at The Hartman Group, told Mashable. People are snacking more, while becoming aware of what constitutes good food thanks to what's being shared online. "There is an aspiration towards eating better," Feit said. "People who are using social media more are in tune with the little micro-trends in food culture, quick changes like peanut oil is on its way out and coconut oil is on its way in. The more friends you have, the more likely you will pick up that trend." Out of the 82% of respondents who visit social networking sites on a monthly basis, 49% say they learn about food via social networking. The 18-34 year-olds are consuming more food news online than through magazines and newspapers -- likely because of the rise of restaurant review apps and food blogs. SEE ALSO: Android Users Most Likely to Use Phones While in the Bathroom There are three kinds of people who talk about food online, says Feit: the spectator who consumes news and ideas; the dreamer who connect people and curates content; and the doer who creates contents and inspires followers. In general, people are willing to try a wider variety of restaurants after being exposed to them online. Feit was surprised by how much desire exists for healthy eating. "There is a link for authenticity for food and social media," he says. "That wasn't obvious going into the study." The study was conducted through in-depth one-on-one interviews, plus online, self-administered questionnaires from 1,641 U.S. consumers ages 18 to 64. Do these trends describe your lifestyle? Let us know in the comments. Image courtesy of Flickr, hans s |
| 'Hunger Games' Wants You to Tweet for Advanced Screening Tickets | | Wednesday, February 29, 2012 9:03 PM | Samantha Murphy |
|  Lionsgate announced a campaign Wednesday for fans of The Hunger Games to unlock free advanced screenings of the upcoming film by tweeting specific hashtags related to their nearby cities. To generate buzz for the upcoming film, the studio launched the campaign 24 days before the film's March 23 release. Mirroring the 24 "tributes" that fight to the death in the story, Lionsgate will give away tickets to 24 advanced screenings. Starting Thursday, the top four cities with the most tweets will be revealed each day, and fans will then be able to enter to win tickets to those locations, the company said. The film is adapted from the successful young adult trilogy written by Suzanne Collins. It depicts an annual event where one boy and one girl from the fictional post-apocalyptic nation of Panem and its 12 districts are selected to fight to the death in a televised battle. The story follows young protagonist Katniss (played by Jennifer Lawrence). To find out which hashtag is related to certain cities -- such as Philadelphia (#HungerGames24PHI), Boston (#HungerGamesBOS), Salt Lake City (#HungerGamesSLC) and San Francisco (#HungerGamesSF) -- visit screens.thehungergamesmovie.com. People not located near a city with an advanced screening may be able to meet and greet the cast at their local mall during the National Mall Tour beginning in March. Although this is the latest marketing initiative from The Hunger Games, the franchise has been covering its social media bases for months. It recently released a high-fashion site called Capitol Couture, dedicated to Panem's capitol city. Meanwhile, Twitter account @TheCapitolPN has been tweeting updates about the characters and the plot's annual Hunger Games ceremonies and event. It also references themed merchandise for sale, such as the line of Hunger Games nail polishes. It's been tweeting links to its various Facebook pages -- each of the 12 districts featured in The Hunger Games has its own page, in addition to the main Facebook page for the film. The most influential sharer on a District page can become the "mayor," with access to more news and prizes. Lionsgate has also been posting movie trailers, posters and behind-the-scenes content to build anticipation for the film. In addition, Barnes & Noble announced this week that it is also giving fans in select cities the opportunity to see the film before its official theatrical debut. On March 10, the first customers to purchase any Nook device such as the Nook Tablet, Color and Simple Touch will receive two tickets to an advanced screening on March 21. Are you impressed with The Hunger Games campaign? Are you looking forward to the film? Let us know in the comments. |
| Introducing Mashable's Facebook Timeline | | Wednesday, February 29, 2012 8:32 PM | Meghan Peters |
| 
Facebook rolled out Timeline for brand Pages today, and Mashable is proud to update ours on day one. We've closely chronicled reactions to the switch to Timeline from personal profiles in recent weeks. While many are disappointed with Facebook's new look, the change to Timeline has been eye-opening and emotional for others. We must admit, our experience lines up with the latter. While exploring our Timeline, we rediscovered Mashable has been connecting with readers on Facebook since November 12, 2007. In that time, our fan page has done everything from giving our readers a place for sharing ideas and helping them secure URLs to celebrating company birthdays and making marriage proposals. Our fan base has grown from 2,000 in our first year to our current 821,000 in the past three years. Now we're excited to form our digital scrapbook in real time -- right along with you. We'll post a variety of updates from our Timeline: Mashable articles, videos and analysis as well as photos from events and around the office (including the adorable puppies, of course). As evidenced above, there's a lot you can learn from Mashable's Facebook posts throughout the years -- and we'll continue to update with milestones as our Timeline develops. So, go ahead and take a look. Our first cover photo represents what we're really all about: you. It's a picture of our real-life Facebook wall, a huge mural of avatars from all our fans who opted to be included in the project. We wanted to showcase our awesome community. Without you, Mashable wouldn't be what it is today. In the coming weeks, we'll rotate our cover photo to represent what's trending in tech and social media news. We hope it'll be a easy and appealing way for you to know what stories to watch. What do you think of our new Timeline so far? We're always open to suggestions, so please let us know what kinds of posts or cover photos you'd like to see from us in the comments below. We look forward to connecting with you via Facebook Timeline! |
| How Tumblr Rekindled the Art of Animated GIFs | | Wednesday, February 29, 2012 6:32 PM | Christine Erickson |
|  What is it about small, repetitive moving images that everyone is so crazy about on Tumblr? Animated GIFs have been circling the web since 1987, yet in the past few years, they seem to have increased in popularity. Because Tumblr acts as a digital incubator for all things visually stunning, it has helped rejuvenate the outdated artform -- along with other content-curating sites like Reddit. The GIF tag on Tumblr is thriving with animated images of anything from cats eating pizza, to more captive, cinematic city shots. SEE ALSO: 10 Hilarious Animated GIFs that Took the Web by Storm "Tumblr is a huge part of creative sharing online and is already a giant in mainstream Internet culture," says GIF tag editor Lacey Michallef, who is also a freelance designer and animator. "If GIFs are thriving in an extremely popular online community, it's only natural that it would extend to other parts of the Internet." Digital artist and writer Colin Raff, who is also a GIF tag editor, says Tumblr provides an "effortless way you can just post what you make or like and it promotes itself, sometimes virally -- a brief moving image is probably ideal for this format." When selecting GIFs to be featured on the Tumblr tag -- which each editor is allotted 10 per day -- Raff prefers original artwork and Michalleff looks for well-crafted GIFs that loop seamlessly. Tumblr's recent upgrade to a full 1MB for all photo posts allows artists more leeway for creativity. GIFs can now be longer and more elaborate -- no longer are we seeing just basic, choppy one-second clips from a television show. This is helping artists who handcraft their own GIFs from scratch get more recognition. Although Tumblr seems to house an endless number of clips of music videos and other moments in pop culture, both tag editors say they tend to avoid them. SEE ALSO: How a Blogging Duo Is Changing Fashion Photography With Animated Cinemagraphs "I don't care much for GIFs like that, but i acknowledge that a humongous chunk of Tumblr (namely a younger audience) loves those types of GIFs," says Michallef. Raff, who attributes their popularity to an easily recognizable image, says "current pop culture GIFs on Tumblr are usually clipped references that are liked due to the recognition factor rather than their formal qualities as GIFs." We asked Raff to pick out five GIFs from the tag on Tumblr and explain why he chose them. Here are his top selections. Thumbnail courtesy of ozneo. |
| Facebook Brand Timelines: 6 Big Changes Every Marketer Needs to Understand | | Wednesday, February 29, 2012 5:31 PM | Victoria Ransom |
|  Victoria Ransom is founder and CEO of Wildfire Interactive, the global leader in social media marketing software. Victoria and Wildfire will host a free webinar on March 2 at 10 a.m. PT, entitled "Timeline for Brands: How to Make the Switch," further outlining best practices for brands in transitioning to Facebook's new Timeline format. Today Facebook announced to brand marketers the world over that, within the month, everything they knew about fan Pages on Facebook would be overturned. While you get your brand ready for the new Timeline format, here are six important changes to keep top-of-mind. 1. Updated Look and Feel What's new: The format of Timeline for brands is quite similar to Timeline for personal profiles. It employs a cover photo at the top of the Page, and the Page is separated into two main columns by a dividing line, which represents the passage of time. This format provides brands with new options for self-expression: They can outline their corporate history with milestones (such as product launches, store openings, etc.) to construct a narrative for their audience. ?? Recommendation: Milestones present an important and dramatic opportunity to educate the public, humanize the brand and remove a perception of corporate anonymity. Our analyses of Page engagement have continually shown that brands posting content that depicts behind-the-scenes activities, exclusive updates or promotions encourages user interactions and promotes higher engagement rates. Using interesting milestones to craft the story of the brand over time (and updating the Timeline with new milestones as they happen) can help to stimulate conversations around major achievements. 2. Reduced Tab Visibility What's new: The new Timeline format does not have the left-side panel of links, which could include hundreds of different tabs. While applications still exist, they'll display differently, in rectangular panels underneath the cover photo. The width of the Timeline and the space allocated for native apps like Photos means that only three tab panels are viewable at any given time. To see more, users must expand the tab panel by clicking a drop-down box. ? Recommendation: For marketers, this major change means that the three above-fold tab apps need to be considered carefully - this will be one of the first things users see when interacting with your brand on Facebook. Brands will want to switch up which tabs are visible "above the fold," according to current company objectives or project popularity. A good Page analytics tool will be useful for determining which tab to promote on a day-to-day basis.?? 3. No Default Landing Page ?What's new: With the new Timeline Page format, you will no longer be able to set a default landing Page, a favored feature for many savvy brands. The option was one of the primary ways to control the first (branded) impression a user encountered. Since there are no more tab Pages, there is no way to set one as a default. This will drastically change user impressions when they first visit a brand's Timeline Page. ?? Recommendation: You will need to apply new and careful attention to all the top messages in the Timeline, as they will be the first objects seen by visiting users. Likewise, Facebook ads for brands will become ever important, as ads will be one of the major ways brands on Facebook can control a user's experience. Setting up an advertising campaign for a Facebook promotion or new application will be the only way to guide new and clicking users directly to that application (as landing on this Page cannot be achieved by default). ?? 4. New Way to Feature Content What's new: One major new feature that marketers will love is the ability to "pin" certain posts to the top of the Timeline. Similar to marking a blog post "sticky," so that it remains at the top of a blog for a specified period of time, pinning a post to the top of Timeline allows it to precede any other content. A pinned post is distinguished by a small, orange flag. Brands can pin only one item at a time, and the pinned item then exists in two locations - as the top item on the Timeline itself, as well as within its chronological place. Once unpinned (which happens automatically when a new item gets pinned, or the item has been pinned for more than seven days), the post remains in the chronology of Timeline posts, but there is no visual history that it was pinned in the past. ?? Recommendation: Since you can no longer create a default landing Page, pinning items to the top of the Timeline will become every marketer's go-to strategy for highlighting new and interesting content. We will begin to see savvy brands design posts specifically to be pinned, whether images, a well-designed call-to-action, a statement about brand value, or a message calling for the user to click one of the tab panels under the cover photo. ?? 5. Current Tab Content and Applications Become Outdated ?What's new: The new Timeline layout displaces Facebook's existing Page tab configuration (including a tab's 520-pixel width), and replaces it with a new 810-pixel layout. As a result, existing Page tab content will look centered in the middle of the 810-pixel layout without any adjustments. All applications that remain on a brand's Page will need new application icons (the new dimensions are 111x74). ??Recommendation: The most pressing updates for brands will be to update the images and tab functionality of the above-fold two apps. As these are the first tabs users will see, they will likely be the first to be interacted with, or entirely ignored if not optimized for the new experience.?? 6. Private Messages Between Brands and Users What's new: Finally, brands will be able to send and receive private messages with users. This allows for much deeper consumer interaction, and will also enable Page managers to take extended customer inquiries off the Timeline and into a private message. ?? Recommendation: Be mindful of noise in the Timeline. Since the real estate allocated to each post depends on how engaging it is or how much interaction it has received, it can be easy to clutter your Timeline with customer inquiries. When these inquiries can be better serviced in a more one-on-one manner, reach out to the consumer with a private message and resolve her question. It's a good opportunity to yield both a happy user and a clean Timeline.?? Timeline for brands will certainly shake things up for social media marketers who seek to make an impact on Facebook. One thing is for sure though: The way content is shared and viewed within a Timeline Page is incredibly important. Brands that constantly create engaging updates and share important milestones will stay at the forefront of users' attention. Create and rotate new apps for engagement, pin relevant and timely content, and update the feed with user-friendly dialogues to stay relevant in this new space. ?? Will you or your company do anything differently, right off the bat? Share your thoughts in the comments below. |
| NASCAR Won't Punish Driver Who Live-Tweeted Daytona Crash | | Wednesday, February 29, 2012 4:54 PM | Sam Laird |
|  NASCAR announced that it won't punish driver Brad Keselowski, whose tweets from the racetrack during a hazard delay in Monday's Daytona 500 gained him more than 100,000 followers in two hours. In fact, NASCAR even welcomed him to continue finding creative uses for Twitter on-track. "Nothing we've seen from Brad violates any current rules pertaining to the use of social media during races," the auto racing body said in a statement. "As such, he won't be penalized. We encourage our drivers to use social media to express themselves as long as they do so without risking their safety or that of others." In the middle of the Daytona 500 earlier this week, driver Juan Pablo Montoya crashed into a safety vehicle loaded with jet kerosene. The collision triggered a large explosion and subsequent fire. Fortunately, Montoya and the safety vehicle driver both escaped serious injury, but the race was forced into a long delay as the fire was extinguished and the mess was cleaned up. From his spot in the racecar traffic jam backed up behind the crash site, Keselowski whipped out his smartphone and tweeted this message: Fire!My view twitter.com/keselowski/sta.— Brad Keselowski (@keselowski) February 28, 2012 At the time, Keselowski had around 75,000 followers. But he kept posting updates and interacting with fans from the track during the delayed race. The story went viral on Twitter and was mentioned on the Daytona 500 broadcast. By the time racing resumed less than two hours later, Keselowski's follower count had reached about 200,000. It's easy to criticize NASCAR for encouraging dangerous driving habits. But by not giving Keselowski so much as a slap on the wrist, they recognized that in sports the power of social media offers coverage angles and perspectives impossible for mainstream broadcast networks to achieve. Do you think NASCAR should have sent a message by punishing Keselowski for tweeting from his car? Let us know in the comments. Thumbnail image courtesy of Brad Keselowski |
| 20 Facebook Page Cover Photos to Inspire Your Brand | | Wednesday, February 29, 2012 4:28 PM | Christine Erickson |
|  Facebook users, whip out your history books -- Timeline for brand Pages has finally rolled out. The feature became available Wednesday, and we're already seeing its potential. Many companies are filling out their Timelines on Facebook back to the founding days -- some dating as far back as 1822. Others are providing fans with more interactive experiences, asking them to engage in the company's history for a chance to win prizes. SEE ALSO: Timeline for Brands: How to Prepare for Your Company's New Facebook Page Regardless of how they are using the autobiographical features, all companies have jumped at the opportunity to get creative with one of Timeline's most prominent features -- the cover photo. We've encountered unique placement and bright colors, amounting to what could potentially be the new social media billboard. Here are 20 early adopter brands that have taken full creative advantage of Facebook Timeline. Have you seen a company doing something cool with its Timeline? Let us know in the comments. |
| Lady Gaga, Oprah Launch Born This Way Foundation at Harvard [LIVE] | | Wednesday, February 29, 2012 4:16 PM | Brian Anthony Hernandez |
|  Pop megastar Lady Gaga will officially launch the Born This Way Foundation -- an initiative aimed at boosting people's confidence and addressing bullying with a strong online component -- at Harvard University on Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET. You can watch the launch live in the above video. Gaga co-founded the foundation with her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, to provide a "safe community that helps connect young people with the skills and opportunities they need to build a braver, kinder world," according to the foundation's website. They created the foundation after a 14-year-old boy killed himself in 2011 because of bullying he endured online and at school. Media mogul Oprah Winfrey, U.S. Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius, actor David Burtka and mind-body healing pioneer Deepak Chopra will attend the event. Harvard is currently embroiled in a heated debate about whether seven students expelled in 1920 should be given posthumous degrees. They were expelled because people questioned the students' sexuality. Lady Gaga is no stranger to building online communities. Most recently, she unveiled her new social network, Little Monsters, which gives Gaga's fans an outlet to create or share Gaga-related content, interact with fellow "Little Monsters" and publicly show whether they like what other users post. Gaga's strong digital presence is felt across the Internet. She joined Google+ in January and has already accumulated more than 760,000 followers. That's in addition to her 19.7 million Twitter followers, which is the most for any user on the microblogging service, and 48.6 million Facebook fans. Her involvement with two Google initiatives in 2011 is also a testament to her digital presence: a Chrome commercial and Google Goes Gaga, a sit-down session with Google executive Marissa Mayer to promote Google Moderator. At that time, Mayer said, "At Google, we've seen Gaga build her career by embracing technology . as well as constantly innovating for her fans." Additionally, Gaga was the first artist to reach 1 billion views on YouTube; she beat President Barack Obama to 10 million Facebook fans; Vogue released a Lady Gaga-focused iPad-only magazine app; and she became creative director at Polaroid. BONUS: Lady Gaga's Social Network Little Monsters -- the first product created by startup Backplane -- appears to be latching on to what's hot on the web right now: sharing visuals and rating content. |
| Why Team Coco Takes Social Media Comedy Very Seriously | | Wednesday, February 29, 2012 3:36 PM | Lauren Drell |
|  The Social Brands Series is supported by Spredfast, a social media management platform provider helping organizations unlock social business potential. Discover best practices & proven tactics for using social in the enterprise with the 7 Whiteboard Sessions for every Social Strategist. "Team Coco" became a rallying cry for fans of Conan O'Brien during a grassroots campaign to get the redheaded comedian back to late-night after a spat with NBC in 2010. The domain TeamCoco.com was actually registered by a Conan fan who relinquished control so that the real Team Coco -- a digital media team that manages the talk show host's web presence -- could disseminate content to promote the show. The site launched on March 11, 2010, in tandem with a 30-city tour, "Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television." On September 1, 2010, Conan announced via Twitter and the Team Coco YouTube page that the new TBS show would be called Conan, so it's safe to say the entire program was built on a firm foundation of digital and social media. "Conan himself really credits social media with being instrumental in the continuation of the Conan brand," says John Wooden, executive producer of Team Coco Digital. is really in our DNA, and it's something we take very seriously and put a lot of effort into." Mashable spoke with Wooden about what Team Coco is doing, why it's been successful and whether we can expect a Conan Pinterest page any time soon -- just imagine the board devoted to redheads. Meet Team Coco Team Coco is comprised of ten full-time people -- an executive producer, product lead, engineering lead, social lead, web video editor, etc. -- and a few contributors. Conan himself is "deeply involved" in crafting the strategy and the editorial calendar. He has multiple digital meetings every week and fully understands the benefit of the online audience, both for his brand, his tune-in and his sponsors, says Wooden. Conan is undoubtedly the hippest and most digitally savvy host in late night -- he's had segments about putting his house on AirBnB for $1, mocked Final Cut Pro X, announced a Bonnaroo lineup on Vevo, lampooned a Groupon Super Bowl ad and embraced a Twitter "Pale Whale" for the debut of Conan. So a big digital strategy makes sense not only for the Conan brand, but for the Conan O'Brien brand, too. Not surprisingly, TBS has been 100% behind Team Coco's digital strategy. Wooden describes the network's support as "fantastic" and adds that because Conan's audience is the youngest in late-night TV, the digital integrations and wide reach make the show "tremendously appealing" to sponsors. A Multi-Platform Approach In addition to TeamCoco.com, which is a veritable gold mine of Conan tidbits and UCG, like the Coco MoCA (Museum of Conan Art), Team Coco maintains a presence on myriad platforms -- Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Google+, GetGlue, YouTube and Tumblr. And Wooden is the first to admit that it's time-consuming. "We're pretty disciplined about scheduling and we strive to program natively for each platform as much as we can," he says, explaining that each platform gets a lot of love and attention from the team. "The platforms are like wives in a fundamentalist Mormon marriage -- we're dutiful about sharing our time." Each day, exclusive material is seeded to various networks and there isn't much overlap -- Tumblr content might not go on Facebook, and YouTube videos might not be shared on Twitter. Certain platforms have their own material and franchises, like Facebook's F-Cards and one-liner jokes on @TeamCoco. Then again, the lean team looks for "opportunities to realize certain economies of scale," so that their efforts get more mileage. So some photos and content will be shared across multiple platforms, but each platform maintains its own distinct flavor, which gives fans a reason to visit all of them. The platforms are also very well integrated on other sites, so that when you're on Tumblr, you'll see social buttons to find Team Coco on other platforms. But at the end of the day, TeamCoco.com, the apps and the social satellites are an extension of the show. "We strive to be multi-platform in everything that we do -- the show is feeding digital properties and vice versa." Which is why on-air franchises like Fan Corrections get posted online, and TeamCoco.com is treated a hub where fans can go to see anything from the broadcast that they missed. Here's a breakdown of what Team Coco does on various platforms, along with relevant statistics ... and keep in mind that these numbers are just for Team Coco's properties and not that of Conan as an individual, which gives the brand even more reach. Facebook: F-Cards have been one of Team Coco's most successful campaigns, likely for their humorous utility: They "take the toil and drudgery out of Facebook communications." For F-Cards, Conan pre-records a series of videos that friends can post to other friends' walls for holidays, like Valentine's Day or birthdays, or for more mundane occasions, like embarrassing your relatives or unfriending people. Wooden says F-Cards came out of a discussion about what Team Coco could do for the audience on Facebook. "We wanted to do something special because we see our highest levels of engagement on Facebook," he says, referring to the Facebook Page's 1,808,527 Likes. "We were just brainstorming about what we could do that would useful and really native to that platform that riffs on what it's like to be Facebook user." Since Team Coco is full of heavy Facebook users, they asked themselves what they would want. Over the last year, there have been 70 F-Cards, and Conan has been involved in the F-Card development process from the genesis. From a pure traffic and engagement standpoint, Wooden says F-Cards have been a great success. GetGlue: Given that Conan is a media company, it can reap the benefits of the media-oriented social check-in service. "GetGlue is sort of a different animal in that out of all the platforms that we're engaged with, it's more driven toward tune-in than directing people to toward digital versions of content, but we certainly like having it the mix," says Wooden. Thus far, there have been 265,904 check-ins on GetGlue, and Wooden says these users really enjoy Team Coco's engagement on the platform. Twitter: The Team Coco Twitter has an audience of 273,370, feeding them one-liners, observations from the Team Coco office and content from some of the other platforms. Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter tend to get retweeted by Team Coco, helping the show to continue a dialogue even when it's not on air. Tumblr: With a clear understanding of the Tumblr audience and what it wants, Team Coco populates its Tumblr with GIFs, behind-the-scenes pics, videos and funny cartoons. In short, it's viral Tumblr gold. The content here is entirely visual and even includes a few videos from the other platforms, serving as a traffic driver to other Team Coco properties. The Tumblr sees a ton of engagement, with posts getting hundreds and sometimes more than a thousand notes. Foursquare: In November 2010 and 2011, Team Coco worked with Brooklyn interactive agency Breakfast to create a Foursquare-hacked Conan blimp that automatically updates its location. The blimp promoted the new season and got people excited about Conan. "The blimp was tweeting, the users could check it, the folks at TBS marketing made sure you could get a real blimp badge and other prizes -- it was fantastic," says Wooden. In 2010, the blimp saw about 25,000 check-ins. There's also a Foursquare page for Team Coco, on which there are tips for various landmarks, like Union Station and Dodger Stadium. One such tip? "'Some people think that Dodger Dogs are great, some people think Dodger Dogs are disgusting, but I think we can all agree on one thing: Dodger Dogs are disgusting.' - Conan O'Brien." The Foursquare account has 77,315 followers. YouTube: There are nearly 35 million views on the 400+ Team Coco videos on YouTube. The page is populated with clips from the show and behind-the-scenes clips, but not Team Coco videos like the F-Card shots. The show's franchises and categories (music, celebs, etc.) are sorted into playlists for easy viewing. Google+: When it launched, Wooden admits that it was "the butt of a few jokes," but the platform is now becoming "significant" for Team Coco. "We're seeing real engagement there" with Team Coco in 741,975 circles, so Wooden says Google+ is a significant part of the strategy for 2012. An App: Just this week, Team Coco launched an app for Android and iOS that syncs with the show (via audio fingerprinting) as you watch, offering upwards of 25 bits of bonus content every episode. It also lets viewers interact with each other and consume content from Team Coco's web properties, transforming Conan into a true second-screen, social TV experience. Notably missing is the red-hot startup Pinterest. For now. "Pinterest is something we're looking at very seriously . stay tuned," says Wooden. He went on to explain that especially in an ad-driven business like digital media, you have to strike a balance of reach and engagement with the potential marketing benefits of a platform with your own resource constraints. For a lean team like Team Coco, much consideration goes into launching on another platform and weighing the benefits earned with the resources needed. "As much as we adore social media, and we're reaching our fans, there are times when some of these platforms can feel like a nest full of baby birds ... so you have to get that right balance," says Wooden. For that reason, Flickr, Myspace and Formspring are no longer a part of Team Coco's strategy. "We try to balance looking at what the tipping point is for where it's going to be valuable for us from a traffic and reach standpoint with the fact that we are a bunch of nerds who really enjoy these platforms," says Wooden. And sometimes good old nerdery wins -- when Tumblr wasn't the traffic giant it is now, Team Coco embraced the blogging platform merely because as individuals and users, they were enthusiastic about it. "The effort we were putting in then was not commensurate with the audience, but those users were such a core part of our core demo that we really wanted to" explains Wooden. Getting Celebrities on Board Is It Working? So are all of digital efforts working? You can see from Team Coco's follower counts and checkins that it's a wildly popular brand, but how does that translate to tune-in? "We're reaching so many people via these platforms, and we are confident that were driving tune-in anecdotally, but to what extent we're not yet able to really quantify," explains Wooden. During 2011, Wooden says engagement increased anywhere from 50% to 300% on the various social networks. The Team Coco strategy seems to be working, and it's something they take very seriously ... unlike the content itself. Series supported by Spredfast
The Social Brands Series is supported by Spredfast, which provides an enterprise-class social media management platform helping organizations unlock their social business potential. The Spredfast platform provides a unified system for managing, monitoring and measuring social media programs for better business results. Discover best practices & proven tactics for using social in the enterprise with the 7 Whiteboard Sessions for every Social Strategist. |
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