August 29th, 2008 by Fiana de Guzman
Just in time for the weekend, I added the Love Bunnies application on Facebook – NO, it doesn’t have anything to do with Playboy! – and found out instantly, just how dirty-minded my colleagues really are… (@ Nils: thanx for naming your bunny Fiana!)
When I read Regina Lynn’s blog announcing Love Bunnies – “the world’s first personalised Facebook sex toy!” yesterday, I have to admit I was intrigued – for work reasons of course. After all, it is a great example for innovative, sophisticated social media marketing.
LoveHoney.co.uk is a British online shop for “Sexy and Secure Adult Shopping” that made use of the social network Facebook to launch their latest product: The Love Bunny. But what exactly is a Love Bunny? To the point: it is a toy for adults made out of silicon – does that ring any bells? Facebook users can add the Love Bunnies application, adopt one of these cute little (rubber)rabbits, name it and start flirting with other Bunnies in a candy cotton world. Furthermore, if you have fallen deeply in love with your Bunny, you can order your very own silicon-Bunny (including a unique birth certificate) and get it delivered to your doorstep.
LoveHoney tells you how it’s done:
How to get a personalised Love Bunny Facebook sex toy
1 Log in to your Facebook account
2 Install the free Love Bunnies Facebook Application
3 Create and name your own Facebook Love Bunny – flirt with other Bunnies and have fun
4 Follow the link on Facebook to buy your unique personalised Love Bunny vibrator for real!
The Love Bunnies Facebook Application
Choose a colour for your Love Bunny, give your Bunny a name and you’re ready to play! You can move your Love Bunny around the Facebook Bunny World Warren, change your Bunny’s mood to show how you’re feeling, and send flirty messages to other Love Bunnies. At any time you can click to buy your Love Bunny vibrator for real.
Buy Your Personalised Love Bunny Vibrator
Your unique Love Bunny is delivered direct to your door in a presentation rabbit hutch box, complete with its unique Bunny birth certificate.
But, it doesn’t stop there. Marketers at LoveHoney seem to know how to work the web 2.0 world – the onlineshop has its own YouTube channel, where new products are presented and introduced in a rather “charming” way, among them, of course, the Love Bunnies:
After “playing” Love Bunnies with a few colleagues, I can tell you that it is worth it to add this application and have a little fun with your friends. We definitely do! Going from 1st to 2nd and 3rd bunny base with one of my colleagues, caused quite a stir at the office today with all the winking, rubbing, undressing and licking… And now, after pushing each others buttons, we are on our Bunnymoon! We’ll both be back soon, maybe with a surprise or two from our trip…
Concluding, LoveHoney has found a way to advertise a hard to solicit product through innovative social media marketing. Evidently, people talk about it! Let’s hope that other marketers get with the program and throw more of such campaigns at us in the future.
August 29th, 2008 by Fiana de Guzman
Just like last year, ethority will present its services and new products all around 360° Social Media Strategies at this year’s omd in Düsseldorf, Germany, from the 17th till the 18th of September 2008.
We are looking forward to serve as a tour guide on both days to present the convention’s highlights to interested exhibition visitors. If you are one of them and are interested in taking the tour, please apply here.
Of course, you can come by our stand (J40/Hall 11) without having registered at any time. Assure yourself of our expertise in the field of Social Media Marketing and Research.
Ethority’s bloggers are also thrilled to be there – Nils and David to be precise. They will do their best to give real time updates on omd highlights via Twitter.
Also, they’ve already reserved their seats in the Blogger Area and cannot wait to see who they’re going to bump into at the Night of the Bloggers.
Seat yourself in the Blogger Area here. To be on the guest list for the Night of the Bloggers at the Bar Konvex, Oberbilker Allee 26, follow this link.
August 28th, 2008 by Fiana de Guzman
ethority analyzed around 90,000 authentic user opinions found in forums, blogs and news sites concerning the two candidates running for president of the USA. German-, English- and Spanish-speaking contributions on the internet were evaluated and show that the democratic candidate Barack Obama has a greater buzz (percentage) compared to his republican competitor John McCain. However, in terms of sentiment, especially among German- and Spanish-speaking internet users, McCain and Obama are nip and tuck. Buzz-wise both candidates’ scores are almost even throughout English-speaking contributions on the web.
Never before has a US presidential election attracted that much attention and raised such an interest in Germany, as it is the case today. One of the most crucial reasons most likely to cause this effect is its strong presence on the internet. Both campaigns actively use web 2.0 services such as forums, blogs and social networks to get their “word” across. But what campaign related topics are discussed most frequently on the web and how do internet users react to or reflect those topics? How high is the buzz on the internet concerning the two candidates? Are there differences across various language areas when it comes to user opinions of Obama and McCain and their political views?
This buzz analysis shows that campaign managers in the US are not only aware of the change of social media consumption but anticipate it. User generated communication channels are used in the USA, as well as in German- and Spanish-speaking communities, to discuss political topics related to the upcoming presidential election this November. This change of media usage should inspire German campaign managers to follow this example. If the big German parties still want to reach their voters in the future, they have to make room in their campaigns and integrate digital communication channels, because they constitute an unprecedented opportunity to participate in the decision-making process. Internet users have long reached beyond classic forms of media such as print and TV. While it was hard to form a political opinion aside from traditional media and the circle of family and friends before there was web 2.0, YouTube & Co. provide a platform with exponential growth where opinions are formed and decisions are made.
August 19th, 2008 by Fiana de Guzman
The HTC Dream – the first smart phone to use Google’s Android operating system – has finally been approved by the Federal Communications Commission. Now, T-Mobile can start making plans to debut the phone within the next months and begin selling it, right in time for the Christmas shopping season. “The device is expected to have a touch screen, WiFi, a ‘jogball’ (like on a Blackberry), a full Web browser based on the same WebKit as Safari on the iPhone, and Google apps like Gmail, Maps, and YouTube. It should be fab,” says Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch. (Video Walk-Through via Mobile Crunch)
However, we probably should not expect too much of the Dream just yet. It is the first phone of its kind and, at least for now, cannot be expected to catch up with the iPhone that even in its new version has a few flaws (but who cares – it’s so beautiful!). Other Android phone manufacturers can benefit from such flaws by learning from them and improving their upcoming devices accordingly.
The New York Times further states that “the new phone is an important step in Google’s plans to expand the company’s presence beyond the personal computer and into the mobile universe. Google executives have been vocal about how the mobile Web is key to the company’s plans for growth, as well as expanding the market for its products to a global audience.”
That being said, Google also released an updated beta version of its Android mobile software developers kit, which includes a new home screen and several new applications such as an alarm clock, a calculator, a camera, a music player, a picture viewer, SMS/MMS messaging, and other tools. JR Raphael (Inquisitr): “The Android phones might just offer an interesting alternative [to the iPhone].”
Now, that’s a dream!
August 18th, 2008 by Fiana de Guzman
See what is happening on Death Star these days. Apparently, Darth Vader and the others have been hiding somewhere in Swabia….. (via off the record)
August 15th, 2008 by Nils Maier
This week we would like to welcome a new blogger at ethority. From now on David, Alexander, Alic, Wilton and I won’t be the only ones blogging about social media for ethority. In the future, Fiana will be concerned with tech-gossip and will host ethority’s upcoming vodcast.
Hey Fiana, why don’t you introduce yourself?
Hey everybody!
Working at ethority, I constantly discover new (web-)worlds that fascinate me. They’re funny, crazy, pathetic, preposterous, weird, exciting or simply interesting. Every day there’s something new and it seems almost impossible to grasp everything that is going on in the web 2.0 world today – it really is a jungle out there! And I love it! That is why I cannot wait to share my thoughts with you. I will start a tech-gossip column that will at least fill you in on what’s going on in my world – the web 2.0 world that is, of course. Moreover, I will be in charge of ethority’s vodcast we are working on right now and a few podcasts, so that there will not only be “ink” but also sound (in two different languages) and visual of me. Until then, I will post blogs on this site concerning different topics.
See you soon!
*Fiana*
August 14th, 2008 by Fiana de Guzman
At the moment ethority is working on a study about the US presidential elections 2008. Our database for this study is a compilation of user opinions found in social media such as forums, weblogs and newssites.
These user opinions concern the two candidates Barack Obama and John McCain in general, as well as their image, climate protection, immigration policy and campaign topics such as education, trade, health, foreign and security policy. Since this is an international matter, we will account for English speaking as well as German and Spanish speaking internet users. Our crawler technology searches for all relevant user postings, verifies and categorizes them automatically.
The Financial Times Germany (FTD) will be presenting this study exclusively for the German market in August. Moreover, to accompany this study, we interviewed Stefan Prystawik (Republicans Abroad) and Shari Temple (Democrats Abroad) and produced a podcast focusing on campaign strategies 2.0 in the USA. The podcasts will soon be available on our Website.
Another highly interesting project we are working on at the moment, is a CEO reputation index of the Fortune 500. In collaboration with manager magazin, ethority already conducted a similar study focusing on the “German” Fortune 500.
Now, we are looking for a partner outside of Germany who is interested in presenting a social media study. Of course, we are open to further suggestions and appreciate new ideas. You can contact me directly at Fiana.de.Guzman(at)ethority.de
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Fiana de Guzman
August 13th, 2008 by Fiana de Guzman
| In June, Manager Magazin presented ethority’s reputation index. Next to “image” data, it also displays the overall buzz the CEOs’ names generated. The analysis of over 60,000 contributions in forums and blogs yielded the following ranking: |
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| Furthermore, we conducted a topic oriented analysis of those blog postings. The following graph shows what topics bloggers addressed in combination with the different CEOs: |
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| The findings of this study clearly show that the “commanders” of German corporations are discussed intensely in consumer generated media. Therefore, the question for corporate communication should no longer be if those channels should be integrated but rather how soon the monitoring of social media can be started. Whether you choose to listen to it or not – the buzz concerning companies and their leaders will not stop. And to bury your head in the sand is certainly not the right strategy to achieve new goals. Weblogs, forums, twitter and social networks with their online conversations have long surpassed the state of being marginal phenomena. Today and in the future, public is created and happening online. Therefore, being aware of such channels and monitoring them can only be the first step in this context. Corporate communication departments and PR agencies have to go even further: only the ones that “listen” to discussions in social media and actively communicate online will be able to participate in building the image of their company in this rapidly growing part of society. |
August 6th, 2008 by Fiana de Guzman
Today, Hitwise Intelligence analysts published the Top 20 Web 2.0 services in the US. The total number of hits on web 2.0 services by US users in July 2008 served as database. (via Inquisitr):
1. MySpace — 44.14% market share
2. eBay — 16.22% market share
3. Facebook — 13.03% market share
4. YouTube — 9.88% market share
5. Wikipedia — 4.76% market share
6. Craigslist — 3.14% market share
7. Yahoo Answers — 1.41% market share
8. myYearbook — 1.05% market share
9. Tagged — .95% market share
10. Flickr — .86% market share
11. Bebo — .71% market share
12. Meebo — .59% market share
13. BlackPlanet.com — .52% market share
14. GaiaOnline.com — .45% market share
15. Blogger — .40% market share
16. Adam4Adam — .35% market share
17. hi5 — .35% market share
18. WikiAnswers — .33% market share
19. IMEEM — .31% market share
20. LiveJournal — .30% market share
August 4th, 2008 by Nils Maier
Everyone knows the trouble caused by telephone or cable companies. Either you wait half a lifetime on hold on diverse telephone hotlines, be hopping mad about voice-operated service menus (Advice: Just start to sing and you will immediately be able to speak with a human conversational partner) or you wait far too long. Sometimes you also wait in vain for the technicians to arrive in order for them to clear your way into multi media communication at the long awaited date of your account activation. All too often, the telecommunication companies give their customers reason for not making too friendly statements about their offers and customer service. Not only German but also American customers could write a book about these problems. However, in case of the USA, there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel. What it is, exactly, that a telecommunication company understands by innovative complaint management, a posting by Michael Arrington illustrated earlier this year. The CEO of Techcrunch was astonished at the fast reply he received from the Comcast customer service after he had made some rather harsh statements about the communication giant on twitter. Indeed, Arrington does not seem to be the only one profiting from this social media complaint management. Social media monitoring has become an integral part of the CRM of Comcast. At this, Comcast does not only observe discussions about their products on the internet but also participates actively in these discussions. According to the responsible departments at Comcast, they actively contacted 1000 users during the last 5 months and tried to eliminate the cause of the complaints as fast as possible. An adequate example is depicted in a current NYT article. In his weblog, a student from Washington complains about the commercials shown in the program guide of Comcast cable’s program. 4 hours later he received an e-mail from Comcast which confirmed that his feedback would be considered when designing future services. This type of CRM solely has advantages for the company. The cable giant is thus able to react directly to criticism and, consequently, potential crises or reputation damages can be nipped in the bud. It is obvious that this social media strategy does not solely have advantages for the CRM. Certainly, such strategies have special relevance for the company communication and marketing departments. The market penetration of the internet of about 80% in the USA impressively emphasizes the relevance of this kind of strategy. Therefore, the steps taken by Comcast to observe and interact in user generated communication channels appear to be extremely logical. Comcast surely is far from being the only company which uses monitoring in the field of CRM. Comcast is one step ahead, though. For the cable giant, listening to customer dialogues on the internet is just one side of the coin. The other is the direct approach of critical aspects by CRM managers. Concerning the advantages of this dialogue, the responsible CRM manager of Comcast states:
“When you’re having a two-way conversation, you really get to clear the air,”
This step taken by Comcast will prove successful in future. After all, the use of online communication channels is no longer a temporary phenomenon. On the contrary, these channels increasingly become an integral part of the communication between consumers, clients and companies. With regard to this CRM strategy, Brian Solis says:
Conversations are taking place with or without you online each and every day. Now for the first time, companies have a direct connection to those public voices that are challenging your messages and mission to shape perception and/or learn from the experience to fix the very things that fueled the conversation in the first place. If you don’t respond, someone else will, most likely in the form of competition seizing the opportunity to convert your dispirited customers into new prospects.
Whether you want to believe it or not: In Germany there is also an increasing number of discussions about products, brands and services within user generated media. Observing the current growth rate one can state that it will not take long until the internet use in Germany will rise from 60% to 80%. The increasing success of online communities, weblogs and social networks in Germany is yet another indicator for the fact that the social media have become an integral and company relevant institution of communication in Germany, too. Gone are the days for providers in B2C when such social media strategies could be financed from fossil budgets. Thus, it is time for every company to get prepared for a direct dialogue with its customers within the social media.
