THE brand.intelligence™ » Bigger Picture

LABEL is assisting the Nestlé Creating Shared Value Forum

John Horniblow — Thu, 27 May 2010 06:50:18 +0000

Nestlé launched the Creating Shared Value concept at the United Nations in New York in 2009, and on Thursday 27 May 2010 Nestlé is co hosting the second Creating Shared Value Forum with the International Business Leaders’ Forum in participation with the UN Office for Partnerships. The Forum gathers world’s leading experts in the areas of nutrition, water and rural development to discuss the serious global challenges facing all of us in these three areas, and the role of business in solving them.

While the Forum is being webcast live on www.nestle.com ( from 09:45 to 18:00 CET ) the live audience has the opportunity to ask questions to the panelists or participate in parallel debate online. LABEL is assisting the Nestlé Creating Shared Value Forum and its team in hosting the debate on www.creatingsharedvalue.org

Important links
Creating Shared Value
Creating Shared Value Forum live webcast
Online Debate on Creating Shared Value Forum

Lift10: Maria Sipka from linqia, LABEL’s sister company, speaks about brands & online communities

Sthome — Thu, 20 May 2010 08:35:48 +0000

Companies and brands have been quick to adapt to social marketing principals and delve beyond the banner advertisement. Online communities present a significant opportunity to engage people around a topic they care about. Whilst many brands are building their own communities online such as Nike+, BeingGirl and Lego, human beings will spend their time and attention across multiple communities. So how does a brand capitalize on their own community and participate in other like minded communities?

LIFT10 – Brands and Online Communities from netinfluenceChannel on Vimeo.

The video was made by netinfluence at Lift 10 where Maria was giving a workshop about the challenges brands face to edge their way into the sacred space of conversation. Download her presentation on Slideshare and retrieve the pictures of her workshop on our Facebook.

LABEL honoured as one of the 50 business success stories by Bilan

John Horniblow — Tue, 18 May 2010 10:03:46 +0000

The Swiss commerce and economics magazine Bilan named LABEL as one of the 50 Success stories for Swiss companies characterised by their spirit of innovation and their original approaches to the challenges they take on. Being the recipient of this honour, we at LABEL, couldn’t agree more. The shift in consumer media consumption patterns due to digital convergence is having profound changes on all publishers of media from music, print, TV and advertisers and it requires an innovative approach. The importance and growth of digital media through the internet, mobile, gaming networks, digital display advertising, kiosks, and other devices is undisputed. Digital media surrounds us everywhere.

” I was persuaded that it was necessary to associate marketing and new technologies back in the 1990’s . Today, the rise of the digital and social media marketing and the importance of social networks in advertising and communications confirms this.” Arnaud Grobet (41 years) founded LABEL in 2000. Since then, the LABEL group has been a leader and has been at the forefront of this change. In 2008, the company acquired MARVEL Communications, which added its experience as a leader in the multimedia and internet communications to the LABEL group.

The Secret of its success: ” During ten years people used to looked at me as though I was crazy. Today we are ahead of our competitors.”

10 Essential Elements for a Successful Facebook Page

John Horniblow — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:08:04 +0000

In the past year Facebook saw an unprecedented growth worldwide and there is no current indication that this growth will stop in 2010 or beyond. (New estimates show it is fast approaching 500 million users.) Brands, companies and organisations cannot ignore the network effect driving Facebook’s and other social networks adoption across the world. Its no longer a matter of asking whether they should be involved in this media it’s a matter of when and how they can becoe involved. LABEL recommends that elements of social media marketing and communications should be included as digital touchpoints that support traditional communications channels for any brand, company or organization today.

LABEL has put together a list the top brand and company pages of today, drawn upon a number of research sources to identify the trends and tactics that are driving successful consumer engagement in Facebook. Knowing what works and how to behave in this environment is very important so we present the what and how of managing successful fan, consumer engagement and dialogue that also can be applied across other social media as well.

1. It has a goal – and it accomplishes it.
“Presence” is not just about having a Facebook ( fan )page
# What is the goal of your page? Do you want to bring in more foot traffic to your store front? Do you want more visitors to your website? Do you want to simply get more people to know that you exist? Your goal will determine how you use your fan page. If you’re trying to increase brand awareness, you need a lot of fans and a lot of content. If you’re trying to bring in more foot traffic to a physical location, you need to show lots of pictures of your products and push out information about specials and sales. If you want more website traffic, you need to include links to your site and entice people to click. If its a product or brand promotion page you need to introduce compelling and relevant content about the brand – pictures , videos, experiential or special interest information.

2. Its management combines automation and interaction.
There are lots of great applications that will let you post to your fan page automatically, without ever stepping a digital foot onto Facebook. This allows for content distribution. Administrators don’t want to post a blog, then go to Facebook and post it there, then go to Twitter and post it there, then Youtube etc.

3.Networking with other platforms
As published by Mashable
Building a large following requires a network of other platforms, ( content distributors) working in conjunction to drive visitors to your fan page.

Victoria’s Secrets PINK landing page has a link to their Facebook fan page, MySpace (MySpace) profile. They leverage the traffic on their website and pushes them to their Facebook fan page.

# Never expect your consumers on Facebook to find you automatically. More often than not, a consumer will stumble upon the page, either through a friend or from a hub. Connecting multiple social platforms and a hub from the brand website, can help funnel consumers throughout the network.

4. Creating a unique resource
Adapted from Mashable
Some pages are used as connection hubs, but others offer information pertinent to their consumers. They use the information as added value or can’t be found elsewhere to have consumers create a connection with the brand.
# Offering a resource page often allows a brand to target a new demographic, outside of those that already know and love the brand or company.

5. Engage consumers into activities that include participation
# For brands that want fan pages to have added value (a reason for users to join the page, aside from brand loyalty), but don’t want to become a resource portal; offering polls, promotional contests or even coupons specifically to Facebook users will entice consumers to join.
Offering something to consumers to join can help build a large community. Some examples of things to offer: Polls, Competitions, Coupons, Engaging apps, Shareable content etc.

6. Respond to consumers enquiries by providing a consumer services or social response
# For brands that want fan pages to have added value (a reason for users to join the page, aside from brand loyalty), but don’t want to become a resource portal; offering polls, promotional contests or even coupons specifically to Facebook users will entice consumers to join.

Brand or company responsiveness should be underpinned by services that provides a needs and relationship based response. Facebook, Twitter, social media efforts are defined to the end user as a social place – a place where they expect (and demand) interaction from the business, organisations or brands. That’s why they are on your fan page in the first place.

7. It’s not a dead end. Engage them to do something.
Major brands are beginning to go out on a limb and make social sites their corporate websites # Skittles. Provide a follow through action for the fan (i.e., potential or existing customer) to do something, move onto somewhere, to your store front or your website, traditionally known as a call to action.

Based on your goal in having the fan page, what is the next step you want the fan to take? Be sure to provide the information for taking that step prominently.
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8. It has personality.
The fun of social media is getting to show that your organisation, business, or brand has a human side.
Do not write ad copy. No one wants to read lifeless, monotone sentences.
Think about where you are: Fan page updates are smack in the middle of someone’s news feed. You’re sandwiched between the photos of someone’s family or friends photos and an event invitation to a dinner party.

9. It’s consistent. Content and Consistency
“content is king” and “consistency is king”
In traditional advertising, it’s called frequency.
In branding, it’s called top of mind awareness.
In social media and relationship marketing it’s consistency.
Based on the frequency of communications and compelling content.
# And it is so critical to social media success “ Consistency breeds loyalty, and loyalty breeds true fans.
LABEL recommends a frequency of an update approx * 15 days. (Based on a frequency of update of Facebook’s top performing brand or product pages)

10. It embraces its fans ( those who “Like” it )

The worldwide status of Social Networks – Notes and Statistics on the Internationalisation of Social Media

John Horniblow — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:34:32 +0000

The most important reason for the meteoric growth of Social Networks is something called “The Network Effect”. This equates to a tipping point when the value of a communications network to its users rises exponentially with the number of people connected to it. In the past year, we have witnessed one such rising star, Facebook ( but it begs the question is it the only one? ). It took 5 years for Facebook to reach 150 million users and then a further 8 months to double that number. Today, according to Facebook Statistics, it has 400 million users. In 2009 we saw Facebook become almost ubiquitous in every conversation swirling around Social Media and social networks. It was the year in which Facebook exploded into a global phenomena, dominating the Social Networking market worldwide as it became an international social network giant. While its dominated the english speaking press and displaced MySpace its not the only Social Network in the world.

To believe that Facebook or english speaking social networks are the only “players in Social networks” worldwide would be nothing short of one sided owed to very narrow perspective of the hyper connected world we live in. According to Wikipedia, there are some 1.5 billion members worldwide. Across the world there a number of culturally, language, local and regionally driven social networks , that both singularly and accumulatively pose the question whether Facebook can dominate the world in Social Networking. As startling as it is, the ” Facebook Network Effect” is not only a Facebook phenomena and its also occurring across other Social Networks in the world , albeit with different speeds.

So lets look at some of the Facebook statistics and the insights they bring.

Facebook Top growth by country – Dec 31st 2009

Facebook usage by % population of country – Dec 31st 2009

Demark and Norway while not in the top 25 countries reveal even high % population penetration

Norway Facebook users = 2,256,080 % population = 48.5%

Denmark Facebook users = 2,262,260 % population = 42 %

Some of the insights coming out of Facebook’s 2009 growth are :

The 35+ demographic now represents more than 30% of the entire user base
The 55+ audience grew enormously at 922.7% in 2009
Facebook’s largest user base, US, grew from 42 m to 103 m in 2009, a 144.9% growth rate
SE Asia reprsents and huge growth potential – Indonesia grew to 14.1 m a 1536.7% growth rate , Philippines grew to 8.4 m a 2046.8% growth rate in 2009
Taiwan’s user base grew to 5,490,300 a 4763% growth rate in 2009
Facebook accounts for 7% of all time spent online in the U.S, 111.9 million US visitors in December 2009 double that of December 2008
In Orkut’s biggest markets (Brazil, India ) Facebook saw growth ( number of users and number of users relative to population, however, is still very low )
Facebook has almost colonized Europe and it is extending its domination with more than 80 millions users at the start of 2010
Facebook is growing well in Africa amongst the internet connected population

A review of State of Social Media World from the international perspective shows some other great observations of the growth and importance of Social Networks across the globe.

Italian Vincenzo Cosenza’s blog , Vinco, publishes a visual map of the worlds social networks upon which can see the changing geographical spread of social networks. Facebook in the past nine months has seemingly homogenised the map somewhat. However, our research indicates that in some countries the map may not be correct and it hard to get an accurate number of the exact numbers. In India , Orkut still ranks as the number one social network , and while Facebook enjoyed good growth and made inroads into the Philippines and Indonesia, Friendster still dominates the SE Asia region. So the light green spread of Facebook indicated on Vincenzo’s map remains relevant in the Americas, Europe, Australia and Africa. It is worthwhile noting that in the South East African countries there are new social networks being created that we predict will compete significantly against Facebook in countries outside of South Africa.

“South Africa has shown for years that social networks in Africa will be run over mobile phones in the future. Mxit in South Africa, a mobile social network application with more than 5 million members, lets one engage in a community independently from location and time.

According to Appfrica, South Africa has 1.1 million Facebook members, Morocco 369,000, Tunisia 279,000, Nigeria 220,000, Kenya 150,000,and Mauritius 60,000. It is also Appfrica who presents an interesting little project, where Ugandans can interact Facebook through their mobile phones: Status.ug is a completely mobile gateway for Ugandans to also interact on Facebook. Appfrica estimates around 60,000 Facebook registered members in the Kampala area. Erik Hersman wrote on his blog about Sembuse, East Africa’s first mobile social network “Sembuse is a mobile social network. It’s a way for East Africans to connect with each other via short messaging, cheaper than normal SMS messages (much like it’s counterpart Mxit in South Africa).” # extract taken from The Next Billion – The Rise of Social Network Sites in Developing countries by Christian Kreutz

In other parts of Africa Facebook continues to grow the following table showing user numbers in Africa was complied by Possicon from the Webtrends Nigeria blog

Around Africa

Countries	Facebook Users	Internet Users	% penetration
Egypt	2,573,080	12,600,000	20.4
South Africa	2,389,560	4,600,000	51.9
Morocco	1,275,780	10,300,000	12.4
Tunisia	1,136,880	2,000,000	56.8
Nigeria	1,029,300	11,000,000	9.4
Kenya	554,380	3,400,000	16.3
Ghana	354,380	997,000	35.5

” Egypt has overtaken South Africa as the largest country with Facebook users in Africa, though Facebook penetration in Egypt is much lower than south Africa, it show that there is room for more growth. For now, South Africa’s Facebook users seem to have reach climax as the growth rate is almost flattened. With the table above, Tunisia has the highest penetration up 11% from last November of 45%, given the number of internet users in Tunisia, the growth might not last for too long before it stops. Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria are the top countries in terms of Internet users and as such, we should expect growth from these countries. Morocco has just 12.4% of its internet population on Facebook while Nigeria with 9.4%. Ghana also shows a good Facebook penetration but insignificant as its internet users are still hinging below 1 million mark.” # extract taken from Web Trends Nigeria

Using this map and a number of other sources LABEL .THE Brand.intelligence company came up with a conclusive picture of what the regional and local competition is for Facebook around the world.

Facebook’s Regional and Cultural Competition as of 31st Dec 2009

Qzone – 200 m users as of 31.01.09 , reportedly 300m as Dec 2009 , Main land China- more that 150 m monthly active users
Myspace – 130 m users – 115 m monthly active users, 15 languages has some 5 million artists and bands on MySpace Music and has plans to increase the development as a entertainment content network
Friendster - 115 m users – 61m unique users per month and 19 billion pages views per month predominantly SE Asia Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India
Orkut - *100 m users – 48 languages – 51.09 m user Brazil , 20.02m users in India , 17.28m user in US.
hi5 - 80m users – 50 languages, main demographics 18 – 34 ( 67% of users ) *15m Mexico, *10.5m Thailand, *7m Peru, *7m Portugal, India, Latam , big interest in developing social games and entertainment content
Vkontakte - 61 m users- Russian (cyrillic ) speaking world inc. Eastern Europe , is a Facebook clone.
Cyworld - *16.2 m users – 33% of total population of Sth Korea , 90% of Sth Koreans in their 20’s are members of Cyworld.
Bebo - 40 m users – languages English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Polish
Maktoob- 36 m users, Middle East, bought by Yahoo , Aug 2009 combining 16m Maktoob users with 20m Yahoo users, originally an email service that has extended into social network and news content
Hyves – 9m users , The Netherlands only , 53% of total population of The Netherlands are registered users
iWiW – 4m users, Hunagry only, 40% of total population of Hungary are registered user through invite only

Sources : Alexa, Google,Kohl, Orkut, hi5, NYtimes, Techcrunch, iwiw blog vkontakte.ru, Maktoob
* Estimated user numbers

The numbers are significant and tell us that language, culture, location are strong determinants in the Social Network world. What is obvious is that while MySpace lost its dominance in the english speaking world it has a very special offering in music and youth culture that means its still a powerful force in social networks.

QQ, leader in China, is possibly the largest social network of the world (300 millions active accounts)
MySpace has lost its leadership everywhere (except in Guam)
VKontakte is the most popular in Russian (Cyrillic language) territories
Friendster still dominates SE Asia , while Facebook has seen high growth in this region in 2009
Orkut ( owned by Google) remains dominant in India and Brazil with Facebook making small and growing progress
Hi5 is still leading in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and other scattered countries such as Portugal, Mongolia, Romania
Maktoob ( bought by Yahoo in 2009) is the most important Arab community/portal and growing very fast , 6 million unique visitors in June 2008 to 21.8 million a year later
Cyworld, Hyves, iWiW, One, and other language or country specific social networks have user numbers that are very high % of population and maybe hard to compete with

The following chart is a ranking provided by Vinco on what social networks dominate in , what are arguably, the top ten Social media markets worldwide. The interesting note we have here is on the emergence of Twitter. It still has a long way to go for worldwide acceptance , however, it is important to note Twitter has spawned over 50,000 apps that tie into the service.

Books for the New Year

MC Casal — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:38:11 +0000

Here comes the New Year with its load of good resolutions. Beside stopping smoking, registering to the ridiculously expensive fitness club at the corner and promising to celebrate Valentine’s Day elsewhere than on the sofa watching a pointless TV series, many have promised themselves to launch in a frenetic rythm of « useful » reading (free papers don’t belong in this category…).

Here I could discuss a never-ending quantity of books a good webdesigner, creative, strategic planner and any other person whose job is related to the Web and social media could purchase. No way! However I can share with you a few very interesting publications, which will bring you happiness and inspiration over the long winter nights.

I chose to build various themes, so that any one of you can quickly find one or more books to purchase or to offer.

The Great Masters, those worth reading once a year

BOB GILL

Buy on Amazon

BOB GILL - Graphic Design as a Second Language

PAUL ARDEN

Buy on Amazon

PAUL ARDEN - any book you find

SAUL BASS

It is very difficult to find publications specially dedicated to Saul BASS. Even his mythical DVD, in which he talks about his art of Title Design seems impossible to find. YouTube withdrew it for infringement of copyrights. Check out books compiling some of his works or the site listing his work on Title Design. The uncontested initiator of contemporary graphic design.

SAUL BASS

MARTIN PARR

For the creative mind, it is normal to get inspiration in every form of art – well that’s my point of view. Before even touching a computer (or before computers invaded our homes), I used to use miles and miles of film with a Kodak Instamatic and other cameras. Take your inspiration from photography! Martin PARR is one of those photographers you can’t get enough of!
Buy on Amazon

MARTIN PARR - by Val Williams

PAUL RAND

Buy on Amazon

PAUL RAND - by Steven Heller

Study cases, campaign cases

Looking at how others work is awe-inspiring. Looking at their creative processes, their briefs, their results… Here are three books, two of them being updated every year, which are real mines of information.

2 KILO – KESSELS KRAMMER

Buy on Amazon

2 KILO - Kessels Krammer

ART DIRECTORS ANNUAL

Buy on Art Directors Club

ART DIRECTORS ANNUAL

DESIGN IN EUROPE

Buy on Design in Europe

DESIGN IN EUROPE

Social Media and Marketing

Since everything is social now and we have the opportunity to get to read the marketing secrets of some of the biggest specialists, here is a sample of the huge amount of publications available.

THE TWITTER BOOK

Buy on O’Reilly

THE TWITTER BOOK - Tim O'Reilly, Sarah Milstein

PURPLE COW, THE BIG MOO

Buy on Amazon

PURPLE COW and others - Seth Godin

THE LONG TAIL

Buy on Amazon

THE LONG TAIL - Chris Anderson

THE TIPPING POINT

Buy on Amazon

THE TIPPING POINT - Malcolm Gladwell

The creative’s inspiration and reference

There’s always a need for a breeze of novelty and inspiration. Often looking at a combination of colors, a shape or an illustration is enough to get back into motion. Get inspired. Improve. Give a new interprétation. Innovate. All these images surrounding us nourish us in the end. Don’t forget : you are the sole master of your own style. Know how to work it without copying.

SERIALIZE

Buy on Amazon

SERIALIZE: Family Faces and Variety in Graphic Design

AN EYE FOR COLOR

Buy on Amazon

AN EYE FOR COLOR - Olga Gutierrez De La Roza

LOS LOGOS 1, 2, 3, 4

The logo bible in 4 volumes heavy as a ton of bricks. Compiled by Büro Destruct. A must have.
Buy on Gestalten

LOS LOGOS - Büro Destruct

OBEY

Let those who have never seen the world-famous red, white and blue portrait of Barak Obama cast the first stone at themselves ! Here is an essential book by Shepard Fairy, a brilliant illustrator, an inimitable style, a treat for the eyes.
Buy on Obey Giant

OBEY - Shepard Fairey

THE ART OF REBELLION 2

Buy on The Art of Rebellion

The Art of Rebellion 2 - Christian Hundertmark

From theory to practice

Here are a few books explaining the jobs in communications, advertising, graphic design and how to go from theory to practice. How to conceptualize, think, learn tricks, jargon and eventually become the 21st century’s Paul Arden. One important thing : follow the rules but think out of the box.

THE ADVERTISING CONCEPT BOOK

Buy on Advertising Concept Book

THE ADVERTISING CONCEPT BOOK - Pete Barry

THE BACK OF THE NAPKIN

Buy on Amazon

THE BACK OF THE NAPKIN - Dan Roam

HOW TO BE A GRAPHIC DESIGNER WITHOUT LOSING YOUR SOUL

Buy on Amazon

HOW TO BE A GRAPHIC DESIGNER WITHOUT LOSING YOUR SOUL - Adrian Shaughnessy

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CREATIVE ADVERTISING

AVA Academia, publishing house, has many other titles that could be of interest to you. Don’t hesitate to have a look at all their publications.
Buy on AVA Academia

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CREATIVE ADVERTISING - Ken Burtenshaw

THE ART OF LOOKING SIDEWAYS

Phaidon Editions publish magnificent, unique books. I recommand another one further down : A smile in the mind.
Buy on Phaidon

THE ART OF LOOKING SIDEWAYS - Alan Fletcher

DESIGNING UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE

I strongly recommend this book. To tempt you, here is a description in English : These questions formed the starting point of the research, which resulted in a report exploring the meaning of ‘universal knowledge’ as well as the process of collecting, structuring, designing, and publishing it. Designers and researchers from different fields have set standards for the classification and design of complex data collections and have thus exerted an enormous influence on how knowledge is communicated.
The report explores this topic as well as the possibilities of ‘universal design’ and presents new approaches to visualize complex information.
Buy on The world as flat land

DESIGNING UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE - Gerlinde Schuller

A SMILE IN THE MIND

Achat sur Phaidon

A SMILE IN THE MIND - Beryl McAlhone

We like the web from every angle

I’m really into webdesign. I’m also into ergonomy and usability. Books on theory are important but nothing is better than experience and online resources …

ERGONOMIE WEB

Buy on Eyrolles

ERGONOMIE WEB - Amélie Boucher

ONLINE SUCCESS : instructions for use

Buy on Taschen

ONLINE SUCCESS : instructions for use - Julius Wiedemann

TASCHEN WEB COLLECTION

Buy on Taschen

the TASCHEN

In brief…

If you don’t find a book to offer yourself or someone else on this list, come back next year. By then, I will have prepared another collection for your shelves… or to please your nephew.

.

What Brands are making the best use of Facebook?

John Horniblow — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:03:45 +0000

The rise of the importance of the Facebook fan page has become an integral part of companies social media campaigns or presence. Its not hard to understand why. Facebook is the web’s most popular destination after Google ( it is number 1 in Indonesia, Philippines , Malaysia and Singapore ) where the average user spends in the order of 33 minutes per day and its registered user numbers are upwards of 350 million. As the use or entry to a brand’s website are in decline due to a shift in how consumers use the web this days it makes common sense to to add Facebook into the online marketing mix. With number of brand, star, cause or business fans ranging close to 5.3 billion , that means News Feeds to user’s pages are carrying a range of brand content and updates.

View a full review of Facebook’s internal statistics

Last November “The Big Money” part of Slate Magazine, ranked 50 brands that they see as making the best use of Facebook. The ranking is based on factors like number of fans, page growth, frequency of updates, creativity and fan engagement, not just numbers of fans. According to “The Big Money” Coca-Cola is ranked as the brand that makes best use of the social network thanks to its “organic fan-centric page without a corporate feel” and some extremely good apps the currently coin the phrase “Share Happiness” in a campaign to boost the diffusion , awareness and contact with the brand in social media.

On Facebook currently there appears to be no common thread to a brand campaigns or successes in appealing to users. Brands such as Starbuck’s , Papa John’s Pizzas, TGI Fridays all have gained large numbers through a tactical “promotional friending” or free food and drinks in exchange for friendship amongst other tactics. Others with very popular ratings either use the channel for fast paced entertainment updates, customer interactions and feedback, user polls, and contests. “Flavour tournaments” have driven large fans bases for food brands and beverage brands where consumers have been asked to create or give opinions on developing new flavours. The winners in this type of engagement are Pop Tarts, Mountain Dew, and Vitaminwater.

Here are the Top 10 as presented by The Big Money with the current fan numbers as of today:

1. Coca-Cola: 4,153,454 fans
2. Starbucks: 5,519,461 fans
3. Disney: 3,168,184 fans
4. Victoria’s Secret: 2,487,997 & Victoria’s Secret Pink 1,694,619 fans
5. iTunes: 2,770,006 fans
6. Vitaminwater: 1,107,332 fans
7. YouTube: 3,968,571 fans
8. Chick-fil-A: 1,270,161 fans
9. Red Bull: 2,189,685 fans
10. T.G.I. Friday’s: reportedly 974,192 fans
(not verified by our review of fan numbers – 330,459)

Sysomos a social media analytics company analyzed the nearly 600,000 fan pages on Facebook and has produced some very pertinent statistics :

95% of pages have more than 10 fans
65% of pages have more than 100 fans
23% of pages have more than 1,000 fans
4% of pages have more than 10,000 fans
0.76% of pages have more than 100,000 fans
0.047% of pages have more than one million fans (297 in total).

According to Sysomos, Facebook Pages with more than one million fans generate significantly more content than the average Facebook page: Three times more content created by owners/administrators, and 70 times more content created by fans themselves. This will obviously change overtime as the more brands enter into developing Facebook content but these numbers show the investment and content focus os brands willing to win over its fan base in the Facebook environment.

Sysmos concludes “While Facebook Pages have emerged as a popular marketing vehicle for many companies, the landscape appears to be dominated by those focused on pop culture — music, celebrities, television shows, and films. Of the nearly 600,000 Facebook Pages examined by Sysomos, only 297 (or 0.05%) have more than one million fans…… While “Wall posts” can attract a lot of attention, there does not appear to be a significant correlation between the number of Wall posts and the popularity of a page — an active wall doesn’t necessarily imply a popular page.”

Four Great Integrated Marketing Campaigns Using Facebook

John Horniblow — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:34:45 +0000

When it comes to using Facebook as the primary point or integrated into the marketing channels, some brand are beginning to find there feet by working with the endemic functions of the service. Lots of brands have also begun an integrated approach to engaging with their consumers to build buzz, distribution and awareness of their campaigns either through or surrounding Facebook. The reality is that Facebook has become the perfect supplement to any website and online marketing efforts and in some cases become a pivotal or primary focus. While not all efforts are excellent here are some that we think are working extremely well.

IKEA’s Facebook Propagation Planning Campaign has used the concept of tagging in an online competition to support the opening of a new store. Some call it a genius use of one of Facebook’s inherent functions. While some of the best campaign strategies in Facebook are simple, and nothing should be simpler than using the default “tagging” tool on Facebook to help create a bit of buzz for an online competition. Users were drawn to the new Facebook profile page of the store manager, who’d uploaded pictures of his new showrooms in a store Ikea was due to open.

“People were told that the first to tag their name on any item, would win it. With the way tagging works on Facebook, the moment you tagged anything, everyone in your network instantly knew what was up for grabs! Subsequently, thousands and thousands of people were flooding the Facebook page in search of freebies!”

Nespresso makes excellent use of Facebook Connect, Facebook Share and Facebook Fans for its latest commercials featuring George Clooney and John Malkowitz. This is an very well executed integrated campaign that combines traditional TV with the choice of an episodic conclusion online ( that’s not necessarily new ), and then adds the full Facebook services into the online site to ensure and viral distribution via Facebook Friends and Fans. The campaign, while not visible on the online site in the US due to the protection of George’s image, is in full swing across other parts of the world and Nespresso is working its Facebook fan base in a totally engaging way surrounding both its product, coffee machines and its iconic George Clooney commercials.

The full video with one of the episodic ending choices

Dude where’s my Butterfinger Bar When I think of this campaign I am in awe of how well the all the social media marketing channels are integrated. This campaign is outstanding in its consumer engagement and integration across audience points. From Facebook to Youtube / Yahoo video, online games, character blogs, user generated content competitions , Facebook apps, Facebook fan pages, Myspace there seems to be nothing left unanswered in the participatory media types. While Butterfinger has a main website , most of its engagement activity is driven to and by Facebook. When it come to the debate on whether social media brings a return on investment to marketing this campaign closes the debate. Unofficially it has raised Butterfinger share of sales significantly with a healthy double digit growth.

See Butterfinger on Facebook

See Butterfinger’s Youtube channel

Nobody’s Gonna Lay a Finger On My Butterfinger Video Contest

Mountain Dew – DewMocracy is another quite amazing use of Facebook as a key engagement pillar for integrated marketing channels. Based only on the democratic notion of participation Mountain Dew has opened up everything about its brand and product to user generated content for a complete makeover. It uses Facebook ( as well as Youtube) as both a destination and engagement platform with a brilliant use Facebooks apps that act as fully functional flash websites to show off the user creations. The Mountain Dew fan base to engaged into creating new choices for drink flavours, new can designs, new names, new advertising campaigns in nothing short of a complete product overhaul generated by consumers. The results of which have been a stunning experience for the brand as it has been reported that the newly fan created drink flavours, “Voltage”, “Revolution” and “SuperNova” literally flew of supermarket shelves.

Why Marketers Like Twitter More Than Facebook- For The Moment

John Horniblow — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:20:47 +0000

The most interesting thing I read all week in the myriad of information I digest was the posting for eMarketer titled Marketers embrace Twitter over Facebook with and insightful tag line “Follow me” replacing “friend me”? eMarketer reported that “Facebook may have recently passed MySpace as the most-visited social networking site in the US, but it’s facing stiff competition for the attention of social media marketers.” So why is it so interesting for me and why should it interest you?

Marketing and advertising in Facebook is problematic. In fact its inherent culture is anti advertising and its user base have in the past voiced disappointment and disapproval of the introduction of targeted advertising. There is an high emotional attachment to the service as it relates to sharing amongst friends, family, and having fun in a protected environment. They don’t want the intrusion or interruption by advertisers. They will choose whether or not they want to be associated to you. Marketers need to learn a new approach in social networks like Facebook. (In MySpace its a different commercial proposition, brands can advertise and “own” or design their own space. )

I do believe that in the classic brand ownership argument, Facebook - the brand, is owned by it consumers , not the other way round. Facebook does not own it users it provides a service to them . Its how the consumers adopt and use the platform and what the platform provides to them that makes it so successful. Facebook has to be very careful not to upset or dis-enfranchise its consumers or it will suffer dramatically. Selling out its user base to advertisers would lead to its demise. Brands and companies operating in this environment must also be mindful of “adding value” to their fan bases and inspiring some open and fun dialogue that piques their interest. Do not assume that its a broadcast channel for self interest. You have to ask why would you, or someone else for that matter, want to befriend a brand ? What is interesting for me is that Facebook fan pages represent an emotional not a rational connection and affiliation to brands. e.g. I love / like you therefore I want to be associated to you! If you offend this sensibility you will loose your most valuable asset, your loyal and emotionally attached consumer.

Companies that have a adopted a dialogue based publishing or open based communication practices like blogs are more likely to be actively involved in Twitter. They are using it for several purposes: company news, customer service, marketing promotions and even employee recruitment.

I used to think of Twitter as broadcasting or push publishing platform while trying to find a term of reference to describe it, but now that reference has changed. Twitter actually isn’t broadcast or pushcast its a “directcast” or “targetedcast” conversational tool which only reaches those who want that information, as they have opted to follow and receive these conversational or useful snippets of information. The relationship of association is the key. What is clear to me is that if you don’t have anything worthwhile to say, don’t say it. There was an interesting set of statistics released this week by Pear Analytics , based on a sample of Twits and they conclude that for the present:

40 % of Twits were in fact “Pointless babble” or dribble

37.5% were conversational

8.7% were of Pass Along Value.

The underlying warning I see in these figures is that those companies or individuals who use is it solely as an avenue for broadcast with content that has no value or conversational worth risk that their message will fall upon on deaf ears or closed eyes. Their followers will ultimately tune out and detract over time . This is not unlike the woes confronting conventional advertising today. Its not all about broadcast anymore, stop shouting, stop interrupting !!

Linqia nominated for TechCrunch Awards

John Horniblow — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:43:21 +0000

Today LABEL’s sister company, linqia was nominated for a TechCrunch European Award in the category The Europas: Best Startup Founder(s) (EMEA). Maria Sipka, linqia’s founder was recognized amongst a select group of startup founders across Europe. Maria is the former Director of Community Building at XING and leads Linqia’s world-class team of social media specialists on a focus of monetizing and optimizing social networks, online communities and groups.

LABEL has invested in Starfish Community Group and has signed an exclusive partnership to jointly develop Social Media Products and Services. Starfish Community Group’s vision is to facilitate connections and transactions between commercial partners to key decision makers of online social networks, communities and groups, enabling content, advertising, sponsorship, partnership and value based opportunities to reach pockets of highly targeted people. LABEL represents Starfish and linqia in Switzerland.

Voting for the award can be made at TechCrunch