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Mashable: How Social Media is Changing the Super Bowl

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

THIS POST IS REPRINTED FROM Mashable

2010 is the year social media and the Super Bowl are officially converging.

Everyone from the advertisers and the NFL to fans and athletes are getting in on the social media Super Bowl action like never before.

In fact, we’re seeing advertisers play up their controversial Super Bowl spots in social media channels, with online denizens weighing in with their candid thoughts. Of course there are also advertisers who are taking the straight and narrow path via their Facebook Fan Pages, offering fans the ability to share and and participate in Super Bowl-inspired Facebook activities.

Below we’ll look at the entire social media picture as it pertains to the Super Bowl and round up what we’ve seen and expect from advertisers, the NFL, fans and athletes.

Advertisers

Super Bowl advertisers are using social media in three very unique ways this year:

1. To Manufacture Controversy:

- GoDaddy: The web-hosting company has never been shy about creating ads that push the boundaries of what’s socially acceptable for television. This year it posted its “Lola” ad online — which features a former football player now filling his time with more feminine activities — after it was banned by CBS. The move seemed like an effort stir up drama and generate online interest. What’s especially interesting is that while GoDaddy has managed to rank fifth overall as the most-mentioned advertiser in terms of social media Super Bowl conversations (per Alterian SM2 data), it’s also generating a ton of negative online buzz.

- ManCrunch: ManCrunch posted its “banned” ad — which shows two men grabbing for chips and then spontaneously making out — to YouTube and used social media channels to drum up controversy and video views. The strategy worked quite well and the advertisement has since gone viral.

- Focus on the Family: Focus on the Family may not have manufactured the controversy around its pro-life Tim Tebow spot, but the unseen advertisement has become the second most widely discussed Super Bowl ad nonetheless. People are using social media — especially Facebook — to voice their frustration and show their support, making Focus on the Family one of the most buzzed-about advertisers going into the Super Bowl this year.

2. To Generate Buzz Around Spots:

Several advertisers are using Facebook tie-ins to pump up the volume on online chatter about their spots. Instead of going for cheap controversy, they’re using their Fan Pages to inspire fans to share content and participate in Super Bowl-themed activities that are spreading virally via Facebook, ensuring that social media mentions are mostly positive in nature (per Alterian SM2’s analysis included below). Let’s take a look at a few of the Facebook-savvy brands capitalizing on the Super Bowl via social media.

- Coca-Cola: The company’s Live Positively Facebook app lets fans share a virtual Coke bottle on Facebook in order to watch a sneak peek of one of its Super Bowl spots. For each virtual gift shared, the brand is donating $1 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. As it stands, the campaign is generating a ton of positive buzz for the brand. Coca-Cola currently places fourth when it comes to the most positive conversations about Super Bowl advertisers, per recent Alterian SM2 social media analysis.

- Budweiser: Anheuser-Busch is the biggest Super Bowl advertiser this year, occupying five minutes of air time. It’s also wisely using Facebook in a big way by encouraging fans to vote for the commercial they most want to see during the Super Bowl on Sunday. The efforts are paying off handsomely, as the brand has the highest positive sentiment score according to Alterian SM2 when compared against other advertisers.

- Target: While not a Super Bowl advertiser, Target is definitely getting in on the social media Super Bowl action with its Valentine’s Day-themed Facebook application: Super Love Sender. The campaign combines the two events with a generous $1 million contribution promised to the most popular charities as selected by fans.

- Monster: The Super Bowl advertiser’s social media blitz was unveiled earlier today. The company’s social media efforts include a few seconds of its actual spot — which it exclusively shared with us — and a Super Bowl-specific microsite dubbed Fiddle a Friend. This site is currently just a landing page with a fiddle-playing beaver, but come Super Bowl Sunday you’ll be able to send customized greeting cards to friends that feature the busy beaver fiddler.

3. Skipping the Super Bowl for Social Media

For the first time in 23 years, Pepsi will not have a Super Bowl ad. The soft drink maker has opted instead tospend $20 million on a social media campaign dubbed the Pepsi Refresh Project.

The idea behind the campaign is to encourage people to submit ideas to refresh their communities, and site visitors can vote on the ideas they like best. Ultimately, Pepsi will select and fund the most popular crowd-sourced ideas.

So far the campaign has been a huge social media success. According to Alterian SM2 data (see below), Pepsi tops all Super Bowl advertisers in total number of mentions and overall online reach.

NFL

For the first time ever, the NFL is officially participating in the Super Bowl mêlée. The Tag the Super Bowl #SB44 initiative encourages fans to tag their tweets and Flickr photos with the SB44 hashtag. The football organization is aggregating all tagged content and presenting it in a unique and interactive user interface, giving anyone the ability to visually explore tweets and photos.

Fans and Athletes

Fans are turning to Twitter and Facebook to weigh in on the big game and the advertisers like never before, and the social media activity will only continue to increase as we get closer to game time.

In fact, what will be especially interesting to watch is the online chatter about the Super Bowl ads that will continue long after the game. Given that sites like Hulu have a tradition of posting the Super Bowl spots online, we know from years past that the advertisers and ads will remain hot topics as social media fans continue to watch, share and discuss the top spots during the following week.

Another unique element to this year’s Super Bowl: This is the first year NFL players are tweeting en masse. It’s also the first time that fans will have this much unfettered access to the athletes uncensored opinions and game-day activities.

For example, Chad Ochocinco will bring us the Motorola-sponsored OCNN to cover all angles of the games, which will include commentary from other players he has recruited to his news crew. We also expect other players to share their experiences extensively, which is why we’ll be following Twitter Lists like the one below.

NFL Players

bigmacvikings RT @serenajwilliams: @bigmacvikings big mac!!!!!!(What’s good!?)right now

ericbarton50 And I’m pretty sure a 15 year old girl just asked me to take a picture. I’m 100 percent positive she didn’t know who I amabout 1 minute ago

ShaunPhillips95 #itkillsme how people lie about having a job.about 1 minute ago

ericbarton50 I’m not gonna lie he’s pretty good! He’s like a little baby usher. Timberland performs next.2 minutes ago

ericbarton50 Not making fun!5 minutes ago

ShaunPhillips95 I can smell ocean water I must be close.11 minutes ago

Dhall23 Hanging at the Redskin Hotel entertaining all of our great Sponsors! We gotta get back to the glory days! Pur fans deserve it!12 minutes ago

OGOchoCinco 3 blocks from the CLEVLANDER,somebody finna kiss the baby on Madden13 minutes ago

ericbarton50 Who is Justin beaver and why am I at his concert?14 minutes ago

rome089 U at the hockey game16 minutes ago

Lfitzgerald11 Everyone wish my lil homie @D_genius a happy bday.Hope ur enjoying the snow back in MN bruh! Haha17 minutes ago

ddockett I’m making pink look damn good! Lol real #classy #fly catch me19 minutes ago

thurmanthomas Good stuff u got there huh21 minutes ago

Humble83 RT @RevRunWisdom: u can have friendship & u can have love.. but when theyre 2gether.. its called gr8 love (luv stories)21 minutes ago

D_Stallworth18 The traffic in Miami is INSANE already!!!22 minutes ago

MarcusMcNeill73 come on guys lets join together n and do the LT SLIDE23 minutes ago

MatthewHass8 Kenpo.24 minutes ago

Schweigert39 Oh wow Purdue can’t lose to IU.24 minutes ago

JasonDavis43 I don’t understand y @UNDRCRWN wud hav a sample sail while I’m in Chi??!!! I mite as well open the @UNDRCRWN Chicago Offices25 minutes ago

thurmanthomas @Mr_LabelMeThe correct answer sld have been” Im heading back to Buffalo to get Ready” ur still young. U will figure it out soon30 minutes ago

Join the conversation

Social Media Analysis

Alterian SM2 has been tracking the Super Bowl advertisers since early December. It has just released the latest version of its social media analysis and the findings are quite interesting. We’ve embedded the entire report below, but here are a few key takeaways:

- Pepsi and Focus on the Family are still the most buzzed-about advertisers. Together their combined social media mentions make up about 15% of all advertiser conversations tracked by Alterian SM2.

- GoDaddy is the fifth most mentioned advertiser in social media conversations, but it is also receiving the second biggest number of negative mentions (second only to Focus on the Family).

- Anheuser-Busch has the highest sentiment score among all advertisers.

- It’s still the case that advertisers that are keeping mum on their Super Bowl spots aren’t making anywhere near the impact on social media conversations as those that are offering sneak peaks or previews.

Super Bowl Social Media Results 3 Feb 10

Tags: Social media, Super Bowl, Super Bowl Ads, Super Bowl Talkies
Posted in Talkies | Comments

Facebook is good for business

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Facebook isn’t just for keeping in touch with old friends anymore. The social networking site, once used primarily by high school and college students, is now being used by companies to expand their online reach. Facebook has become a marketing force all of its own for businesses.

Facebook can be beneficial to your business in a number of ways.
• Increase customer awareness. It is a great way to increase customer awareness and engage your customers as well as maintaining current clients and increasing business.
• Create brand ambassadors. It is popular among a multitude of demographics so it is a great way to get your brand out there! Facebook allows businesses to create events, fan pages and groups which can help them promote themselves, contests, giveaways and up-coming sales.
• Build stronger relationships with customers. Facebook provides a place for businesses to build relationships with their customers by keeping them informed about their brand, their products or their service.

And with the fastest growing demographic of users being ages 35+, the benefits to companies will continue to multiply.

Tags: Benefits, Facebook, intern, Intern Diaries, Social media, wilmington nc
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You’re Never Too Old to Enjoy Social Media

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

I just stumbled upon a Dallas News article that states that the largest percentage increase in Internet use since 2005 has been in the 70-to-75 age group. A survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 45 percent of that age bracket is online, compared with 26 percent in 2005.

Good for them. Computer activity among residents at retirement communities, assisted living facilities and nursing homes has been on the rise for more than a decade. The boom of social media is particularly engaging as it allows residents to interact with family and friends who are both close and far away. Social media offers significant cognitive, emotional and social benefits to seniors who too often feel isolated and disengaged.

Forget bridge, chess and Scrabble. Facebook, Twitter and blogging is the new rage for the over 70 set.

Tags: senior living, Social media
Posted in Internet Marketing, Talk | Comments

All I really needed to know I learned on Twitter

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Going to college has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. However, the real value of college hasn’t been limited to what I learn in class. I’m not talking about developing social skills or experiencing life lessons. I’m talking about real, career-specific learning that is taking place online.

Today, I learn more practical, real-life information about my fields of study on Twitter than I do at school. As with any good social technology, the real value isn’t about Twitter – it’s about the people who use it. And many of the people who are using it are leaders in their respective fields.

Let’s say you’re interested in technology companies. Following tech blogger Robert Scoble on Twitter (@Scobleizer) gives you a great view of what topics he thinks are important to read about and what his thoughts are on those topics. Interested in how the CEO of a web company thinks about his work? Try following Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh (@Zappos).

Twitter doesn’t magically give you the ability to ask these people anything you want, but it really does provide valuable insight into how they spend their time and the way they think. The wealth of information on the Internet is unquestionable, but finding what you need in an efficient manner is a daunting task. Rather than visiting 50 blogs a day and 20 newspapers, I rely on the people I follow on Twitter to bring those articles to me. If you follow the right people, they essentially become your ultimate RSS feed. I don’t waste time searching for what to read, I let established industry leaders point me to what’s important.

This approach is certainly more valid for some industries (technology, marketing, pr) than others (engineering). Think about leaders in your industry and see if they are active in social media. If they are, try following everything they post for a week, or even a day. I’d love to hear if you found the experience valuable or enlightening in any ways. Who knows, maybe you’ll find that the differences between that industry leader and you are smaller than you thought. And who can’t use a little confidence boost once in a while?

Tags: Social media, Social Media in Wilmington N.C., twitter
Posted in Professional Development | Comments

Five Steps to a Successful Social Media Policy

Friday, August 14th, 2009

Whenever I speak with a client or group about social media, a question inevitably comes up is how to monitor and regulate employees’ participation online. What are the rules of engagement? It’s an important question and one that should be answered in advance of launching a company blog, Facebook page, twitter account or any other form of social media. By having a clearly articulated social media policy in place, you can avoid the pitfalls that often arise in the wild, wild west of social media.

Here are five elements of an effective social media policy:

1. Define It and Sell It

Make sure your employees understand social media. Don’t presume they “get it.”
Define your goals for participating and mandate that employees’ online activity support these goals.
Sell employees on why they should participate and how both they and the company will benefit.

2. Determine Rules of Engagement

Who participates? All employees or a select few?
How often are employees required to post online?
Define SM venues where employees can and can’t participate.
Is participation mandatory or optional?
Be transparent – names should be attached to all postings.
Be generous – support your online friends; engage in conversations; give credit where it is due when sharing information.
Appoint a SM czar. Employees need an internal resource who can address questions and concerns, review topic ideas, etc.

3. Write What You Know

Employees are often intimidated by social media and are reluctant to participate. Overcome this by simply writing what you know. Each person in an organization contributes skills and knowledge. Share your particular expertise.

4. Customize to Your Unique Needs

Social media policies are not one-size fits all. Companies should customize policies to the unique characteristics of their industry. For example, schools need to determine if teachers can friend students on Facebook, and high tech companies need to restrict sensitive data.

5. Update Policy Often

Technology changes at lightening speed. And online conversations are organic. For both of these reasons, social media policies should be updated often to ensure they remain relevant.

Tags: Social media, social media policy, social media Wilmington NC
Posted in Internet Marketing | Comments

Things We Love 7/29

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Debbie loves Filtrbox – It’s a online tracking program that allows me to monitor key words on mainstream news outlets, blogs, and social media. Filtrbox also allows me to import my Google Alerts to I can consolidate my monitoring results in one dashboard. Great way to monitor what others are saying about your brand and your clients online. Go to www.filtrbox.com.

Jennifer loves Smittenkitchen.com – If you enjoy cooking or baking, you have got to check out Smittenkitchen.com. Amazing photography just makes the new recipes that much more fun to explore. Plus, if you’re like me, it helps to have a photo of what a recipe should look like when it’s done. Afterwards, if you’d like to share your likes or dislikes, you can post a blog on the website to share with others. I’m going to subscribe to begin receiving Smitten Kitchen posts via email, and plan to try the Zucchini Strand Spaghetti this weekend!

Nathan loves Seesmic Desktop – While TweetDeck for the iPhone is by far the best app available for twittering on the iPhone, for me, Seesmic Desktop is my preferred program to run Twitter while at my computer. It loads faster, gives you more control, and has much better Facebook integration, too. Not to mention its handling of “Columns” (what Seesmic Desktop calls Userlists) is much more efficient and user friendly. Seesmic Desktop also gives you more control over the settings of your software (like if you want to do custom stat tracking with bit.ly) than TweetDeck. If you’re a heavy twitter user and you haven’t tried out Seesmic Desktop, I very much suggest doing so.

Shawn loves interesting factoids – The great thing about these little bits of information is that they tend to just fall in your lap when you are least expecting them. This morning a headline caught my eye and come to find out cats are left or right pawed. This is not earth-shattering information but I found it to be fascinating. Males for the most part are lefties and females are righties.

Susan loves brandsoftheworld.com – This designer-friendly website is dedicated to providing high-quality, vector images of the world’s biggest (and smallest) logos. Companies can upload their logos (or their agencies can do it for them) to give media, designers, etc. easy access to high-quality logos. So instead of bugging the company for a logo, or heaven forbid, saving a poor version from the web, people can go to brandsoftheworld.com and download what they need for marketing materials and the like. It’s also a great place to browse when you’re brainstorming ideas for new logos!

Tags: Brands of the World, Cats, Logo design, Logos, Seesmic Desktop, Smitten Kitchen, Social media, twitter
Posted in Talk | Comments

Social Networks Include More than Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter

Monday, July 20th, 2009

I’ve been researching social networks sites lately and came upon a helpful list of niche sites posted by Social Media Answers. It illustrates that there are many social networks out there for a wide variety of interests, both personal and professional. All of us only have so much time in the day, so my use tends to be restricted to those sites that are going to give me the biggest return on my investment. Niche sites are particularly attractive because they enable you to interact directly with people of like interests. To learn more, sign up for our free webinar on How to Use Social Networks to Grow Your Business. It’s this Thursday, July 23 at noon. Click here to register.

Tags: Social media, Social Networks, Webinar
Posted in Internet Marketing | Comments

Put Social Networks to Work for Your Business

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

You’ve signed up for LinkedIn, created a profile on Facebook, and joined Twitter. Now what?

Social networking is touted as the next big thing to help you grow your business. The act of networking and word-of-mouth marketing is not new. What’s new is the venue – the online social network. A social network is an online community where people meet others with common interests. Ideally, their common interest is your brand or your industry, so you want to be in front of them online.

To use a social network to your advantage you must do the following:

Find the network(s) where your audiences are spending their time.
Create a profile
Participate – get engaged with other users by writing comments, sending messages, posting blogs, etc.
Incorporate social networks into your existing marketing activities

The good news/bad news about finding the right networks is that there are a lot to choose from. Social networking is much more than Facebook and Twitter. Here are a few categories to consider:

Traditional Social Networks: Facebook, MySpace
Social Media Submission Sites — Digg
Social Bookmarking – StumbleUpon, Delicious
Microblogging – Twitter
Photo and Video Sharing – Flickr, YouTube
Review and rating sites – Amazon, Epionions, TripAdvisor, Yelp
Blogs

Every business that has customers online should consider a social network campaign to grow your business. The cost to entry is nominal, but it requires time and strategy. Don’t just jump in because you think everyone else is out there.

To learn how to use social networks to grow your business, join us on Thursday, July 23 for a free, one-hour webinar entitled Social Networking 101. Click here to register.

Tags: Internet Marketing Wilmington NC, Marketing, Social media, Social Networks
Posted in Internet Marketing | Comments

5 ways we’ve increased our blog traffic

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

One of the most exciting things about blogging is gaining new followers and knowing your content is being read. If your blog following is a bit lackluster consider the following tips:

1. Make subscription easy. The easier you make it to subscribe to your blog, the more frequently readers will do it. You may already provide an option to subscribe by RSS but if someone doesn’t know what that is or gets confused along the way, they may give up. By making an email subscription available, your blog becomes accessible to different levels of computer users.

2. Help people find it. Encourage people to visit your blog by adding a link to all of your outgoing correspondence including your email signature line. Also, add links to your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles.

3. Be active in the blogosphere. Reading and commenting on other relevant blogs can help drive traffic to your blog. Write meaningful and helpful comments on other blogs and include a link back to your blog. This can encourage valuable relationships with other bloggers and will also be seen by their readers.

4. Make a commitment to blog daily. The more frequently you blog the more attractive your blog is to search engine crawling. Frequent posts will also give your current followers more reasons to revisit your website and possibly pass it on to friends.

5. Brag a little. Take time to submit your best blog posts to bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon and Delicious. This will help people find your blog and if they like what they see, it makes it super easy for them to come back again and share it with friends.

These tips don’t require much tech savvy and can be highly effective in increasing traffic to your blog. Success will come from being committed, enthusiastic and interesting.

Tags: blogging, Internet Marketing Wilmington NC, Social media
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Tech Talk: What is a hashtag?

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

There’s a lot of terms flying around in this new age of “social technology”, where companies like Facebook, Blogger, and Twitter are becoming household names. But what do any of these terms really mean and why should you care? That’s what I’ll be explaining in my weekly Tech Talk.

What is a hashtag?

Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional information and context to messages on Twitter. This is accomplished by using a hash sign ‘#’ and having a “tag” immediately after it.

Part of understanding hashtags means understanding tags. People use tags to easily clasify the topics or categories content is related to. The classification of content through the use of tags benefits the individual as they’ll know what to look for when wanting to find the information again, and benefits other internet users who may be looking for similar content by a similar tag. This process also frequently mentioned with taxonomy.

For example: At the bottom of this blog post, you will notice there are a few tags that I have used to classify topics this blog posts relates to.

How are hashtags used?

Hashtags came about with the advent of Twitter. Without users having any formal way of organizing tweets into categories, but wanting to add additional information, the twitter community began adopting the notion of a #hashtag. As such, hashtags have are used in a variety of ways on Twitter.

For those who love LOST, on Wednesday nights, you could frequently follow the hashtag #lost for what people thought about the episode, what they were guessing the next plot twist was, or placing bets on when Sawyer would punch someone in the face.

Conversely, and much more useful, hashtags have been used to follow the elections in Iran, to keep people posted about fires in San Diego, and or to share thoughts on what the latest going on is in the news.

Tags: hashtag, nathan snell, Social media, tags, talkinc, taxonomy, Tech Talk, twitter, what are tags, what is a hash tag, wilmington nc
Posted in Internet Marketing | Comments

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