SEO Werkt!

Social media gives consumers more control over a brand’s message than ever before and SendUs helps brands take it back.

SendUs launched out of stealth mode with $17 million in funding today. The company provides a video submission and management platform so brands can use video content created by fans to their own advantage.

“SendUs was founded to address the needs of brands to tell better, more engaging stories along with their consumers,” said executive chairman George Crowley in an email. “Consumers and brands alike care about co-creation and one-dimensional brand messages are no longer impactful. ‘Likes’ and retweets are hardly real engagement. When considered against the opportunity for more authentic content created by the like of YouTube, brands can no longer ignore the need to loop their audiences into marketing and programming.”

According to a study by the Content Marketing Institute, 80 percent of consumers are interested in being involved in projects with brands they love, however less than 1 out of 5 companies are actually involving consumers. The SendUs platform lets brands sent out a call for content from their audience. People upload content from their phones, computers, and social media. They transfer the media use rights to the brand, which can then review and publish it. SendUs automatically adds the brand’s watermark to the content so it is integrated with other marketing efforts. Enterprise brands, small businesses, creative agencies, non profits, and other organizations can use the SendUS widget and API for added customization.

SendUs was founded in 2012 and has worked with brands like FremantleMedia (creators of American Idol), Singapore Airlines, Peugeot, Nextel International, Sierra Club, and the Susan G. Komen foundation. Today, it made its public debut and revealed a hefty $17 million from private investors. It is based in Los Angeles

Filed under: Business, Deals, Media

Football, or soccer as we know it, has a passionate following around the world ranging from shirtless men with painted faces cheering in UK stadiums to Indian school children kicking a ball down the street.

The Football App has raised $13 million to capitalize on this fervor.  Many football fans are frankly, obsessed, and this product lets them indulge their passion whenever they want.

The app aggregates data, media content, and services like ticketing from various sources and merges them into a ‘one stop shop’ for fans. Claiming to be ‘the world’s leading mobile football community,’ the company has over 3.5 million monthly and up to 1.5 million daily active users who use the app to access live tickers, rankings, team statistics, news etc… about their favorite teams.

The Football App already has a major audience in Europe, and said up to one hundred thousand new users join a day across 155 markets. This financing, led by Earlybird Ventures, will help the company scale to accommodate this growth, especially with the upcoming 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Funds will also be used to add in new social features and release complementary products “around the greatest sport in the world.”

Downloading the app is free on iTunes, Google Play, and Windows store. The content covers over 100 leagues in 6 languages and the company hopes to expand this to 400 leagues and 40 language by the end of the year.

Growth of this speed and magnitude, as well as soaring rates of user engagement, is something every entrepreneur (and their investors) lust over. There are vast resources, companies, and products dedicated to achieving this type of traction. Marketing schemes, advertising campaigns, search engine optimization, social media analytics, referrals, and media attention, it seems, pale in comparison to sheer, simple love of the game.

Photo Credit: Ronnie Macdonald/Flickr

Filed under: Deals, Mobile

When should companies moderate social media content created by followers and the rest of the world? Matt Corey, chief marketing officer of social integration platform company Mass Relevance answered that question at mediabistro’s Social Curation Summit July 31 in New York City at The New Yorker Hotel.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

It’s 7 o’clock on a Tuesday night, you are watching your favorite TV sitcom.  You are laughing and enjoying yourself… then it cuts to a commercial.  There is nothing more annoying than commercials, right?  So to pass the three-minute interval, you pick up your smartphone to check your email or play your turn on Words with Friends.  Does this sound familiar?  Maybe you are more of a Draw Something fan, but more and more TV viewers are becoming what Pew Research calls connected viewers.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project recently conducted a survey to find out just how engaged cell owners are when watching a program on TV.  Here’s what they learned:

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They’re calling this year’s Olympic games the first to be significantly merged with social media, so it makes sense that Twitter is promoting a new page full of tweets and pictures about and from the London 2012 Olympics.

The company invited users to join in the U.S.-focused page for the opening ceremony. The page prominently features images of interest to U.S. fans and tweets from U.S. competitors in the Olympics.

The page pulls together content that runs the gamut from mundane (an Instagram pic of an Olympic-themed manicure on a fan) to truly inspiring; for example, two-time Olympic beach volleyball gold medalist Misty May-Treanor tweeted, “Nothing like marching in behind your Country’s flag at Opening Ceremonies … really proud. Count down begins. #TeamUSA #dreamingold.”

Here’s a sampling of tweets and images from Twitter’s new page:

In addition to a stream of tweets and a top slider of pics, the page features prominent and relevant accounts, such as @Olympics, @NBCOlympics, and @USOlympics. You’ll also see promoted tweets from companies like AT&T with content relevant to the summer games.

“This page will highlight Tweets from athletes, coaches, teams, families, NBC personalities, fans, and many other Olympic insiders,” we read on the company blog. When those nail-biting, riveting, and emotional moments unfold, you’ll see and hear directly from all of those who are closest to the action.”

The official online hub for the Olympics is replete with social media and leans heavily on Olympic athletes’ tweets. The organizers of this year’s games (and the corresponding social media hub) are calling 2012 the first year the games have been truly social.

Twitter’s not the only social service getting in on the action, though. Foursquare recently kicked off a special Olympic promotion, too, including a brand new badge and special tips from London competitors.

Filed under: social

To date, there have only been a handful of watch projects on Kickstarter, and of those, there really have only been a couple that grabbed my attention.  But here’s an interesting one that just popped up on PleaseFund.us, a new crowd-funding site that looks to be a direct Kickstarter competitor.

Terranaut Watch is bringing an oversized (50mm) watch to market, but one that they feel will “wear” signigicantly smaller, due to the lugs being hidden and the 13mm case. I’m not the biggest fan of watches over 46mm – but if their design choices work out, this could be an interesting one to keep an eye one.

The most interesting thing, however, is that they are crowdfunding the manufacture so you, the buyer, and pony up if you want the piece.

So, why crowdfund?  They’ve actually got some intriguing developments along with the watch that they’re shooting for.  First off, they want to create a carbon fiber case – which, if you ask me, is a pretty nice upgrade over plastic cases.  Second, they’re working to develop a glow-in-the-dark strap.

Not that the strap itself will glow in the dark, but that the stitching will.  I’m a sucker for anything that lights up a watch in the dark, so this is really intriguing.  Plus, this 26mm strap should be nicely padded, so it looks like it would be a comfortable one.

It’s a Citizen/Miyota movement, and has had some components painted to keep things looking nice on the inside of the case. They had initially considered a Swiss quartz movement, but of the two they tested, one broke, and the offered a horrible user experience.  

The watch itself looks to come in four variations including a choice of bezels (stainless or black) and dials (60 second or 24 hour layout). They’re looking for £3,500 and your pledge is refunded if it doesn’t fund. The piece costs £175.00.

There are also cheaper funding levels on their project page, so you can decide what level to get in on before it closes in August. You can also read up on their website, or follow them on Twitter.

Have you got what it takes to be the BMW Superfan? To celebrate reaching 10m fans on their Facebook page, BMW are turning your Facebook data in to a personalised (but branded) infographic.

After liking the page and accepting the app on Facebook, you can find out if you are the biggest BMW fan out there. Give it a go yourself and tell us what score you got! What do you think?

Here’s one I made earlier:

If you are the NBA you should be feeling pretty good right now. Despite a strike shortened seasn you just ended on a very high note where your most loved and hated player, LeBron James, finally got his ring (although his big mouth lessened the impact since he was talking about 7 championships in Miami but no one said he was sharp).

The trouble is that though the season ended with a bang how do you make headlines now? Well, you have a player who ultimately gets fined $50,000 for using an anti-gay direct message on Twitter and your esteemed commissioner uses the subject of wife beating as a wedge against a pesky reporter. In this world of online reputation potholes the league is now axle deep in two when it should be promoting one of its greatest moments. All of this after the league went through the trouble of putting on the first annual social media awards show!

So what are the details? Well, let’s talk about the commissioner first. Apparently, he’s a bit touchy these days. Two weeks ago, Jim Rome of syndicated sports talk radio fame asked him on his radio show if the NBA lottery was fixed. A loaded question, for sure, but not uncommon for a guy like Rome who specializes in ticking people off to make headlines (he was once attacked on camera after he goaded NFL quarterback Jim Everett by referring to him as ‘Chris’ for years on radio then in person). Rather than laugh it off like he should have, the commissioner, in his infinite wisdom, responded with the out of the blue and unfounded response of “Have you stopped beating your wife?” (You can go here to listen to the exchange which starts at about 7:40). Real funny commish.

That was just about two weeks ago. Fast forward to today when the very same commissioner handed out a $50,000 fine to New York Knicks player Amare Stoudemire got into an exchange with a fan on Twitter.The LA Times reviews the situation with the following

The NBA has fined Amare Stoudemire $50,000 for using an anti-gay slur in a tweet to a fan.

Stu Jackson, the league’s executive vice president of basketball operations, announced the penalty Tuesday in a news release.

The incident occurred on Saturday after Stoudemire responded to a fan’s tweet that read: “You better come back stronger and quicker to make up for last season.” The tweet also had an obscenity at the end of the sentence.

Stoudemire replied to the fan with a direct message that included an anti-gay slur and profanity.

The fan then took a screen capture of Stoudemire’s message and tweeted it. Multiple blogs reposted it.

Stoudemire apologized to the fan Sunday morning by sending him another direct message, which read: “I apologize for what I said earlier. I just got off the plane and had time to think about it. Sorry bro. No Excuses. Won’t happen again.”

The fan tweeted that message as well.

Rather than get caught up in the right or wrong nature of this incident (should the fan have kept a direct message private? or is Amare Stoudemire that stupid to think that someone won’t try to screw him if he says something incredibly offensive?) Let’s look at this as marketers and people who need to protect company assets in a world where there is more exposure to trouble than ever.

The most glaring lesson is the completely inadequate awareness by most people that they are being offensive. As a result they keep saying stupid things. Stern and Stoudemire prove that with their ‘wit’. What if this were an employee in your company talking to a client or anyone for that matter? What do you do? If you wait until after the fact you are just trying to mitigate and minimize the damage.

What’s most important is education prior to an event like this. Policies are fine but the National Labor Relations Board is making a hobby of tearing those apart. In case these haven’t been worked on at your place of business already, you should consider the following 3 steps in helping protect your company’s reputation from the perspective of your employees.

1. Educate employees on social media and acceptable use regarding your business

3. Continue to educate employees on a regular basis using case studies like this one to prove our point over and over again

Look, you can’t legislate stupid. People do dumb things no matter how much they are told not to. That’s a fact of the world not just social media. When it becomes the company’s problem though, is when there is potential damage to the reputation of the company and to its ability to operate and make money.

We all need to accept that the online world is fraught with peril. That’s a given. But that peril can be minimized and managed to a great degree with some simple, straight forward prior planning.

Are you doing all you can to educate your employees about social media and its inherent risks to the company? If not then don’t go crying that someone screwed up your reputation with a sideways tweet or update. If you have not educated them then the problem is on you.

Agree? Disagree? What are you doing to try to keep the Stoudemire’s and Stern’s of your business in check with regard to social media and media in general?

I’m a huge Twitter fan. As much as I love The Google, I also really like—and use—Twitter’s built-in search functionality. Twitter in my world represents many great friends, conversation, learning, resources at my fingertips, daily laughs, content sharing, a robust content distribution network, stalking new business prospecting, and much more.

I told you I was a fan.

But I’m not so naïve as to think that just because I like a platform, everyone else does as well. Many people have mixed feelings about Twitter. Some folks hate it. Some find it completely without value. Some simply don’t have time to care. And that’s fine. We can’t all like the same things (including the same social networks). That would be boring. However, I regularly talk with clients (most of whom don’t use Twitter and don’t have any idea what the platform is about other than “lunch”), and after we talk a little about the benefits to be realized, many folks change their minds.

So, I thought I’d share some notes from those talks. They might be helpful to you as well. Even if you’re not participating in the Twitter stream regularly, you should know that the site is a valuable source of information for real-time news, industry-specific content, discussions and chats on a wide variety of topics, real-time consumer feedback, and online help.

How to Use Twitter Search

If you’re in the market for information about a particular topic or group of people, think about adding Twitter to your search repertoire. And it’s also a great source of information if you’re in the midst of a competitive analysis or if you want to keep tabs on a specific industry.

The most common way to search Twitter is to use http://twitter.com/#!/search-home. Although that works, it’s a little too basic, and it doesn’t allow you to set any additional parameters aside from your search term.

Instead, our team recommends using the Advanced Search feature (pictured below).

As you can see, the advanced function gives you a lot more options for customization and the ability to search not just words but people and places, too. Plus, you can specify either positive or negative sentiments, questions, and retweets, which will help you better refine your results.

Even if you’re already monitoring certain keywords phrases or hashtags, you may find an occasional advanced search will help you cut through the noise and help you more easily pinpoint certain types of information. After all, Twitter moves fast. There’s a lot of content to sift through. Making a habit of using Advanced Search won’t just help you more easily find what seek, but it also will save you time.

Other Keyword Search and Monitoring Tricks

Twitter Search is a tool we use a great deal—for ourselves and for our clients. We also use some tools for keyword alerts and real-time monitoring. I thought a nod to one of those tools might come in handy. One of our favorite keyword alert tools is SocialOomph, which we use pretty much daily. Using SocialOomph, you can have keyword alerts delivered to your inbox. That helps us in a number of ways for brand reputation management, influencer identification, customer service—you name it.

If you’re interested in some additional keyword search tools, you can check out this post: 7 Keyword Search Tools for Twitter, which reviews and evaluates several tools for not only keyword searching but also for real-time Twitter monitoring.

What Do You Think?

Have you used Twitter’s Advanced Search feature? What do you think of the functionality as compared to the original search option? Do you have other tools that are your go-to tools? If so, do share.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, feel free to stalk me on Twitter (I’m @ShellyKramer) if we’re not already pals. I’m way more interesting than that Ann Handley [running].

(Photo courtesy of Bigstock: Sitting Detective)