Carl’s Jr. Launches Location-Based Rewards Program

From Mashable:

Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are targeting consumers who got new phones for Christmas with a proprietary program that lets them earn rewards for checking in at the fast food restaurants.

Happy Star Rewards, an app available for the iPhone and Android platforms, includes GPS-driven checkins, social media interfaces, a restaurant locator and rewards. The first and fourth checkin at the restaurant gives a user the chance to take a spin on The Wheel of Awesome, an app on both restaurants’ Facebook Pages. When you spin the app with your finger, you get the chance to win discounted and free menu items, branded gift cards and other merchandise, including tickets to the film The Green Hornet. The more users check in using the app, the higher value the offers they’ll get on the Wheel of Awesome.

Citing fraud-protection and efficiency, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s opted not to go with Foursquare, Gowalla or Facebook Places and instead created their own location-based app, which meant that agency 72andSunny had to outfit 3,000 stores with point-of-sales software. “If they’re successful, this will be a pretty important development,” says Erik Thoresen, director of research for fast food consulting firm Technomic. “It opens up opportunities for chains to do their own [location-based media] development.”

The sibling chains claim this is the first location-based rewards program in the fast food industry, but McDonald’s worked with Foursquare in September on a program that randomly rewarded $5 and $10 gift cards to diners. That program resulted in a 33% increase in checkins, according to McDonald’s.

4 Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2011

From Mashable:

Tim Ferriss is an angel investor (Twitter, StumbleUpon, Evernote, etc.) and author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Workweek. In his spare time, Tim has doctors stab pen-sized needles into his thighs.

Ah, social media marketing. Fewer things are so lavishly spent on, yet so poorly measured.

Here are a few predictions for 2011 related to where the smart money and dumb money will go. Special thanks to a number of high-volume retail experts for their insights, including Ryan Holiday, director of marketing at American Apparel.

Read on for our predictions and let us know in the comments what you think social media marketing will look like in the year to come.

1. YouTube Beats Yahoo — Video Will Convert

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the English-speaking world.

That’s right: YouTube is bigger than Yahoo. Zappos, as one example, added simple videos of people holding shoes and moving them around to its sales pages and increased conversion rate from 6% to 30%. When I look at the traffic sources for my book trailer on YouTube, the biggest referrer isn’t my own blog. It’s The Huffington Post. I customized the video and text content to a niche (but sizeable) outlet that didn’t exist two years ago: Huffington Post Books.

With proper targeting and syndication, this 50 second video almost immediately propelled my book from an Amazon rank of approximately number 150 to 30, now stabilizing at number four in all books. We used RankForest to track this sudden change.

The 50-second length was deliberate and was also later edited to 30 seconds for in-video advertising on YouTube.

At least 30% off all the video views (more than 6.3 million) on my main YouTube channel come from search or organic referrals. By putting up videos, particularly on YouTube, you open up a whole channel for sharing and connecting to the biggest word-of-mouth platform in the English language.

2. The Full Resurrection of E-mail

Groupon has an e-mail list of at least 15 million strong in the U.S. (the company says it’s 30+ million if you include international), which goes to show that a true permission asset can be worth nearly $6 billion on the bidding table.

E-mail addresses are a safer long-term investment than social media features. Think about all the money companies spent advertising their MySpace pages in 2007. Even on Facebook, your direct messages to fans are relegated to a second tier inbox no one reads. This is something you don’t have to worry about happening in e-mail marketing. Among 20- to 35-year olds, at least, their physical addresses change more frequently than their e-mail addresses.

The smarter marketers will budget “social media” acquisitions based on lifetime value (or a set duration, like 6 months’ retail purchases) of e-mail addresses.

One major retailer did the math and learned that an e-mail subscriber is worth roughly $20 a year in annual online revenue. Knowing this number allowed the retailer to:

• Calculate the value of the real estate it gives the e-mail signup box at the register in stores. It turns out to be one of the most lucrative converters in an already competitive area.
• Easily say “Yes” or “No” to requests to participate in contests/sweepstakes by judging return on new e-mails acquired.
• Calculate what the company can spend to build its list.

There are companies like Opt-Intelligence that can be paid a CPA (cost per action) for what are called “co-regs.” Co-reg example: If you’re signing up for an account at NYTimes.com, and it says “Get 4 issues of Golf Magazine FREE!” someone paid for that because they knew it will make money based on lifetime value.

After the above-mentioned retailer quantified what an e-mail subscriber was worth, the company was able to double its subscriber base in less than eight months. The majority of that growth came not through spending money upfront, but from the redirection of already existing resources in ways that weren’t possible before calculating that number. Let’s say that added 500,000 e-mail addresses, each worth $20 in 2011; that means an additional $10 million in revenue with no significant capital outlay.

Aaron Ray uses the same tactics for the “free agent bands” (major acts who’ve left a label) at The Collective. He figures out how many tickets you sell through your fan club, how many downloads come from your e-mail list, and how much traffic you can drive through Facebook and Twitter (). It’s critical for two reasons: 1) For accurate revenue/sales/attendance predictions, and 2) As ROI metrics to justify investments for growth.

This also allows loss-leader campaigns. Even if the math on a Groupon deal is razor thin, a smart retailer (online or offline) can acquire e-mails through a special form they set up and add an extra $20+ per transaction, per our hypothetical example.

Many companies can afford to give product away for “free” if they have the right metrics. Most companies don’t, which leads us to number three.

3. Large Companies Will Waste Money on Vanity Metrics

There’s a difference between “actionable” and “vanity” metrics. Just because your competitors are on Foursquare doesn’t mean that you should be. Could it make sense? Sure, but you should run the numbers — the right numbers. Impressions, page views, and undefined terms like “engagement” are at best gameable and at worst meaningless. Some social media consultancies define their success metrics well (including, in rare cases, “engagement”), but beware the services that don’t. Remember that those who got rich in the gold rush weren’t panning for gold; they were selling pick axes. Apple isn’t chasing Facebook updates, and Steve Jobs isn’t worried about getting blog posts up before noon. Apple’s doing just fine, as are many companies quietly focusing on the tools they know best.

“Actionable” need not be expensive. The conversion from SlideShare to purchase from my WordPress blog, both of which were free, helped me to sell more than 4,000 books on Amazon in less than 12 hours. If you’re spending more than $5,000 per month for insight, make sure you’re getting actionable data that you can at least correlate to sales.

Much of social media is trackable, despite the noise. Don’t get tricked with new lingo or you’ll end up with an embarrassing motto straight from here.4.

Ads & Conversation Will Impact Different Conversion Rates

I recall once seeing a Zynga billboard while driving up the 280-N from the San Francisco airport to downtown San Francisco. There was no tagline, and I joked to my passenger, who was in the financing and IPO business: “I’m not sure who that’s intended to sell.”

He laughed and responded with “Dude, that’s not for end users. That’s to get the attention of the bankers driving from SFO to downtown.”

Remember, you can have multiple audiences for your ads. At American Apparel, many of its best known ads ran in obscure publications or in short bursts on niche websites. Millions of people know about them, however, because blogs thought they were so interesting that they wrote articles about them.

In that case, the press was the audience and the public only indirectly so. The public was a later side effect, but not the first target. One good test of whether your advertising can become a conversation: Would people notice if your ads stopped running? Clickthrough rate is not going to answer that question.

This is why advertisers should start monitoring chatter about their content and come up with ways to track and value that. You also need be able to think big picture so you can know that sometimes negative chatter is still a good thing (it means people get emotional about what you do).

Does this violate the actionable metric rule in my third point? Not at all. It’s another feedback loop and easily measurable, whether in press mentions (including blogs) specific to an ad, or even product development impact.

For developing product, Amazon is well known for “working backward” from internal press-release response. That is, it starts with the reaction or response from its intended audience and designs its advertising messages — or products — backward from there. Google also used this approach by launching Google News without chronological or geographic filtering, only afterward responding to requests and implementing the chronological feature. There was a ton of debate and fighting internally for both features, and they let the market decide.

“Listening” isn’t enough. Tracking the number of Twitter mentions tells you nothing. The bigger question is: What are we trying to build or accomplish, and how will we digest and use this data?

If you nail that, you can nail your competition to the wall. They’ll be too busy chasing the latest shiny web service.

Disney’s Innovative Tech Makes Its Theme Parks More Fun

From Mashable:

Those “imagineers” at Disney World know waiting in line too long can spoil your fun. That’s why they’ve created ingenious ways to cut down on wait times at Disney’s enormously popular theme park.

According to The New York Times, Disney has combined high technology with imagination to track visitors and keep them constantly entertained. Nestled inside a high-tech command center that could double as a set on a James Bond movie, technicians monitor banks of cameras, using color-coded mapping software and an array of secret tracking and counting techniques that monitor the numbers of visitors in the rides and restaurants of the theme park.

If those cameras and sensors detect, for example, that lines at the Pirates of the Caribbean ride are getting too long, they can dispatch more boats to move additional visitors through. If the ride’s already running at its maximum capacity, they can direct a “cast member” playing Captain Jack Sparrow to pop out of one of the discreetly placed doors and distract the bored visitors.

Some of the rides, such as Space Mountain, are equipped with 90-second video games to keep people occupied until they’ve made it to the front of the line. And, there are iPhone apps available that notify visitors where they can find a cast member playing Sleeping Beauty, who will be more than happy to sign autographs.

Disney has always been secretive with its technology, but somehow The New York Times was able to find out that future plans for the Disney parks might include wristbands with chips inside that transmit the visitor’s name, credit card number and favorite Disney characters. This will enable guests to pay for drinks and fun with a swipe of that wristband and even have robotic characters inside some of the attractions call out their names.

New Facebook App Lets You Earn Money When You Or Your Friends Shop

From Social Times:

OtherPage is looking forward to taking social shopping to the next level where shoppers’ can let their friends join in on their shopping experience. OtherPage Social Shopping, allows users to interact with their friends on Facebook by sharing their shopping experience and discussing the up-to-the minute coupons and online sale offered through OtherPage Merchants. According to OtherPage, LLC President Kevin McCarthy,

“We are pleased to provide this high level of functionality in a brand new service category. And we are especially pleased to launch our application on Facebook Platform,”

Those that shop through OtherPage Merchants and share their shopping experience are able to earn money back from a percentage of their total purchase and through discussions. Shoppers’ can also earn cash back from their friends when they sign up and make a purchase through the OtherPage merchants.

OtherPage users have access to a price comparison search engine that offers millions of products for shoppers to either browse, sorted by merchants or specific categories. If you find an amazing offer or just wish to review a product offered then let your friends know via the “start a conversation” link that will post your comment directly onto your Facebook profile.

When it comes to privacy, OtherPage offers a variety of privacy settings that can be changed by the shopper. When you make a purchase OtherPage only sees how much you spent and the merchant you made the purchase through and in some instances they can see what you have purchased. This can be changed via your privacy settings, and you can still earn money back.

2010: The Year Facebook Dethroned Google as King of the Web

From Mashable:

Facebook was not only the most searched item of the year, but it passed Google as America’s most-visited website in 2010, according to a new report from Experian Hitwise.

For the second year in a row, “facebook” was the top search term among U.S. Internet users. The search term accounted for 2.11% of all searches, according to Hitwise. Even more impressive is the fact that three other variations of Facebook made it into the top ten: “facebook login” at #2, “facebook.com” at #6 and “www.facebook.com” at #9. Combined, they accounted for 3.48% of all searches, a 207% increase from Facebook’s position last year.

Rounding out the list of top search terms were YouTube, Craigslist, MySpace, eBay, Yahoo and Mapquest. Other companies that made big moves in terms of searches include Hulu, Netflix, Verizon, and ESPN. The search term “games” also made its first appearance in the list of Hitwise’s top 50 search terms.

More interesting though is Facebook’s ascension to #1 on Hitwise’s list of most-visited websites. The social network accounted for 8.93% of all U.S. visits in 2010 (January-November), beating Google (7.19%), Yahoo Mail (3.52%), Yahoo (3.30%) and YouTube (2.65%). However, Facebook didn’t beat the traffic garnered by all of Google’s properties combined (9.85%).

It’s only a matter of time until Facebook topples the entire Google empire, though. We’ve seen the trend develop for month: Facebook is getting bigger than Google. According to comScore, Facebook’s U.S. traffic grew by 55% in the last year and has shown no sign of slowing down.

Schweppes: Facebook Profile Photo App

From Digital Buzz:

By now you’ve seen the new Facebook Profile photo functionality/layout, and you’ve probably also seen a bunch of people showcasing some pretty cool images. Chances are they used this clever little app from Schweppes (by Super Social) to create their seamless profile image.

I think this is a great strategic play by Schweppes, a simple branded app that is almost* completely selfless (compared to a lot of apps out there), providing a service that will be increasingly popular as the trend catches on, plus it’s pretty quick from start to finish, providing what most users would have needed Photoshop for, so it should gain some traction with Facebook users! Great play, great app, looking forward to seeing if it catches on! Click here to check out the app.

Staples "Geared4School"

From Hipcricket.com:

Objective

Increase sales during the back to school rush.

Solution

Staples and Hipcricket ran a “Geared4School” sweepstakes through in-store signage and national ads. Consumers were encouraged to enter via text or online to win a grand prize of a $10,000 shopping spree in Los Angeles with Ashley Tisdale. Consumers were also eligible to win daily and weekly prizes.

Results

YOver 50% of entries came in via text, averaging 800 texts per day and over 60,000 in total.
“I’ve told everyone you are the best vendor we’ve worked with. You are fast, know your stuff, and customer service is tops.”
– David Evans, Interactive Design Manager, Staples

8 Things That Need To Happen In Social Media In 2011

From Simply Zesty:

It’s been a great year in 2010 for social media where the industry has really burst in to the mainstream and been embraced by brands and business but I wanted to look at some of the main things that need to happen in 2011 for the progress to continue. The main social networks are covered here as well as looking at some of the bigger industry trends and all in all I’d have to say social media as an industry is in great health and if anything I’d say it’s at the very start of it’s growth and 2011 should really go on and re-enforce that and see some exciting things happening.

Twitter Monetization

Twitter can still claim that they are in their growth phase but with a recent round of funding valuing them at close to 4 billion they need to start thinking about monetization very soon. They’ve had a spectacular year of growth and Twitter continues to be one of the most useful tools around that many of us simply could not live without for a number of seasons but they are a business at the end of the day and they simply can’t keep burning through cash at the rate they are if they are to succeed long term. They’ve tried a couple of things over the last year with limited success but they need to find that automated self serve ad platform like Google and Facebook have in place that generates them billions in revenue over the coming years. They have the users and enough smart people working there to do it so my guess is that by the end of 2011 they’ll start to get there.

Less Noise

Social media still suffers from a noise issue. It’s like a constant fog horn blaring out and the big problem is that you miss most of the good stuff. There have been some improvements in relevancy filters but to a large extend your networks are all set up manually and unless you take the time to personally curate them you are not going to be getting the best information. If somebody can crack the noise issue and make sure you only get the information and content that is relevant to you while filtering out the useless noise. We are already seeing the first private networks emerging with Path that focuses on less not more and I’d like to see more of this in 2011 as people focus on the quality of the information rather than the quantity.

Better Customer Service

Some of the brands engaging on customer service via Twitter already are doing a fantastic job and it is affecting their reputation in a very positive way but having said that the vast majority of brands and businesses are not there engaging in quality customer service yet. It’s not good enough to say any more that they are thinking about embracing Twitter or looking towards it because it needs to happen immediately. The new consumer wants their information delivered at high speed and expects it to be so. The days of updating a website as the first point of contact are gone and people expect the immediacy of Twitter.

Facebook Credits Become Widespread

Up until now Facebook credits have been used exclusively for virtual goods but I think that will change in 2011 as they become more widespread and used on a wider range of products. We’ve seen so many brands and businesses trying to get in to Facebook commerce by building their own stores but I think the biggest solution is Facebook credits. People need to have a one click solution within Facebook that they really trust and can make purchases through. The most likely time for a Facebook IPO is 2012 and if they can introduce a more widespread credits system that gets embraced by their user base while taking their percentage then they move in to the Google range of potential earnings and open up an even bigger cash cow of a business.

Continued Progress From Youtube

Youtube has gone about it’s business a lot quieter that the other social networks this year but I think their evolution has been seriously impressive. Not only have they seen stunning growth with stats like 36 hours of video uploaded to the site every minute but they’ve also massively improved the quality of video they stream and added a huge amount of impressive new features. Youtube have been quite aggressive in the way they’ve been monetizing the content throughout the last year with a whole slew of new ad formats and they have still to crack the golden goose that will make them massively profitable but if there is one area that they are heading towards it is moving in to your living room. In 2011 Youtube needs to get better content either through partnering or producing their own. Youtube also needs to find ways on to your television and they have tried to do that through Google TV and Leanback and it is only through that combination of better content and being in your living room that they will find the bigger advertising money and become far more profitable. 2010 has been a great year for them in terms of progress and 2011 needs to be the same so as they evolve out of a simple video sharing site

Google Needs To Wake Up

Google needs to wake up and see that the whole social world is engulfing them from every angle and that their core product of search is under some serious threat from the likes of Facebook. We know that Google are working on their new social product (Google me, Google +1 or whatever they are going to call it) and that it will launch in spring but that is seriously delayed and their previous attempts with Buzz and Wave have been so poor that one wonders if they really understand social at all. I don’t think they do. What is important though is that people are starting to get better more relevant search results from Twitter and Facebook’s like button is starting to change search and the way people find products and will only improve. 2011 will see this trend accelerate and if I was sitting in the Google board room I’d actually be quite worried. Personally if I was them I’d be using the huge cash reserves they have to take out Twitter no matter what the cost.

Location Based Services Need To Hit Mainstream

It’s been a great year for location based services like Foursquare and Facebook Places. Marketers all over the world have been getting themselves very excited about the possibilities that it offers them and local businesses have been using them to target consumers. The main stream adoption is still not there though and that will have to happen in 2011. LBS seem to have been embraced far quicker in the USA but for people to start offering better deals there needs to be widespread adoption around the world. Facebook places should change a lot of that and their self service deal platform is impressive but they majority of the world is not yet aware that they can check in to physical locations.

Another Break Out Service

Twitter is 4 years old at this stage and Facebook is coming up on 7 years since launch. Foursquare was one service that many were trumpeting as the next big service and other like Linkedin and Youtube have been around for the same sort of time spam as Facebook. 2011 will be the break out year for the next big service and the chances are that it could be something that has been launched already and that the early adopters are all using already. There are any amount of services out there but one I am most excited about is Instagram the photo sharing site. It essentially only lets you share fancy photos with your friends but it has already amassed 1 million followers and has some basic social features built in that could easily be expanded upon. 2011 will see massive growth for them and they’ll either become massively mainstream or get bought out by a much bigger rival. That is of course only one small start up to watch and the entire social media space should have lots of traction for start ups and hopefully provide another huge success story.

Social Media And The Super Bowl – A Match Made In Heaven

From Simply Zesty:

It is the marketing equivalent of the world cup final. Companies that run ads during the showpiece final of American Football – the Super Bowl – in January 2011 will pay up to €3m for the privilege of a 30 second slot, and all the ad spots on Fox television have already been sold.

Why? because 100m people watch this event. In fact, last year 106.5m people watched the Super Bowl – this broke the 27 year old record in the for the most viewed TV programme . That was the last episode of M*A*S*H by the way.

What’s interesting is the increasing use of social media by Super Bowl advertisers to try and establish relationships with consumers that last beyond the 30 second ad slots. Mercedes-Benz is running “The World’s First Twitter-Fueled Race,” which awards two new cars to the two-person team of social-media users that get Mercedes-Benz the most tweets, Facebook “likes” and social-media currency by the day of the Super Bowl.

“We’re using the 2011 Super Bowl as our head-long plunge into committing to social media,” says Stephen Cannon, marketing vice president at Mercedes-Benz. “It’s our strategic leap of faith.” Besides rolling out new models in the game, in the next few years Mercedes plans to create cars targeting a much younger demographic, Cannon says. It wants to be much more social-media savvy long before that, he says.

Audi is in its fourth Super Bowl as an advertiser, will host an Audi Inner Circle which is social-media contest open to everyone. Audi will reward its 10 “most active” social-media fans before the Super Bowl. It will award trips and other prizes to the fans whose social-media posts are most original and most numerous. “We’re trying to use social media to glue everything together,” say Scott Keough, chief marketing officer at Audi of America

This represents a growing trend of major sporting events and social media coming being used together by major traditional offline advertisers. During the Beijing Olympics TV advertisers like Procter &Gamble used Twitter and Facebook to extend the reach of their TV campaign.

The FIFA World Cup saw brands like Nike and Adidas aggressively cross-promote TV pieces to their Facebook pages. Brands are using Social Media to try and build relationships after the ads have been shown, to determine how well the ads were received and to drive additional traffic to Facebook so they can engage with consumers (which they can’t do on TV).

Advertisers are also using Social Media to generate engagement and interaction before the event to reach a wider audience. Last year, for example Budweiser asked facebook users to decide which ads they would run in the Superbowl. While there, they could also vote for their favorite Bud ad from previous years. After users voted (having become a fan first), they were given the option of posting their selection to their own Facebook Wall.

And a step further went Pepsi – who dropped their advertising in the Superbowl to run a huge $20m social media campaign instead. They are back advertising in this year’s Superbowl. But guess what, they are getting their consumers to create their own superbowl ads with the finalists being voted on by the public to decide which ads are run. How Social Media is that!

Cookie Monster Stars In His Own Interactive YouTube Game

From Social Times:

Cookie Monster has become something of a web video star this year, amassing over 1.5 million views in his recent campaign for a hosting gig on SNL, and posting regular video blog on his Facebook page and Tumblr. Now he’s even got his own interactive YouTube game! ‘Sink or Float?’ is a fun new educational game that leads viewers through experiments to find out if different objects sink or float.

Over the last year, or even two, there have been quite a number of interactive games on YouTube. However, this is the first one I’ve seen that is actually educational and appropriate for kids. The game is a fantastic way to teach kids about the scientific method, starting out by asking a question, then coming up with a hypothesis and then testing that hypothesis. I hope that we’ll see a lot more fun interactive YouTube games for kids from Sesame Street and the loveable Cookie Monster.

39 Expert and Novice Social Media Apps Profiled in 2010

From Social Times:

Our “What You Need to Know About” series of application profiles has been helping brands and agencies select the most appropriate tools to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their campaigns.

Need to improve your social media monitoring, engagement or monitization? Check these out — one is bound to come to your rescue!

And be sure to watch for even more application profiles and updates in 2011 here on Social Times.

Applications are classified by their primary function. For example, some montitoring/analytics apps also include Customer Relationship Management (CRM) features.

Social Media Monitoring & Analytics

1. Alterian SM2

Business intelligence solution designed to capture and analyze data from social media channels to monitor brands, identify key communities/influencers, address customer service issues, conduct unbiased research and generate sales leads.

2. Analytic.ly

Fed by a custom database, facilitates the searching and filtering of online conversations in real time, over an extended period of time, across events, global social media stats, keywords and brands.

3. Awareness foursquare Perspectives

Part of the Awareness Social Marketing Hub, this tool generates and delivers comprehensive reports for enterprise marketers to uncover trends across multiple foursquare venues

4. Converseon

Suite of social media listening products to turn the vast, unstructured, unprompted online conversation into a rich source of meaningful insights, intelligence and information.

5. InfiniGraph

InfiniGraph tracks social network use to measure the strength of user connections brands, friends and followers, as well as to help brands identify and analyze influencer segmentation, brand affinity and social activity hubs.

6. NetBase

Search and discovery tools using semantic technology to access consumer opinions, emotions and behaviors to drive the direction of a social media marketing strategy.

7. Network Insights SocialSenseFB

Networked Insight’s SocialSenseFB is a social media tool that allows companies to analyze what fans are saying on Facebook about their brand and competitors’ brand.

8. Position2 Brand Monitor

A cloud-based, collaborative platform that enables companies to listen, discover and engage with social media conversations with data stored and processed by a custom indexing engine.

9. PSS CREDBoard

Dashboard that adds social media touch points to the company’s enterprise-wide customer engagement offerings.

10. RowFeeder

Media monitoring solution built on Excel, allowing users to stay in their Excel workflow for reporting and analysis of Twitter and Facebook keywords.

11. Scout Labs

Real-time social media search engine that is continuously scanning the web for the voice-of-the customer, processing the data and displaying it in a real-time dashboard.

12. Spiral16

Spiral16 offers a web-monitoring platform and 3D visual-mapping tool that gathers and analyzes relevant, in-depth business intelligence.

13. Synthesio

The Synthesio multilingual, social media monitoring platform uses a hybrid of tech and human monitoring services to help brands and agencies collect and analyze consumer conversations and online mainstream media.

14. uberVU

uberVU provides real-time mentions, analytics and options to help brands understand the impact social media has on their business. After the jump — what you need to know about uberVU.

Social Media Appplications and CRM — Cross Platform

15. Compass Labs

Compass Labs’ real-time social media solution is designed to target potential buyers and improve engagement, conversion and ROI for advertisers.

16. FaceTime Socialite

Security management and compliance solution for social networks that allows organizations to deploy a SaaS solution suite to monitor, control and archive activity conducted on the corporate network.

17. Gigya

Gigya is a software-as-a-service technology for scalable social CRM, deigned to unify the most popular identity and social providers including Facebook, Twitter, PayPal and LinkedIn and bring social sign-in features and benefits to corporate websites

18. HootSuite

Social media dashboard which allows organizations to schedule and publish messages to multiple social networks, monitor and filter conversations and track results to rapidly adjust outreach tactics.

19. Involver AMP

Enterprise platform for marketers to monitor their brands’ audience across social channels and then publish, schedule and manage their brand’s strategy and presence across the social web.

20. JitterJam

Web-based Social CRM system that combines social media, email and mobile engagement with a contact database and the tools designed to turn social interaction into opportunities.

21. KickApps

Web-based social content management system that enables Web publishers and marketers to develop branded communities, social applications and interactive widgets at their domain and across the social web.

22. Loyalty Match On Demand

Cloud-based application that improves upon the traditional tiered-based loyalty program model by taking advantage of the social incentives, interactions, gaming and word of mouth of social media.

23. MarketMeSuite

MarketMeSuite is a dashboard to help businesses proactively manage their social media marketing.

24. NetVibes

Netvibes is a personalized dashboard to monitor, personalize and publish all aspects of one’s daily digital life with access to all apps activities, widgets and feeds in one place on desktops and mobile devices.

25. Offerpop

A Web-based social marketing platform which helps brands recruit, engage and convert customers on Twitter and Facebook, Offerpop includes a campaign builder, instant landing pages and built-in reports along with social marketing apps.

26. Shoutlet

Shoutlet provides a centralized platform that helps companies manage and monetize their social media communication.

27. Simplify360

Simplify360 is a social analytics, engagement and campaign platform to monitor brands on social networking sites, news sites, blogs and video sharing portals based on keywords and sentiment.

28. StrongMail Social Studio

Social media marketing platform that includes a referral marketing solution, a social sharing widget for web and email, and a campaign management application for Facebook and Twitter.

29. Syncapse Platform

The Syncapse Platform is an enterprise Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application designed to help marketers to create a global, cross platform social media presence.

30. Vitrue Social Relationship Management Platform

Vitrue works with marketers of all sizes, as well as agencies, to deliver a turnkey, comprehensive solution to message, manage, measure and maximize interactions across Facebook and Twitter.

31. Zuberance Advocate Platform

A hosted service that enables companies to systematically identify and mobilize their Brand Advocates, plus track results of Advocate marketing programs in real-time

Social Media Applications and CRM — Facebook

32. Buddy Media

Facebook management system to connect brands with their current and future customers and allowing them to launch, maintain and measure their Facebook presence across multiple countries and languages.

33. Context Optional Social Marketing Suite

An integrated, SaaS solution that enables enterprises to effectively and efficiently build, monitor, manage and measure their brand presence on Facebook capable of supporting a large number of pages, administrators and fans.

34. Infused Palermo

Social commerce platform for brands to provide fully functioning stores — with inventory browsing, shopping cart and checkout capabilities — directly onto their Facebook fan pages.

35. Open Audience Manager

Open Audience Manager helps marketers with large web sites embed Facebook’s Like button into their web pages and subsequently publish newsfeed updates to Friends of any page.

36. Raven Facebook Tool

Component of Raven Internet Marketing Tools that integrates Google Analytics with Facebook Insights and allows users to schedule updates and report on campaign metrics.

Social Media Applications — Mobile

37. Kony Solutions

Suite of products and support services designed to enable large brands to design, develop, deploy and manage feature-rich mobile applications in a device independent manner and deployed across multiple channels.

38. Pushpins

Pushpins is a viral, mobile couponing platform that pushes coupons to consumer’s loyalty cards as they browse and scan products in grocery and retail settings.

39. Zoove

Mobile direct response marketing and distribution network that powers the StarStar Mobile Dial Code Service and Registry to help brands and advertisers bridge offline and online advertising via mobile phones

When It Comes to Facebook, Relevance May Be Redefined

To Create Conversation, Simple, Random and Banal May Be a Brand's Best Bets

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- May 4, as you may or may not know, is National Star Wars Day, a fact recognized by no less august bodies than the Los Angeles City Council and the Church of Jediism, a George Lucas-inspired denomination that counts itself as the fourth-largest church in the United Kingdom. This year the occasion was also marked by the folks at BlackBerry, who updated their corporate Twitter account to read "May the 4th Be With You."

What does BlackBerry have to do with Star Wars? Not much, other than selling an app that turns your Torch or Tour into a faux light saber. But that didn't stop the tweet from being one of the company's most effective -- a phenomenon Brian Wallace, VP-global digital at BlackBerry parent Research In Motion, had to try to explain to colleagues.

Oreo strikes a balance between promotion and chat on Facebook.

"I remember getting emails from my peers asking me why we would post such a thing and was this why we created our Twitter channel," he wrote in an email interview. "My response was that this post reached over 150,000 people, 98% of the posts were positive, most tweets made a positive association with our brand, and it drove a 15% increase in our followers. Now what's the value of all that to our company? For the cost of $0.00 we have increased positive brand sentiment, generated a measurable earned-media value and now have 20,000+ more people who I can share product-related information to. Not a bad ROI."

Redefining relevance

Marketing executives all over the world are having experiences not dissimilar to Mr. Wallace's. Relevance has long been a central tenet of effective advertising, but the rise of Facebook and Twitter are forcing a redefinition of the term. As it turns out, many people in social networks don't want to talk about your product, they just want to talk. We've long known that inserting brands into social-media channels requires a conversational touch, but many are surprised by just how conversational. There's increasing evidence that the most-effective kinds of marketing communications on these websites are simple, random, even banal statements or questions driven by the calendar or the whim of a writer that may not have anything to do with the brand in question.

What are you doing this weekend? What is your ideal vacation? What's your favorite movie or book? On Veteran's Day, BlackBerry posted a simple holiday-related message that received nearly 8,000 likes and more than 500 comments, many of which consisted of veterans thanking the brand and posting their PINs, allowing others to contact them via BlackBerry messenger. Reaction to that update far outpaced other recent ones concerned with products or tips.

It's never been particularly easy or cheap to get 8,000 people to do anything for a brand, but Twitter and Facebook may be changing that. "We're so used to advertising and marketing being highly reviewed, high-production-quality creative on which you spend a lot of money and time, and there's a whole flow built on creating and approving it, said Michael Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media. "All the sudden, a very simple question, like 'What's your favorite movie?' is engaging your customers and that's your creative. People say 'Whoa.'"

With more than 500 million people on Facebook and Twitter closing in on 200 million users, "stream marketing," as Mr. Lazerow describes it, will be crucial. What goes into those ceaseless rivers, alongside updates and content from friends, said Mr. Lazerow, "is some of the most powerful and important creative that we're going to be dealing with." On the part of the writers, that requires a different ability that's far from what's been traditionally needed in marketing. Said Mr. Wallace, "You need to be skilled at understanding how a seemingly random-type message can -- in the end -- contribute to the company brand and/or behavioral objectives."

Content should lean toward conversational

Mr. Lazerow, whose company makes tools that help brands manage their Facebook presences, estimates that roughly two-thirds of a company's Facebook content should be conversational in nature. The exact ratio, however, depends on what it's trying to achieve. While there's no across-the-board data on how conversational posts compare to promotional ones, he said the evidence is clear. He pointed me to a few different examples on Facebook where those conversational posts produce eight to 12 times the response of more brand-oriented ones. "It's not always about your brand," he said. "It's about why people are there to connect with other people, [gettng them] to connect with you because they like you. The numbers speak for themselves."

Oreo is masterful in handling that balance between promotion and conversation. Consider the responses from several recent questions:

• "Ever try dunking an Oreo cookie with a fork or anything else?" 8,200 likes and 2,300 comments
• "Pick a flavor, any flavor! If you could create a new Oreo cream flavor, what would it be?" 7,100 likes, 12,500 comments
• "Pop quiz: Twist, lick, then..." 6,500 likes, 6,200 comments

In case you're wondering, these numbers aren't far off what posts on Lady Gaga's page might do. Not bad for a 98-year-old cookie brand. Oreo's Facebook fan base has grown by 3 million since late October, giving it over 15 million fans. It's one of three brands, along with Coke and Starbucks, to penetrate a top 25 dominated by celebrities, entertainment properties and Texas Hold Em Poker.

The Kraft cookie's Facebook presence originates from a department at the digital agency 360i, which, with a dozen writers who work off pre-planned editorial calendar, is as organized as any publication and is now bigger than many. That department reaches more than 30 million fans across a long list of brands, including Coca-Cola, JC Penney, Lysol and Jell-O. Those writers typically have experience talking to people on behalf of brands, often as community managers in non-social network settings.

Inspire feedback

"When you have ad agencies or copywriters writing your Facebook copy, it ends up being promotional in nature and if you're not inspiring feedback no one's going to care," said Sarah Hofstetter, senior VP-emerging media and brand strategy at 360i. "You can only talk about your product so much. Balance that with you're not trying to be their best friend, you're trying to achieve some marketing objective."

For Oreo, as Ms. Hofstetter explains it, those objectives are both fan-base growth and engagement on the page. For other clients, it's a whole different thing. Bravo, for instance, is interested in clicks and views of the videos of its shows. BlackBerry's Mr. Wallace said that success is about getting likes, or shares, or comments. Or maybe the person will click on an ad or post a photo or video he or she took with a BlackBerry.

"In the end it's behavior-based," said Mr. Wallace. "A Facebook fan has no value. Getting a Facebook fan to do something does."

Pepto Bismol is on a Social Media Binge

From Mashable:

Not every brand manager has the stomach to gut the TV and print budget of a venerable consumer brand, but Pepto Bismol’s did.

In July, the Procter & Gamble brand, known as an elixir for upset stomachs, reversed the ratio of its ad spending. Previously, 80% to 90% of its budget went toward traditional media; now that number has been cut to 10% to 20%. Most of the rest will go toward digital media.

That meant a new Facebook Page, a Twitter feed and, most recently, web videos featuring Ken “The Hangover” Jeong. The latter, created by Publicis New York and Funny or Die, show Jeong at the pit of a man’s stomach spraying the pink liquid on some recently ingested cookies.

The emphasis on the brand’s iconic color was no accident; the reason the brand shifted course was that social media conversations about the brand tended to refer to “Pepto Bismol pink,” says Kristen Stutz, assistant brand manager on Pepto. The other conversations were about over-indulgence, which the brand capitalized on with a sponsorship of Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4. The brand is spending the bulk of its traditional media budget this month with TV versions of the Jeong ad.

The results? The company claims its online buzz jumped 200% year-over-year since the strategy switch, and sales and volume rose 7% for July, August and November. Those results were “atypical” and the “best results Pepto has seen in years,” says spokesperson Elizabeth Ming.

While not many P&G brands have gone as big into social media, Nathan Fox, the brand manager of Pepto, says one Procter brand was an obvious influence: Old Spice, whose “Smell like a man, man” video has been viewed more than 25 million times on YouTube, creating buzz the brand hadn’t had in generations. Next up, Fox says that there will be two or three more “indulgence occasions” between New Year’s and July 4 that Pepto will attempt to turn into social media events. Fox declined to say what those occasions were, for competitive reasons.

How Consumers Are Using Smartphones in Stores

From Mashable:

Smartphone-toting consumers are increasingly using the devices to scout out better deals when shopping in-store, a new survey reveals.

Thirty percent of consumers with smartphones said while at a store looking for a product, they scout out better deals on their device. The phone-based survey, by GfK Roper on behalf of SapientNitro, was conducted December 3-4 among a sample of 1,004 adults. Not all respondents had smartphones.

According to Nielsen, only 28% of U.S. consumers have smartphones, but the researcher projects that by the end of 2011, that number will hit 49%.

The news isn’t all bad for traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, though. Thirty-three percent of respondents said they e-mailed or texted someone to tell them about their experience at the store, such as finding a great deal or gift. Nineteen percent used their phone to post something on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or some other social networking site to convey that information.

Other findings:

• 52% used their smartphones to find a store location.
• 48% used them to browse for products.
• 40% compared prices with their smartphones.
• 35% looked for discounts, deals, coupons or discount codes on their phones.
• 34% checked product availability at retail stores or websites.

What do people really want from brands online?

From Simplyzesty:

The sometimes skewed approach that many brands have when they carry out activity in social media, is to think about what particular product or content they want to push onto consumers. It’s very tempting to become obsessed with how your brand appears that you try and push the boundaries of social media to the limit, until you end up with the most complicated campaign that uses all the latest technology. The only problem is that you’ve become so obsessed with how to portray your brand as a leader in social technologies that you’ve forgotten to ask what it is your customers actually want from you.

The first thing to remember is that people don’t actually want to be your friend. They’re not following you on Twitter or Facebook because they want to have a one on one conversation about the weather or your thoughts on who should have won X Factor. What people actually want from brands is a mixture of news, promotions and just generally to get a query sorted as quickly as possible. Indeed, a recent survey by emarketer found that while 25% of people wanted to follow a brand for promotions, just 4% wanted to feel part of that brand’s community. So as much as you can focus on building the coolest community around your brand with impressive apps and social tools, it’s the relatively unsexy things such as discounts and offers that customers actually want.

People don’t care how popular you are

There is a huge obsession with numbers at the moment and I was struck by how big this had become, when I tried out a new tool by Wildfire that compared brands on Facebook. Now the tool is completely free to use and this is not Wildfire’s primary focus. But when I used it I was disappointed that all you got was a graph that compared the growth of Likes/fans over time :

As nice as this is and undoubtedly it will be used by many marketers, it’s not really all that important for brands. In his recent article on social media stats, Andrew Hanley found that while 38% of users trusted a brand based on the size of their following, a far higher percentage – 64% trusted brands based on the openness of their dialogue. This may come as a huge eye opener to many brands who have become fixated on the numbers race. The temptation to pursue numbers comes at the risk that you forget the dialogue that is central to your community.

Knowing when not to talk

This is a difficult one for many brands : sometimes it’s better to not say anything at all. Just as much as people unfollow friends because they’re too noisy, the same applies for companies. In a survey into why consumers unfollowed brands, 58% said it was due to brands sending too many messages or simply producing too much content to sift through. To put this into context, it’s exactly the same percentage as people that unfollowed brands due to irresponsible business practices. How you’re communicating is just as important as what you’re communicating.

Good user experience

It’s important to remember that the basics of web design and web usability still apply for social media channels. So many times I’ll be using a nice application and the link to the website is broken, or there’s an error screen, or I can’t actually find out how I start using an app. People still want a streamlined user experience whether they’re on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or your blog. They’ll still be looking for the usual things such as contact information and working links. If you can preserve this user experience then visitors to your social profile will likely stick around for longer and you’ll look more trustworthy in the long run. Consumers are also looking for continuity – if you suddenly stop tweeting one day but haven’t given a reason for it, then you’re not managing consumer expectation and customers will likely become frustrated and vent this frustration online!

Shareable content

Often it’s the case that a brand can be popular in a social media channel without actually having a presence in there. This can be seen most starkly on Twitter, where the likelihood of a brand being spoken about depends more on the content they’ve produced, than a particular activity they’ve taken out themselves. Twitter is fast turning into a news channel, so what brands need to give consumers is good, shareable content and importantly to include mechanics by which people can actually share that content, such as a Tweet button. A company’s strategy for Twitter for example, may not involve a Twitter account at all, but rather building a promotion, blog post or app that users want to share and talk about. This is how you build up your social currency, not necessarily posting 50 messages a day where you ask your followers how their weekends were.

Bonus – what do you want from your customers?

It’s still an important question to ask as this is ultimately what will shape your social media strategy. There can be a bit of a feeling that in social media you’re only supposed to listen to what people want and give it to them. That’s nonsense, and both research and everyday behaviour shows that people are receptive to companies being original, so long as you’re not abusing your community at the expense. If you lose sight of what it is you want from your customers, you risk listening to what every friend or follower is telling you and you forget what you wanted in the first place. Aside from ‘more sales’ break it down into the actual actions that you want to drive. Do you want brand enthusiasts, or to encourage more people to recommend your brand, or people sharing a particular offer? This should be a constant throughout – your consumers will appreciate if you have a focused strategy after all.

10 Things Social Media Marketers Should Know About Millennials

From Social Times:

The most important aspect of making an impact on Millennials is to first understand who we are.There are many articles out there trying to do this but ironically they’re not written by Millennials. I’m not saying they aren’t helpful. Actually, here are two articles I’ve read recently that I think do a great job of discussing Gen Y:

Catching the Millennial Wave

Why Bashing Millennials Is Wrong

Still, if you really want to know about our generation you might want to hear it right from the horse’s mouth.Here are 10 key things you need to know about Millennials if you want to effectively market to them:

1. We’re narcissistic

We are self-absorbed (just saying), so you need to get to know us on an individual level to make an impact. We like to feel special and have brands treat us as such. Make it personalized and relevant. Brands that single us out when engaging with us via social media will resonate with us.

A great example: Pandora Radio. I tweeted about loving Pandora one afternoon when I had an exceptional playlist, and, although Pandora has over 50,000 followers and follows over 35,000 people, they still sent me a direct message saying they love me too and asked if I’d ever wear a Pandora shirt. I followed up via email and they sent me a shirt.

2. We’re impatient

We want things quick and easy. Avoid sending us paragraphs of information and videos/emails with content that takes more than 30 seconds to download. Bottom line: if it takes too long, we’ll move on to the next thing. The quicker you get to the point, the better.

3. We love technology

As digital natives, technology is so ingrained in us that it’s our favorite way to communicate. If you want to reach us, come find us on the plethora of social media channels out there. You’re more likely to get a response from sending us a Twitter DM or Facebook message than calling us on the phone.

You also want to make sure that you can communicate/engage us on every digital platform, especially mobile. Gen Y loves to access social media sites via smartphones.

4. We’re oversharers

We like to talk about ourselves and our lives. We post pictures and videos of everything online. Give us an opportunity to share with you.

The Wit Hotel in Chicago does a great job of this via social media channels. They recently ran a contest where people could take their “wittiest” pictures and post them on the Wit’s Facebook fan page. They publicized the contest via Twitter, posted links to pictures, and tweeted out the winners.

It was a great way for the Wit to engage with their audience and show that they care about what individual people have to say.

5. We don’t want to be sold to

We dislike traditional marketing methods/old school advertising. If you just push out your promotional message via social media channels, we won’t be interested. It makes your brand appear to be un-cool, and no Millennial wants to associate with an un-cool brand.

Try incorporating a mixture of information. Sure, share your news, but also share interesting news related to your industry. Incorporate humor. Talk about hot topics in the media.

Be human.

6. We have short attention spans

It makes us ultimate multi-taskers. We can listen to music, tweet, email, write a paper, research on the Internet, update Facebook, and text message one another all at the same time. What can you do to break through? Grab our attention right off the bat. If you can do that, you’re the next “task” that we’ll switch over to.

7. We want things the way we want them… when we decide we want them

Don’t push content out at us. Make it available so we can find it when we want to. When you share information via social media, provide links back to your website. It gives us the option to find out more when we want to.

But don’t expect us to be receptive of a message just because you put it out there.

8. We love the idea of “going against the man”

Anything that comes across as rebellious, unique or individualistic is going to spark our interest. We don’t want to be “corporate,” so we aren’t going to like brands that appear to be that way. Make us feel like we’re a part of something revolutionary (think: Obama 2008 campaign).

9. We appreciate creativity

Be innovative. Do something different. Think visually because that’s how we do. A cool new design, a funny video, infographics, etc. will always be well-received by Millennials.

Think in terms of trends and what’s hot right now. For instance, Stuart Weitzman ran a “Retweet to win” contest with a prize of Stuart Weitzman silly bands (they’re shaped like high heels!). The point is that Stuart Weitzman tied their brand into something hot with Gen Y right now—silly bands—and turned it into a fun, engaging activity on Twitter.

So if your website looks like a brochure and your e-newsletter looks like it came from 1995, it’s time for a new strategy. Come join us in 2011, please.

10. We listen to our peers more than we listen to you

If you want to influence us, get our friends on board. We are more likely to take action if a friend recommends something. Seek out the social media communities where your Gen Y target spends their time and engage with brand advocates. The rest will follow.

Of course some Millennials are more like this than others, but overall this provides a bit of insight into the way we think. We’re not all the same, so figure out which type of Gen Y-er you’re trying to reach and delve into how they think. The marketing ideas will come from there.

Predictions: Online Advertising in 2011

From Social Times:

‘Tis the season for calling the future. We’re looking back on a turbulent year. In 2010, the global economy slowly extracted itself from the direct aftermath of the global financial crisis, and the social media space was positively buzzing. Twitter made many bold moves, often at the expense of its ecosystem, and Facebook became greater (in population) to some of the largest countries on the planet. Print continued its slide, and the future of broadcast was, once again, called into question.

With plenty of change around us, it’s natural to ask a simple question: what comes next?

Doug Stevenson, the co-founder and CEO of Vibrant Media, has come out with his annual list of five predictions for the coming year. Vibrant delivers in-text advertising to publishers like MSNBC and Gannett for brands that include Microsoft, GM and Unilever … so his thoughts on what to watch in the online advertising space are definitely worth a look.

1. Context is king: yeah, you read that right – context, not content. In the online ad space, Stevenson believes that “[n]ew contextual capabilities for display advertising will enhance the power and popularity of banner ads, rich media, and video.” Further, he sees marketers pushing for “hyper-relevant” dynamic advertising alternatives that will be customized and based on content.

2. Ads become content: look for the convergence of content and advertising to continue in 2011, with “branded utilities such as listings, live sports scores, weather, search results, Twitter, etc.” And, expect your target market to consume longer-form branded video entertainment.

3. DON’T follow me: remember the “do not call list”? Well, expect an online equivalent to gain popular support. As privacy becomes increasingly important, Stevenson notes, “Government intervention or increased self-regulation will lead marketers to new, safe alternatives with broader public acceptance.” He adds, “Brands will engage consumers through clear, opt-in group-purchasing technologies leveraged for direct marketing.”

4. Fewer online ad networks: mergers and acquisitions are likely on the agenda for 2011, and this consolidation will make it easier for buying and selling to occur. Stevenson explains, “The industry needs to simplify and become more coherent for marketers. Wall Street will take a vigorous interest in ad technology companies as the industry matures.”

5. Advertising will become more social: Stevenson believes that you’ll find “like” buttons “in everything from advertising to content.” Device applications (e.g., for the iPad) will “drive new platforms for interactions” among consumers, publishers and advertisers – the entire advertising supply chain. And, we’ll share more: Stevenson says, “New approaches are also seeing the integration of social-sharing and social recommendation functionality, adding value to content through utilities such as toolbars, which are beginning to take off for publishers.”

So, what’s at stake in all this? According to eMarketer, online ad spending is expected to grow 10.5 percent a year in 2011, followed by double-digit growth on an annual basis through 2014, at which point the sector will reach $40.5 billion. So, there are some pretty good reasons to make sure advertisers and publishers get this right!

Facebook Launch New Business Page Designs

From Simplyzesty:

Facebook announced that they would be making some changes to the way that pages work and it looks like those changes are here, at least for now. A look at the Simply Zesty page below shows just what the new pages will look like :

Where are the tabs?

One of the most notable changes in the new page layout is that there is a lot more emphasis on tabs along the page. Whereas before they almost functioned like a website with a standard tab layout on the top navigation, these have now moved down to the side of the page and these are now lost somewhat. The inevitable outcome of this is that less people will find their way to tabs. This is where companies invest a lot of money through design and apps so people will now have to work harder to promote the tabs organically to drive traffic there.

Questions

Questions have been around in the background for a while but it looks like Facebook have put these at the front and center of the new business pages which makes it seem like it’s an important feature going forward and not something they were going to abandon as some suggested.

Everything Broken?

It seems that due to this massive update lots of other parts of Facebook are either working very slowly or are completely broken. All external plugins and widgets seem to be playing up but I would imagine this is only temporary.

Login as page

Facebook have offered the ability to update a page through your personal account, but the new pages now have an additional feature which allow you to either login to the page, or switch from your personal account. This means that if you’re an admin of more than one page, you can switch between the pages, while logging out of your primary account. When you do this you can also see the messages that have been sent to that account for example. Interestingly, as the screenshot below shows, Facebook restrict certain content unless you’re logged in as your primary account.

Can’t change the landing tab

On the old pages it was possible to set a default landing tab, at least for people that weren’t a fan of the page. This was great if you wanted to drive traffic to a particular competition. Now though this option is no longer available. You can see why Facebook have made this decision, as they want business pages and personal profiles to look and feel the same. You’d expect to see the wall straight away for one of your friends, so they continue this experience for business pages. Again this won’t be welcome by a lot of companies on Facebook.

Facebook Makes Big New Move to Capture More User Data

From ReadWriteWeb:

Facebook today unveiled an incredibly simple new service that will allow any website owner to hand over user registration for their site to Facebook, undoubtedly something countless independent sites have considered since seeing the disaster that resulted from the hacking of Gawker's user account info earlier this month.

The new tool, called simply Registration Tool, is both simpler and more powerful than Facebook Connect. It works as a pre-populated iFrame for logged-in Facebook users, allows site owners to ask for fields of information not offered by Facebook and can be used to register people who do not have Facebook accounts. All under the watchful eye of Facebook, a company that leads the world in online identity and specializes in user data security. It's a very smart move, but raises questions about the company's growing power.

Web development thought leader Jeff Atwood articulated what's becoming an increasingly common sentiment in a recent blog post called The Dirty Truth About Web Passwords:

I'm not here to criticize Gawker. On the contrary, I'd like to thank them for illustrating in broad, bold relief the dirty truth about website passwords: we're all better off without them. If you'd like to see a future web free of Gawker style password compromises -- stop trusting every random internet site with a unique username and password! Demand that they allow you to use your internet driver's license -- that is, your existing Twitter, Facebook, Google, or OpenID credentials -- to log into their website.

That's exactly what the new Facebook Registration tool will make it easy for websites to do. In some cases, with a single line of code.

More Data for Facebook

Facebook is gobbling up user data left and right, that's the price for the power, convenience and security the company's identity services offer. Facebook said earlier this month that ten thousand sites are adding Facebook Connect every day. Peter Kafka reports today at All Things D that Facebook execs at the highest levels are out visiting major media companies like Time Warner and Verizon, trying to convince them to institute Facebook as the user registration and login system across their properties, too.

This new service will undoubtedly make Facebook the defacto registration service for countless more websites. Even people who don't have Facebook accounts will be able to register for websites using this tool - and perform that registration through Facebook.

What does all this mean? It almost feels futile to argue against the growth of Facebook as identity provider across the web. The company is just so good at powering this important feature. Individual websites don't want to mess around with it.

But with great power, comes great responsibility. Right? Facebook is already the world's greatest living census, filled with data about our lives, interests, social connections and activities. Imagine that data being made available for analysis - what an incredible opportunity for social self-awareness it would provide. Imagine that data cross-referenced with other data sets; each new permutation might shed new light on an opportunity for economic growth, on a social injustice that needs to be remedied or on something simply good for us to know about ourselves.

I've been calling for that to happen for years - right up to the point of a one on one conversation about the importance of aggregate user data analysis with Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook headquarters.

My favorite example of how aggregate data can change the world: it was when US census data and bank mortgage loan data were first made available for computer analysis that a historical pattern of discriminatory lending keeping families of color out of key neighborhoods in major US cities was discovered. Real estate red-lining, as it is called, was illuminated by aggregate data analysis. Comparable issues are sure to be hidden in the huge trove of data about how we live our lives on Facebook.

Now more voices are calling for the same thing. In this month alone so far, writers at Slate, The Atlantic and Forbes all called on Facebook to open up its data to outside researchers.

Cliff Kuang, designer and contributor to Fast Company, Wired and more, wrote yesterday about Facebook's new graph of user friend connections around the world and year-end list of trending topics:

"But what really boggles the mind is why Facebook isn't doing more work like this with its data, or least letting a select few use it -- the company possesses the greatest catalog of human life ever created. It's no wonder that social scientists dream of getting just a fraction of that data, to study everything from how social connections are related to job markets, to disease transmission across city borders. After all, Facebook users are the ones who've provided this data. Shouldn't we be getting more out of it than the Top Status Trends of the Year?"

Web 2.0 grandaddy Tim O'Reilly agreed on Twitter, saying, "He's right. Facebook should do more with this data."

Facebook should do more with this data, especially if it's going to insist on gobbling up more and more of it all over the web. That's the least it could do to share some of the wealth, our data wealth, that it's compiling. Otherwise it will be hard to think of the company as something other than a big hungry monster.