The US Open Goes Social

The US Open is one of the oldest tennis tournaments in the world. Every late August & early September, it draws the league's top players and thousands upon thousands of fans. This year, the US Open (hosted in New York) will be accompanied by a brand new attraction: a 50-feet-by-8-feet social media wall that will aggregate all social content made by fans and players in real-time. Although the content will be monitored, fans will be able to send tweets, Instagrammed pics and more to better connect themselves to this world-famous event, using the official hashtag #usopen. It will also serve as a meeting spot for the over 700,000 attendees expected to be at the tournament.

We think this is an amazing idea as it encourages tennis fans to engage with the US Open and with the sport of tennis in general. In fact, we love this social media wall so much that perhaps it should be rolled out to more sporting events in the future to help increase awareness for a particular team or brand partnership. Just think: Tens of thousands of fans at a baseball or football event would be able to watch a screen displaying not only the score, but a ticker or 'wall' of the latest social conversations taking place around the game. Fans would be able to view and engage with the current dialogue between team members, fans and even brands, therefore adding a truly personal experience to the event.

And although we've seen this at some basketball and hockey games by way of a social 'ticker' or half-time entertainment on the big screen, such a staple at every game would result in an automatic uptick in engagement numbers throughout a season. With more engagement comes better brand or team awareness, ultimately resulting in a higher interest in the game, more stadium tickets sold and better customers for those sponsored brands involved.

As huge sports and social media fans, we're big supporters of a roll-out of this nature. Are you?

-- Samantha & Mike

LinkedIn Lowers Age Minimum

When Facebook first started in 2004, it felt like it was exclusive to college kids. Since then a lot has changed, including new rules allowing people as young as 13 to young the top social media platform. It comes as no surprise that more and more social networking sites are increasing their user bases, including LinkedIn who is officially allowing users as young as 14 years old, starting on September 12.

It seems that many young people automatically gravitate to social media, both for social and now for career-based reasoning. Specifically speaking of LinkedIn, the increasingly popular platform has always had strong ties to businesses, which allow companies to scout new talent or for new recruits to network and research future employers. It's been noted that many in higher education establishments are even using LinkedIn to demonstrate the effectiveness of education by highlighting where many alumni work after they're done with schooling.

Personally, Mike & I believe that opening younger users to a more "academic" side of social media could be extremely beneficial -- both to the user/student and to the business. Although networking with 14 year olds will certainly be something to get used to, we think this means bigger, smarter and more connected communities for upcoming generations.

Here's to linking up with your babysitter or little cousin, and hopefully more career-minded individuals!

-- Samantha & Mike

Top Social Platforms Among Teens

We recently brought you an article on a 13-year-old claiming that none of the kids her age used Facebook. It got us wondering: If teens don't use Facebook, what are they using? According to this chart by Statista, Facebook is still the top dog when it comes to teens, despite what our friendly 13-year-old said. People say that Facebook is losing its younger audience, but looking at numbers like this, that doesn't seem to be the case. The drop from #1 Facebook to #2 Twitter, is huge. Sure, this data is looking at 2011 to 2012, and the numbers from 2012 to 2013 may be slightly different, but Facebook has a long way to fall before we start talking about any other platforms taking over.

We do agree that many teens are converting to the latest and greatest platforms, like Instagram and Snapchat, but Facebook has such a lead over other competitors that something drastic will have to happen before we ever see a new #1. The ability for one platform to cater to teens and adults alike is no easy task. Teens will always try and distance themselves from their parents and social media is no different. We agree that teens seem to be trending away from Facebook, but we also believe Facebook is here to stay. Even though teen usage numbers may decrease, we don't think it will be by much or for very long. Ultimately, we would not be surprised to see them figure out a way to bring those teen users back, stronger than ever.

-Mike & Samantha

Engagement Valued More Than Sales

For those who choose to venture into the social unknown, there are certain goals and expectations that must be established before seeing success. Although a true return on investment (ROI) has never been easy to measure, many other obtainable outcomes can be considered to help push a brand into the mainstream, including engagement. According to a 2013 survey of US marketing professionals done by Pivot Conference, the top goals of social media marketing (SMM) for brands included brand lift and consumer engagement. These numbers are up in comparison to last year, when positive sentiment ranked higher on the list. Having said that, many marketing professionals are beginning to understand that it's less about the positive reaction from fans and more about keeping consistent engagement numbers high with Likes, RTs and Sharing. The more a consumer interacts with a brand (whether positively, negatively or neutral), the more likely the brand will stay top of mind for them.

From the survey, the most interesting decrease lies with how marketers currently view the importance of sales. Although in past years this goal ranked highest, brands now understand that a direct relationship between SMM and sales is hard to quantify. As a result, companies must find different ways to reach their fan base that will guarantee such an activity will eventually lead them down the purchase funnel. Although round-about, many social media platforms demand engagement before sales.

Those brands that still place too high of an importance on sales may demonstrate that they don't fully understand how to amplify themselves successfully within the digital space and the online social media space in general.  No matter how you go about it, engagement and brand awareness are vital to keeping a brand's messaging above the clutter of mainstream marketing -- way before one can even begin shopping!

Overall, it's apparent that the social media industry is constantly evolving. Such an evolution has forced marketers to reevaluate their current strategies, especially to include more importance on brand awareness and lift. Although many of these newer social media marketing ideas go against the grain of traditional marketing, we're interested to see when SMM will be fully accepted and what impact it will have in future business and sales.

What are the top goals of social media for your business?

-- Samantha & Mike

Twitter Pulls Away From Rivals in Social Curating

We are all aware of the major social media platforms out there, from Facebook to Twitter, a successful brand must utilize them all. Each platform has its place in a successful marketing campaign, but new research shows that businesses are favoring one platform over the other, Twitter. According to social software startup, Livefyre, 93% of business are curating real-time, social activity from Twitter, while only 89% are using Facebook. Continuing down the social media ladder, 50% of business reported generating content from YouTube, and 41% are using Instagram. 

Why are these numbers so important? One of the biggest challenges for brands today is creating great content. A company can post content over all the social platforms 24/7, but if that content is not relevant to their target market, it is just a big waste of time and resources. Utilizing platforms, like Twitter, allows a brand to see what people are already saying about them organically. Once these trends are identified, a successful brand can leverage them to market themselves in a very authentic and poignant way.

Data from Livefyre's research shows that:

• 82% of businesses have increased user engagement from curating social activity.
• 88% of the businesses leveraging real-time social applications, have increased user engagement.
• 41% reported an increase in site traffic as a direct result of making their websites more social friendly.

We all know how critical it is for a business to monitor social media in order get a true feel for the public sentiment on their brand. What may not be so obvious, is how important social curating is to content creation. It is so important for a successful online presence to have relevant, engaging, and consistent content going out to its target market. What better way to create this content than leverage what is already out there, supplied by the customers themselves.

-Mike & Samantha

Chipotle Plans Fake Twitter Hack

Last week, Chipotle became the latest big brand to have their Twitter account hacked -- or so everyone thought! Chipotle's Twitter handle, @ChipotleTweets, tweeted a handful of posts within an hour, all of which seemed incredibly random. Since then, Chipotle admitted that they did in fact fake an account hacking to tie with their 20th anniversary marketing campaign. Although Chipotle successfully received over 4,000 followers after the apparent "hacking" (compared to their typical 250 followers a day) and about 12,000 retweets (versus 75 RTs a day), there are many social skeptics who don't necessarily agree with this marketing 'tactic,' including us.

We get the original thought behind the faked hacking. Yes, it gets new eyes on the brand. Yes, it keeps Chipotle at the top of mind for many Twitter users. Having said this, many of these new followers only found interest in Chipotle because of the hack -- not necessarily because they are true fans of the brand. This means that the actual quality of the fan following may not be ideal, as many will not be necessarily interested in the content that Chipotle has to say in the future. Unless the 4,000 followers continue to increase Chipotle's conversations and fan engagement for the long term, we don't see the overall benefit.

Lastly, there's something to say about faking your own Twitter takeover. When Burger King and Jeep had their Twitter accounts hacked, their stories caught fire because it was organic, had never been done before and showed how vulnerable brand social media accounts can be.  Unfortunately with previous fake hackings, like MTV, BET and now Chipotle, these cries for attention feel forced and inauthentic.

Our advice? As a large brand within the social space, take the time to find a way to gain attention that feels genuine to your fans. Spend your resources to take the road less traveled in order to gain followers who will engage and be with you until the end.

What do you think of the latest faked 'hack?'

Here are the original tweets:

-- Samantha & Mike

Social Media Regret

With social media creeping into every aspect of our lives, it comes as no surprise that more and more people are beginning to fear that they may be turned down or fired from a job because of an inappropriate social media post. Legal information website, FindLaw.com, recently conducted a survey of 1,000 "demographically balanced" adults, asking them about their social media behavior. The overall result of this study showed that 1 in 4 adults fear that their social media behavior will come back to bite them.

When this figure is broken down a bit more for age, we see that in the group of adults age 18 to 34, 29% said that they have posted something on social media that they fear could be damaging to their professional careers. In order to help control some of the potential damage created by past posts, 74% of people in this age group have removed past activity, like a photo or post, to avoid the negative reaction from current or potential employers. As to be expected, this number is lower in the next age group, 35 to 64, at 36%.

Perhaps the most simple way to avoid making these social faux pas is using common sense. Three basic pointers to follow when using social media are:

• Think twice before you post anything
• Check your privacy settings and make sure they are set appropriately
• Do not make sensitive personal information available online

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is once you put something online, it stays online. It is almost impossible to completely delete something from the internet, so it is paramount that you take a little time to make sure what you are posting is, and will continue to be, appropriate. It is so easy to post, tweet or update these days that mistakes are all too easy to make. What may seem like an innocent expression of your feelings can very easily come back to haunt you. We have said it before and we will say it again -- think before you post!

- Mike & Samantha