Sophia Grace & Rosie: Youngest Celeb Endorsers?

If you're a fan of Ellen, then you've probably heard about the "two most entertaining girls in England" by now: 8-year-old singer Sophia Grace and her 5-year old cousin and hype girl, Rosie.

Sophia Grace and Rosie shot to YouTube stardom after uploading a video of themselves singing Nikki Minaj's Super Bass. Since then, they have been on the Ellen Show multiple times, walked the red carpet and become the hottest new viral stars to hit the web.

Sophia Grace and Rosie in the 2012 Grammys

Most recent appearance on the Ellen Show

As a regular person and kid-lover, the first thing that came to mind when I saw them was "Omg they're the cutest kids ever!" As a marketer, what I saw was several kid-friendly brands lining up to have them as their newest brand ambassadors.

I swear, I'm not evil and I don't promote child labor! But the truth is, Sophia Grace and Rosie sell, and child endorsers is not a new concept in marketing. In fact, they're already brand ambassadors--just take a look at their Grammy outfits. You can't get more sponsored than that.

Do you guys think brands will start picking them up soon?

xoxo
Mae

Finally, Facebook Timeline for Brands!

It's inevitable! With Facebook Timeline for Brands launching this March 31, the webosphere is buzzing with what this means for brands. Here are my 2 cents.

Cover Photo

Goodbye old profile pic! Brands can now upload a 851x315 cover photo which functions as the page header. A simple 180x180 profile picture supplements this and also acts as the thumbnail.

Coca-Cola Timeline Cover and Profile Pic

I personally love it. The cover photo provides more flexibility in terms of how brands want to represent themselves and impact their visitors. It can be used to feature their latest campaigns/promos, while the profile pic (ideally a brand icon or logo) remains classic and consistent. Cover photo restrictions do apply, such as no displaying of call-to-actions that prompt users to Like the page or sharing price information.

Landing Page

In the old format, brands can choose a specific tab for users to land on, such as whichever contains their latest campaign/promo. In some cases, non-fans could be made to land on a "Like us now!" tab, while existing fans are directed straight to the wall. Now, everyone lands on the wall.
 

Old Red Bull Landing Page for Non-Fans

I actually like this because it encourages marketers to think of creative new ways to increase fans, instead of bullying them into Liking a page by restricting access.

Tabs
While tabs used to be displayed on the left side of the page, they are now shown directly under the cover photo. Up to 12 tabs tabs are allowed, but only 4 can be seen without expanding your view.

Dove Tabs in Expanded View

I see this as a positive thing because it forces brands to be more mindful about the content they're sharing. A Facebook page is not a website, a mistake I've seen with some clients I've handled. It's not a place to dump all your product information, but a channel for brands to interact with consumers and for consumers to interact with each other.

Pin and Highlight
You can pin a post to the top of your wall so it stays there even if newer content is published. Pinned posts are marked with an orange ribbon.

Lexus Pins an Article

You can highlight posts so it spans across both columns on your wall.

Burberry Highlights its 2012 Spring/Summer Collection

I'm sure brands would love these as it allows them to draw attention to more important posts.

Milestones
One of the best features about Timeline (and the reason why it's called such) is the ability to input data as far back as you want. Also, the timeline navigation on the right means no more clicking "See More" loads of times to look for older content. Milestones capitalizes on this by allowing brands to celebrate historically significant dates (i.e. milestones)!

Happy Birthday Manchester United!

Brands with a long, rich history will benefit from this the most.

Direct Message

Lastly, fans can now message brands directly. I reserve judgment for now--I can see it either as a great way for brands to have more personalized interactions with fans, or an invitation for fans to spam them. We'll see.

Needless to say, I'm a huge supporter of Timeline (having been a user since October 2011) and am excited for it to finally be available to everyone. It's a great opportunity for brands to tell their story, find exciting new ways to engage consumers, and is a means to weed out poorly managed pages. With Timeline, quality is key and the best shall prevail, which ultimately means an enhanced user experience.

xoxo
Mae

Social Media #Fails

Big brands are no strangers to failure, and with social media enabling consumers to voice out their opinions more than ever, brands ought to be more careful when putting themselves in the spotlight. Just ask Gap and United Airlines.

Barely 3 months into 2012 and we already have two social media #fails from two of the world's most famous brands.

McDonald's
In January 2012, in an attempt to get their fans to share heartwarming stories about Happy Meals, the fast-food giant created the #McDStories hashtag on Twitter. This quickly turned into a McNightmare when users started Tweeting less-than-heartwarming stories about their McD experiences.

Naturally the campaign was scrapped. However, as with most things that get online, the damage can't be undone and #McDStories is now a popular meme used by sarcastic fans.

Coca-Cola
In February 2012, the Coca-Cola Australia Facebook fan page tried a social media experiment that needless to say, failed.

As someone whose previous job included creating status messages for Coca-Cola Philippines (the link is IP-targeted so you'll only see status updates relevant to your country), I don't even know how this was approved. I'm sure you can guess what happened next.

Interestingly, Coke Australia has decided to keep the now-famous status update on its wall, rather than delete it. I guess they figured some harmless college humor is better than the accusations of censorship they'd probably get if it was removed.

Ah, social media. Giving consumers the power to chide, forfeiting brands the power to hide.

Til then,
Mae

Related links:
#McDStories: When A Hashtag Becomes A Bashtag
Coca-Cola’s Facebook word association game backfires into fan-on-fan scrum

Look ma! I'm a Slacktivist!

Last night, I finally watched KONY 2012, a 30-minute viral video produced by the non-profit organization Invisible Children. As of today, the video has 15.2 million views on Vimeo and 58.7 on YouTube--all within 2 weeks.

Well. No wonder my Twitter feed has been clogged with #stopkony hashtags in the past few days. Eager to learn more, I spent the afternoon Googling related articles. Today's blog entry was already forming in my head: "Social Media and Viral Marketing: Today's Superheroes!" Forget the Avengers!

Instead, what I found was a heated debate on the authenticity of the entire campaign. The backlash came as quickly as the views rose. KONY 2012 is a scam. KONY 2012 is sentimental and paternalistic. KONY 2012 promotes slacktivism.

What?

Slacktivism: A term formed out of the words slacker and activism. The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction. (Wikipedia)

Ah. Can't say it doesn't fit the bill. How many of these viewers or Facebook fans have actually done something to help, other than share the video? On the other hand, supporters argue that sharing is helping--at least, it doesn't hurt the cause. A million slacktivists is still better than nobody caring. Right?

Other "slacktivist" campaigns that you may have encountered in the past year:
Breast Cancer Awareness Facebook Meme
Stop Child Abuse Facebook Meme

What do you guys think? Does "slacktivism" oversimplify important issues and promote laziness? Or does it harness the power of viral marketing and social media to spread the word and create real change?

xoxo
Mae

Sometimes I wonder...

...what people from the 70s or 80s would think if they heard us talk about the Internet now.

xoxo,

Mae