Tag Archives: twitter

Brands Speak Out After Boston Bombings

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As Boston marked its seven-day memorial of the Boston Marathon bombings with a moment of silence on Monday, it’s worth noting that Twitter mourned with the city on a hill. Despite the plethora of misinformation and the digital mob scene that swarmed the social networking site over the past week, Twitter’s heart was in the right place. And the brands that felt that heartbeat shared the silence and the heartache as well.

Immediately after the atrocity and chaos on Patriots’ Day, April 15, 2013, McDonald’s external communications manager contacted all social media field managers saying, “I think it goes without saying that we all should be halting social media messages due to the incidents in Boston for the time being.” There was no thought given to the recent launch of the Premium McWrap and how canceling previously scheduled ad flights of promoted tweets would negatively impact sales. McDonald’s simply did the right thing.

The outpouring of empathy and support wasn’t limited to Twitter, as Facebook fans watched the manhunt unfold on their feeds and celebrated with impromptu video clips when the lockdown ended. Again, for brands, it wasn’t about capitalizing on the tragedy, it was about participating in the communal grieving, sitting shiva with friends near and far.


“This manhunt is to social media as the OJ chase was to cable news,” noted @ChrisBradley81 on Twitter. Perhaps he’s right. I remember sitting glued to the TV in the summer of 1994 watching the slow-speed chase of the infamous white bronco and trying to make sense of it all. But I don’t remember what commercials ran during the coverage. That’s the difference now. Brands, for better or worse, are part of the ongoing digital dialogue. They’re in on the conversation in real time. So they have to make a choice of whether to speak out or hold their corporate tongues.

Twitter donated prime space for trending topics to the cause on the Tuesday following the bombings. The hashtag #OneBoston, a $200,000 value, was promoted on behalf of The One Fund Boston. The fund, created by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, was established to aid those affected by the Boston Marathon bombings. Twitter’s generous gesture is another example of a brand doing the right thing – social for good.

I’ve often wondered how social media would have reacted during 9/11. There would have been confusion and cacophony. But family members might have connected with missing loved ones, and lives might have been saved. And brands would have had the unique opportunity to raise awareness, offer support and provide comfort to their online communities, just as they do today.

“I’ve had it on my bucket list to be in a mob for a good cause,” -Krysia St. Cry, Boston University student

Image Credits: [WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station] [Daily Free Press, Student Newspaper at Boston University]

 

Laura Mansfield Bower is Executive Director of PR for The Tombras Group.

Twitter’s Vine: Has It Grown On You Yet?

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What is Vine?
Twitter’s Vine, an iOS app that shoots six-second videos, wilted in the heat of intense popularity when it launched a couple of weeks ago. Before the functionality issues could be addressed, controversy set in. A Weed-B-Gon-wielding Facebook generated more buzz around Vine after denying it access to the social graph, which would allow users to find their Facebook friends on Vine. If Facebook sees Vine as a threat, it must be the next big thing, right? Let’s not forget about the pornographic GIFs permanently embedded in early users’ heads. Like most apps of this nature, any attempt at cleaning up content includes banning certain hashtags and beefing up the age requirement, per Apple App Store guidelines. However, sexually explicit material isn’t against Vine’s terms of service. This hasn’t tainted the app for the social-savvy brand looking for the newest tools for content creation.

What’s Growing on the Vine
The animated GIF is the flip book of the internet. GIFs make for digestible clips of content that have the ability to transcend their original context. We’ve tossed around the idea of “micro-videos” when Viddy started gaining traction, but those 15-second videos seem to drag on compared to Vine’s six seconds. Some big-name early adopters are using Vine as a tool to create real-time, user-generated content to compliment their brand’s social strategy. Here’s what they’re doing:

McDonald’s plays a game of Tic-Tac-Toe for the launch of a new product, Fish McBites.

Kit Kat questions which is the right way to have a break.

General Electric is always quick to take on the latest trends in social media. GE’s use of Vine to celebrate Thomas Edison’s birthday aligns perfectly with its #IWantToInvent initiative on Twitter.

All Vine and No Taters
The creative opportunities with Vine are limited only by the imagination of the person behind the camera. That being said, the marketer’s mantra holds true, content is king. Haphazard tactical thinking just can’t compete with a multifaceted marketing strategy. Has Vine grown on you or will it wither away like the apps that came before it?

 

Chance Vineyard is a Social Media Specialist at The Tombras Group.

 

 

 

Super Bowl XLVII Commercials: What’s Sticky and Why

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“Does it make you uncomfortable when I use the word ‘dongle’?” – Amy Poehler for Best Buy

Amidst the rubble of empty pizza boxes and chicken wing bones, we’re left with a YouTube gallery of 73 30-second spots. That’s right, Brand Bowl XLVII is over. Unlike the actual Super Bowl, in which the Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers by three points – after a 34-minute blackout and Beyonce’s spirited halftime booty fest – there’s no clear winner among the commercials. It’s subliminal. It’s sexy. It’s subjective. Heck, it’s advertising.

So rather than provide you with exhaustive metrics and a quasi-definitive diagnostic, I’ll share some thoughts about which ads resonated across three categories: humor, pathos and personality.

Humor
Taco Bell’s “Viva Young” spot was spot on in the LOL category. With nods to Ron Howard’s 1985 movie ‘Cocoon,’ Taco Bell’s frisky geezers gamely plunge into the pool, literally cannon-balling into a fountain of youth, before their escapade leads them to a late-night splurge at The Bell. The Spanish version of Fun.’s “We Are Young” is the perfect anthem for their adventure. The movie’s Bernie Lefkowitz character is reborn as Bernie Greenblat for Taco Bell’s ‘Live Más’ homage. He’s a little rougher around the edges, but his spirit is the same. The spot blew up the Twitter feed and appealed across age and gender demos. It was a big fat win for lighthearted laughs and positive branding.

Pathos
In the tear-jerker category, Budweiser’s “Brotherhood” stole the show. Set to Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide,” this King of Beers classic goes for the heartstrings and, like Taco Bell’s “Viva Young,” the commercial immediately connects with viewers who are already familiar with the soundtrack. Budweiser doesn’t have to set the tone; the song does it all by itself. Featuring a seven-day-old foal in the opening sequence and closing with a call-to-action to christen the baby Clydesdale is irresistible. With the requisite #clydesdales hashtag, this ad joined the 50 percent of Super Bowl commercials that mentioned Twitter, up from just eight mentions last year. In fact, Budweiser got more than 60,000 tweets, Facebook comments and other messages from fans wanting to name its Super Foal.

It’s worth noting that Budweiser’s evocative “Brotherhood” was directed by Jake Scott, whose father, Ridley Scott, directed Apple’s iconic “1984” Super Bowl ad.

Personality
The Miss Personality Award goes to Amy Poehler for her star turn in Best Buy’s “Asking Amy” commercial. Poehler uses her trademark rapid-fire delivery to poke fun at the cult of geek and makes Best Buy seem accessible to the technically challenged. Best Buy’s “blue shirt” patiently answers her endless queries and makes us all feel like maybe there really is no such thing as a stupid question.

There’s lots of buzz about Go Daddy’s supermodel slobber kiss. Gross. And Doritos’ “Goat For Sale.” Quirky fun. Century 21’s Heimlich maneuver. Blech. Calvin Klein’s Zoolander-with-cybertron-abs set Twitter hearts aflutter. And who doesn’t love a wolf puppy, but what was it advertising again? Quick … answer before you Google it!  At the end of the Big Game, it’s all about stickiness, and I don’t mean the bottom of your guac bowl. Advertisers spent upwards of $4 million for each 30-second Super Bowl spot. Which brands got their money’s worth? What ad’s still stuck in your beer-buzzed brain? Or is it Sasha Fierce’s fuse-blowing halftime performance that’s sticking with you?

Image Credit: [great-ads.blogspot.com]

Laura Mansfield Bower is Senior Vice President and Director of Public Relations and Social Media for The Tombras Group.

 

 

Social Media Gold

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For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, athletes were given a voice beyond their NBC highlights. They had the opportunity to connect with fans and join in the conversation surrounding one of the highest anticipated and most-watched events occurring just every four years. At the time of the 2008 Olympic Games, Facebook had only 100 million members and has since risen to 900 million. The new environment provided by social media for the 2012 Games was mostly uncharted territory, essentially turning athletes into their own spokespeople.

While the 2012 Olympic Games were viewed by 219.4 million people tuning in at some point during the 17-day broadcast, even more astounding is that the coverage was considered more “social” than the 2012 Super Bowl, 2012 Grammys, 2012 Oscars, 2012 Golden Globes and all seven games of the 2011 World Series combined, according to social media research company, Bluefin Labs.

More than 100 million Olympic-related posts or comments occurred on Facebook during the Games, and more than 150 million Olympic-related tweets went out.

During this time, athlete fan counts on Facebook and Twitter soared, placing Olympians in the social media spotlight that had not been as prevalent just four years earlier. Athletes like gold medalist Gabby Douglas went from 14,358 Facebook fans on July 27 to over 540,000 fans by the end of the Games.

Were the Olympic committee and the Olympic athletes ready for this sudden social media spotlight? Yes and no. While they may not have been completely prepared, the majority of Olympic athletes used social media to create a huge impact in the coverage of the Games.

In the basic social media policy set forth by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), four pages detail the rules that athletes were to follow while using social media during the Games. Rules such as not posting photos taken in the Olympic Village, getting consent before posting photos of other people and not using the Olympic symbol were put in place to establish a level of control over Olympic social media.

But just this blurb exists to address the content of posts by athletes: “Postings, blogs and tweets should at all times conform to the Olympic spirit and fundamental principles of Olympism as contained in the Olympic Charter, be dignified and in good taste, and not contain vulgar or obscene words or images.” As we saw during the games, this is where the most controversy arose in social media.

The direct contact with the public that was possible through social media made it so that the good, the bad and the ugly were on display for all to see. When Greek Olympian triple-jumper Voula Papachristou posted politically charged videos and a tweet mocking African immigrants, she was expelled from the Olympics immediately. And when U.S. Soccer Olympian Hope Solo called out analyst Brandy Chastain on Twitter for her remarks while commentating a U.S. versus Columbia soccer game, the twittersphere was abuzz. Solo issued an apology without any Olympic Committee consequences.

With the bad comes the good. Many headlines have stated that Usain Bolt “took the gold” in the Olympics social media race because of the growth of his fan counts and the number of times he was mentioned on social media. Michael Phelps gained social media celebrity by posting behind-the-scenes photos of life at the Olympics and an up-close look at his revered medals. The Olympics also resulted in a meme made about gymnast McKayla Maroney’s facial expression after she seemed unimpressed with her silver medal win. And a web video of the U.S. Swim Team singing “Call Me Maybe” also became a viral hit.

Whether the athletes were prepared for the spotlight or not, by the end of the Olympic Games, their social networks became a uniting force for the world. And even with a couple of negative instances, the importance of today’s social media-sphere shone through the Olympics. It’s probably safe to assume that even McKayla is impressed.

 

 

Taylor Griffin is a Public Relations and Social Media Specialist at The Tombras Group

 

 

 

Sources:

http://www.technewsdaily.com/4690-best-of-social-media-from-the-2012-olympics.html

http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2012/08/13/the-social-olympics-top-5-takeaways/

http://www.multichannel.com/article/488515-2012_Olympics_Social_Media_Stoked_NBCU_s_Ratings_Digital_Performance.php

Community Journalism In The Wake Of The Dark Night Massacre

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The Tombras Group’s Senior VP and Director of Public Relations and Social Media, Laura Mansfield Bower, shares her thoughts on the way social media is changing how news breaks and where we see it first in an opinion editorial featured in the Knoxville News Sentinel.  Here’s an excerpt:

The collision of traditional journalism and citizen journalism has given rise to a mashup of the two: community journalism. Social media is that community — a blended family of media outlets and individual news junkies. This “shared media” is fueled by emotion, particularly when that emotion is extreme. Anger, elation and grief drive social commentary.

Read the full post here: Social media has transformed how we process the news

 

Charlie Tombras Speaks Digital

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Photo by Saul Young/News Sentinel

The Tombras Group’s President & CEO, Charlie Tombras, is profiled in an extensive article in the Knoxville News Sentinel. The story describes the ad agency’s evolution during Tombras’ 46-years-and-counting career. He’s still exploring uncharted waters both personally and professionally. Here’s an excerpt with his perspective on digital.

Balancing traditional creative with new digital:

I like to say we’re connecting data and creativity for business results. What we’re doing is really reaching out to our clients’ customers across all kinds of platforms both traditional (radio, television, outdoor and newspaper), guerrilla (bus wraps, signs on side of buildings, nailed cars being placed around the state) and then Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, microsites, websites, mobiles sites and apps. We’re developing integrated digital and traditional brand campaigns for clients, and then we’re engaging our clients’ customers across all those platforms and getting them so engaged that we can capture data from those people.

On measuring results:

I went to a three-month course in 1967 at the Harvard graduate school of business for future advertising agency presidents. It was taught by Harvard graduate school professors who said at the time the Holy Grail of advertising was being able to measure results. Digital has allowed us to do that. We’re putting custom URLs and phone numbers on all of our ads now. We’re able to track everything that we do digitally so that we can measure the ROI on everything that we’re doing for our clients. We’ve got a whole analytics department that never existed before, with people who do nothing but measure results for our clients.

The changing ad cycle:

In the old days, you could run a campaign. You could create it, produce it, plan it and place it and then you could sort of sit back and maybe plan next year’s campaign. It was what I call “the plan it and forget it,” and those days are long gone in the successful advertising agency business. You no longer plan it and forget it. You constantly optimize. You’re measuring everything that you do every week. You’re constantly trying different messages. You’re constantly remeasuring the results, and you’re constantly fine-tuning and tweaking the program. So it never ends. The buy never ends.

How digital provides value:

I like it because it makes us not only responsible but also accountable for producing specific, tangible business results for our clients. And so I think we’re providing a real value now. There was an old saying in advertising when I first started in the business that half of what you spent was wasted. The problem was you didn’t know which half was wasted. Now, really none of the money is wasted. In fact, you’re constantly measuring what you’re getting for it and even improving it.

Read the full article here: Ad man Charlie Tombras meets the challenge

Viddy: Fun-Sized Videos

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Think about the evolution of social media. There has been a shift in how much information we consume at any given time. From blogging to micro-blogging, the move from king-size amounts of content to fun-size pieces is directly related to the onslaught of new information we see each time our social feeds are refreshed. With the power of a video production studio on our smart phones, applications like Viddy are trying to make room for video sharing in our daily social routine.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, is a 15-second video worth 140 characters?

Viddy is a video-sharing app for iPhones that allows users to record and produce videos within a 15-second time constraint, similar to Twitter’s 140-character limitation and Instagram’s square crop box. Form is no stranger to creativity. The success of platforms like Twitter and Instagram is a testament to the harmonious relationship social media has with content parameters.

Who’s on Viddy?

While micro-video sharing is a burgeoning concept, it has attracted the attention of celebrities and brands trying to get a leg up on the next big social movement. You can find Bill Cosby and Justin Bieber trying to leverage Viddy for self-promotion. Big name early adopters, Linkin Park and Snoop Dogg have their very own branded filters on the app. Forward-thinking brands are using it as a tool to share tidbits of relevant video that have a low-budget, user-generated feel. Red Bull UK, with its niche in action sports, fits very well within the confines of Viddy, posting “Viddys” from a Red Bull-sponsored BMX event. Other brands using the app include Southwest Airlines, giving followers a brief glimpse of the airline’s various destinations.

To Viddy or not to Viddy?

As content continues to flood our feeds, it will have to evolve to earn the eyes of an audience already on information overload. Like all social media channels, clutter is inevitable; however, users seek relevant content. The key is to figure out what your social audience wants to see. Is it a potential vacation spot? Is it a quick behind-the-scenes tour of a facility? Viddy is yet another tool that allows brands to connect with audiences seeking more than just words. The Tombras Group is on Viddy, are you?

Participation in Viddy won’t guarantee success, but it could be useful as micro-videos gain popularity.

 

Chance Vineyard is a Social Media Specialist at The Tombras Group.

 

 

 

 

The Hunger Games: A Social Media Metaphor

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The movie lived up to the hype as an out-of-the-blocks blockbuster with a $155 million opening weekend, making it the most successful non-sequel debut ever. The first “Twilight” movie’s $69.6 million weekend opener pales in comparison. Everyone is talking about “The Hunger Games” –- the first of the three-part franchise based on The New York Times bestselling books by Suzanne Collins. The trilogy is the literary heir apparent to both “Twilight” and “Harry Potter,” not to mention “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.”

So what can this genre-bending teen fiction series teach us about social media?

In a word: plenty. In fact it’s the quintessential social media metaphor. Just as Katniss Everdeen is the reluctant catalyst for a revolution, “The Hunger Games” is an unwitting microcosm of social networking.

There are cameras everywhere, recording the slightest nuance of Katniss and the other Hunger Games tributes, selected to represent their districts in a fight-to-the-death, gladiator-style reality show. The world is tuned in and watching the real-time smack down as it plays out in a climate-controlled, simulated ecosystem, designed to test the mettle of the child warriors while providing a titillating viewer experience. It’s a mashup of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and web-enabled TV with live-streaming video 24/7.  There’s also the ominous threat of Big Brother lurking at every turn, so be careful what you say, do, tweet, post …

And what of our insatiable appetite for blood, gore and romance in real time?

We get that from our Twitter stream on a daily basis. Our feed is literally our IV to world news, politics, sports, natural disasters and flour attacks on D-List celebrities.  And it’s real, right? We don’t want anything inauthentic or contrived. Never mind that the spontaneous wildfire that forces Katniss to flee is computer generated and controlled by the Gamemakers, just like the pack of vicious mutant dogs. We want to feel, experience and empathize as part of a shared community. The annual Hunger Games are digital voyeurism for the corrupt Capitol residents as well as the denizens of the downtrodden districts, who look like extras from “Grapes of Wrath.” Henry Fonda would have been right at home in District 12.

The Hunger Games are authentic, unscripted drama. That’s social media, right?

Just as sponsors pick favorites from among the tributes to gift with balms and bread, advertisers reward influential bloggers and tweeters with endorsements. It’s how the games are played.

And like our heroine and hero, Katniss and Peeta, social media is still pure, still well intentioned and naive. Grassroots movements like Occupy Wall Street take hold and flourish on social networks. The sparks of real-life revolutions in Egypt and Libya were ignited via Twitter and Facebook, just as the tiny flames of revolution are flickering at the end of the first “Hunger Games” book and movie. Something is up. The Girl on Fire is an unstoppable force. The collective consciousness has been raised. The masses are mobilizing, one person at a time. Change is in the air, tweeted by the Mockingjays. It’s ambient around us. As we teeter on the verge of viral combustion, may the odds be ever in your favor.

Director of Public Relations and Social Media

 

Laura Bower is Vice President and Director of Public Relations and Social Media for The Tombras Group.

 

 

@Daytona500

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SPRINT CUP driver Brad Keselowski (@keselowski) finished 32nd at the 2012 Daytona 500, but years from now—in Trivial Pursuit games and bar room bets, he’ll be the one talked about instead of race winner Matt Kenseth (@mattkenseth).

Why? Because of three words; “Fire. My view.”  Keselowski tweeted that from his #2 Miller Lite Dodge during a two-hour red flag delay during the race. The first live tweet from a stock car on the track in history.

“@keselowski Fire. My view.”

Now, before you go calling the authorities to complain about texting and driving, know that a NASCAR red flag means the cars are parked with the engines shut down. The drivers were stopped on the track so officials could repair a portion of the track where fellow driver Juan Pablo Montoya (@jpmontoya) lost control of his car during a caution lap and crashed into a jet dryer. Yup. A jet dryer. That’s a story all it’s own. But the problem with jet dryers is that they actually burn jet fuel. The jet fuel is the flame that Keselowski saw from behind the wheel of his stock car.

But Keselowski might have started the biggest fire of the night via Twitter. During the delay he took advantage of the downtime to reach out to his 60,000+ followers, a number that, according to The Huffington Post, grew to more than 200,000 by the next morning. He went on to respond to his followers about where he kept his phone (his pocket) and how much battery life he had left (60% at the start of the delay, 28% by the time it was over). He was also quick to tweet that he was okay after getting caught up in a wreck himself. “Nothing we could do there… Never saw the wreck till we were windshield deep.”

The next day, the media was ablaze (sorry, couldn’t resist) with Keselowski’s in-car tweeting. Was tweeting from your stock car wrong? Would NASCAR bust him? Nope.  @NASCAR— NASCAR’s official Twitter handle posted: “Nothing we’ve seen from Brad violates any current rules pertaining to the use of social media during races. As such, he won’t be penalized.” Even better they followed that tweet with: “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.” That’s a far cry from the NFL who  banned Tweeting from players and personnel from 90 minutes before kickoff until post-game interviews are completed.

Then again, the NFL isn’t suffering from the same drop in popularity and viewership that NASCAR has in the last several years. The best thing that could have happened to NASCAR would have been if its most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@dalejr), made a last-lap pass for the victory. That almost happened. He finished second. But the next best thing happened—in140 characters or less.

 

@charlieandrews is a vp/creative director @thetombrasgroup and has worked on NASCAR accounts for more than a decade.

 

 

Utilizing Google+ For Your Brand’s SEO

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At this point everyone is likely familiar with Google +. Whether you have a Google + page or not, you’re aware of its differences and similarities with Facebook. Circles, hangouts, and +1s are becoming terms you no longer have to explain to people. Recently Google + made pages available to brands, with a few restrictions, of course. The most important of which says that brands can’t add people to their circles until someone adds them first. So what does this mean for your brand?

It means that people are figuring out what niche they want the newest of the social media regime to fill. They are allocating specific roles to Facebook, Twitter and Google +. This sort of specialization is what allows the networks to thrive in conjunction rather than in direct competition of each other. For example, if Facebook is what you’re thinking, and Twitter is what you’re doing, then Google + might be how you’re feeling. Another way of segmenting your message may be that Twitter is more for check-ins from third party apps, while Facebook is more of a narrative, and Google + is for sharing your internet habits. Regardless of how you segment your networks, it’s important to note that the availability of multiple networks and audiences will ensure that people always have an alternative, which keeps all three of them on their toes.

What Google + has going for it is its ties back to all the previous, current, and future Google products that are available, specifically its search. While brands have been curious to see how a G+ page would affect search results for their company names and keywords, Google has kept its musings on the subject fairly close to the vest. What we are seeing is Google’s +1 service showing up in their search results. These internet rankings, similar to a Facebook Like allow users to advocate web pages from searches they do. From the get go, we assumed that pages with more +1s would rank higher in a Google search of a similar term, what we weren’t sure of is how much a brand’s Google + page would alter the search results of that page. As it turns out, a lot!

On a quick search for McDonald’s, which obviously has a Google + page, the results are clear that a brand’s Google + page carries weight. This notion goes hand-in-hand with what the search giant has been doing to integrate Google Places into their searches as well. What’s clear is that Google doesn’t mind tooting its own horn and rewarding those brands (and people) who integrate their Google services. Much like having your TV, radio, and outdoor campaigns work together to promote your brand, if social media is right for you, Google is clearly willing to help you coordinate your Google +, Google Places and now your restaurant recommendations with its recent purchase of Zagat. While Google is happy to offer its services for free, it seems just as willing to promote its own products via collaboration, and why wouldn’t it?

These tactics are all individual ingredients to the recipe of an effective brand image, each one carries its own weight and each one acts in complement with the rest; social media, traditional media, and search, as well as the facets of each one. In short, make use of all the marketing tactics that make sense to your brand; no more, no less.

 

Cole Mauer is a Social Media Specialist at The Tombras Group.