integratePR blog

MTV and Foursquare Join Efforts

integratePR — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:42:35 +0000

A partnership between Foursquare and MTV has truly defined cause-marketing with their first-ever cause-related badge. This type of marketing effort starts today where Foursquare, the geo-location technology that we have mentioned before, has teamed up with MTV for their September Get Yourself Tested (GYT) campaign.

Foursquare has created the: STD Testing badge for users that check in after getting tested for sexually transmitted diseases. Not sure if you would check in to your STD testing center on Foursquare? The two companies believe that they will be able to help young people become more aware of how common STDs are and how important it is to get tested and stay healthy. They aim at breaking down the stigma behind getting testing for sexually transmitted diseases and hope they can accomplish that by getting people talking about it.

Users will be encouraged to check in and shout “GYT” to their Foursquare followers. They will then earn a GYT badge educating other Foursquare users that they have been tested. It doesn’t hurt that MTV is also offering a chance to win a trip for two to New York City if you earn the GYT badge.

Would you check in and announce to the world to “Get Yourself Tested?”

New social media stats (great for presentations!)

integratePR — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:58:35 +0000

Allie Herzog, founder of integratePR, gives educational and new business presentations weekly on the topic of social media and is constantly scouring the internet for the latest trends to state the case that Facebook is no longer a college playground and Twitter can be so much more useful than talking about what you had for dinner. (sound familiar, fellow social media professionals out there?)

Here are some great stats we found this week that we wanted to share with you. Enjoy, and happy Friday!

From Media Music Media:

Now people over 65 are adopting Facebook at a faster pace than any other age group – 6.5 million in May alone and more than three times from a year earlier according to comScore. Young demographics were indeed the earlier adopters.

Americans have increased their time on social networking sites by 43 percent, while their use of email has declined by 28 percent according to Nielsen. Some 40 percent of American’s on-line time is spent on social networks (22.7%), online games (10.2%), and e-mail (8.3%). These categories increased from 37% a year earlier.

An analyst for Simba Information says Americans use e-books at a rate much slower than it thinks. But there will be an estimated ten million e-readers out there by the end of the year up from only four million a year ago. Reading books electronically could be ready to take off but don’t count the Kindle out. Apple’s iPad has eye fatigue issues (not good for serious readers). There is also distraction from mail, the Internet, video and other things with the iPad that further complicate the segment. Color Kindles are on the horizon.

Streaming music subscription services continue to be rolled out even though no one service has caught fire. The latest is Rdio, a social music service that offers an unlimited streaming of seven million songs to computers and smart phones for $9.99 per month. Consumers can purchase tracks for 99 cents. This product and others such as Rhapsody seem built more for the record labels than a consumer. The labels insist on doing subscriptions their way which is why it will take Apple to stream your iTunes library from the cloud to make subscriptions work.

Android has become the number two smart phone behind iPhone (now 34% of the market). Blackberry slipped to third place within the past few weeks and RIM’s new iPhone-acting Blackberry isn’t selling all that well. It looks like a race between Apple and Google on this category. Global shipments of mobile phones running Google’s Android system grew 886% in the second quarter from a year ago (source: Canalys) and Apple is continuing to sell iPhones as fast as they can make them. Canalys analyst Pete Cunningham says, “By 2013, smartphones will grow to represent over 27 percent of shipments worldwide, with the proportion in some developed markets in Western Europe surpassing 60 percent and 48 percent in North America.”

From ComScore:

“How Women Are Shaping the Internet” indicates 75.8% of all women online visited a social networking site in May 2010, compared to 69.7% of men. Globally, women demonstrate higher levels of engagement with social networking sites than men. Although women account for 47.9% of total unique visitors to the social networking category, they consume 57% of pages and account for nearly 57% of total minutes spent on these sites.

Information about Power Moms (women age 25-54 with at least one child) online activity from Momentum by Big Fuel:

35 million moms are online

80% of Power Moms go online to research products before purchasing

69% of Power Moms are likely to purchase a product based on what they heard through their online social networ

82% rely on mom-to-mom advice on cooking and baking product decisions

56% of Power Moms log into Facebook every day

From Harris Interactive: (slightly off topic but pretty “DUH!”)

Looking at overall results, about four in 10 (43%) Americans would prefer to be richer if they could select one of four choices. This was twice the response rate of being thinner (21%), the second-most-popular option. Despite the US culture’s obsession with youth, only 12% wanted to be younger, slightly trailing smarter (14%). Nine percent are satisfied with how they are.

Social Media Leads a Branding Revolution

integratePR — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 20:10:55 +0000

Among the many advantages social media has to offer us in the public relations and marketing field, monitoring client brands is a big one that should not be overlooked by strategic communication professionals. Using social media to monitor a client’s brand can revolutionize the entire idea of branding. With better outreach avenues, real-time feedback, and better two-way communication, social media is quickly replacing traditional branding methods.

In a recent article Lauren Fernandez of Radian 6, the social media monitoring and engagement platform, cited what she thinks are the five key benefits of utilizing social media to monitor brands. We here at integratePR think she has some valid points and we want to share them with you.

1) Crisis Management

Fernandez points out the real-time response to issues that is possible with social media. She says that while lack of crisis communication strategies is not the issue, more often than not it is the lack of two-way communication in reacting to the issue. Think Dominos here—if they had reacted immediately, rather than 48 hours too late, it would not have turned into the disaster that it did (a national study conducted by HCD Research using its Media Curves Web site found 65% of respondents who would previously visit or order Domino’s Pizza were less likely to do so after viewing the offending video)

2) Influencer Identification

Social media can allow you to monitor the mention of a brand or client across the vast spectrum of social tools like Social Mention, Viral Heat, etc (mentioned last week on the iPR blog—hyperlink to http://iprblog.com/2010/08/the-tools-from-the-online-marketing-summit/). With this kind of monitoring available you can identify what kinds of forums your brand is being mentioned on, the context in which it’s mentioned and the volume of mentions. Having the knowledge of which platforms are influential to your specific auduience allows you to better target your communication strategies.

3) Building Relationships with Media and Customers Alike

Fernandez suggests using social media like a journalist—using it not only to stay on top of news and current events, but also to network with PR professionals and the community. While staying up on the trends of brands is important—it’s crutial network with the media and community you are engaging with. Media outreach can help you measure how well your brand is resonating with your target audience and community networks can provide you with better insight as to how to better target that audience.

4) Creative Feedback and Ad Targeting

Social media offers many advertising possibilities, and Fernandez sees this as a beneficial addition to your monthly metrics report. Monitoring statuses and posts on social media can allow you to implement ads that target individuals based on their interests. From there you can monitor if users are clicking on the ads, as well as communicating with or about the brand on social media.

5) Competitive Monitoring

Not only can you monitor the presence and feedback of your brand, but also that of your competitors—remember, everything online is public information! This knowledge will allow you to act quickly and develop new strategies if you discover that your target audience is communicating with your competing brand. Knowing the current efforts of your competitor can dictate your next move in your brand campaign and give it a better chance at success.

Throughout her article Fernandez emphasizes the versatility social media has to offer. It is clearly ushering in a new age of branding methods. In order to stay ahead in this ever-changing industry, it would be an advantageous tool to utilize. The ideas behind traditional branding are still the same, but the platforms are changing. This is something that should be taken into account when you think about future branding.

Simple Travels with Trip-Planning Website

integratePR — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 21:31:30 +0000

It seems that summer vacation always goes by too quickly. Before you know it- backpacks and pencils fill the isles at your local stores and Halloween candy goes on the shelves. Yes, Halloween candy in August. With only a few weeks left to take a family vacation, an online travel service has introduced a new feature that makes traveling less chaotic.

TripIt is one of the most intuitive trip-planning sites for individuals and business travelers. You can keep all of your travel plans in one spot. All of your airline tickets, hotel and rental car confirmation and even restaurant reservations can be organized through TripIt by simply forwarding your travel confirmation e-mail to TripIt.

TripIt has just added a new feature to make the life of a frequent traveler even easier. Travel confirmations can now be automatically imported from a user’s Gmail account without having to forward on the e-mail. It is simple to use and makes it easy to view and access all of your travel documents in one place. You can even sync multiple Gmail accounts to keep all of your family’s travel plans in one central location.

We love technology that makes our lives easier! Thanks to TripIt you can remove the clutter of any travel experience.