Below the Line

Rumours of Facebook apps' death have been greatly exaggerated

Back in April, New Media Age* reported that branded apps on Facebook were struggling to attract users. While I do think that any brand getting ready to jump on the bandwagon must offer something truly unique, engaging and relevant to make any headway, branded apps still hold possibilities on Facebook.

Though the initial investment to create and promote an app, according to NMA, is anywhere between £2k and  £30k, brands should take a long-term view. Perhaps this is why Facebook is now reporting on monthly active users, rather than daily active users. Do you really care if your users are interacting with your app every single day?

Take a look at how the apps NMA reported on are doing now (below). MTV, which looked like a loser at 115 daily active users, looks to have gained a following. Even if you assume it was 115 different people each day over the course of the month (say 3,450 daily users), they have experienced a 50% jump in numbers in six+ months.

Other apps, such as Woolworths' Catapult Game and Handbag.com have failed to gain ground.

The lesson is that, while Facebook apps may be a risk, don't give up on them (or fire your agency prematurely!). Some may take time to gain a following. 

*NMA's site requires registration.

Three ways to stand out

Sometimes to make your message stand out, you need to think big, think outside the box and take risks. Here are three ideas to get you started:

Beautiful but temporary. This guy creates massive sand art at low tide, and it's gone by high tide. Just watch the first 10 seconds of this video as it shows a few clips of his work. While the physical work of art is ephemeral, it lives on online. It’s like a cooler version of crop circle advertising.

Tacky but attention getting. Advertise your product with body art – just make sure it’s appropriate for your audience.

Big and bold. Who could forget the Sony Bravia ads: the bouncy balls, the paint explosion and the foam bubbles? These were developed to illustrate product features in a totally new way. The viral aspect included watching the ads on you tube, and the 'making of' videos had as many or more views than the ads themselves.

Online Marketing and Media: seven easy lessons for sharper online marketing

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently attended the Online Media and Marketing conference in London. I attended a seminar held by Alex Burmaster, a European Business Analyst from Nielsen Online. Here are some of the “lessons” he was offering:

1. Understand the bigger picture. You are probably a small part of someone’s online experience. While in previous years, there was room for every online business to grow, now you need to steal market share.

People are becoming more habitual and are visiting 10% fewer sites than they did last year. Some exceptions are coupon/reward sites – these have seen their audiences grow by 70% in the UK.

2. Know thy audience. There are twice as many people online who are over 50 versus under 18. According to Nielsen, this is how internet usage in the UK stacks up by age:

• 2 - 17 years old - 4.2 million
• 18 - 24 years old - 4.2 million
• 25 - 34 years old - 7 million
• 35 - 49 years old - 9.6 million
• 50 + years old - 9.2 million

It was also interesting to see where those with the highest incomes were spending time online. These are the top 10 sites visited by people with a household income of £50K+ in the UK:

1. Holiday rentals
2. Home web sites
3. Toptable
4. View London
5. Bank of Scotland
6. Companies House
7. LinkedIn
8. Monarch Airlines
9. Hilton
10. Inter Continental Hotels Group

3. Harness the power of video. Every product you have should have a demo video. Videos are viral, engaging, digestible and search friendly.

4. Harness the third screen – mobile. The average uplift for campaigns using mobile is 13%. For B2B, it’s 4%. Location-based GPS has an audience of 1,273,000 in the UK, and 2% of UK mobile subscribers.

5. Listen to what consumer-generated media tells you. It’s worth noting that 54% of people posting opinions about a brand first attempted to contact the brand by e-mail – so get your customer service right!

6. Act on it. Give people a chance to tell you what they think directly. Have a link on your site for customer testimonials.

7. Go the distance.

I Don't Feel Like Dancin'

Is creating a brand dance a new trend? Here are three examples of companies who have tried to get customers engaged with their brand through dance. Just think what would happen if they combined their brand dance with a brand scent!

Lambrini

Becks

Comfort

Comfort has even released the single to this song on iTunes and was given to club DJs to incorporate into their live sets.

Digital Serfdom: I want my UGC

If content is king, then why are the content creators being treated as serfs?

The content creators (serfs) are doing countless hours of labour, just for the right to “live” on the content distributors’ (landholders’) “land”. While in the feudal system, serfs earned a percentage of the product they produced, today’s digital serfs merely occupy server space – in most cases, they don’t see a penny of the digital landholders’ profits.

This market evolution is already having an effect on the creative industry. For instance, The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, which operates on revenues from fees based on a percentage of member income, is facing an increasing operating deficit. The Guild has the same number of members, but revenues are down significantly. What this means, is that British writers, on the whole, are making less money.

Meanwhile, Google has been accused of trouncing on writers’ rights by digitizing books still under copyright – thereby reducing residual income to writers.

Actors in Britain are also suffering with a union that is too weak to enforce a fair deal for rights to re-use content in online media. For example, ITV recently announced it is putting ads on its broadband streaming download service. The IPA raised a concern last year about actors’ and musicians’ rights. ITV’s response? Wait a year, and do it anyway.

If you or your clients make money off the back of user-generated content, I urge you to think about fair compensation for content creators. They are not all kids sitting around with free time and a camcorder; and actually, they shouldn’t be. Don’t you want the best creative talent to contribute to your site? Talent is worth paying for. If you don’t think so, then walk down the hall and ask your copywriter if he’ll write your next campaign for free.

We all think we’re getting something for nothing with UGC, but the reality is we’re contributing to a system that is making it difficult for creative artists to make a living. We need to encourage talent and create a model that is sustainable for content distributors, online advertisers and content creators – instead of just fattening up digital landowners like YouTube with its Google billions.

Free content comes at a price.