A fan page that Sprout created for beauty product manufacturer, Living Proof, has been applauded by Inside Facebook. Living Proof has done a great job of engaging fans who visit the page by actively participating in conversations with fans. Living Proof also understands that building a great looking page isn’t enough. They are driving new customers to the page with Facebook ads. They have gone from about 1000 fans to more than 7000 fans since launching the new page.
After discussing the free sample campaign that allows visitors to request free samples, the writer says, “It also helps that the company seems to offer a quality product; many of the wall posts praise the company, with users trading information on where to buy Living Proof products. The page’s administrators are also very active, and there is easy access to customer service email and live chats, the company’s Twitter feed and a comprehensive collection of YouTube videos, all from the Facebook page.” Read the article here.
A new eMarketer study is out that shows that consumers are aligning with brands on social networks.
From the report: 52% of social network users had become a fan or follower of a company or brand, while 46% had said something good about a brand or company on a social networking Website—double the percentage who had said something negative (23%).
The ACPL funnel leaves a lot to be desired in the world of social media. Take a look at a new model that puts two-way communication back into the equation.
Bruce La Fetra from Rubicon Consulting presented the LOVE model at the Sprout Social Media Summit a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been thinking about what it means for social media. Rubicon’s LOVE model illustrates how marketers need to change their style to adapt to consumer expectations in an era when communicating with your customers is the norm, not the exception. Read more on imediacommection.com.
CEO Carnet Williams is helping brands make the most of their presence on Facebook with 10 Practical Tips for Fan Pages. Check out the article on imediaconnection.com. You’re sure to pick up a nugget or two…
Like most marketers in the social media industry, I read the engagementdb report earlier this week. Winning the award for best social media score was Starbucks. With a team of six, Starbucks has successfully used social media to enhance its brand and its sales – A great testament to the power of conversations and viral marketing. With so many employees, Starbucks struggles with ‘many voice syndrome.’ Who should be allowed to blog, tweet and post in official capacities? The report says, “While Starbucks encourages designated employees to have a sense of ownership in customer engagement as experts on specific topics, the company is not yet endorsing a widespread engagement in social channels. This can sometimes be difficult as many of the employees — especially those who work in stores and are avid users of social media channels like Facebook and Twitter — chomp at the bit to engage.”
I just finished reading Razorfish’s report on Social Influence Marketing and I wanted to share my 5 key takeaways.
1. “Consumers do not always realize how much influencing they are doing and how much they are being influenced when they have conversations about brands across social platforms.” I mentioned this idea in an article I wrote about Skittles’ strategy when they relaunched their Web site to feature their Twitter page – Consumers are now playing a big role in shaping brand messages. For this reason, solutions, such as Sprout, that let consumers share personalized brand messages with friends in an authentic way should prove to be increasingly popular with companies looking to capitalize on peer to peer recommendations.
Forrester’s 5 year forecast is live. While marketing budgets have decreased overall, social media spending is on the rise. This pattern makes sense to me. Trust in advertisers is at an all-time low and all research indicates that people get the majority of their product advice and information from their friends. So what better way to make marketing dollars stretch than use the power of social media to spread brand messages among friends.
BUILD ONCE AND PUBLISH ACROSS MULTIPLE SOCIAL NETWORKS
San Francisco, March 31, 2009 – Today Sprout (http://sproutinc.com) announced support for Facebook Platform, Facebook Connect, and OpenSocial. Now, for the first time, a Flash-based social engagement campaign created using Sprout’s visual design platform can be simultaneously published as a full-blown OpenSocial application, a Facebook application, a Facebook Fan Page application, and as a standalone campaign integrated with Facebook Connect. The automated solution enables brands and agencies to focus their time on the creative campaign development, not back-end integration, and still reap the rewards that social networking applications offer, such as increased virality, activity, and access to richer customer data.
Using the ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform (http://www.adobe.com/go/facebook), Sprout was able to integrate its campaigns with the Facebook platform, allowing customers to simultaneously create both web-based engagement campaigns and social media applications. “A year ago, Sprout was on stage with Adobe at Web 2.0 showing how we give visual designers the ability to create rich media content and engagement campaigns without writing a single line of code,” said Carnet Williams, CEO and founder of Sprout. “Now, a year later we are providing our customers with a way to turn those campaigns into fully functioning social media applications without coding or adding time for production.”
“We have been really impressed with Sprout and what it has to offer our customers in the social media space,” said Nicole Neopolitan, senior vice president, production at Schematic. “As a leading interactive agency, Sprout gives us a world-class, turnkey option to quickly build engaging campaigns across social networking sites.”
The social media technology announced today will dramatically help brands increase their reach on social networking sites. “I am really excited that Sprout campaigns, such as the one we built for the launch of Afro Samurai the videogame, can now be published simultaneously as applications across the leading social networks,” said Ryan Grissom, senior manager, interactive at NAMCO BANDAI Games America. “The focus addresses our desire to extend our reach into social networking sites in a fun, natural way while limiting the need to secure additional support and development,” Grissom added.
Availability:
Sprout engagement campaigns can be rolled out as Facebook applications, Facebook Fan Page applications, or standalone campaigns integrated with Facebook Connect starting today. To see a demo, go to http://sproutinc.com/socialmedia. OpenSocial support will be available in Q209.
About Sprout:
Sprout enables brands to engage their audience across the social graphs. The Sprout platform solves a problem that has been plaguing new media marketers for years – How to quickly create brand experiences that are easily transportable across Facebook, MySpace and other social networks without needing expensive development resources. Funded by Polaris Venture Partners, Sprout is based in Honolulu, HI and San Francisco, CA. To learn more, please visit http://sproutinc.com.
Looking for the best T-Mac fans in the world with user generated widgets.
San Francisco, December 18, 2008 – Today, Sprout (www.sproutinc.com), the premier platform for developing and managing creative engagement marketing campaigns, announced that announced that Tracy McGrady’s website, T-Mac.com is using Sprout Mixer to launch an online engagement campaign targeted at Tracy McGrady fans. The campaign encourages fans to create their own personalized widget to determine who is “the Ultimate T-Mac Fan.” The fan with the best widget, as selected by T-Mac himself, and the contestant with the most views on their widget, will win exclusive game-worn autographed memorabilia from Tracy.
“Tracy McGrady fans are among the most loyal in the NBA,” said Chris Talbott, director of athlete marketing, Wasserman Media Group. “Sprout Mixer allows us to invite fans to show who the most passionate and creative T-Mac fan is, while sharing their own T-Mac photos and videos. The resulting highly customizable widgets can then be posted to their profile pages for friends of fans to see and remix. It’s a great, fun way to tap into the loyalty and creativity of Tracy’s fans and their friends.”
Fans can visit http://www.t-mac.com to create their own Tracy McGrady widget. Using a simple and fun drag and drop interface and toolset, fans can use assets provided in the campaign, or their own images, videos, and more to create their own media-rich content that they can then display on their own site. Their friends, in turn, can click a Remix button on the posted widget to restyle and personalize that content.
“Allowing fans to personalize content is proving to be a very popular engagement strategy for our entertainment clients,” said Carnet Williams, CEO of Sprout. “We are thrilled that Tracy McGrady and the Wasserman Media Group have chosen our platform to engage Tracy’s fans and showcase the best T-Mac fans in the world.”
About Tracy McGrady:
Tracy McGrady is a member of the NBA’s Houston Rockets. A 7-time all-star and two-time NBA scoring leader, Tracy is one of the most well known basketball players in the world today. Tracy is also the founder of the Tracy McGrady Foundation and recently completed work on his documentary on the crisis in Darfur – 3 POINTS. For more on Tracy, please visit http://www.t-mac.com
About Sprout:
Sprout is the premier creative engagement platform used by leading advertisers, publishers and brands such as Warner Music, Sony Pictures and REI. With Sprout Mixer, brands invite consumers to participate in the creative process using simple tools to remix content, personalize applications and share their brand experiences with their friends across social networks. Sprout is based in Honolulu, HI and San Francisco, CA. To learn more, please visit http://www.sproutinc.com
Articles by: Michelle Wohl
Like most marketers in the social media industry, I read the 
