This isn’t how we want to make the first page of Mashable.

I seem to be unflinchingly attracted to disciplines where you rarely see a front-page story about a just-plain-good day.

I grew up in the equestrian world, a sport where the only television footage you see from the Olympics is of horses tumbling over jumps and riders falling all asunder.  I’ve also been shaped by my years of rock climbing and mountaineering, where the feature stories aren’t about nice safe ascents of moderate-sized mountains from which everyone returned to their camp happy and tired with all of their fingers and toes.

It only makes sense that I wound up working in social media.  In case we aren’t yet acquainted, I joined the team as Portent’s director of social media earlier this year and I’m completely stoked to be here.

This month in online marketing train wrecks

Good days in social do make headlines; but lately, watching the social industry at large, we’ve been seeing a whole lot of train wrecks. Before today, who was talking about Burlington Coat Factory?

Yes it is halfway to the week but since when. #coats

— Burlington Coat Fact (@BurlCoatFactory) September 18, 2013

Time will tell if that one’s a train wreck or something else, but at least that example is relatively harmless.

Yesterday morning, our Director of SEO Josh, sent me this story from PRWeek’s Tumblr about a dating site ad that had run on Facebook featuring a scraped photo of a 17-year-old who committed suicide in April after being cyber-bullied.

On 9/11, Esquire made a truly cringeworthy mistake in selecting an image to accompany a blog post blurb on their site.  Their social response – telling their Twitter followers to “Relax, everybody” – was equally cringeworthy.

I have an entire folder of bookmarks named “Cringeworthy.”  When I give this lecture in the class I teach, grown communication professionals’ jaws actually visually drop (I love that part) at some of the case studies that have happened, in the real world, to real brands (including some very big ones, advised by numerous fancypants agencies).

When fellow social practitioners share a link to the latest social media fail, my first response is usually, “I’m speechless.”

And yet, as a data-driven social media marketer, even I can’t ignore the volume of buzz that each of these “fails” generates on behalf of the offending brand.

Bad publicity is just bad publicity

Ian wrote a fantastic case study on social crisis management after a recent social fail by Adecco, a staffing agency that stole a blogger’s brand, concept and campaign for their own, then trademarked it, and got caught.  Go read his case study, it’s well worth your time.

When we social shared the Adecco case study, one astute reader on Google+ called us to task for not mentioning the “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” element of that particular fail:

The discussion between Charlie and Ian continued, and you can read it, here.  Ian’s point:  “Bad publicity is definitely bad.” It pollutes your brand, and to make an oil spill analogy: there is no way to soak spilled petroleum out of your reputation.

Ian and I are in the same camp on that one.  I’m a do-gooder.  A Pollyanna.  Really.  I’m a non-practicing public interest lawyer and a harm-none Buddhist.  And if it weren’t for finding a like-minded workplace with compatible ethics and values, I might be considering another line of work after starting to wonder if intentional bad publicity is going to be the next big social media tactic.

Sound dramatic?  Read on.

At least this one was harmless.  On a Saturday earlier this summer, I was teaching a class about social media at the University of Washington – probably about the ethics of online marketing, since this is how these things go. At the same time, Chipotle faked hacking their own Twitter account as a publicity stunt.  And the tweets weren’t even funny, or interesting, or meaningful- conversation-provoking:  They were just, plain, stupid.

Do I have a tweet?

— Chipotle (@ChipotleTweets) July 21, 2013

Glass house, throw stones. We do our best, everyday, as social practitioners, and some days aren’t our best days. But really. You go to the effort to fake-hack your own Twitter account, and that’s what you post?

To Chipotle’s credit, those tweets saw substantial engagement — retweets, replies, and mentions of their brand galore.  But the buzz generated by trade scrutiny wasn’t what they were aiming for; and the whole thing left their target consumers scratching their heads in confusion.

And remember that point that Ian and I agree on?  That bad publicity is definitely bad?  Well – Kenneth Cole disagrees.

Earlier this month, Kenneth Cole made headlines (again) for making light of a possible US invasion of Syria, in order to sell footwear.

“Boots on the ground” or not, let’s not forget about sandals, pumps and loafers. #Footwear

— Kenneth Cole (@KennethCole) September 5, 2013

This isn’t the first time Cole’s Twitter account has triggered negative sentiment:  in 2011, he came under fire for another international news gaffe.  Initial speculation on the most recent incident was incredulous:  Hadn’t Kenneth Cole (the brand, not necessarily the man) learned their lesson?  How could they make the same mistake twice?

But one day after the most recent incident, AdWeek published a story taking a sneak peek at an upcoming magazine interview with Cole about the Egypt incident, in which Cole shares that his “gaffes” are good for business.  The Egypt tweet and the organization’s crisis response correlated with a stock increase, a bump in e-commerce business, and 3,000 new followers on Twitter for the @kennethcole account.

Yup.  At least according to Kenneth Cole’s assessment, and to borrow a headline from AdWeek, “being a jerk on Twitter” might be good for Kenneth Cole’s business.  And since anger spreads faster on social media than any other emotion, I’m predicting we’ll be seeing more and more campaigns designed and executed to leverage the virality of anger, all under the belief that any publicity is good publicity in the new world order of social business.

If Kenneth Cole is right, and being utterly tasteless in social media is a plus, then we’re happy to be wrong.

Black-hat gains, white-hat style

Only, we’re right. You can execute high-performing social media without being cringeworthy.

We’re not turning a blind eye to the potential upsides of bad publicity for brands in terms of strict numbers:  We can’t argue with the data.  Bad publicity increases brand awareness (for better or worse), garners gobs of links, and gets people talking (to say the least).

But you can tap that outrage volcano with humor and sophistication and transparency and integrity, instead of bumbling provocation. As a social team, we’re adding black-hat brainstorming into our methodology. We’re not looking to garner negative attention of Cole-esque proportions. But we want to think of creative ways to achieve black-hat results with a white-hat approach.  And often, that requires tapping into your organization’s values and being bold enough to share them with utter transparency, even if there is a risk of backlash.

One of our clients did just that on the day the U.S. Supreme court issued its same-sex marriage decisions earlier this June.  They posted a photo to their Facebook page, with a simple hashtag indicating support for marriage equality.  The first comment on the update challenged the brand.

This is how I’d like to see our clients land on the front page of Mashable.

The brand’s response?  Confident transparency.  No apology (or fauxpology, for that matter) – no softening language – just “We do know what it means.”  With a smiley face, after that.

Follow that brand’s lead.  Save your risk-taking for those opportunities to do the right thing by your brand, when it really matters.

And while letting your jerk flag fly might be the latest trending social tactic, we’re happy to sit this one out.

The post Are Social Fails Good Business? appeared first on Portent.

A lot of questions for sure, but here’s what we do know. This will almost certainly increase the amount of Facebook-specific marketing requests we receive from clients. It will force us to think differently about providing new and engaging Facebook marketing tactics. This will be especially important for smaller and local businesses, who will have to engage in special promotions, special events, coupons, contests, product launches, and, OMG! SCAVENGER HUNTS!

Allow me to explain. Then watch while I work in an interview showing how the Seattle Opera gets inbound marketing (and how you can, too).

You see, one might say I have a slight affection for scavenger hunts. Or you might say that I love them more than anything except certain members of my family and my dog. I’m competitive, which I think stems from being an identical twin, but we needn’t psychoanalyze me. Scavenger hunts are a perfect outlet. I don’t mean I like to win; I mean I need to win. Like I wouldn’t actually push an old person off the sidewalk if they were lollygagging around between me and my chance of winning a scavenger hunt, but I’d consider it. And there’d be dirty looks given.

I like them so much that I’ve participated in five scavenger hunts in the past eight months—all of them put on by local businesses as part of a social media marketing campaign. Here I am doing one for Schlage Locks called Locked in a Tiny House:

Nevermind the dorkiness: I had to submit a picture of me mimicking the hammering man in front of the Seattle Art Museum!

I would ultimately come in 2nd place in this, just missing out on one of those giant checks in the sum of $5,000. I won a keyless entry door lock that you can operate from your smartphone instead. The perfect prize for an apartment dweller like me. Ultimately, it was a lot of fun, check it out:

Woohoo!

And here I am after racing around Seattle in one put on by Icelandair to celebrate their new non-stop service to the city:

Second place. Again.

Guess what? I finished in 2nd place here, too, and just missed a trip to Iceland. Instead I won a sizable gift certificate, a t-shirt, and a CD compilation of Icelandic music.

In fact, I always come in second place. I’m an almost winner. I’m the Susan Lucci of the scavenger hunt scene.

The marketing side of scavenger hunts

Yet, scavenger hunts aren’t just fun for people like me to do. They’re also a great way for companies to build brand awareness and develop positive associations in the minds of the participants. Was I in the market for a new lockset? No, can’t say that I was. But when that time comes, who do you think will be the first brand that comes to mind? Schlage. In participating and enjoying their scavenger hunt, I’ve subconsciously made the connection: Schlage = locks.

Oh, and as for Icelandair? Guess where I’m going next week? Yup, leave a seat open at your table, Björk, I’m coming for a visit. I’ve always had a casual interest in seeing Iceland, but I can say with 100% confidence that if it wasn’t for the scavenger hunt, I’d probably have settled on a more typical February escape from Seattle, like Hawaii. It is this top-of-mind presence that determines whether or not a social campaign is a success. And I even still follow both brands on Facebook because, well, I find them likable.

But are they effective?

Now, just because I have a predisposition to love scavenger hunts, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an effectual tactic for businesses. In order to find out just how effective a scavenger hunt might be for a small business, I decided to do some research. I did a quick search to see if there were any taking place in Seattle. I got lucky and found that the Seattle Opera happened to be holding an online scavenger hunt the very next day. I figured I’d participate (duh), keep an eye on engagement, and perhaps reach out for comment from the organizers.

The next day I was ready to compete. I waited for instructions from their blog, and when they came the race was on. There were some really fun tasks, each step leading to the next:

• Watch YouTube trailers for hidden annotations
• Decode binary from the source code of previous blog posts
• Find the original source of an image
• Look up some of the cast members bios

Turns out this was pretty difficult because an understudy was filling in for this character.

Finally, the last clue instructed me to send an email to a secret address. Guess what?

Hi Rebecca,
I’m sorry to say you were so close, but we had our final winner e-mail just a minute before you. Thank you so much for playing, though, and keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter in the future for more opportunities and giveaways!

Drat. Well, it certainly was entertaining and surprisingly intense. I had no idea that an online hunt would be so nerve-wracking. Furthermore, it’s been a few weeks since the hunt and I still appreciate seeing their updates in my newsfeed, so I haven’t unfriended them on Facebook. Do I like opera? Can’t say that I do, but I know where I’m going if I want to purchase tickets for a theater-loving visitor.

You can imagine that for a smaller-sized business like Seattle Opera, the considerably lower cost of running a scavenger hunt online is pretty attractive. Not to mention that the barrier to participation is incredibly low because competitors don’t have to leave the comfort of their desk chairs.

Lessons from Seattle Opera

So just how effective was the scavenger hunt for Seattle Opera? And how much preparation and planning was needed? I asked Tamara Vallejos, the Public Programs and Media Associate for Seattle Opera.

Rebecca Bridge: How much engagement did it bring you on your social media accounts?

Tamara Vallejos: I’m still putting together a report on this for our web team, but I’ve looked at numbers for at least the initial day of the hunts (there were four days total) and there were healthy spikes in traffic to our Yelp page, blog, and several pages on our website that we placed clues on.

I haven’t looked at if we gained new followers on Facebook and Twitter (the networks on which we released the first clue each day), but the objective was never to gain followers; instead, we wanted to reward our amazing fans with a fun game and prizes, as well as increase awareness of Cinderella, the rest of our season, and the various channels we operate online and the breadth of content we provide.

Bridge: Did you have any conversions (i.e. ticket buyers) related to any of those visits to your website/blog/YouTube/Facebook/Twitter accounts?

Vallejos: We actually haven’t had time to dive into our analytics for this yet!

Bridge: Who put the hunt together? How long did it take to embed the links, etc.? Which social networks drove those most engagement?

Vallejos: For the most part, that was me. We’ve done an in-person hunt the past couple seasons (where we posted clues online but people had to go to a physical location in Seattle to find their prize), but we found that a lot of people couldn’t participate because they had to be at work or with their families, and the we also had a few repeat winners, so it seemed to be the same group of people playing each time.

My hope was that a digital hunt could bring in a larger number of participants, including some new names, and based on the interactions we received via Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail.

There were a couple hour-long group brainstorming sessions with members of the PR/Marketing department to lay out the basic framework (how many days, what the prizes would be, etc.). Then I mapped out the clues. It took about three or four hours per hunt to figure out a trail of clues, as well as get all the copy written and additional content (photos, audio, etc.) prepped so that it would only take me about 5-10 minutes to set each hunt up before it went live at 10 a.m. each day.

We posted the first clue on Facebook and Twitter, and Facebook seemed to drive more traffic. Even so, our Twitter players were the more conversational group, retweeting our updates, tweeting at us for hints or advice when they were stuck on a clue, and just chatting about the hunt in general.

Bridge: How did you reach out to the community to let them know about it?

Vallejos: We put out a press release about a week before, and wrote a blog post with all the details that we shared to our Facebook and Twitter.

Bridge: I know that one goal of the Seattle Opera is to draw in younger fans. I know that you have discounted tickets for folks under 40 and things like that. Do the scavenger hunts relate to trying to reach that audience?

Vallejos: We started placing a large emphasis on our online presence beginning in about 2010, and I don’t think that was with the specific goal of attracting younger audiences. When we produce content for the web, the goal is usually to showcase the million amazing things about this art form, because there’s something for practically anybody, no matter their age. We have how-to videos for stage makeup, close-up photos of costumes with detailed information about fabrics and techniques, audio of our singers in performance, videos with rehearsal footage, Q&As on our blog with conductors, singers, lighting designers, stage directors, and so on.

The web gives us the opportunity to really tell our own story and to share with our community what makes opera so special and unique. Plus, we can highlight aspects that are often overlooked, and perhaps break down some stereotypes! I’ll say, though, that with this digital hunt, our participants seemed to skew younger—but that wasn’t necessarily a goal from the start.

Why scavenger hunts are the future

My biggest takeaway from Seattle Opera’s hunt was how exciting, engaging, and fun the brand is, not something I would have thought I would say about opera. Exploring their various social media pages allowed me to see the playful side of an art form that I thought was staid, stodgy, and, honestly, for old people.

And I suppose that’s the point. We need to find ways to make our clients stand out while aligning with their brand messages. I’m not the only one who thinks gamification is an important tool for that, y’all. After all, having a bunch of people running around a city, or posting to Facebook or Twitter, in your name, and having a great time doing it, isn’t a bad way to bring attention to your brand. And, Facebook graph search is about to make those “likes” and check-ins a lot more valuable. And who knows, with the upcoming changes, it might just be that thing that gets you more social attention than your competitors.

Considering hosting an online (or offline) scavenger hunt as a social media marketing campaign? If so, will you please invite me?!

The post Why Facebook Graph Search Will = More Scavenger Hunts (Yay!) appeared first on Portent.

We all know that the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl of, well, Super Bowls.  It’s even MORE super for mega-brands with colossal marketing budgets, fancy Hollywood contacts and burping frogs.  But not everyone is a Coke… Or even a Pepsi.  Consequently, if you’re a mid-sized business looking to maximize your advertising dollars this Sunday, the place to spend that cash isn’t on TV, but online.

Say you’re Shasta.  Or Thrifty Car Rental.  Or Kettle Brand.  Sure you have an ad budget, but at $3.8 million per 30 second TV spot, those dollars are burned in a half-minute.

But social media is different.  There’s a lower financial barrier to entry and seemingly endless opportunities to improve your “bang for the buck.”  So rather than blow your budget on 30 seconds, small businesses and mid-sized concerns should stretch their Benjamins across Twitter and Facebook.

As Portent’s President Steve Gahler says, “You can’t own the Super Bowl, but you can own the space where everyone talks about the Super Bowl.”

Here’s how you, too, can put some points on the board during the biggest media marketing event of the year.

The Game Day audience

Last year, 111.3 million people watched the Super Bowl – the largest audience ever.

And according to NBC (last year’s broadcaster), 2.1 million people watched the game live online.  Yes, a much (much) smaller market, but potentially a more tech-savvy, higher-income one as well.  Add that number to the masses following the game on social media and you have a nice chunk of engaged fans to market to.

This year’s broadcaster CBS will be streaming live on their site, as will nfl.com.

TV ad costs

Up, up and away:

According to Forbes:  “Current reports plug [Super Bowl XLII’s] ad price at $3.8 million, up from the $3.5 million that companies paid for a spot at [last] year’s game, and that is just the cost of air time. Ad budgets for Super Bowl commercials can run as high as $5 million per 30-second spot.”

So, potentially $8.8 million for 30 seconds.  Yes, it’s the biggest media event in the world, but…

Super Bowl ads don’t work for everyone

According to NBC News:  “Most of the top 10 [Super Bowl] spenders are perennial also-rans. Yum! Brands, owner of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, spent $67 million over the past 10 years. Meanwhile, McDonald’s, the indisputable market leader, spent less than half that amount and is not a top 10 spender. Similarly, E*Trade, well-known for the talking baby campaign, spent more than any other online brokerage firm, yet remains fourth in the industry.”

Most mid- to-small-size companies can’t afford to blow $9 million on a spot that doesn’t guarantee a great ROI.  And for all their hype, Super Bowl ads don’t.  For example, check out this graphic from nfl.com’s Football Freakonomics:

Social media and television: Partners in engagement

According to the latest Nielsen Social Media Report, “As of June 2012, more than 33 percent of Twitter users had actively tweeted about TV-related content. Some 44 percent of U.S. tablet owners and 38 percent of U.S. smartphone owners use their devices daily to access social media while watching television.”

And those numbers are an aggregation.  Super Bowl engagement is even higher.

But does social really convert?

Even the NFL is using social media to evaluate Super Bowl ads’ ROI.  The NFL’s Head of Sales Seth Winter says social media improves an ad’s TV value, allowing them to charge more.  So why not start with social if you can’t afford the TV kit and caboodle?

Where to spend your money: Twitter

In the final moments of last year’s game, Twitter interaction was averaging over 12,000 tweets per second.  PER SECOND.  And the grand total for Super Bowl related tweets?  13.7 million.

From Zander Lurie, SVP, Strategic Development at CBS:

They refer to it as a “second screen” experience: the audience watches conventional media while using new media to comment on / interact with it.  Take a look at this graphic by Nielsen:

And for social proof, do you know who’s monitoring Twitter on Super Bowl Sunday?  All of those enormous in-game advertisers… For real time feedback, they turn to the social media network.

(Interesting aside: With social media, you may not even lose an impression due to a pit stop: according to the Nielsen report, 32% of people use social networking in the bathroom.)

Option 1: Promoted Tweets

A tip from Twitter’s advertising department: “Leverage real-time intent: Run Promoted Tweets in search to target relevant [timely] terms that have trended in the past on Twitter and are likely to once again spark high levels of discussion.”

A Promoted Tweet looks like this:

And just in time to collect your Super Bowl dollars, Twitter made improvements to Promoted Tweets:  You can now target negative keywords.  Their example: “If you sell bacon, you can now keep your campaigns more than six degrees apart from Kevin Bacon by using ‘Kevin’ as a negative keyword.”

You can also target your promoted Tweets to geographic regions (a great advertising option for brick and mortar businesses), existing follower base and gender.

But the best thing about Promoted Tweets?  You only pay when people play.  From Twitter: “Promoted Tweets are priced on a Cost-per-Engagement (CPE) basis, so you only pay when someone retweets, replies to, clicks or favorites your Promoted Tweet.”  Pretty sweet deal for someone with a small ad budget.

Option 2: Sponsored hashtags

Also known as Promoted Trends, a sponsored hashtag will appear at the top of Twitter’s Trending Topics list at the left of a user’s feed.

Anecdotal evidence of their efficacy – at least for bigger brands – is positive.  For example, Coke used a promoted tweet during the 2010 World Cup and snatched 86 million impressions with a 6% engagement rate.

Today, the price tag of a 24-hour sponsored hashtag is around $120,000, though Twitter is expected to hike that cost for this year’s Bowl.  It’s a bargain at even twice or three times that figure, however, when you consider that your brand will stay in the spotlight for 24 hours (compared to a 30 second, $3.8 million TV spot).

Sponsored hashtags also appear on iPhones, Android mobile devices, Tweetdeck and Hootsuite, making them a good choice for folks tweeting in front of their flatscreens.

A caveat: As with any social or viral marketing campaign, you do not control the interaction.  It is important to consider that the hashtag, once created, takes on a life of its own.  Some of your feedback may be negative. For example, check out the Republican National Committee’s #AreYouBetterOff debacle.

And for those of you truly looking for a bargain, you can get ahead of the game and capitalize on tags that you KNOW will be trending; in 2013, #ManofSteel, #IronMan3 and #Hangover3 are all pretty safe bets.  You can also check out hashtag search engines like Tweet Archivist or Tweet Charts to see what people are talking about most.

Option 3: Promoted accounts

While a promoted account won’t necessarily be visible on everyone’s Twitter page, it allows for greater targeting of potential customers. Twitter’s algorithm recommends a user follow your account only if they fit a specific profile, resulting in less wasted coverage.

Like Promoted Tweets, you only pay for interaction – specifically when someone follows your account. You decide how much you want to spend per day or new follower, and you can geo-target.

Our in-house social media guru Doug Antkowiak also suggests: “Promoted accounts target people based on who the target account is already following.  If you want to be seen by a specific niche, you need to go follow those people first.  Followerwonk is a great place to start.”

Where to spend your money: Facebook

Are people really looking at their Facebook pages during the big game?

Allfacebook.com studied the wall posts of more than 1,400 brands during game time and found that engagement during the Super Bowl soared 60%.

Not unexpectedly, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg maintains advertising on Facebook is better than advertising on television.  More unexpectedly, she had this stat to back it up:  Facebook’s daily traffic is over three times greater than Super Bowl viewership.

Option 1: Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads allow you to select a page or piece of content you’d like to promote.

Facebook has greater targeting dexterity than Twitter, allowing you to select from a number of demographic categories, including location, age, gender and interests.  You set your campaign budget and are charged every time someone sees your ad or sponsored story.  Then choose whether you’d like to optimize for engagement, impressions or clicks.

If a mid-sized business elects to go with Facebook Ads, it may want to create some pieces of quality Super Bowl-centric content to promote on Game Day.  Craft the message for your target market and select the demographic filters that correspond.

Option 2: Facebook Apps

More expensive but great at brand building, Facebook apps allow you to more fully engage with a potential customer base, often via a contest, game or service.  It also enables an advertiser to control a corner of the social media juggernaut, increasing user engagement rates.

With highlights like automatic bookmarking, newsfeed stories and a notifications API, Facebook apps are front and center for engaging potential customers.  Once you reach 10 active users, your app will be automatically included in the Facebook search index.  Facebook Insights also allows you to accurately track user engagement and referral traffic.

In fact this year, Doritos is using a Facebook App to choose their network Super Bowl commercial as the latest incarnation of their popular “Crash the Super Bowl” promotion.

While posting your app to Facebook is free, building it can cost anywhere from $500 to tens of thousands of dollars.

Your Game Day playbook

1. Start with content.  Create something relevant to the Super Bowl, but not necessarily about football.  Think of your target market and generate a campaign that connects your product or service to the event in a way that engages them.  For a conventional media example, the Puppy Bowl entertains Animal Planet’s demographic (pet owners) with a silly, cute ‘game’ that is relevant enough to capitalize on the Super Bowl’s PR, but distant enough they can carve their own niche.
2. Capitalize on Twitter trends through promoted tweets and sponsored hashtags.  Also take advantage of some ‘free’ promotion with Tweets using hashtags that are certain to be popular.
3. Anything that is cost-per-whatever, consider using.  You’re only paying for people who have seen your Facebook ad/Promoted tweet/account/etc.  No wasted coverage.
4. As always, monitor and measure.  Improve.  You’ll have another shot next year.

The takeaway

“Playing your own game” is about forging a relationship with your customer base on your terms.  Small- to mid-sized businesses should grasp the opportunity to capitalize on a trending, water cooler topic like the Super Bowl, but they must do so strategically, for the right price, and be able to measure the result.

For anyone who’s not Coke (or even Pepsi), the smart money’s online.  There you’ll have time to build a brand identity… One that stands a chance against a talking gecko and some Clydesdales.

Ultimately, you can spend $3.8 million on 30 seconds of TV which may or may not catch fire… Or you can become part of the excited, week-long dialogue that surrounds the big game, engaging potential consumers on a topic they are already vested in.

Now it may be too late to implement a strategy for the Super Bowl – it IS on Sunday – but there’s still a little time to capitalize on the Female Super Bowl: the Oscars air on Sunday, Feb. 24.

Am I missing any other viable social media ad outlets for Super Bowl Sunday?  Should we bet on YouTube?  Pinterest? (Hint: not them.)  Let me know in the comments below.

The post Social Bowl XLVII: Why a Mid-Sized Firm or Small Business Must Play Its Own Game on Sunday appeared first on Portent.

On the other hand, it also means I get to bring you the countdown of our 15 most popular social media posts of 2012. We had a ton of social content on our blog throughout the year, so without further ado, here’s the list.

1. Best Practices: New Twitter Headers and Mobile Updates
   Twitter abruptly released profile “header” images in September – a huge change to user profiles. Our post includes instructions on uploading a header image and tips for optimization.
   
2. Facebook’s Timeline “Like Gate” Bug Solution (For Now): This bug has since been fixed, but you can still use our template for better “like gate” design.
3. Optimize Your New LinkedIn Company Page in 7 Steps: LinkedIn made plenty of design changes this year, including October’s redesign of company pages. This guide has everything you need to know.
   
4. How to Use Hootsuite and Twitter Lists to Engage Your Audience: Want to become a more engaged Twitter user? Here’s your introduction to Hootsuite and Twitter lists.
5. Google Plus Box Ranking Factors Report: The launch of Google+ in 2011 has also had an impact on search. But how does Google decide which Google+ profiles get a spot in the ‘Plus Box’?
   
6. 44 Ways ‘The Hunger Games’ Social Media Campaign Increased the Movie’s Odds of Success: Setting box office records when it was released in March, The Hunger Games popularity was also boosted by its wide-reaching social media campaign.
7. The 10 Dumbest Tweets of All Time & the Idiots Who Wrote Them: There have been plenty of moronic tweets, yet these brands and people set the bar pretty high (or low). We could easily add to this list after what we’ve seen this year.
   
8. 6 Reasons to Ignore Facebook Search (For Now): Mark Zuckerberg mentions a Facebook search engine and the Internet freaks out. This is why everyone needs to settle down.
9. Facebook Is Watching You: Is Facebook recording your every move on the social network? After seeing a Reddit post, we posted this walkthrough so you could see the evidence for yourself.
10. Introducing the Facebook Custom Tab Generator: Need to create a custom tab for a Facebook page? Just use this handy generator.
    
11. Claim Your New Pinterest Business Page Today: Pinterest finally released business accounts last month. This post explains the process of claiming yours.
12. How to Tweet Like You’re Not a Business: Humans want to interact with humans on Twitter. So if you have a business account, here’s a crash course in tweeting like a human.
13. How to Optimize Your Google+ Local Business Page: If you own a business, you need must be on Google+ Local. That, or you run the risk of not being seen.
    
14. You’ll “Like” Our Facebook Timeline Guide: Introducing our Timeline Dimensions page on Facebook, a living infographic of (what was then) the new Facebook Timeline.
15. Why Your Twitter Profile Picture Is More Important Than You Thought: Why’s it important to make your Twitter profile picture standout? More eyeballs means the more likely your content will be seen.
    

    @jackthemartin, we changed our Twitter pic just for you! Better?

    — American Apparel (@americanapparel) February 14, 2012

     

What kind of posts would you like to see more of in 2013? Let us know in the comments, and check back for more content in the New Year.

The post Portent’s 15 Most Popular Social Media Posts of 2012 appeared first on Portent.

But the world is ending TODAY* – like, anytime now. While you wait for the apocalypse, this blog post will be one of the last things you read. And it may just be the last year-in-review thing you ever read.

* If you’re reading this and it’s past December 21, 2012, then please kindly disregard almost that entire first paragraph.

So let’s get to it. Below, you’ll find a major news story for each month of the year and a lot of brands screwing up.

January

Publisher Survey: Reddit Traffic Way Up, Digg Way Down
By Adam Sherk

This data didn’t come as a surprise, yet it certainly is striking to see in visual form. And 2012 continued the trend: Reddit has entered the mainstream. Proof? President Obama held an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) on Reddit in August.

February

Twitter Begins Larger Rollout of Enhanced Brand Pages
By Colleen Taylor, GigaOM

Did anyone else think Twitter brand pages would be a bigger deal this year? Instead, Twitter released redesigned profiles for everyone.

March

Going Viral on Pinterest: Driving Big Traffic and Making Pinterest a Real Marketing Solution
By Colby Almond, SEOmoz

Pinterest exploded during the early part of the year, and Colby Almond’s SEOmoz post is a must-read for marketers. In it, he covers everything from instructographics and viral content to the popularity algorithm and submission timing.

April

LinkedIn’s Surprisingly Sexy New iPad App Proves This Company Gets Mobile
By Jolie O’Dell, Venture Beat

Social networks were really busy updating their apps this year, and I’d argue LinkedIn absolutely nailed it with their slick UI. Other standout redesigns: Mobile apps from Flickr and Foursquare.

May

Facebook’s Buying Instagram for a Billion Dollars
By Kyle Wagner, Gizmodo

This was huge news in May, and it continues to be after it was reported Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom agreed to a deal with Twitter before accepting Facebook’s offer. Then, of course, December happened – Instagram updated its terms of service with language that it would sell users’ photos. Despite a quick retraction, this probably wasn’t the end of the year that the mobile photo giant envisioned.

June

Mobile Facebook Ads Generate 13X More Clicks Than Desktop Ads
By Pamela Vaughan, HubSpot

Social advertising got a lot of attention in 2012. GM raised eyebrows in May when they stopped advertising with Facebook right before the company’s disappointing IPO. Over the year, Facebook has introduced and tweaked promoted posts and sponsored stories, and the data presented in this HubSpot post shows us mobile sponsored stories are outperforming desktop ads. We even performed our own case study of Twitter ads last month.

July

Twitter Inching Closer to Giving You All Your Tweets, But Search Has a Long Way to Go
By Matt McGee, Search Engine Land

There wasn’t a timetable for this back in July, and I certainly wasn’t holding my breath. But kudos to Twitter – a downloadable archive of your tweets is now rolling out slowly.

August

Olympic athletes score big on Facebook
By Lance Whitney, CNET

Is it fair to call the London games the first “social Olympics”? Whether you were on Facebook or Twitter in August, you couldn’t get away from the NBC tape-delay bashing, medal counts and event live-tweeting. And then there’s this: American gymnast Gabby Douglas saw her Facebook fan base grow by 3,960% during the games (from 14,358 fans on July 27 to 582,912 on August 12).

September

Twitter Policy’s Latest Victim: If This Then That
By Pete Pachal, Mashable

Every social marketer’s favorite tool of the year, If This Then That (IFTTT), took a hit when its abilities to interact with Twitter were removed. Even without this Twitter integration, IFTTT should definitely be on your radar as a time management tool.

October

5 Tips for Using Google+ to Boost Your Marketing
By Jason Miller, Social Media Examiner

I’m including this post because of its fourth tip: “Set Up Google Authorship for SEO Benefits.” If you haven’t done this yet, make it a New Year’s Resolution because you’re behind the ball. (Also see: Doug Antkowiak’s guide on Search Engine Journal.)

November

The Social Candidacy
By Ian Lurie, Portent

How could I not include the presidential election on this list? The debates and Twitter, voting-day maps from Facebook and Foursquare, President Obama’s re-election picture being the most retweeted ever – social media played a huge role. Moreover, Nate Silver’s Ian’s hypothesis from his research on Facebook’s influence on the election was spot-on.

December

Starbucks’ #SpreadTheCheer Spreads Ire Instead
By Vanessa Doctor, Hashtags.org

As always, brands continued to shoot themselves in the foot using social media:

• Starbucks’ #SpreadTheCheer campaign
• McDonald’s #McDStories campaign

• Snickers paying celebrities to tweet
• American Rifleman’s pre-scheduled tweet after the Aurora shooting

• Everything Chick-Fil-A touched
• American Apparel, The Gap, Sears, and Urban Outfitters during Hurricane Sandy

If this whole Mayan apocalypse thing doesn’t happen, then we’ll be right here with you to find out what 2013 has in store for social media. And since I can’t get enough of year-end blog posts, stay tuned next Friday for Portent’s very own list of our most popular social media blog posts of the year.

Well done, Honda.

What did you think of social media in 2012? Let me know in the comments, and feel free to share your 2013 predictions.

The post Portent’s 2012 Social Media Year-in-Review appeared first on Portent.

I noticed there were many “how to get started” posts but few data-supported case studies with results. Armed with PPC intern Tim, a $100 head start from a promo code and some curiosity, we put Twitter ads to the test.  Below are our results, observations and speculations.

But as always, remember that your mileage may vary.

Setting Up Your Twitter Ad

This part was easy. Use a $100 code if you can and give yourself a head start. The trick is deciding what to promote, when and for how long. In our case we determined that it was unlikely that people would want to “buy” PPC or SEO services from us via Twitter, so we settled on:

• A free webinar on SEO for small businesses
• A free email series on internet marketing for the holidays
• A $9.95 eBook on ad copy for PPC
• Portent as a promoted account

As we went along, we found that Twitter ads “burn out” even faster than Facebook ads, so the testing period for each of these tweets lasted no more than 5 days.

Results for the Free Webinar

This was our most fiscally “aggressive” effort, spending the $100 code and another $100 just to see how many sign-ups we could get. We promoted a total of 3 tweets over 8 days, turning all ads off the morning of the webinar:

As you can see, the first tweet (where we spent the most cash), yielded the most impressions, the third tweet landed the best CTR and the second tweet resulted in the most sign ups. We used the same two hashtags each time: #smallbiz and #portentu, and mentioned the Twitter handle of the presenter as well. (The “X” for conversions on the first tweet is where intern Tim learned about tagging destination URLs for GA.)

We ran each tweet at $150 budget per day within the suggested bid range of $1.50 and made no changes to the bids until we decided to turn off that particular tweet. The majority of impressions came in the first 12 hours; that number slowly declined over the next day or two until we either turned the ad off or promoted a different tweet of the same content. None of the ads reached their daily budget. Not even close.

Results for the Holiday Email Series

On a whim, we decided to promote our email holiday series on internet marketing strategy.

And how did the promotion turn out?  The answer: not great. No sign ups. This ad also ran at $150 per day with $1.50 bid.

Results for the eBook

So what happens if you try to sell something directly? We chose my ad copy eBook because it is our newest offering in the Portent Store, has a friendly price point and well, it’s awesome. Unfortunately, we learned that yes, no one wants to buy anything on Twitter unless it’s the shirt off Robert Pattinson’s back:

We increased the CPC bid on this one to $2 to see if that would garner more clicks. It seems to have worked, since out of all the tweets this one racked up the most impressions and clicks over 3-4 days when compared to our second place tweet (re: the webinar).

Results for the Promoted Account

At this point, we decided to see if we might gain a few more followers by paying for a promoted account. I have to say I was surprised when we picked up 47 for $106. Not bad at $2.26 per follower. Depending on what your grand plans are, this could be a nice way to build your follower list.

Overall Observations on Twitter Ads

• Promoting our tweet stream via Twitter ads seems to lead to more impressions, but since the social media department runs Portent’s feed to engage in broad conversations, we might actually wind up shooting ourselves in the foot. For example, we like to retweet and send out links from other cool people — and while these people are cool, we’re not into paying to send them our visitors.
• Don’t forget to tag your ads! The first webinar tweet might have garnered some sign ups, but someone at Portent forgot to tag the ads.
• The ads update in real time so it’s actually quite mesmerizing to watch when you first launch.

Will we try Twitter ads again? Yes and No.

Yes. We found Twitter ads to be more effective for garnering sign-ups on the webinar than Facebook ads or AdWords, and cheaper and easier to manage as well. If we feel like picking up a few more followers later on, or have a big thing happen in the world of PR (like our CEO Ian Lurie gets to be a contestant on The Price is Right), we’ll pick the promoted account back up again.

And no. For the eBooks, email series and anything we “sell,” Twitter ads just aren’t worth it… unless there is a sparkly vampire’s shirt attached.

The post Twitter Ads: Terrible or Terrific? appeared first on Portent.

Last week we announced our new referral program for our PPC Essentials Package. There was a blog post about it. The world changed. We decided we really liked that feeling and wanted to hold onto it a little longer. So this week we’re announcing a special for our recently revamped and reworked Local SEO Package. For a limited time, we’re taking $500 off our normal price and offering our Local SEO Package for a one time cost of $1500.

To celebrate, we’re launching the Portent Local Series! That means for the next 2 weeks, every Tuesday and Thursday we’re going to be writing a local-specific post, all about local search and search for small and local business owners.

Portent’s Local SEO Q&A

Kicking it off, we’re throwing an anything-goes Local SEO Q&A where we’ll answer all your questions about Local SEO. Want to know where your reviews go? Which directories you should pay attention to? What Google’s calling its local service these days? Post a question in the comments and we’ll collect them all for a blog post on October 2nd. We’ll also be digging through our microfilm records to find old blog posts and grab those questions, as well.

“How will I ever decide which business categories to choose for my listing?”

So, if there’s anything you’re dying to know about local, ask us below in the comments. Then check back next week where we’ll answer everything you’ve ever wanted to know about local. Because we love local and want you to, also.

And remember, if you’re a small business owner and you’ve been waiting for just the right time to give your search strategy a jumpstart, head on over to our Local SEO page and take advantage of our limited offer!

The post Get All Your Questions about Local SEO Answered! appeared first on Portent.

Not the First

The Hunger Games certainly isn’t the first film to enlist social media.

In fact, “The Blair Witch Project” caused a stir in 1999 when marketers of the independent film used its website and forums across the internet to spread fake newspaper clippings and police photos. Twelve years later, social media was being credited with reviving the Muppets franchise. And while Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises” doesn’t open in theaters until July, social media marketing efforts began a full year in advance.

“May the Odd’s Be Ever in Your Favor”

Of course, Lionsgate also used “old-media tricks” to promote The Hunger Games as well – giving away posters, securing magazine cover stories and advertising on billboards. But social media is the marketing campaign’s centerpiece. Fully utilizing the book series’ already large fan base, the social media campaign for The Hunger Games has been an undeniable success.  For instance, Facebook updates on the movie’s official page routinely gain 20,000-plus Likes and thousands of comments and shares.

We won’t begin to know how much money The Hunger Games rakes in until it officially opens on March 23 (early estimates are calling for a $90 million opening weekend, which I suspect is conservative), but the film’s social media machine can already claim a victory.

Pre-sale ticket purchases broke Fandango.com’s record for sales on the first day tickets become available. According to Fandango, hundreds of opening-weekend showings sold out the first day tickets were available – including midnight showings.

So what are the ways the 21-person Lionsgate team utilized social media? Let’s count.

Facebook

The District Identification Pass

1. The official Facebook movie page has over 3 million Likes and acts as a perfect starting point for the film’s social media campaign.

2. Facebook “exclusive” updates – Nothing builds community like releasing the first clip of one of the year’s most anticipated movies “exclusively” for Facebook fans. In reality, anyone can go to the page’s Wall – or just go to YouTube – and see the clip too.

3. “District Identification Pass” – These launched with the social campaign, and more than 800,000 have been created. The idea here is that you’ll be sorted into one of the 12 districts of Panem.

4. iOS game – As a tab on the Facebook page, fans can download the demo while they wait for the game to be released.

5. “Fight Hunger” – It may be a movie about teenagers being forced to murder each other, but Lionsgate has teamed with World Food Programme and Feeding America to fight hunger worldwide and domestically. This is yet another Facebook tab, and you can donate through credit card, PayPal or text messaging. There’s even a 19-second video of star Jennifer Lawrence asking for support and a quiz to enter to win a signed movie poster.

6. Soundtrack – This tab lets fans listen to some of the songs from the film’s soundtrack, with a link to preorder the album on iTunes.

7. Mall Tour Events – The events have passed, but each city that the cast stopped in to sign autographs and sit down for a Q&A had its own event.

“Who Are the Tributes?” Facebook Tab

8. Mall Tour Photos – A huge photo album with images from the events.

9. Opening Day Facebook Event – This Facebook Event already has 25,000 attendees.

10. “Read the Book” – Another Facebook tab in which fans can read the first two chapters of the book digitally.

11. Fan of the Week – One lucky Facebook user is picked and interviewed each week.

12. “Who Are the Tributes?” – Click on a character’s picture and learn more about them.

13. A Note from Suzanne Collins – Fans can read a note posted by the author of the series in the “Notes” section.

14. The Capitol Facebook page – This is basically another page where images and trailers from the film are posted. It has over 119,000 Likes. Each update is fashioned as if it’s directly from the Capitol, which controls the country of Panem in the story.

15. And every “district” from the book’s world of Panem has its own page. For instance, Katniss’ home district has over 99,000 Likes. There are twelve of these, so we skip ahead.

27. More About District Pages – The top influencer can become “mayor” and unlock more news and prizes.

28. This Facebook adventure game is set to be released the same day as film.

Google Plus

29. As one of the more successful Google+ pages, The Hunger Games page has been added to over 787,000 circles.

30. The Google+ page is verified so  it’s easy to find among fake fan-made profiles.

YouTube

31. With over 45,000 subscribers and 18.6 million video views, the film’s YouTube channel is a complete success.

32. The videos are branded to be from “Capitol TV Productions” and “have been officially sanctioned by the Capitol for the consumption of District citizens.”

33. A small photo gallery appears near the bottom of the film’s YouTube channel.

34. At the bottom of the channel is the question “Who are you seeing The Hunger Games with?” Users can sign in and add a comment through Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.

35. Meanwhile, an impressive “District Citizen Reel” shares fan-made videos.

Tumblr

36. Lionsgate did an outstanding job of utilizing Tumblr with the “Capitol Couture” fashion blog.

37. The Tumblr content features cover stories, profiles of characters like President Snow and Cinna, fashion guides and more.

38. District Style Challenges – Winners of these contests receive a $750 Nordstrom gift card and have their work featured on the Tumblr.

39. Fan content is even reblogged from other Tumblr blogs in the “Citizen Sighting” section.

Twitter

40. @TheCapitolPN – 48,000 followers

41. @TheHungerGames – 295k followers

42. Fans were asked to tweet to unlock screenings in cities around the US.

43. Lionsgate released puzzle pieces around the internet, and asked fans to put the pieces together via Twitter. It ended up as a trending topic.

Pinterest

44. Surprisingly, there’s no official account on Pinterest, but The Hunger Games is everywhere – from fashion to posters to quotes, and everything in between. A couple weeks ago I pinned the artwork below. Within four hours, it had been repinned over 750 times. Weeks later, it was being repinned even more, and now sits at over 1,200 repins.

“The World Will Be Watching”

The Pinterest example is more proof of the passion fans have for the franchise. It’s been reported that 1 million tickets have already been pre-sold for the film, and a poll on The Hunger Games Facebook page had 61% of respondents saying they planned to see the movie “more than twice.”

Some of the ideas the marketing team at Lionsgate have created are nothing short of brilliant, evidenced by the amount of fan engagement. Thanks to this social media campaign, the world hasn’t just been watching, it’s been actively participating.

Did I miss anything? If you were in control of “The Hunger Games” social media campaign, would you have done something differently? Let me know in the comments section.

The post 44 Ways ‘The Hunger Games’ Social Media Campaign Increased the Movie’s Odds of Success appeared first on Portent.

LL Cool Jason

Funny people are popular people.

How else can we explain an average-looking dude like Jason Sudekis scoring some of the hottest Betties in Hollywood?  But when X = funny, well, that’s another story.

And as marketers – hockers of hope, deliverers of dreams and, yes, conduits of cash –we want to be popular.  Correction: we NEED to be popular.

People spend over half of their web-time on content – 53% according to the 2011 AOL-Nielsen Content Sharing Study – some on news, some on cuteness, I expect a considerable amount on pornography… but they spend a LOT of time watching, commenting on and passing along humorous content.

Why People Dig Being eFunny

Humor is communal

In an era of societal fragmentation and political polarization, humor can quickly attract and connect a heterogeneous audience.  (I mean, even my grandma gets a kick out of cats that look like Hitler.)

Humor is timely

It often takes advantage of the latest news and events, allowing us to share topical material in an entertaining way.  (Be wary of the passing trend, however.  Throwing out a #Winning on Twitter these days just makes you a jackass.)

Humor is compartmental and episodic

Most internet humor is quick, clever and easily digestible.  It has the type of ADD (joke-punch line-rinse-repeat) that mirrors the way we absorb the Internet.

Find more Portent faves here.

But people really dig being eFunny because…

Humor is reflective

A sharer is able to feel he “told the joke” by passing it along to friends – after all, he found it, so it reflects his good taste and judgment.  He’s funny by proxy.

Why This Matters to Marketers

Humor is product-neutral

Why is this good?  Well, if your product isn’t sexy, or interesting, or dangerous, you can still have a compelling advertising campaign – potentially poking fun at the fact your product isn’t sexy, or interesting, or dangerous.  Whether you’re selling tennis shoes or kitchen tile, a funny campaign can deliver you into that Holiest of Holies: the Consideration Set.

Humor can differentiate your brand (i.e. buy you a personality)

I don’t know if draining 12-packs of  Dos Equis (alone) makes me interesting, worldly and sardonically awesome, but the hell if I ain’t gonna buy it and see!  Beer companies are historically brilliant at creating brand-defining, viral campaigns using humor:  “Great taste, less filling.”  The Budweiser frogs.  WHAZZZZZUP?  For a great e-marketing example, check out the ironic insanity of P&G’s Old Spice promos:  http://www.oldspice.com/

Humor can repair / deflect bad PR

Two words:  Katherine. Heigl.  Ms. Heigl’s been having a rough career patch of late and is justifiably concerned that the American movie-going public sees her as more no-heart than sweetheart.  Her answer?  The following Funny-or-Die sketch:

Still repellant?  Possibly.  Less repellant?  Definitely.

But most importantly,

Humor is highly sharable

Of the 23 most shared videos of 2006-2011, 18 of 23 were either laugh-out-loud hilarious, or rooted in a chuckle.  Tina Kelleher, a community manager at Microsoft explains the attraction of sharing The Funny like this:

“Humorous content is the most viral… people love to share info, they really love to share funny stuff.  They enjoy it more when they share it and like to get credit (validation, self-fulfillment) for being the person to bring it into others’ lives.”

And why do we – profit-driven, cold hearted marketers – care about sharing?

Shareability delivers factorial bang for the buck – your brand extends message reach with no additional resource outlay.  In other words, FOR FREE.  (And “free” is an F-Word even the FCC can get behind.)

So Who’s Sharing?

Short answer:  Everyone.

Longer answer:  Everyone, BUT… ages 25-34 “over-index,” meaning they share at a greater rate than other age groups.

(The AOL graph above also indicates there is a slightly inverse relationship between sharing and age.  It’s more likely your nephew will share video of a big-balled squirrel, than getting Grandma to pass along the latest DePuy hip replacement infographic.)

The Old Gray Lady weighs in…

An August, 2011 study by The New York Times examined the psychology of sharing behavior and broke sharers into six personas: altruists, careerists, hipsters, boomerangs, connectors and selectives.

As marketers, we’re most interested in altruists and hipsters.  Altruists share content exclusively because they like it.  Hipsters share information in order to be – get this! – hip.  But because neither group can be bought, their “shares” are innately trustworthy and deliver the highest value to marketers.

Factors that influence sharing

The Times isolated five elements that affect pass-along rate:

1.  Motivation
Provide people with something WORTH sharing – something useful, informative or entertaining. Blatant ad pitches don’t cut it, unless they deliver an additional value of some kind.

2.  Trust
People generally only share information from sources they trust.  (It’s embarrassing to get called out on Snopes.com!)

3.  Simplicity

4.  Humor
If you need further clarification on this, return to the top of this post forthwith.  Do Not Pass Go.  Do Not Collect $200.

5.  Urgency
A strong call to action motivates the greatest share behavior.  Is this topical?  Is there an incentive to share this right now?

But keep this in mind…

Viral humor (like all viral marketing) is a two-headed beast… by its very nature, it’s uncontrollable.

As in, if you aren’t willing to risk blow-back – misinterpretations, parodies, hate mail, prison marriage proposals, glib jabs on Gawker.com – you shouldn’t be lighting the fuse.

But, if you live by the maxim that all press is good press, viral humor might prove the vodka to your OJ.

3 Lessons to Race Home and Tell Mom About:

1. Humorous content is some of the most shared content on the web

Interesting content can create a snowball effect, increasing your marketing reach with no additional capital investment.

According to last month’s Ad Age there are 3.5 billion pieces of content shared each week.  That number is predicted to grow in 2012.  Ages 25-34 over-index, where older demos under-index, meaning that if you are trying to create a viral campaign, you should aim for the demo most likely to share it.

2. Humor can make your brand accessible, memorable and separate it from “the pack”

3. Humor probably isn’t the solution to everything, but it can be the solution to a lot

And now, Your Mission, should you choose to accept it:  Crack me up in the comments.

If you do, I’ll share.

The post Humor & Sharing Behavior: How Laughter Rules the Web appeared first on Portent.

Ever land on a business Facebook page and a custom tab asks you for a “like” in exchange for free swag? In the social biz, we call this a “like gate.” For clients, “like gates” are the most requested type of custom Facebook application because they’re great at attracting fans through incentives.

Yesterday, Facebook notified business page administrators all Facebook pages will switch to the new Timeline view on March 31st. This sounded great until we realized traditional “like gates” wouldn’t work anymore. After previewing client pages in Timeline, we noticed that Facebook removed the automatic page refresh function when a user clicks the “like” button. Facebook basically took away the pixie dust that allows us the ability to display custom content to people who like the Facebook page.

We finally heard back from Facebook this morning in the bug report thread, and they have thankfully confirmed that it is just a bug that will be fixed “soon.”

Given that it took Facebook two days to even respond, I’m not holding my breath for their fix.

While we wait, there is simply nothing we can do about the functionality of the like button on the top of the page. We can, however, use the Facebook Like Button plugin to include a second like button inside an iframe that provides the correct functionality.

If you want to get your pixie dust back, I’ve put together a template that includes all the necessary code for this, along with an ‘instructions.txt’ file with all the details you’ll need to build your own like gate with these files.

Code Breakdown

index.php

This file only serves to detect whether the user has liked the page or not, and direct them to either ‘before.php’ or ‘after.php’ respectively.

Before Timeline, this was all we needed. And after Facebook fixes the refresh bug, this method will once again redirect users to the proper landing page after they click “like.”

Note: We are required to include ‘facebook.php’ for this to work. This file is included with the template, and publicly available here.

header.php

We need to use the JavaScript hack to allow iframes taller than 800px to display without scrollbars. Since the contents of this file will be included in both before.php and after.php, we’re going to define the canvas height for each state inside an if statement referencing a variable we’ll set on each respective page.

Set the height of each frame in both JavaScript functions following the appropriate “$thisPage” variable declaration.

before.php & after.php

Pretty self-explanatory here. We’re using PHP to define the “$thisPage” variable and include the header and footer, then including the HTML5 version of the official Facebook Like Button. Just turn off the send button and faces, and include the URL to your business page as the URL to like when you grab the Like Button code from Facebook.

For after.php, just duplicate this template but change “$thisPage” to “After”.

footer.php

In the footer we’re including the Facebook JavaScript SDK and necessary parameters for our iframe to function correctly. At the end of our JavaScript you’ll find where the magic happens that allows our in-frame like button to point the user in the right direction. Clicking on the like button triggers the event ‘edge.create’, so we’re subscribing to it and passing a callback function instructing the page to redirect to after.php.

style.css

The final piece to this puzzle is to hide the comments popup that appears by default when someone clicks the in-frame like button.

A CSS solution like above is a little hacky, but it works and it’s all we can work with at the moment. I just include the above rule after my CSS reset, as you’ll see in the template files.

Let us know in the comments if you have any trouble!

The post Facebook’s Timeline “Like Gate” Bug Solution (For Now) appeared first on Portent.