Roland Smart’s presentation
Building Brands on Social Networks
Note: the video from the event did not start until part way though this preso, so we’ve added the audio to the slide deck on slideshare.
Twitter: @rsmartx
Roland’s blog: www.rolandsmart.com

Alexandre Roche’s presentation
Dog Book: Lessons Learned from the Popular Facebook Application
Twitter: @alexroche
Facebook: facebook.com/alexandre

Deborah Schultz’s presentation
It’s the People Stupid
http://www.slideshare.net/debs/its-the-people-stupid-1431852
Twitter: @debs
Website: www.deborahschultz.com

Kaz Brecher’s presentation
Rock The Space Toyota/MySpace from the Schematic Perspective

Archived video from the event at Justin.tv

We’ve been notified by one of our service networks that they will be conducting data center maintenance on January 21 between 1AM and 2AM PST.   The service will only take about 10-15 minutes and will fall sometime during this window. Published Sprouts will NOT be affected, however, the Sprout Builder application will not be available at this time.

Thanks and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

A Half Day Summit on Leveraging Social Networks for Your Brand

Are you an account executive, creative director at a brand or agency? If so, this event is the perfect opportunity to learn what it takes to be successful building your brand and driving sales on social networking platforms.

Presentations will focus on how social network platforms are evolving, what new opportunities are becoming available, and how to work with creative agencies and technology providers. Social media case studies will highlight campaign best practices and a panel discussion will address key topics such as moderation, metrics and reporting, social media strategy, and corporate policy around social media.

Lunch will be served after the presentations and participants will have an opportunity to network and socialize. Join us for an exceptional event packed with valuable insight for your brand.

Event Dates and Locations

Thursday. February 4th, 2010: San Francisco - REGISTER NOW $49

Thursday. February 18th, 2010: Silicon Valley - REGISTER NOW $49

Thursday. March 9th, 2010: Los Angeles – REGISTER NOW

(Sprout CEO will be presenting at this event as part of Digiday Social)

Wednesday. March 31st, 2010: Chicago – registration coming soon
Thursday. April 1st, 2010: New York – registration coming soon

Speakers (additional speakers TBA, lineup varies by event location)

Richard Jalichandra,
Technorati, CEO
Speaking about how brands can build buzz using Technorati and the evolving online display ad space.

Nick O’Neill,
All Facebook, Founder
Market trends from the author of the most popular blog about the most popular social networking platform.

Jeremiah Owyang,
Partner Customer Strategy, The Altimeter Group
Develop a Social Strategy Based on Business Objectives.

What exactly is Ustream and how does it work on Sprout?

Ustream allows anyone with a camera and an internet connection to broadcast live video to a global audience.  Using the Ustream technology, you can setup a channel and engage your audience within a matter of minutes. Ustream has been used to live broadcast events such as political debates, talk shows, sporting events and more.  While Ustream offers basic embedding functionality, many of our clients asked us for the ability to embed a live broadcast directly into the Sprout Platform so that they can completely customize the look and feel of their broadcast. This is now possible with the integration of Ustream in the Sprout Platform.

We are proud to announce the launch partner for the newly released Ustream component, Dick Clark Productions for the Golden Globe Awards.  Here is the fully functional Ustream live broadcast within a Sprout social experience:

Let us know what you think and if you’d like to run your own Sprout campaign with live stream functionality.

Here’s what Mike Spear, of Jones Soda, has to say about their social media strategy and how Sprout helped them out: “Our social media strategy is pretty simple. Listen to our consumers and communicate all things Jones to our most dedicated fans. We chose Sprout because we liked what Sprout did for other brands like REI and Dogpatch Labs. The Sprout pages are cool looking, easy to use and turnkey to set up.”

As brands move away from traditional marketing strategies, campaigns are becoming increasingly conversational in nature, with consumers adding user-generated content and sharing. In general, consumers have greater expectations around engagement with brands on social networks. At Sprout we work with brands to drive engagement opportunities at key points in the cycle: (click to enlarge):

Step 1: Attract (Engaging Ads)

The first stage of the engagement cycle is focused on attracting consumers to your brand’s fan page. For brands that are just beginning to establish a presence on social networks, this often means relying on display ads that sit both inside and outside of the social networks. Sprout’s ads are created with a social platform that helps brands at this stage by attracting consumers with interactive ads that allow users to respond to polls, write reviews, and share with friends right from standard IAB ad units.

Step 2: Identify (Fan Pages)

Once you’ve brought an audience to your fan page, how do you encourage them to become fans? Sprout makes this easy with fun and engaging fan page solutions that encourage users to interact. Fan pages are a foundation for managing relationships and can be used in conjunction with Sprout Publisher to communicate directly with fans via the Activity Stream. For example, some of our clients use this solution to send out weekly coupons, music releases, or polls. All of these experiences are shareable, which helps to keep current fans engaged and drive new fan acquisition.

Step 3: Engage (Applications)

Applications have been proven as the most effective tool for engaging consumers on social networks. For those brands that are in the process of building a fan base, in-stream messaging and ad buys are powerful tools to help promote the application’s release. Brands that have already built an extensive fan base, however, can often rely on their fan community to spread the word, leading to long-term savings.

Sprout’s branded applications leverage Facebook Connect and other social APIs to live inside and outside of social networks, allowing brands to reach their communities wherever they spend time online. Users can publish application experiences straight to their Activity Streams, helping to drive viral spread and increased engagement.

Sprout also offers Publisher applications, which allow brands to place applications directly into fans’ stream. Fans can then engage with the application in the stream and share branded messages with their friends.

Step 4: Measure

Throughout all the points in the engagement cycle, Sprout provides performance metrics to measure the success of ads, fan pages, and applications. Our platform allows us to modify and optimize all of the experiences we create in real time based on this data.

Sprout’s in-depth understanding of the consumer engagement cycle recently helped earn us a spot on Facebook’s Preferred Developers List. We’d love to hear about your experience using applications as part of integrated strategies so we can keep on learning. Thanks for reading!

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.

We hope this will be less confusing than having to provide your credit card information when signing up for the 30-day free trial. Now, you can test out of service and provide credit card info if/when you’re ready to upgrade. The one thing to be aware of is that you won’t be able to access all the functionality available within paid accounts from the FREE Level because it offers a limited feature set.

These changes will take effect as of Friday December 4th.