Recently, an intern working on Facebook’s data infrastructure engineering team took a sample of nearly 10 million pairs of friends from Facebook’s data warehouse and plotted out their relationships. The result? This intriguingly beautiful image and an accurate map of the world.
Here are the thoughts that Paul shared about the image and its creation:
After a few minutes of rendering, the new plot appeared, and I was a bit taken aback by what I saw. The blob had turned into a surprisingly detailed map of the world. Not only were continents visible, certain international borders were apparent as well. What really struck me, though, was knowing that the lines didn’t represent coasts or rivers or political borders, but real human relationships. Each line might represent a friendship made while travelling, a family member abroad, or an old college friend pulled away by the various forces of life.
We’d like to see an image of each individual Facebook user pinpointed on a map and see if it is attractive.
Horrors! The delicious smell of roasting coffee as you walk or drive anywhere near Broadway in the heart of down town Kansas City is about to be stanched for ever! Since 1908 the aroma that has been delighting passers-by, its caffeinated tendrils wafting passed the noses and awakening the senses of Kansas Citians for more than a hundred years is about to be snuffed out by parent company, J.M. Smucker Co.
According to an article in the Kansas City Star, Folgers Coffee Co. will close its longtime downtown plant by 2012, eliminating about 180 jobs. A Facebook fan page has already been created to try to make Folgers change that plan. The fan page can be found by going to Facebook and searching for Folgers on Facebook and then clicking the “Become a Fan” button at the top of the page. It can also be accessed directly at http://www.facebook.com/savefolgerskc. A Twitter page at www.twitter.com/saveFolgersKC has also been established for tweets about the plant, it’s history and it’s impact on the Kansas City community.
J.M.Smucker Co., famous mostly for it’s jams and jellies, bought Folgers from Proctor & Gamble Co. in 2008 and now plans to close several plants and furlough 700 workers. According to The Wall Street Journal, Smucker last month said its fiscal third-quarter earnings jumped 74% amid fewer one-time charges as revenue increased and margins surged.
Meanwhile, the company plans to spend $220 million over the next three years in its coffee and namesake businesses, building a new plant and expenditures for new equipment and technology. Construction on the Ohio facility is expected to begin this fall, with initial production start-up in the summer of 2012.
The grass roots Facebook and Twitter effort to let officials at Smucker know that their customers, jam, jelly and coffee fans alike, disapprove of a company posting record earnings, while laying off the workers who helped them get there, and the shuttering of historic buildings and operations that are part of the fabric of a city and its past.
Yes, that’s what I said. Rocket science. Shaking your head in disbelief? Really?
Well, would you design or develop your own website? Or would you look to a web development company or web designer to complete that piece of your marketing toolkit.
Likewise, would you shoot your own television commercial or buy or place your own media spots to air that commercial? And, if you did, would you be convinced that you are targeting your demographic and getting the best bang for your marketing buck?
Didn’t think so.
Recently, we met an attorney and he told us that we have a unique skill set as creative and marketing minds. In fact, he told us that we were like rock stars or athletes since our product exists between our temples. Our product is our intellectual property. What value does that have? What price tag can you associate with such a product? We know our value, but struggle with that in this ever changing world of new media, but we left the conversation feeling like we need to take out some hefty life insurance policies on our brains.
Just as when the internet revolutionized the advertising and marketing agencies in the 90s, and everyone sat back and waited for the established ad agencies to come in and eat their lunch, it didn’t happen. The eager college grads designed websites for big companies and tried to figure out how this new thing called the internet. The media world is being transformed again, and the question is will ad agencies leverage their client relationships in the social space? It didn’t happen with web development and design. Why you ask? Traditional agencies are about creativity not technology and they left web design and development up to the rocket scientists and we predict the same will occur with social media. Ad agencies will work with other entities that are comfortable in the space, and where the learning curve is short. Given the recent downturn of their industry, they cannot afford to take any unnecessary risks either.
The risks to not adapting to the shift in the market are great, though many are resisting and in fact, ignoring the trends, but then again, there are still nearly 40% of small businesses that do not have websites in 2010!
Consumer behavior is evolving at a frenzied pace. One in which the internet marketers find overwhelming and even those social media strategists. Why? Keeping your finger on the pulse of the marketing and advertising industry is a full time job in itself. Watching and identifying trends, seeking out new mediums to communicate and developing effective messages for those mediums is another. Here is a 50,000 foot perspective.
1. The web is social. 48% of the 1,000 respondents in a recent study commissioned by Retrevo indicated that they check in on social media activity when they are awakened in the middle of the night. Granted, this is heavily skewed by night owls that are in the 25 and under bracket, but a large portion of many big brands target market are online and engaged with social media networks at that time. 61% of Facebook users are 35 and older. Still think your customers aren’t using social media?
2. There’s a reason that they call it “old media.” Media industry ad revenues declined 12% year-over-year to $125.3 billion in 2009, according to a report issued by Kantar Media. The only major growth area? Online ad spending. TV ad spending fell 10%, with spot spending falling off dramatically due to the lack of political ads from 2008. Magazines dropped 17%. Newspapers and radios each dropped 20% and outdoor advertising fell 13%.
3. User content is key to the online experience of millions of US Internet users. Ranging from communications to e-commerce to entertainment, consumers are increasingly in charge of the creation, distribution, and consumption of digital content. The number of people who consume user-generated content exceeds the number of creators. This is true of any content loop – there are always more spectators than active participants. The difference? User generated content is affordable, accessible and integrates well with mass participation. As a result, the gap between creators and consumers is smaller than in traditional media. The downside? The craze of content generation is not likely to produce commensurate rewards for marketers or site publishers, since advertisers shy away from attaching their brands to unpredictable content.
What does this mean for brands and marketers? It means it is even more difficult to manage because the assets from media that traditional media used to control (print, broadcast, online publishing) is migrating to channels that they don’t control and most importantly, can’t. Why, you ask? Because the fun new media that everyone is all abuzz about is invite only.
The media world is changing, and predominantly, online media. The solution? Realize the full-potential of the over 82 million user content creators. How? Marketers and site publishers must be willing to work together. What does this mean for you and your brand? It means taking risks. Something no one wants to do in the current economy, and something few businesses every want to do with their marketing strategies or brand. The other piece of it? It mandates becoming very savvy in the social media segment, finding safe havens with social media channels, and taking refuge among these content creators that you’ve forged relationships with. Until these changes occur, user generated content will remain a phenomenon and the popular appeal eclipses its commercial possibilities.
So, how does this make social media rocket science? The chart below shows that 79.7 million people created content on social networks last year. What does that mean for you? It means that 23.9 million people posted blogs. 18 million videos were uploaded. More than 13 million people participated in virtual worlds, yielding a number of over 88 million content creators, which counts everyone who generated content at least monthly. Just because it’s call the social space, doesn’t men it is like outer space and there is nothing out there. It’s crowded out there. There is a lot of competition, millions of businesses vying for attention. Plenty of things to crash into.
It’s a rocket ship alright. And in order to launch it, guide it and land it safely, you need a scientist. Choose wisely. There are many “experts” out there that may get you off the pad, but solid piloting skills? Not so much. Look for a team that can provide the telemetry you need to effect a successful mission of launching or guiding your brand in the social space.
Written by: Sara Paxton, managing partner, CTO, and Social Media Officer of Evans Media Group, Kansas City’s Social Media Agency, a boutique agency located in Overland Park, KS that specializes in traditional marketing, social media marketing, online marketing, and public relations.
Facebook fans and Twitter followers of a brand are more likely to not only recommend, but they are also more likely to buy from, those brands than they were before becoming fans/followers.
A study of over 1,500 consumers by market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies found that 60% of Facebook fans and 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend those brands since becoming a fan or follower. And 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy the brands they follow or are a fan of.
Data was collected from 1,504 adults (aged 18 and over) via a nationally representative online survey questionnaire by Chadwick Martin Bailey Feb. 8 and 9.
Twitter, the micro-blogging service and social media company founded by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone among others, has seen steady growth month over month and a combined growth over the past year of 294.26%.
So, if you are a social media networking site with 23 million unique visitors, what do you do to attract a revenue stream and more users? Apparently, spend a day testing out some new features and updates. And that is just what they spent today doing.
Twitter spent Tuesday doing some experimentation and some tweaking. These appeared and then disappeared like a blip on the radar.
One of the changes? Modifying the “update” button to “tweet,” seemingly to signify that it’s official. Those of you sending out those 140 character message aren’t twittering but in fact “tweeting.” It only took the stats to rise to 50 million tweets per day for them to make the update, but even then, only momentarily. It was noticed by a few and TechCrunch sent out a post regarding it, but at the time of this post, it still remains “update.”
In an attempt to timidly enter the location wars, Twitter turned on the geolocation function on its website. TechCrunch featured small screenshots of tweets with small location place markers, displaying a Google map showing the location of the tweet when a user hovered over it. This feature has also been deactivated since TechCrunch’s post broke the news and screenshots.
Twitter’s geolocation feature has been live through its API since November, but until today, there was no indication that Twitter was looking to fully integrate geolocation into the main website. Twitter has timed this move well, with the report from the New York Times earlier today that Facebook has finally decided to enter the location war by unveiling its response next month at its f8 conference. Coincidentally (or not), Twitter’s inaugural Chirp conference takes place 1 week before the f8 conference. Google is trying to get into the location war as well, but has made a disappointing debut thus far with meager offerings through Buzz and Latitude. Of course, each day it seems Twitter is bursting with the buzz of the new and shiny app of the day to throw their hat into the ring of the location wars. Most of the new apps are passing information back to Twitter, leveraging Twitter’s geolocation API, which further supports the timing and logic of Twitter to turn this function on within their own website.
UPDATE: It appears as though Twitter has launched these features or they are doing additionally testing. Either way, as of 6:45 pm CST, the location feature and the “Tweet” button are both live based on the screenshots below:
Tweet Button on Twitter
Twitter Location Feature "Add Your Location"
Written by: Sara Paxton, managing partner, CTO, and Social Media Officer of Evans Media Group, Kansas City’s Social Media Agency, a boutique agency located in Overland Park, KS that specializes in traditional marketing, social media marketing, online marketing, and public relations.
It all started with a 29-year old man living in San Antonio around New Year’s Eve. He created a simple, and even polite Facebook page called “Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!” The initial goal was to find at least 5,000 fans and then share the feedback with the executive producer of SNL, Lorne Michaels, hoping this would inspire SNL to feature the octogenarian as a Saturday Night Live host.
Near the end of January, the page hit the original goal of 5,000 fans, after about a month, and as promised, the Texan mailed his letter off to the big city. Coincidentally, this is the same timeframe in which the Facebook campaign went viral, with the number of fans skyrocketing to over 200,000 in just under two weeks.
The effort on Facebook has been featured in People, the Associated Press, and even NPR. And, apparently, the argument was compelling based on reports of a confirmed appearance by Betty White herself, who has declined comment to this point. On Sunday night at Elton John’s annual Oscars viewing party, when approached by People, White confirmed the news and indicated she was surprised herself. But in true Betty fashion commented, “I don’t know why or how, but it’s been wonderful.”
This recent confirmation comes just a few weeks after a story that Entertainment Weekly shared on February 21, claiming that Betty White would appear on Saturday Night Live in conjunction with some former SNL cast members Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Molly Shannon in a “Women of Comedy” episode. People reports that SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels has denied that.
But, really who could deny nearly 485,000 Facebook fans? Definitely not dear, sweet Betty.
Written by: Sara Paxton, managing partner, CTO, and Social Media Officer of Evans Media Group, Kansas City’s Social Media Agency, a boutique agency located in Overland Park, KS that specializes in traditional marketing, social media marketing, online marketing, and public relations.
The wait is nearly over as iPad pre-orders start is only 4 days. The pre-order date has been a large source of controversy and speculation. Now, along with the waiting game, the betting is over. Well, almost.
Apple has posted the dates for both the pre-order and the availability date on the iPad product page.
Not sure what to splurge on this spring? Well, whip out your credit cards, and break open those piggy banks. Can’t stand the long lines at the Apple store? Pre-order on March 12. Up for the long line of entertainment at the Apple store? Plan on standing all day on Saturday, April 3.
Not sure how they plan to structure the delivery as many delivery services don’t run on Saturday. So, it’s a tough question. Stand in line all day Saturday so you can get to know your new iPad for the rest of the weekend or pre-order and run the risk of sitting around waiting until Monday.
Written by: Sara Paxton, managing partner, CTO, and Social Media Officer of Evans Media Group, Kansas City’s Social Media Agency, a boutique agency located in Overland Park, KS that specializes in traditional marketing, social media marketing, online marketing, and public relations.
Overland Park, KS (Evans Media Group) – MARCH 4, 2010, Evans MediaGroup, Kansas City’s Social Media Agency is very pleased to announce the latest addition to its team. Mark Van Baale of Olathe, KS has joined the firm as Director of Social Media Strategies and will be responsible for strengthening the company’s expanding need for key client service in the social media segment.
“We were impressed with Mark’s experience in the social space, but his background in traditional marketing mirrored our philosophy of bringing the two doctrines together,” said Sara Paxton, CTO and Partner at Evans Media Group.
“There are so many “experts” in social media today,” Said Paul Evans, President and CMO. “We come across them every day, victims of “Carpal Thumb” who want to work at a social media agency because they have been Tweeting about themselves or their habits for some time.”
“Our approach at Evans Media Group is much more structured than that, driven by sound business principles and founded on solid marketing experience. We understand and know that our clients needs as they relate to social media is the eventual success of a campaign, with no less weight or return that any other marketing or advertising segment. That is why Mark Van Baale is such a good fit for us.”
Paxton concurs, “Mark has held marketing management positions in both the corporate and non-profit sectors, was a combat engineer in the United States Army and is the education Chair of the Social Media Club of Kansas City. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Management Information Systems from the University of Iowa and is the kind of well rounded individual that we look for when adding to our team. Mark will add a valuable layer to our existing offering.”
After a recent relocation from the New York City metro to the greater Kansas City area, Evans Media Group has focused on connecting with localbusiness owners to catapult their marketing initiatives into the online and social media marketing space. As a result of online and social media marketing, networking and word of mouth, the increased client base at Evans Media Group required a prompt addition of staff. The sudden growth also has the partners looking for larger office space.
With a strong background in corporate business strategy, public relations, sales, marketing, and consulting, the team at Evans Media Group also offers social media strategy, research, online, video and mobile marketing and a full suite of traditional agency services.
Written by Paul Evans is the President and CMO of Evans Media Group, a boutique agency located in Overland Park, KS that specializes in traditional marketing, social media marketing, online marketing, and public relations.
Just a few days ago, we posted a warning about a new Twitter spamming and hacking scam via Direct Message.
Guess what, we’ve found another one! Be wary of the following Direct Message through Twitter:
Here is a preview of the message:
Don’t click on these links and be sure to send a message @ the individual that sent it to you if it is from a known Twitter account. If not, be sure to unfollow, report as spam to Twitter, and block this user.
Luckily, unlike Twitter, Tinyurl is aware of the issue and here is the message you receive if the link is clicked on:
There are a large number of users on Twitter that rarely check their Direct Message Inbox, and not many Twitter users monitor their outbound messages.
If you find that your account is sending these out, be sure to promptly change your password and delete the spam Direct Messages.
You might want to monitor your followers count as well and reach out to any of those that received the spam message to clear up any confusion.
We began receiving these today around noon, so beware and Happy Tweeting!
Written by: Sara Paxton, managing partner, CTO, and Social Media Officer of Evans Media Group, Kansas City’s Social Media Agency, a boutique agency located in Overland Park, KS that specializes in traditional marketing, social media marketing, online marketing, and public relations.
Recently, the partners at Evans Media Group, Kansas City’s Social Media Agency, were asked to be guests on a televised news segment at the local CBS affiliate station KCTV5. “We were to appear during the nightly news and be interviewed by the host of a web themed segment about our involvement in social media,” said Sara Paxton, the agency’s managing partner and CTO. Nothing unusual so far, Paxton and her partner, President and CMO Paul Evans had made television appearances before; had been interviewed for articles in newspapers and business publications and we are no strangers to public speaking.
The difference about this interaction is that the entire discourse took place via Twitter. No phone calls, no emails or texts, in fact right down to directions to the station and the announcement that they had arrived, were communicated with tweets and direct messages on Twitter. They had never met or spoken with the interviewer prior to walking through the door at the station, in fact he sent them a tweet to tell them he’d be right down to usher them into the station.
The host, a local Twitter celebrity himself that you might know, Kurt Kloeblen, was delightful, the interview a success and Evans Media Group, in true social media style, tweeted their followers and told them to watch. But after the interview, the partners were discussing the fact that all communication for the meeting had been conducted via social media, and decided to find out if the same thing might be happening in the dating realm. Were people interacting, meeting and eventually dating as a direct result of Twitter and other social channels?
Lonely tall, good looking gent, likes walks on beach, pets and fine wine, seeks attractive women for stimulating conversation and friendship (Yes … that is exactly 140 characters, spaces count). So dating, or at least date advertising is certainly doable within the confines of 140 character communication; Evans and his partner just wanted to know if it was happening, who was doing it, how often and whether or not they would talk to, or at least tweet them about it!
Their research quickly turned up LuvTweets.com, a dating site that asks users to log in through twitter, set up a dating profile and start connecting with others. Flirt140 was another find, a new site that provides a variety of options such as gender, location and keywords to search twitter users. A list of all Twitter users matching the search criteria will then be displayed. Members can then view the users profile, send them a private message as well as “wink” at them! The site isn’t visually appealing but for those looking at Twitter as a dating site, it’s a must visit.
So the move to dating in the social space, rather than the more traditional online world of eHarmony, Chemistry and the old stand-by Match.com was determined to be officially underway. “But we wondered if we could actually find some real world examples,” said Evans. “So we began casting about in our social circles for testimonials of found love (or at least found date) on one of the social networks.”
Paxton, who maintains several social network profiles for Evans Media Group and herself personally, admitted that they did not have to look far. “When we moved our agency from the East Coast last year, we immediately began connecting with the “locals” and “socializing” via Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and several other networks and have quite a large following ourselves. Among our active Twitter conversationalists we found two individuals who met through and began dating as a result of Twitter.”
@vivid13 and @arogersphotos are the Twitter handles of Jeremy Brooks and Amy Rogers, two very active tweeters who interact across severalsocial platforms with thousands of other known and anonymous individuals.Jeremy is a Pharmacy Tech transplant from St. Louis, now living in KansasCity. He is a sports fanatic of both the Saint Louis and Kansas City teams – He is also a self admitted addict of caffeine, bacon, Buzztime trivia, his HHR and, as his handle implies, the number 13. He has a sharp, if somewhat jaded sense of humor and over 1,100 Twitter followers.
Amy Rogers is a photographer, cat lover and sports fan. Her official Twitter bio states that she is a “Photographer/Pool Player/Customer Service rep by day, vixen by night. Or so I’m told. President of Twitter. Master planner of tweetups. @vivid13′s girlfriend”. Jeremy and Amy’s tale is like an old fashioned love story, but it was 21st century technology that led them down the path toward eventual dating bliss.
They first encountered each other by swapping 140 or less character communication on their smart phones. In the old days, this would have meant they were “pen pals”. But eventually they did actually meet as a result of a new phenomenon known as a “tweetup”. This is the Twitter equivalent of a meet-up, or meeting where several people gather at an agreed upon location for coffee, cocktails, a meal, bowling or any number of possible reasons.
These Tweetups are thought of as safe, because there are multiple people present, less awkward than a blind date because of the pre-meeting tweets and one can always just walk away if upon arrival you see that there is nobody in the group that appeals to you physically, since unless you announce yourself, nobody will know who you are.
Jeremy and Amy’s meeting and several more that followed led to a “real” date and the eventual announcement, via Twitter of course, that the two were officially a couple and Amy’s posting to her bio that she is in fact @Vivid13’s Girlfriend. We are happy for them, but still curious. Please take a moment to answer our Twitter Dating Poll and we will case study the results in a subsequent blog in a few weeks.
Happy Dating!
Written by Paul Evans is the President and CMO of Evans Media Group, a boutique agency located in Overland Park, KS that specializes in traditional marketing, social media marketing, online marketing, and public relations.
