By Nick Johnson - January 16th, 2013

In this week's Wednesday Update, we take a look at Facebook's new Graph Search product, take in two leading edge social media case studies from Panera Bread and Samsung, and finish up highlighting two

Social search is here: Facebook Graph Search is announced

Facebook yesterday released initial details about their Next Big Thing (and perhaps social media’s next big thing), Graph Search. A new search function through the site that allows users to make better use of the vast amount of data they have access to in their ‘social graph’ (ie “my friends in New York who like Jay Z”).

Steven Levy from Wired has written the best article on the new product - calling it calls it a “transformative product”, and one that will almost certainly ensure people use Facebook in entirely new ways - something a corporate audience is going to care about. Intriguingly, in the piece Levy quotes Tom Stocky, one of the leaders of the Graph Search project, as saying “. “It’s like Facebook is this big database and you’re doing a lookup on the results that match”. If that doesn’t get corporate marketers salivating (social CRM, audience insights, new audience identification and demographics), we don’t know what will.

Panera’s ‘hidden menu’ gives a successful case study on how brands can integrate social media with location in a whole new way

Last week, Panera Bread sent out a tweet announcing a new ‘hidden menu’ - essentially allowing people over social media to order a new ‘slow carb’ set of products that aren’t advertised in store. As well as generating a huge amount of buzz over social networks (and save Point of Sale space in store), the hidden menu has really helped to engage followers on social media - people felt special, and like their engagement with the company has given them advantages over other consumers. It’s a good idea - Starbucks and In-And-Out Burger have both done similar - and the article from EB Solomont is certainly worth a read.

Media Convergence and Samsung

Always a company pretty close to the bleeding edge of marketing - particularly digital marketing - best practice, Samsung last week showed us one way to start integrating social with other marketing channels with a campaign with the Associated Press during the Consumer Electronics Show.

According to Rebecca Lieb in this article, it’s a “stunning example of how quickly media convergence is moving, and how rapidly roles and workflow are changing”.While focusing on the impacts on PR agencies, the article raises some intriguing possibilities for brands. Could the future be someone like Target (or Tesco, in the UK) charging a company like Unilever for a presence on their own social feed? Are we going to see brands with considerable social influence become advertising sellers? Check out the article for more, and if you want to know more about the convergence of paid, owned and earned media, then check out this great article from David Armano.

Two new reports which should be of interest to Corporate Social Media practitioners were released this week:

Socialising your CEO

Weber Shandwick’s new study announced, and shows that 64% of CEOs from the world’s largest companies don’t use social. CEOs are critical to brand reputation and perception (apparently 49% of corporate reputation is attributable to the CEO), and according to the study, companies with social CEOs have a ‘higher reputational status’.

Digital Marketing Priorities for 2013

EConsultancy’s quarterly digital intelligence briefing reveals what digital marketers anticipate will be their priorities in 2013. There are two priorities for 2013, content marketing and conversion rate optimisation. Read some analysis from Business2Community on the survey and trends here.

If you’re in the mood for more statistics, facts, trends and analysis, then our very own State of Corporate Social Media briefing is about to be released. Based on responses from over 850 social media practitioners, the briefing will give you detail on priorities for 2013, shifting workflows and organisation of social media within companies, budgets, measurement tactics and more. We’ll let you know when it’s ready, but you can see some preliminary stats over at Nick’s blog here.

That’s all for this week, see you next time.

Next Reads

The Corporate Social Media Summit New York 2014

June 2014, New York

Become a social business: For superior marketing response, sharper corporate decision-making, enhanced innovation and a happier, more loyal customer

Brochure Programme
comments powered by Disqus