Recently Inside Facebook published some great commentary on the curiously titled “Gesundheit! Modeling Contagion through Facebook News Feed,” an April 2009 research article co-written by Facebook’s in-house sociologist Cameron A. Marlow.
The article explores some fascinating data on the patterns that drive Facebook Page growth. Working from a huge dataset of 262,985 Pages, Marlow and his team were able to uncover the following:
1) Facebook Pages grow significantly (in terms of new fans) because of the actions of a few identifiable Facebook networks (e.g., San Francisco residents or students at a small set of universities). Within these networks, 14% to 18% are “chain initiators” — i.e., those who, right from the get-go, share a given Page with their friends.
Continue reading ‘What can we learn from 262,985 Facebook Pages?’
Every day we’re amazed to find fresh and ingenious examples of brands supercharging their Facebook Pages with Involver’s marketing apps. I wanted to highlight three Pages that really stand out to us. Continue reading ‘Three great examples of our Facebook apps in action’
Two noteworthy items from the world of Facebook and Facebook marketing:
1) From a June 5, 2009 Forbes article: “In the week before the release of the new Palm Pre handset on Saturday, June 6, Palm started generating buzz when it launched its first ad, “Flow,” for the $200 smart phone on Facebook. In just three days the web ad attracted 11,000 [Facebook] “fans” Palm hopes will become customers.” Continue reading ‘More Proof That Facebook (Page) Marketing Is on the Rise’
Last week Mashable published an insightful article entitled “Is Social Media Making Corporate Websites Irrelevant?” Provocative title aside, the bottom line from Adam Ostrow’s article is this (quoting directly): “Although there are a few risks of building a [marketing] campaign that directs users to a social media site versus your own property, the benefits are likely to far outweigh them if you can successfully get people engaged.” Continue reading ‘Vitamin Water on Facebook: A Slam Dunk for Facebook Marketing’
There’s been some buzz going around about Fred Wilson‘s AdAge Digital 2009 Keynote, in which he outlined a future where “Earned Media” grew and stole market share from “Paid Media.” Essentially the idea that companies would engage more in conversational marketing and less in advertising.
We’re big fans of the rise of Earned Media, and how it can be used to maximize benefit when coupled with a Paid Media campaign, and we’ve written a great article about the convergence of Paid Media and Earned Media over on MediaPost’s Video Insider. Continue reading ‘Unified Media Theory’
Kiva is a nonprofit, but on a higher level it’s also a solid, solid brand. Take a close look at its marketing, and you might mistake it for a PR- and viral marketer-enriched company: by the measure of its captive audience, it wouldn’t be absurd to think that Kiva contracts a legion of brand agencies across the globe.
The microfinance platform has fans across so many different communities, the vast majority of whom are unbridled evangelists. Kiva has been featured in The New York Times, on Oprah, and on more influencer blogs than anyone can name. Clearly the brand is sterling.
We think that other organizations can learn from Kiva’s marketing success — and this includes for-profits.
Continue reading ‘Designing the Right Engagement Ladder’
A follow-up to our earlier post on email marketing — in this special guest article, Scott Jahnke, the Director of Student and Young Alumni Development at Stanford University, discusses some recent fundraising campaigns that his department has built and distributed through the Involver platform.
We’re glad that we’ve had the opportunity to help Stanford improve its fundraising ROI. As Scott mentions below, our platform helped Stanford achieve a 23% increase in gifts from a key target audience (2008 totals vs. 2007 totals) — a real testament to the power of effective video marketing.
If you’re in the nonprofit sector or higher education sector, we hope you’ll read and share Scott’s wonderful post!
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It has been a challenging fiscal year so far. Fundraising is always somewhat difficult, but the economic uncertainty and gloom that seem to come at us from every angle on a daily basis has made it even more difficult to get our message out effectively. The most important questions fundraisers need to answer are: Why are we asking you for a gift? What is going to change if you give? And how will our organization make that change happen? In the fundraising world, this is called a case for support. Continue reading ‘The View from Stanford: Why Video Marketing and Email Marketing Make a Perfect Match’
Earlier this month, our second article was published in MediaPost’s Video Insider. It’s entitled “Partnering with Your Employees: Creating Brand Ambassadorship Within Your Organization,” and I think it’s worth the quick 3-minute read. Here’s an excerpt to help you decide:
More often than not, a key to building better relationships with your audiences requires that you connect them to a real person who can serve as a sincere face for — a more humanized angle to — your brand identity. Here, empowering your own employees to promote your viral campaigns can lower your acquisition/marketing costs, create a tangible brand experience for your audiences, and boost morale within your organization.
If you’re running viral campaigns (using video and/or social methods), you should read this article. What are you waiting for? Check it out.
Often journalists and clients ask us what metrics we are developing or what metrics they should be paying attention to in the coming months. It’s a world that’s seeing massive iteration and is crowded with many people putting their spin on the issues, but we see the trend clearly.
Most practitioners are moving closer and closer to measuring Total Engagement of a viewer. An article we wrote on this topic, “New Metrics For Success In Video Marketing,” appeared in MediaPost’s Video Insider blog today. Go check it out. Here’s an excerpt: Continue reading ‘New Metrics for Success In Video Marketing’
We’re excited to be featured this week in an exclusive case study by MarketingProfs, the leading online resource for marketing professionals. We’re big fans of MarketingProfs’ in-depth reports and newsletters, and we’re grateful that our platform is receiving special, frontpage exposure — to over 319,000 MarketingProfs members!
The case study examines our recent “@#$%” video campaign for Serena Software, a company that serves 96 of the Fortune 100. It describes how the Involver platform helped Serena “beat the odds” with effective Facebook marketing. Continue reading ‘Involver Platform Profiled in MarketingProfs Case Study’