Weekly Update

Links pointing to the future of marketing, from the co-founder of content strategy tool Zuum.

Facebook Relaunches Its Ad Platform, Says Brand Pages Are at the Center

A good overview of the changes Facebook announced at FMC yesterday.

Coke: A good example of a brand using the new Facebook Timeline

In the timeline, go clear back to the founding and note the 1886 post from the founder. Also note the range of visuals they’re using up and down their timeline to tell a complete story about the product.

Via @learmonth

Captain Morgan: Another good example of a brand using the new Facebook Timeline

As you scroll down the page, you’ll see how brands can use imagery to create a far more dynamic looking page than previously possible.

Via @cottondelo

Facebook’s Brand Timeline Can Be Bridge to the Millennials | CMO Strategy

As this article points out, Facebook isn’t really giving brands much of a choice about how they’re going to market themselves on Facebook. It’s going to be content-driven, and brands can no longer turn off fans commenting on their page. The CMOs job is then to figure out how to make the brand stand for something when that something isn’t a handful of carefully crafted messages, but rather an ongoing stream of two-way conversations.

How Facebook Friended Ford to Make a “Social” Car

Ford and Facebook working together in a hackathon. I think the key here is Facebook is working with Ford because Ford has developed SYNC, an in-car software platform that Facebook was interested in. When you push the envelope, it naturally draws top talent.

A Visual Taxonomy of Ideas

If your job has ever been to come up with good ideas, you’ll relate to this.

Via @brainpicker

Demand Media Adds a Dash of Social to Its Ads, With Help From Facebook and Twitter

The concept behinds Reach Generator, Facebook’s new platform, is to take you best social content and publish it straight to ads. Demand Media is now doing that with standard online ad inventory.

5 Social Media Marketing Trends: New Research

A very good compilation of research and data around social media. Slightly skewed toward small and medium businesses, but good data overall.

Via @Mike_Stelzner

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Links pointing to the future of marketing, from the co-founder of Facebook content strategy tool Zuum.

Facebook Profiles Found to Predict Job Performance

A fascinating study. What I really like about this, and the use of social media data for insight in general, is that social media is probably the most natural, thorough, and easily observable behavioral clues we send out. The fact that the Facebook page observations were then mapped back to offline world performance of the subjects brings a lot of validation to the findings.

Via @Aerocles

Point guard fundamentals of Jeremy Lin

This is a great way to use graphics to demonstrate the game of basketball.

Via @SethGrimes

The Most Bizarre Direct Mail Tests in History

A quick and funny read.

Via @KentHuffman

How Facebook Can Improve Upon It’s “F” Grade in F-Commerce

Excellent overview on the state of Facebook commerce, and the UX challenges that need to be solved. (If you read Creativing regularly, you know I’m a fan of Augie Ray’s writing.)

Via @augieray

Content, The Heart and Soul of Your Online Brand

How a men’s clothing store used content development to impressively grow their brand. I love that they hired the editor of the British Esquire to drive their content. This is really smart stuff for anyone interested in content marketing.

Via @jeffbullas

Users Trusting Google Less & Less

I think Google will be one of the more interesting brand stories in years to come. They have probably the most humanist motto ever by a large corporation: “Don’t Be Evil”. Yet more and more their practices in the area of privacy are coming under serious criticism. This doesn’t get into specifics, but does shed some interesting light in terms of how brands can get away with seemingly going against their core principles.

Via @seroundtable

Storify Launches iPad App

An interesting 45 second video. There’s been a lot of buzz about how the iPad needs to be a better content creation tool, and not just content consumption. Looking forward to trying this out, as it’s certainly in that direction.

Via @ckanal

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Links pointing to the future of marketing, from the co-founder of Facebook content strategy tool Zuum.

Break Media and Sony Team Up to Make Advertising Agencies Nervous

This is about agencies losing the high-end bucks in commercial production. If you look at what’s happened in other areas of production, from typography to photography to audio recording, this would certainly seem like the next domino to fall.

State Of The Social Media Agency [INFOGRAPHIC]

Interesting comparison between traditional and social media agencies. Perhaps most striking is that 50% of social media agencies are outside the US.

Via @jasonkeath

Seven Keys to a Strong Corporate Blog

They note that corporate blogs are trending down, and I’m not surprised, with Facebook providing a simpler platform and a more cost-effective way to get readers. That said, blogs are about good content, and the principles behind a good blog and good Facebook content are closely connected.

Via @steverubel

Is Facebook Destroying Email?

This topic is addressed on almost a monthly basis, but I also find it one of the more fascinating trends in terms of media usage, because email has always been considered the killer app.  The striking part isn’t the trend, but how severe it is among 12-17 year olds. One note is that at the younger ages, communication tends to be much simpler. But there’s definitely a habit forming that will be difficult to change.

Via @jeffbullas

New Belgium Brewery: Our Facebook Fans Are Worth $50 Million

Some strong research supporting the value of a FB community. What highly noteworthy is the way they’re remarketing product news and offers to their fans via Facebook. IMO, this is one of the most powerful features of how Facebook is combining content marketing with paid media. Finding out what content is most engaging on Facebook, then applying that to paid media messages to highly targeted individuals.

Via @learmonth

The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Pinterest for Marketing

I advise most brands to make sure they’ve really mastered Facebook prior to venturing into emerging social networks, but of course there’s always PR value that can be generated with creative new uses of social networks.

Clever Valentine’s Day Google Trick

Google this: (sqrt(cos(x))*cos(400*x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.4)*(4-x*x)^0.1

Via @ckanal

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Links pointing to the future of marketing, from the co-founder of Facebook content strategy tool Zuum.

The 20 most entertaining Super Bowl tweets

Funny stuff. Naturally, a lot of ad references.

Via @PublicityGuru

Input Error – Histories of Social Media

Just came across this site. I like both the content and the URLs implication: That social media may be a new term, but it’s a long-standing phenomenon.

Via @jonathansalem

Glam Media launches Foodie.com, a culinary site with a social network baked in

In the social media wars, what will most likely pull large numbers of people away from Facebook: A new general social network, or something more niche? I personally think the niche sites have a lot more to offer in terms of a more engaging experience. I think the big question will be how well they can integrate with Facebook, and then slowly siphon off traffic to their own properties.

Via @lizstrauss

Where To Find Budget For Content Marketing

Good content requires resources. Some of the challenge is simply identifying the diamonds in the rough, and knowing how to put the right polish on them. This is a good list of places to look into if you find yourself in need of ways to fill out a content calendar.

Via @heidicohen

98 Content Marketing Articles to Make You an Insomniac

Maybe a bit overkill, but given the increasing importance of the subject, it’s worth perusing.

Via @copyblogger

The Only 4 Reasons Agencies Should Care About Their Own Content Marketing

Content marketing is a rapidly-expanding part of the marketing world, so it makes sense that agencies should practice it for their own gain.

Via @jaybaer

Confessions of a Young Digital Media Planner

No matter what division of the agency or marketing department you’re in, this is a good reflection on where the business is headed.

Via @UpstreamDW

This is what the first half of the Super Bowl looked like on Twitter

Looks like the Twitter user base prefers Madonna to football.

Via @bdainton

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Links pointing to the future of marketing, from the co-founder of Facebook content strategy tool Zuum.

Tumblr hires a dedicated team to write about…Tumblr

Tumblr demonstrating they understand the value of content marketing.

Via @jodiontheweb

Social business: Social media integration

A nice data visualization from a survey on how companies are integrating social media, and what their expectations are. One stat that really stands out to me is, 52% of the respondents said their most important social media metric is leads generated. All roads lead back to ROI.

Via @wearesocial

Is Social Media Killing the Website?

I think a lot of people are asking this question. I agree with the author, that while a Facebook page seems a must for many businesses, it’s not time to mothball the website yet.

Via @Robert_Rose and @MeganLeap

Ten Things To Think About When Designing Your iPad App

If you think you’ll ever sit down to create an iPad app, bookmark this link.

Via @DesignerDepot

Mapping Facebook’s growth – Decoder (1:10)

You’ve seen a lot of charts on Facebook’s growth, but this short video is still stunning. Especially how the growth has continued through recent years.

Via @AntDeRosa

Five books you should be reading.

A short list from David Armano, EVP, strategist at Edelman.

Via @maddiegrant

What brands register with a five-year-old?

This is both funny and insightful. Some interesting insights, such as the Apple logo standing for ‘the Apple store’. That was one of Jobs’ reasons for wanting to launch the store — the brand recognition.

Via @johnboese

How Brands Can Manage Facebook Comment Overload

A fire drill that anyone managing a Facebook page should go through.

Via @jasonkeath

Why Reddit Rules in the Social Media Age

Sometimes success isn’t due to unique features, but rather having just the right balance of familiar features.

5 tips to increase engagement on your Facebook Page

A good overview and a quick read.

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