Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

Xbox One Gets Gamers Talking

It’s been 8 years since Microsoft released their Xbox 360 console to the world. Technology, games and even gamers have changed a lot in those years. That’s why on Tuesday the company unveiled their next generation gaming console, the Xbox One to the world. But this is not just a mere gaming console. The latest edition of Xbox looks to be your all-in-one entertainment console.

Microsoft gave the world their first peak at the new Xbox One console at a large event earlier this week and the gaming community went nuts talking about it through social channels. While the company promised more details about the Xbox One at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (commonly known as E3) next month, they still gave people enough information to get them all excited this week.

So what about the new Xbox One are people talking about? I took to MAP, our social media monitoring and analytics platform, to see.

It’s been less than two full days since that Xbox One was revealed to the world, but it’s already been mentioned in over 2 million social media conversations. I found “Xbox One” or “#XboxReveal”, the hashtag people were using for the event, mentioned in 18,216 blog posts, 24,791 online news articles, 65,869 forum postings and 1,914,33 tweets in this short time.

On top of those mentions across social media, I also found that a whopping 106,259 videos have also hit the web and have been tagged to have something to do with the Xbox One in that same amount of time.

Gamers all around the world watched the event and immediately took to social channels to talk about what they saw and what they thought of the new console. A look at the country distribution across all social channels shows that there’s a gamer in almost every corner of the world. The most talk about the Xbox One was coming out of the United States (38.7%), but we also saw people talking about it in the United Kingdom (12.7%), Germany (4.9%), Canada (3.4%), France (3.2%) and many more places.

The heat map below shows us where people were tweeting about the new Xbox from, and we can see that no corner of the world doesn’t have at least a few gamers that were eager to talk about this next generation console.

While people around the world were talking, there was a bit of gender divide between who was actually talking about the Xbox One. There’s no question that video games were once seen as a “boy thing”, but there has been a significant rise in the amount of women that love to play video games. However, when I looked into who was talking through social media about the new Xbox it was men that dominated the conversation. Males accounted for 89% of the Xbox One conversations while women only made up the other 11%.

So what did people have to say upon getting a first look at the Xbox One? The first thing I noticed was all the comparisons to it’s predecessor, the “Xbox” “360″. Of course, people also immediately took to also comparing the new console to it’s rival that was also revealed earlier this year, the “PS4″. As well, you can never have a conversation about a new gaming console without talking about the “games” that you’ll be able to play on it. The word “game” also came up a lot as people were talking about the portability of games between consoles, which it looks like Xbox is trying to stop (as in making it harder for people to buy used games). Finally, there is going to be a lot of integration on this new console with Xbox’s “Kinect” wich is a motion and voice capture device that allows people to interact with games and other console operations without the use of a controller.

While the portability of games between consoles may have had some people up in arms, the general overall sense of sentiment around the Xbox One’s reveal seems to be mostly positive. 48% of all conversations I found were positive, while only 12% were negative. This gives the conversations about the Xbox One an overall favourable rating of 88%.

Will the Xbox One stay so favourable? We’ll have to wait until later in the year when the console becomes available to purchase (probably just in time for the holidays) to find out what people really think about it.

Social Media: The Importance of Why

At the mesh conference last week in Toronto, Joe Pulizzi did a terrific workshop on content marketing.

One of the key points he made during his presentation was the importance of brands asking themselves why they want to do content marketing.

What the goals and objectives? How is content marketing going to help drive the business forward? How will content marketing meet the needs of customers?

It’s a simple question but it resonated because many brands fail to answer it when they look to get into new things, including social media.

As much as social media is sexy and been successfully embraced by many companies for a variety of reasons, brands still need to ask them why when they’re looking to get into social media or exploring the idea of expanding their efforts.

Is the interest in social media about leads and sales? Is it focused on brand awareness and brand reputation? What are customer service and engagement?

By answering the question, brands can give themselves the information needed to make the right decisions.

At the end of the day, it could be that social media doesn’t make much sense or taking a modest and measured approach to social media is the better way to go.

For brands already doing social media, asking why could provide new intelligence into what they’re currently doing and what they’re thinking about doing.

The great thing about asking why is it gives brands a hurdle to climb over before they race ahead. By forcing brands to think about their goals and the impact on resources (people and money), it hopefully leads to better and smarter decisions.

Truth be told, doing social media because everyone else seems to be doing it is the wrong approach. The reasons for doing social media should be clear, focused and make sense from a strategic and tactical perspective.

So the next time your brand is looking at social, start with a one word question: Why?

Want More Shares on Facebook?

It seems the more a digital marketer tries on Facebook, the more elusive it becomes to get your audience to share your content.

Nothing in social media is easy, but wherever there is a will there is a way.

One of the big goals for social media is making sure what you doreaches the largest audience possible.

How do you achieve this?

Well, here’s a couple of proven ideas and you should give them a shot to discover the results.

Timing is Everything

You need an editorial calendar to map out when you will be releasing content. It needs to be logical and reflective of your goals. Things shouldn’t just happen when it comes to digital marketing.

You also need to consider when your audience wants to receive key messaging. If you’re reaching out to a younger audience, you might want to approach it differently than an older demographic group.

Visuals Matter

Social media is a lot of content but you need to engage your audience in a way that is more enticing than just the written word.

An image or video can make someone more willing to click on a link or want to go a level deeper. Your job is to find a visual that enhances the copy. Not an easy task.

These are only two ideas but there are dozens more that are proven and effective. Take the time to learn what can work for you and build it into your strategy.

 

 

 

This Is Social Media To Commander Hadfield

On Monday night the crew of Expedition 35 at the International Space Station touched back down on Earth for the first time in five months. Among the crew was Commander Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut that some call “the first man to master social media in space.”

Five months ago Chris Hadfield headed to the ISS, but never really lost contact with us here back on terra firma. Commander Hadfield kept in touch by using social media to wow the world with the things he was doing up in space. Whether it was his tweets, his pictures from space, his YouTube videos and anything else he sent back down to Earth, the world was enthralled by it.

Using MAP, our social media monitoring and analytics platform, I took a look at the impact that Chris Hadfield had on the social media world.

I started by looking for all mentions of Hadfield by name or his Twitter screen name for the past 6 months. In that time I found him mentioned over 1.7 million times across social media. There were 14,956 blog posts, 29,689 online news articles, 11,921 forum postings and 1,680,939 tweets about, to or from Hadfield.

On average, people were mentioning or talking to Commander Hadfield about 10,000 times per day while he was up in space. The giant spike we can see at the end of the six month period below was people watching and tweeting along with Hadfield and the other two crew members as they descended back to Earth.

While Hadfield was up there, he managed to capture the attention of the world through his social media communications from space. A look at where tweets about the Commander came from shows that people around the world were talking to and about him over his five month stay at the space station. Below is a pie chart that shows where mentions of Hadfield were coming from. And below that is a world map plotting out where tweets about him were coming from.

What’s most amazing about most of this is that Chris Hadfield just got into social media right before his trip thanks to some convincing from his kids. Now the astronaut boasts over 842,000 followers on Twitter. With all of the tweets he sent back to the planet he wowed and amassed his large following over his five months in space.

His Twitter handle, @Cmdr_Hadfield, was mentioned 1.5 million times during his trip as well.

I also looked up some of the most retweeted tweets either from or aimed at Commander Hadfield.Five of the top six tweets were sent from Hadfield himself. Most of them were amazing videos and pictures (like the one below) that he beamed down for us from space. The fifth most RT’d tweet was the first one he sent once he had touched back down on Earth.

 

Not only did Commander Hadfield mange to rack up an impressive Twitter following, but he also did the same on YouTube. The Commander started a YouTube channel where he would beam back videos of things he was doing up in space including answering questions that us common folks had about things worked in space. His most popular video though was his last one from the station where he gives us one last look at the station while singing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” The video was only posted a few days ago and has already racked up over 11 million views.

Commander Hadfield utilized social media to capture the attention of the entire world while he wasn’t even on it. He gave us all a chance to experience something that most of us will never get a chance to do ourselves (although I hope that’s not true). He truly was the first man to master social media in space. But let’s hope he wasn’t the last.

Is a Kickstarter Backlash Upon us?

Kickstarter has been all the rage in social media for the past year. It seemed to cement itself as a force when Veronica Mars creator used it as a means to fund a movie based on the popular TV show.

There’s a debate raging within the digital world about whether Kickstarter has lost its way. Has it become a tool for people and brands with money and power to get their vanity projects off the ground?

If this is true, then it has definitely deviated from its original purpose. This would be a shame because Kickstarter shows real promise for digital marketers along with budding entrepreneurs.

Kickstarter’s appeal is to let the average user realize a dream that has been halted by a lack of funds; a common problem for most. A celebrity could more likely kick start their own projects without the help of the Kickstarter’s crowdsourcing means.

It’s important to remember that whatever you do in the digital realm, you must stay true to your original intention if it worked. Kickstarter still works on several levels for brands of varying sizes.

Kickstarter might be at a bit of a crossroad because the celebrities are bringing mountains of publicity to the site. At the same time, however, they might also be overshadowing the true purpose of Kickstarter’s existence.

Of course, it helps when Zach Braff (who is using Kickstarter to fund a sequel to Garden State) asked those who joined Kickstarter to make sure they browse the site.

As for digital marketers, you need to still figure out if Kickstarter is a network that can help get your project off the ground. There’s a good chance that with the right incentive, it could be a great boon to your brand.

Is Taco Bell the Coolest Digital Brand?

There are many brands that do it right in social media.

Every quarter, we are treated to a new digital delight. The cream will always rise to the top; it’s a truism within the industry and the medium.

I’m here to anoint Taco Bell as a nominee for the coolest brand in social media. If you have to ask why, you really need to start paying attention to their creative and bold digital team.

What Taco Bell does best is they’re never scared to be bold or take risks. This shouldn’t be the approach taken by every brand, but if it works for your culture then you really have to own it.

Taco Bell continues to pile up the wins in the social media world.

The way Taco Bell’s team interact with users is often fun and hilarious. They always seem fair game for a good time, and it’s hard not to enjoy their antics.

Their friendly Twitter battle with Old Spice is still a personal favourite. While this is just one example, they have found the perfect voice for their brand. It works on just about every level.

Do you consider your brand to have a cool presence in social media? Have you found your digital voice?

The Future Of Investing And The Great Social Shift [Infographic]

A few weeks back the SEC (The Securities and Exchange Commission) ruled that public companies were now free to release their important information though social media channels. Since this ruling there has been a debate in the investment community as to what this means for the future of the industry. Some welcome the use of social media while others are continuing to lobby that the way things were worked just fine.

Because of this debate, we took to the street, Wall Street, to ask the people that this ruling will affect what they thought. We surveyed stock brokers, financial and market analysts, financial advisors, individual traders and fund managers, and made their results into the infographic below.

What we learned by doing this was that Wall Street, and investor relations in general, is changing. As the younger generation that embraces technology is coming into power in the workplace, we found that they are also the new workforce that embraces social media. And for more than just keeping in touch with friends.

We found that the investment crowd under 40 support the SEC’s decision to allow the distribution of information through social media. In fact, 60% of those surveyed and were under 40 said that they regularly consult social channels to research investments. But it’s not just the under 40 crowd. 40% of all survey respondents said that they were using social media to find information.

We also found that 49% of our responders companies blocked social media from the workplace, making it hard for them to use it as a source while at work. However, 48% of those people said that they had witnessed colleagues using personal devices, like a smartphone or tablet, to consult social media for investment information anyways.

It appears that the younger generation of investors is rewriting how business is done, and social seems to be part of it.

What do you think?

Learning from HMV’s Social Media Crisis

Earlier this year, HMV had a social media crisis on its hands. a situation that any digital marketer or PR professional should be able to relate to and, potentially, fear.

HMV’s Twitter account (@HMVtweets) was hacked by an employee, who after being laid off decided to tweet a lot of the company’s internal personnel decisions. A nightmare for any company.

What would you do if this happened to you?

There’s no one right answer, but there is one thing you must do and that is act immediately and have a plan in place.

HMV acted quickly but the story and tweets had already gone viral by the time anything could be done. While the company did many right things during this crisis, there are still lessons to be learned.

You have to be careful the employees who have access to your social media accounts, as well and the backend of your Website. A new employee or someone without senior authority should be trained thoroughly before being given access.

A social media account has great value and can do a lot of good and bad. Make sure there is training protocol and proper supervision, especially in the early going for all social media activity.

Most important, learn from HMV’s situation and be prepared for whatever crisis can occur in the digital arena.

Social Media Drives Big Business

It should not come as a surprise to anyone that social media is becoming more and more synonymous as the main marketing and advertising tool for businesses of all sizes.

There are still some pockets of opposition and the same questions continue to arise, is it worth the investment in time, education and money?

Social media for business has led to growth across the board, mainly in the two important factors of jobs and profits.

The way it drives profit might be slightly more difficult to wrap one’s mind around since it is quite a departure.

There is a direct correlation involving click throughs and promotions. There is also much more high-level branding and communications that take much longer but are very worthy avenue to big business and profitability.

Facebook alone can increase visibility in an incredibly cost-effective way. Consider the cost of getting that kind of impressions in the traditional marketing, communications and advertising sense. Lower cost are a great engine to drive big business.

Impressions lead to dollars and cents and social media lets you go several levels deeper. logic would predicate that if done right it will lead to success.

The kicker is really influence. People listen to their friends and networks, and social media is where people share just about everything on eany topic. If your reputation and voice is sound, the returns will be very positive.

 

 

 

It’s NHL Playoff Time

On Tuesday night the NHL playoffs started. 16 teams are vying for the chance to lift the great Stanley Cup high above their heads and proclaim themselves the 2013 NHL champions. But it’s a long way to owning the Cup soon. And just who will be the teams to play for the Stanley Cup is still yet to be seen. But today, I’m going to use social media data to determine which two teams will be playing in the Stanley Cup finals.

To do this, I used MAP, our social media monitoring and analytics software, to look at talk about all 16 teams in the playoffs. To do this, I looked for mentions of the team name only, not nicknames or abbreviated versions. I broke them down by division and compared all the teams against each other. I pulled up information on the number of mentions that each team received overall, mentions by individual channel and sentiment to compare from the entire (albiet short) regular season.

The following is my findings:

NHL Eastern Division


NHL Western Division

 

Looking st the data above, it’s not very clear to call a winner from either division.

In the Eastern Division it looks like the Ottawa Senators dominated in terms of volume of conversations. They were mentioned over 5 million times in the 101 days of regular season play. The second place team in terms of mentions from the East was the Toronto Maple Leafs, who had just under 2.5 million mentions. However, when I then looked at the sentiment around the teams, Ottawa was tied for the most amount of negative talk about them (20%). They also had the second highest amount of positive talk though (59%). The Washington Capitals, however, had the greatest amount of positive talk surrounding them, with an astounding 69%. But the Capitals also garnered the least amount of mentions over the season.

Then, in the Western Division, the Chicago Blackhawks had the most amount of mentions for the year. When it came to sentiment around them though, they just faired average (which I find strange considering the amazing run they had). The LA kings, who won the Stanley Cup last year, showed an amazing amount of positive chatter about them this season (70%), but fell somewhere in trhe middle of the pack in terms of mentions. I also found it interesting that the San Jose Sharks (who are a decent team in my opinion) got talked about the least over the regular season in the Western Division, but also managed to get the most amount of negative talk (34%) of any team in either division.

As you can see, looking at this data doesn’t make for an easy prediction on which two teams will meet in the finals. So instead of making the prediction myself, I’m going to leave it up to you.

Take a look at the data above and let us know in the comments which two teams (one from each division) you think we are going to see in the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals. Also, feel free to tell us what parts of that data lead to that conculsion.

We’re looking to forward to hearing your thoughts.