Does it make sense for a brand to lay all their chips on the table when it comes to Facebook?

Does it make sense for a brand to invest millions of pounds into developing a long term brand platform they ultimately do not control?

It’s worth noting that only brands that spend multimillions with Facebook on paid advertising get advance warning into changes on the platform. So where does this leave companies and brands that choose not to go down the paid route, but instead focus on building their owned platform on Facebook with great owned content to acquire fans and earned conversations? In my opinion, they’re constantly on the back foot and under pressure to find last minute tech and development resources to make their brand pages align with Facebook’s constant tweaks and changes. Ultimately, any brand with a significant presence on a social platform like Facebook requires a strategic agility that the majority aren’t even close to being able to deliver.

A few points to consider:

1) Acknowledge the role of social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but make sure your own house is in order first.

Ultimately your brand’s website is where the buck stops – it’s where people will go if they want detailed information on your products and services and if they really want to get under the skin of the brand. Before investing millions into Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Foursquare, make sure the user experience on your brand’s website is the best it can be.

2) You and your brand ultimately do not have control over what happens on third party social platforms.

As has been made abundantly clear, Facebook can make changes at any point and there’s NOTHING you can do about it. They can rip your brand’s pages or applications down without warning, leaving you to navigate a Byzantine process with Facebook to get them restored. This requires unexpected diversion of budget and resources that may be needed on more urgent projects. An interesting account of getting to grips with this process has been posted here.

Also understand that Facebook owns all of your content and there’s nothing you can do about it. Anything you post on your brand’s page or is posted by the fans on your brand page can be used by Facebook in any way they like. In Facebook’s words:

“You grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook.”

3) Acknowledge the role the social platforms can play in distributing owned content and creating positive earned conversations for your brand.

Social networks are powerful and have the ability to change opinions about a brand, both positively and negatively. It’s important to harness the conversations that are already happening about your brand on social platforms – by feeding the positive conversations with interesting and appealing content like videos, games and coupons and by acknowledging and responding to the negative chatter and resolving any lingering customer service issues.

What’s the bottom line? Social platforms are powerful and can benefit a brand immeasurably, however given the lack of control a brand ultimately has over their owned presence on these platforms, a pragmatic approach is required to avoid unmet expectations and wasted budget and resource.

Accept and embrace the lack of control, but don’t throw your toys out of the pram when Facebook make unexpected tweaks and changes, because it’s their platform – your brand is just ‘renting’ a space on it.

Check out the full book here and you can find my version below and an interactive version on page 48 and 49.

The story of 2010

2010 was the year that mobiles began to rival PCs as the hub of social activity.

For the past ten years, we’ve been hearing that each year was going to be the year of the mobile. Driven by factors like PC quality handsets, cheaper mobile data packages, faster connections and better mobile websites and applications, 2010 was the year this actually happened. 3G usage was up 34% globally and many users in emerging markets chose to bypass the PC / laptop altogether and go straight to using their mobile as their primary internet access point.

Social behaviours such as liking, friending and tweeting were well established on PCs and laptops. However, growth in mobile usage meant that people wanted to be able to replicate these behaviours on their mobile phones. In 2010, over 30% of Facebook’s users primarily used their mobile to access the platform, with other social platforms like LinkedIn, QQ and Twitter quickly developing proprietary apps to take advantage of increased mobile usage of their platforms.

2010 was the year that mobile driven location-based services exploded into the social space with brands like Gap taking advantage of Facebook Places to promote in-store sales and give away over 10,00 pairs of free jeans. We learned that people will quickly adopt new social behaviours if there’s a value for them, with the term ‘checking-in’ meaning more than having a night in a hotel.

What are my thoughts for 2011?

In 2011, we’ll see the integration between real-world and digital pick up even more speed as more people harness the social potential of their mobile handsets. Social platforms like Foursquare, vKontakte, QQ and Youku will deliver even more powerful mobile services that are focused not only on acquiring new users, but adding new features to retain existing users and overcome any platform fatigue that may have set in.

What are your thoughts for 2011?

The last six months have included:

1. Starting a new job at MEC

2. Getting my head round the above new job

3. Moving flats

4. Getting engaged

5. Travelling to China, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Portugal and Malta

6. Setting up the social practice within MEC Global Solutions

It’s been a heady, amazing, busy, challenging and worthwhile time. There’ve been a few (well, actually many) things I’ve been mulling over in the last few months, including:

1. The idea of digital etiquette in the workplace. Am I uptight, but is it appropriate for people you work with, some of whom you barely know, to add you on Facebook? Am I the only one who has a social network ‘friend structure’. For me, the structure is this:

a) Facebook equals friends and family

b) Linked In equals business acquiantances and colleagues

c) Twitter equals anyone I find interesting

d) Foursquare equals people who’ve I’ve met in real life whom I wouldn’t mind dropping in on me when I’m out and about

What do you think? What is your social network ‘friend structure’?

2. Stalker ads. I’ve advocated retargeting and behavioural retargeting of online display advertising as a solution to many of my clients, past and present, but this has come back to bite me in the ass a little in my personal online usage.

I like to have a little nose through online retailers like Net A Porter and Matches for nice bits and pieces to wear to work. Sometimes I don’t buy right away – I have a little think and look around to see if there’s anything else I’d rather buy or if I can get the same thing for a better price elsewhere.

A few months ago, I was having a little browse through the Matches site, and for some reason or another, didn’t complete my purchase. Lo and behold, for the past two months, I’ve been ‘stalked’ across the internet by behaviourally retargeted leaderboards and MPUs using Struq technology that feature the exact items I had in my shopping basket. Quite ironically, Struq’s ‘slogan’ is “showing people the ads they want to see”. Ha!

At least three times a user session, I see one of these ads and it’s too much! Please stop stalking me, Matches – it’s very poor etiquette, darling.

From what I can see, the show’s been launched via a really kick ass integrated media campaign – so kudos to whichever agency planned it (I think it might be PHD New York – anyone know?).

They did a lot of outdoor, press and online display – so far, so standard.

HBO put a lot of content (behind the scenes, interviews, photos) on the HTMIITA microsite on the main HBO website – yeah, yeah, I know you’ve seen that before.

But then, what they did, which lifted the campaign and really extended the characters & storyline, was run a lot of integrated activity with key online sites.

Foursquare: If you check into venues that have been tagged by the show, then you can get one of four special badges – Culture, Living, Cocktails, and Nightlife. They’ve also incorporated information from NYC city guide websites like Black Book, Eater, Urban Daddy, Flavourpill and Racked. Willsh has rightly pointed out that the NYC Uniqlo is not the only one in the Western Hemisphere.

Facebook: Check out the mixtape tab – how cool is that?

Twitter hashtag: They’ve taken ownership of their hashtag, which is really nice forward thinking about how to aggregate tweets that come in when the show airs on Sunday nights.

YouTube: You can watch short clips here.

Flickr: Fans of the show have joined this Flickr group and contributed their photographic takes on NYC.

Last.fm: There is a lot of great music in the show, so a very nice Last.fm library has been created to collate the show’s musical influences.

Nicely done.

She’s had over 120 different careers!  Over the years, Barbie’s been many things, including a Doctor,  an Astronaut and a Race Car Driver – quite a bit more prolific than the average 7 -10 jobs a person is supposed to have over their career.

So what was the result of the vote? Quite excitingly (or maybe the result of a rigged popular vote?!), Barbie is going to be a Computer Engineer! Oh, and a News Anchor as well- the result of the Girls vote.

Much better than the Teen Talk Barbie of ’92, which was programmed to say “Math class is tough!”

I love that Computer Engineer Barbie (her 126th career!) is going to be kitted out with a smart phone, a laptop case and a Bluetooth earpiece and her t-shirt has binary code all over it.

Hopefully this will inspire more girls to study computers, engineering and start coding away!

Anyway, a woman was being interviewed about her fairly traumatic childhood. One of her childhood friends was being interviewed remotely (Oprah’s studio is in Chicago) at his home in Missouri. What would normally happen is that Oprah would get a local film crew in and then remotely connect and interview him.

What they did instead, was use Skype to connect him to the studio and interview him.  How cool is that?

She did a whole show on Skype last May and now integrates Skype into most of her programmes, including today’s show, when she’ll be speaking to one of the American missionaries jailed in Haiti via Skype.

I watched this documentary on ‘the Oprah Effect’ recently and it really is stunning to see how much being on Oprah drives sales uplifts and even appearing in O magazine will create tangible sales effects. After Whitney Houston did her famous Oprah interview last year, she saw a 77% increase in album sales and now unsurprisingly, there are PR firms who companies hire with the specific objective of ‘getting their company on Oprah’.

Jamie Oliver’s just filmed a segment for Oprah, which will be airing in the U.S in March and it will be really interesting to see what will happen afterwards. Will the States go crazy for the Naked Chef? Will there be a food revolution in the U.S.?

Does a similar effect occur in the UK when something is featured on Loose Women or Richard and Judy? I know when Richard and Judy were on Channel 4, their book club was very popular, but does it still exist?

Does anything like ‘the Oprah Effect’ occur in the UK?

Spotted outside a church on Washington Square Park in New York earlier this week.

The sunset at 1:11 and the view out of the airplane at 2:57 are really nice.

This music is like a lovely sunny afternoon. More from Washed Out here if you’re interested.

Lovely stuff.

While unsubscribing to a few enewsletters, I’ve been taken to a webpage that has really raised my hackles.

Publishers, if I’ve chosen to click on an unsubscribe link, why would you give me any options beyond ‘confirm that you wish to unsubscribe’?

I’ve made the choice to unsubscribe and nothing in this little blue box is going to convince me otherwise. If you were so dead-set on getting me to stay, couldn’t you have done it in a fun, interesting way, like showing me what I’d be missing out on?

Rant over.

I was in Miami this past Christmas and rented a big old American SUV to get around. Even driving from the car rental place to the highway,  there were so many amazing examples of how interwoven cars are into American culture.  American advertisers seem well aware of this, creating very stark and easy to digest large outdoor creative executions.

Many businesses have geared their services towards this and it was incredible to see the variety of companies offering drive-thru services, beyond the usual suspects like McDonald’s and fast-food restaurants of that ilk. Many banks, pharmacies, even doctor’s offices all had a drive-thru lane.

While we were driving around, we listened to the radio a lot. It was clear from all the dial turning we did that commercial radio is alive and kicking and there are stations in each market to cater to every niche – Spanish, hip-hop, R&B, C&W, classic rock – anything you can think of.

Even in New York, a city known for its subways and taxis, this was true. Apparently 1010 WINS, the local AM talk radio station, gets over 12 million listeners a day because people rely on the station to give them up to date local news, weather and information, all with a quintessentially New York spin.