How Online Consumer Conversations Impact Retail Conversions POSTED BY Stacy DeBroff AT 1:57 PM

Reaching Consumers Through Visual Micro-Sharing POSTED BY Stacy DeBroff AT 11:01 AM

“Luvocracy: Pinterest for people who actually want to buy stuff.”- Mashable

Here at Mom Central, we use Pinterest to window shop. But finding something we really love, wanting to purchase it immediately and can’t, frustrates us.

A related site Wanelo (WAnt, NEed, LOve) works like Pinterest, but lets you click to buy. The drawback of Wanelo? Eventually items get sold out or off-season.

Luvocracy  (pronounced Luv-ocracy…and not like “louvre-cracy” which was our initial French attempt pronunciation) seems to be heading down the same social experience road as Wanelo but with a distinct difference: Luvocracy only allows ‘Pins’ of current stock and available to purchase items. Each board is called a collection and each pin is called a recommendation. Followers can trust you instead of follow you. Also, every recommendation (pin) has a price on it, because on Luvocracy you can buy the pins/recommendations that you like.

In its most simplistic form, Luvocracy lets its users:

• Discover some of the most innovative products on the market
• Easily search for – and buy – the best gift ideas from bloggers, influencers, AND their friends – all in one place
• Create a curated collection of tried-and-true favorites, and start reaping the rewards for your valued taste

The site is based on the idea that word of mouth recommendations go much further than marketing lingo. Smart! So the more recommendations a product has the more likely people are to buy it.  Because users cannot “repin” or post a recommendation on Luvocracy that’s not in stock, it alleviates the issues facing retailers of consumers looking for specific out-of-stock or no longer carried items they’ve found on Pinterest. It’s great for a brand or retailer to have items repined hundreds of times, but if the item is no longer available, how do those pins translate into ROI?

The advantage for users and brands:

By offering rewards for purchases, Luvocracy offers an incentive to keep users recommending products. As the site is still fairly new, users can trust that real people currently recommend items they really love. This offers brands a great opportunity to jump in and start recommending items. Maybe it’s because we’re addicted to shopping, but we think when people see something they like, they’d actually like to own it rather than just display a picture of it on a board.

Need more Mom Central Consulting insights?

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This Week in Social Media Marketing POSTED BY Stacy DeBroff AT 10:50 AM

This week's trends in Social Media Marketing: Visual micro-sharing, content marketing
and highly-filtered ad targeting.

How do you, as a social media marketer, best develop actionable narratives about your brand and provide shareable nuggets of engaging content that will inspire your consumers to share, post, participate, recommend and take action:

Forget Stories. Your Brand Needs a Narrative – PR Newswire

John Hagel, author of “The Power of Pull,” believes that stories fall short for a brand. Hagel argues that stories do not promote participation. Stories also eventually end. Narratives do not end and urge listeners to come participate. “In a business context, if you can harness the power of narrative, you can derive competitive advantage,” said Hagel.  Narratives work because they don’t simply motivate employees, they can galvanize a broad swath of people, and inspire them to action.”

Scoring Brands By Searching Social In Real-Time – MediaPost

SinoTech group has announced the launch of a new search engine called Buzz Equity. This search engine will specifically search out all the mentions of your brand across multiple social media platforms for free. After searching your brand across social media, Buzz Equity will score your brands online social value. “The score is determined by a combination of mention concentration, frequency, "passion" (i.e. - virality), reach, and sentiment.” 

Visual Micro-Sharing Platforms: The Next Big Thing in Social Media Marketing? – SocialMediaToday

Vine and Snapchat are quickly becoming huge factors in social media. But how can these platforms be utilized properly and what can you share with your clientele? You can showcase new products or offer flash deals. Visual Micro-Sharing is bound to enter into companies marketing plans at some point. It is important to familiarize yourself with it now. “their passionate user base means that companies need to utilize them for community building and exclusive sharing of products and services. Instead of believing users will stick around to watch 6-seconds of a company's logo, businesses should be dedicated to staying relevant and interesting in this instant new way of communication.” 

Now You Can Buy and Sell Items Directly in Your Twitter Feed With Ribbon – Mashable

Ribbon announced a new Twitter feature that will allow merchants to sell products directly through Twitter without having customers leave their twitter stream. This could prove much higher conversion rates for Twitter. “With Ribbon, sellers can create a customized link for free to list their product on Twitter and embed a checkout page within the tweet. Beneath the text and link in the tweet, customers will see a picture and description of the product and can then proceed to click through and enter their personal information and credit card details to make a purchase.”

How to get your CEO Tweeting – SocialMediaToday

Tweeting takes more time than one thinks. It can especially be tough to tweet about your business. You have to be careful with what you post. You can’t offend your readers but you want to be witty and fun. This is why many CEO's don’t tweet. They just don’t have the time in their schedule. Here are a few reasons why it is important to tweet as the CEO. Most importantly, it gives your company a face. “For a CEO, this is the time to get on our Twitter level and give a corporation (the bigger, the better) a face and name behind the brand. And most importantly, a story. A look at what life behind the scenes at the company is like as told through Instagram photos.”

Should “Likes” be the focus of your Facebook Strategy? – SmartBlogs

Although Likes may be a useful tool, they do not tell you how effective your message is at getting your fans to take action supporting the brand. “Still, as long as Facebook interactions remains a step on the path to your brand’s ultimate goal, it won’t make sense to focus your Facebook strategy on any internal Facebook actions. Instead, you need to use Facebook to cultivate a following that you can then redirect to another platform where you goal action is easy to accomplish.”

Facebook Home Puts Facebook First and Everyone Else Second – Mashable

Facebook has recently announced the launch of Facebook “Home” for Android phones. Facebook home is essentially a cover feed. Instead having a plan lock screen on your phone, it will now be replaced by Facebook. This could prove to amplify the importance of Facebook in terms of reach. Other social media platforms, like Twitter, could soon follow. “What Facebook Home accomplishes, with its Cover Feed, Facebook-only notifications and Chat Heads is an always-on, wholly immersive Facebook experience that, except for when you access the app launcher, pretty much eschews everything outside of the Facebook universe.”

Ensuring Facebook Users Find You When They Need You – SocialMediaToday

Organic vs Paid. Those are the two methods are driving people to your company’s website. Paid is probably a fast method but why pay when you don’t have to. What can you do to bring people to your company website? Make sure you have loads of content. You can distribute this content in two ways. Either you push it out yourself or let visitors do the work for you. Leverage your content with advertising. “The point with this post is to discuss how Facebook can be a sustainable, always on, source of visitors. Basing your marketing on content creation have great long-term effects that are not achievable by buying traffic with regular display advertising.” 

Facebook Opens Up Ad Targeting to Minivan-Driving, Baby Food-Buying Homemakers

Adds third-party audience segments from Acxiom, Datalogix, Epsilon from AdWeek

Advertising on Facebook is getting very specific thanks to the data of their new partners like Acxiom, Datalogix and Epsilon. Is targeting this way advantageous? Or will this new hierarchy eliminate people who really do fall into the brands demographic?

Facebook today rolled out the segments as Partner Categories available through its self-serve Power Editor ad creation tool and through its ad API partners. This allows U.S. advertisers to layer in the 500-plus new segments in addition to the standard Facebook ad targeting criteria.

Now advertisers can create ad-targeting parameters such as "home owners who are retired, own a Ford pick-up truck, buy over-the-counter allergy relief medication and take cruises." They can also target "dentists who live alone, own a BMW and buy big-and-tall clothes and diet foods." Or “people who live in a million-dollar home housing four people including a military veteran.” Or “mortgage borrowing homemakers who own a minivan and buy baby food.”

A caveat: creating a highly filtered Venn diagram such as the ones mentioned above would likely work against an advertiser because they'd be too specific and counterintuitive for brands attracted to Facebook because of its billion-user scale.

 And finally...

#nowthatchersdead: Fans Think Cher Died After Thatcher Hashtag Trends – Mashable

Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister, passed away last week. An anti Margaret Thatcher website called “Is Thatcher Dead Yet?” wanted its readers to use the hashtag #nowthatchersdead to tell spread over twitter what they were doing now that Margaret Thatcher had passed. The hashtag trended but many people confused the hashtag by reading it as “Now That Chers Dead.” Twitter quickly turned into an arena of mourning for Cher. A lesson to all social media users, Capital letters in a hashtag make or break the message.

Need more Mom Central Consulting insights?

Follow us on LinkedIn where we share macro-trends via our company updates.

Join us on Facebook for a smart, behind-the-scenes look at the folks who make us successful.

And finally, connect with us on Twitter for lively conversations about influencer marketing, insights and brand strategy.

Does An Empty Nest Mean Empty Pockets? (VIDEO) POSTED BY Stacy DeBroff AT 1:58 PM

Though kids graduate college and leave home, most empty nesters still continue to pay for their kids' cellphones, rent, car insurance and computers. Last week, Stacy visited the NECN studios to discuss how parents can wean their children from this cash flow spigot:

College graduation is about a month away, and while students are getting ready to leave the nest, they are leaving their parents with empty wallets. Parents often start paying for family cell phone plans in high school and continue to shell out for college age kid's cell phone plans, but apparently it doesn't end there. 

In a vibrant nation poll, 59-percent of moms say they pay the tab on their adult child's cell phone expenses. A third of them still shell out money for daily necessities such as rent, cars and computers.

But why do today's parents keep the financial spigot turned on - even for adult kids?

Debroff says it’s been a tougher economy. It’s hard for college graduates to find jobs and two-thirds of kids are returning home after graduation. Financial dependency has crept up well into the 20s.

She says we’ve raised our kids where we’re very focused on them and we want to help them, so it all has to be balanced against our own retirement and our own monetary needs.

 

The Myth of the Interactive Conference POSTED BY Stacy DeBroff AT 4:51 PM

Let’s stop pretending SXSW Interactive is a business occasion and just call it what it is: Lollapaloozonnaroachella Man on Fire in Austin. It’s an outdoor festival that takes place inside of multiple hotel rooms, bars and rooftop patios based on a foundation of music, food, arts and booze.  Thousands of people descend on a decidedly weird yet awesome town for an incredible party.  Based on recent reports, it seems this year’s SxSW Interactive morphed into the third day of Woodstock – sure there’s lots of love, but the air smelled of never-ending ad-sponsored parties, no one could leave, and people slept in the streets:

“Total chaos here," wrote Martin. "Room filled beyond capacity, long line outside, another line waiting on floor below. SXSW not letting people off shuttle here since too many people. No one leaves after any session. Some people waiting two hours and still not in room yet."

"By the last two days of the South by Southwest interactive festival, things become decidedly less pretty, the direct result of too much kibitzing at parties, endless free booze, and, if you’re being completely honest, much too much BBQ.  It’s called the “meat sweats” by longtime attendees of the event, in which the excessive use of brisket gets to be a bit of a problem."

It is the myth of the interactive conference.
Once, SxSW Interactive birthed incredible social moments of brilliance, connection and innovation. But the focus shifted and now “meat sweat,” hedonism and chaos rule. A sub-conference sprung up outside the official framework of SXSW Interactive. The tightly wound confusion of over-booked sessions and heavy-handed corporate sponsorship resulted in a mass exodus of attendees exploding out into the city, to drink and party and unwind, finding parties they can’t get in to, long lines and longer stories, and drinks they’ll never drink again.

When folks refuse to attend a conference because there’s too much drinking and partying, then as a conference organizer you’re doing something wrong.

"…because this year I'm not going. I'm not going to do it. …It's because, even in my relatively short time attending the 27-year-old festival, I can't help but feel that it has strayed far away from its original premise as a grassroots gathering place for new, undiscovered talent and increasingly feels like a big ol' Times Square billboard-sized commercial."

"When I started going to SxSW, it was a much smaller conference and more like a fan convention than a typical industry convention. The trip was a sabbatical from my corporate life. I found that the highlight of SxSW (this year) was almost exclusively events outside the show itself. Sessions were hard to find and attend. Gone was any chance to casually strike up a conversation in the hallways. Today's SxSW Interactive is about companies, not individuals."

In order for the interactive conference to become a destination, it needed its cool older siblings (music and film) to bring it along for the ride. But soon Interactive adopted really bad habits – and forgot who it’s supposed to be.

"It’s that there has really been little fresh to see, interactively speaking—no apps or technology that has jumped out at you and grabbed your attention the way Foursquare or Twitter most definitely had in the past."

The Interactive conference hit junior high.
Whereas the long lines, branded clothing and copious amounts of beer fit perfectly into the musical framework of hard-working, independent artists who every day crush their souls to provide the masses with pieces that inspire and engage, Interactive got lost in the bohemian rhapsody of the artist movement.

Interactive morphed into Uncomfortable Spring Break with a Twist: Do we drink beer? Build a tribe? Am I in the cloud? (Does this look like a cloud?) Am I standing in a beer puddle? What about the buzz? Am I buzzing? Am I buzzing in the cloud? Are we out of beer?– Sweet, I can problem solve that for you.

Go! Go and party and get down with your bad social media self, but let’s not pretend this is any more than what it is: the myth of the interactive conference masks an excuse for 50,000 people to drink and party during a five-day festival called Lollapaloozonnaroachella Man on Fire in Austin. And brah, that's cool. Unless you think you can’t control your drinking, or prefer not to refer to yourself as “meat sweat,” then perhaps you’re better off staying at home like the rest of us.

Tracey Hope-Ross is SVP, Strategy & Insights at Mom Central Consulting.

Infographic: The Power of Visual Content - Pinterest Versus Instagram POSTED BY Stacy DeBroff AT 8:37 AM

This Week in Social Media POSTED BY Stacy DeBroff AT 4:06 PM

The Importance of #Hashtags from Social Media Today

Some folks will #hashtag #every #word in order to #get #their #post #noticed. We wouldn't consider this the best or most strategic method of exposure. This article from SMT explores the tact and etiquette involved in a successful #hashtag strategy.

Why I (Often) Work from Home And You (Maybe) Should Too Huffington Post

Everyone has heard the recent news of Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer’s ban on her employees working from home; a tough restriction to accept given their past work culture. The worst part of the story?  She built a nursery in her Yahoo! Office. Employees can’t work from home, but she can bring home to work? C-level FAIL.

Social Consolidation To Change Online Marketing – Online Media Daily

For social networking companies, innovation drives the growth of their consumer base. Facebook needed to buy a hip, popular platform like Instagram to remain relevant to its users. If a company cannot innovate internally nor acquire that missing piece from an external company purchase, they'll be left in the dust as users flock to the next new attraction.

How to Talk to Your Employees on Social Media Sites from Social Media Today

Social media acts as a great way to develop stronger relationships with colleagues. For example, here at Mom Central we have a very close-knit group of colleagues who rely on social networking sites to maintain connections outside of the work environment. We intermingle via our Facebook and Pinterest accounts to learn more about each other and interact in a way that is non-work related. The friendships we create with one another then help to support and enforce our work relationships as colleagues.

Pandora to Cap Free Mobile Listening at 40 Hours Per Month Huffington Post

Fear not! While the title of this article looks devastating (or at least it did to us, we listen to a LOT of Pandora), the average listener only logs about 20 hours. Whew! But if you happen to be a super-user, read this post!

Andy’s Answers: How Life Technologies gets enlightened with social media – Smart Brief

Customers relate to a person not a company. By making social less scary for your employees, they can connect more authentically with your consumers and ultimately change how you do business.  

Of Course ‘Parks and Rec’ Pinterest Wedding Album is Adorable from Mashable

Alert! New way to use Pinterest! The very popular NBC show, Parks and Rec, recently featured an episode where two characters tied the knot. The geniuses at NBC created a Pinterest board in the form of a wedding album – an overwhelming response ensued. We love it. 

Why retailers are pinning hopes on Pinterest – Reuters 

Pinterest acts as a "window-shopping" platform, which encourages retailers to start embracing the platform in their marketing strategy. Aspirational pinning drives the platform and impulsive buying increase retailer revenues.

Pope Benedict XVI Tweets Final Farewell to His Flock from Mashable

Although he retired early (can you say that of an 80-something year old man?), Pope Benedict made huge leaps in the social media world for the Vatican. As the first Pope to open a twitter account, Pope Benedict was able to connect with 1.6 million people on the English language version alone. Although since his twitter account opened slightly over a year ago, he tweeted less than 40 times… guess it wasn’t his main priority. 

Pinstagram: Which One Should You Use? POSTED BY Stacy DeBroff AT 11:01 AM

 The debate surges on as visual content continues to move forward in social marketing popularity. Instagram (100 million) trumps Pinterest (40 million) in users, but the top spot for returning visitors and unique views goes to Pinterest. Then again, we see over 40% of leading brands on Instagram, while Pinterest has been responsible for more referral traffic to businesses than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined.

So which is the stronger platform for brands? Here’s what over 700 Moms have to say:

Pinterest vs. Instagram (based on recent MCC Research)

Should we start with the winner? Well, it wasn’t much of a contest.

• 79% of Moms prefer Pinterest over Instagram

Yet, looking at the frequency of usage, the divide doesn’t seem so large.

• 67% of Moms use Pinterest at least once a day
• 57% Use Instagram at least once a day

On each site, Moms interact with brands.

• 81% of Moms post images of their favorite brands/products on Instagram
• 63% of Moms follow 10 or more brands on Pinterest
• Only 8% of Moms do not follow any brands at all on Pinterest
• 92% of Moms want brands they follow on Pinterest to post How-Tos, Guides or Recipes
• 68% of Moms want brands they follow on Pinterest to post information about new products

Brand activity on both social platforms increases Mom’s likelihood to purchase.

• 59% of Moms are more inclined to purchase a brand they’ve seen photos of on Instagram
• 37% of Moms have purchased something online that they first found on Pinterest
• Only 11% have purchased something in an actual store that they first found on Pinterest

Takeways:

• Brands should utilize Pinterest more heavily for specific product promotion while Instagram provides a great tool for building brand awareness and connecting with advocates.
• Brands on Pinterest should promote items sold online with predictable inventory levels.
• Brands should incorporate their products in recipes or DIY solutions to receive the highest number of repins and viral spread. These should link to a page with related visual brand content.
• Moms may prefer Pinterest, yet they are still heavily active on Instagram- a percentage that many social media experts expect to grow in 2013. Finding ways to leverage the benefits and strengths of each site may give brands an edge against competitors. While the topic of content creation has continued to flow in a circular pattern reaching the peak once again, this time around it has picked up a bit of visual spark. Highly visual inforgraphics, images, and strategic “behind the scenes” pictures from brands will reign in the content creation surge of 2013.

So, that’s my two cents. But what are others talking about when it comes to the visual competition of Pinterest vs. Instagram? First, take a look at some demographic research from The Social Habit in December 2012:

• Pinterest is clearly a female dominated platform. Its core age demographic is 18-34 (56% of users), continuing to lean towards older users with 30% falling into the 35-54 category.
• Instagram seems more balanced with a higher percentage of male users and a core demographic of 18-34, younger than that of Pinterest.

Sifting through some additional articles, experts seem to reiterate similar recommendations for brand usage taking into account both the demographics of users and functionality behind each platform.

Brands should be utilizing Pinterest if:

• They're an ecommerce retailer
• They have quality and creative visual content
• Their products lend themselves well to being incorporated in recipes, design products, or more creative applications

Brands should be utilizing Instagram if:

• They’re an ecommerce retailer
• They have quality and creative visual content
• They have a story to tell- Instagram is intimate and personal
• They have a quirky/fun brand personality and advocates buy into it

So where will we see brands siding on the Pinterest vs. Instagram debate of 2013? Only time will tell, but it seems safe to predict now that visual content will continue on its way to the top as an effective means of communication between brands and the advocates who adore them.

Hacked! Crisis PR 101 or Social Media Win? POSTED BY Stacy DeBroff AT 2:01 PM

 

Last week some very opinionated McDonald’s lovers hacked the Burger King and Jeep Twitter accounts for at least an hour.

Hackers of the Burger King Account swapped out all account information, from BK's images to their bio, for McDonalds' information, claiming “The Whopper failed, so we were bought by McDonalds!” The first tweet occurred at 12:01PM on Monday 2/18. The tweet right before that one was a legitimate @BurgerKing tweet published at noon on Sunday for a deal for a buy-one-get-one on BK's Original Chicken Sandwich. This suggests Burger King's social-media team had planned to go dormant on Monday in observance of Presidents' Day. And it seems likely as the hacked account went unnoticed by the Burger King team for over an hour. Finally, at 1:18PM, the handle was shut down to deal with their security breach.

The very next day, the same hacker team (based on similar posts by the Burger King and Jeep handle) high-jacked the Jeep handle claimed Jeep had been purchased by Cadillac, changed the account background to a McDonald’s designed Cadillac and again tweeted inappropriate posts. Luckily Jeep responded faster than Burger King and didn’t experience as many ‘guest’ tweets on their brand page.

This raises an important question: should brand accounts on Twitter be treated any differently than an ‘average Joe’ Twitter user? Currently security features and account set up is the same for all users, unlike Facebook who offers two-factor authentication for brand accounts and pages (this requires the user to verify his or her identity by responding to a text in order to access a Facebook account from a new device).

As Twitter emerges as a place for brands to share promotions, build their community, and develop their voice, should Twitter offer their accounts (with access to thousands or millions of followers) more protection and security than someone tweeting a picture of his/her puppy? Compared with "average Joe" users, should brands be offered more security control over accounts? Beyond security, other Twitter policies such as the 1,000 daily tweet limits represent additional issues that could hinder a brand page and may need to be adjusted in the future.

On the upside, Burger King definitely received more attention thanks to the breach. Last week's hacks helped the hi-jacked handles gain new followers and neither brand had to spend promotional dollars. Burger King’s followers increased from 83,000 to 110,000 within an hour. Monday night the brand tweeted once they regained control: "Interesting day here at BURGER KING, but we're back! Welcome to our new followers. Hope you all stick around!"

Kasey Hallion is a Senior Project Manager.

When Advertisers Update Classic TV Ads to Boost Sales POSTED BY Stacy DeBroff AT 1:45 PM

I assume the average consumer doesn’t enjoy commercials. Ads interrupt TV viewing and seem repetitive and annoying. And with the creation of DVR, we can almost eliminate them from our television regimen. Maybe this is where I’m a bit different from the average consumer - because I actually enjoy ads. Whether it’s shaking my head at a dismal attempt, or nodding in appreciation of a genius creation, I’m guilty of being an advertisement lover.

When I read an article about the re-creation of the 1981 Grey Poupon “Pardon Me” television ad, I loved the idea. There are two main reasons why I love this:

1. Who doesn’t love nostalgia? While 1981 is before my era, from what I’ve gathered it was a pretty popular commercial. So recreating it with a modern twist is smart and adaptable.
2. I appreciate that Grey Poupon / Kraft can laugh at themselves! Having an English gentleman driven around the countryside and using the tagline ‘enjoy one of life’s finer pleasures’ shows the brand can laugh at it’s own stuffy image, but still pass along product messaging.
   

The 2013 edition of this commercial aired during the Oscars Sunday. Kraft plans to air this commercial just once, and then make it available online.  Though sales of Grey Poupon recently sagged based on increased competition in the space, Kraft hopes this revival may be enough to rejuvenate interest in the product and ramp-up online engagement.

Take a look below and let us know your thoughts: will "the lost footage" be enough to entice your interest?

Jessica Hogan is a Senior Project Manager at Mom Central Consulting.