Crowdsourcing and inventors: the future of product development

by Sara Brown, Intern

We all have those crazy relatives or friends who constantly tout their newest invention that will soon be “sweeping the nation.” We’ve heard the impassioned pitches and enthusiastic projections but aren’t surprised when nothing ever really gets made or sold. That is, until now.

I recently stumbled upon the newest incarnation of crowdsourcing, a website called Quirky. For a mere $99 (a tiny fraction of the thousands you’d have to raise or fork over to develop a product on your own) you can post your fabulous product idea on the Quirky site. The Quirky team and the site’s community then judge your idea and decide if it’s the best one that week.

If your idea is the best that week, then you’ve won the social product development jackpot. Not only will Quirky create sketches, 3D renderings and prototypes of your product, but you’ll also get the input of thousands of Quirky members on everything from your product’s design to its logo. No market research or focus groups required here, Quirky has done all the heavy lifting for you.

There is one last hurdle to jump. Since you’ve only put up $99, Quirky’s developers set a minimum number of pre-sale commitments your product needs to reach before it goes into production, basically ensuring that the product is commercially viable. However, they do lend a helping hand by posting the item to their online store and providing social media tools for you and Quirky members to share the product.  If you hit your pre-sell number and the product goes into production, Quirky pays you (and the Quirky members who influenced you) a percentage of the profits.

Even if your idea wasn’t voted the best that week, Quirky still provides you with the detailed analytics on why it didn’t make it. You can learn who did or didn’t like your product, and everything from their ages to occupations. You also get the chance to edit your product based on your analytics and resubmit it for only $10.

If Quirky takes off, it could do for small inventors what e-books have done for independent authors. Removing the high costs of developing and testing a new product means anyone can get in the game. Add to that the removal of the risk of investing a lot of money in producing a product that doesn’t sell. Just as authors no longer need big publishers to get their books to readers, inventors may no longer need big investors to get their products from idea to store shelf.

I doubt Quirky is making any of its inventors millionaires, but it’s certainly creating cool, useful products that may never have seen the light of day otherwise. It’s also allowing its consumers to be a part of the product development process in a way big companies can’t. Garage inventors have created some of the most innovative products of our time; just look at the origins of Apple. Add social networking and crowdsourcing to ingenuity like that and you’ve got the future of product development.

How Do You Devote Your Social Media Hours?

By Simon Landon, Account Executive

Social media is dominating the Internet at a phenomenal pace. In fact, The Nielsen Company recently found that Americans are devoting almost a quarter of their Internet time on social networking sites and blogs, a 43 percent increase compared to one year ago. You can make great strides for your company and/or clients by writing impactful blogs, running a Facebook page, posting tweets, etc. – but are you using social media time the right way? I have some suggestions to spend your days wisely.

•    Check social media sites less – Everyone gets caught in the trap of reading their social media updates too often (some people that I know read them every 5 minutes). This ends up hurting in the end, because it takes away from the time needed to create the valuable content you need. Block off a certain time everyday that works best – whether it’s at lunch, on the train to work, etc.

•    Subscribe only to the blogs, newsletters and followers that matter most – While it is very important to subscribe to industry relevant content, many of us overdo it. If your inbox is filled with 25 newsletters every morning, you’ll end up overwhelmed and get much less out of it. The idea is to subscribe to those that you can fully understand, those that relate to your business and those with which you can interact.

•    Be a part of the social media sites that make sense – None of us can be everywhere at once, and this works with social media sites as well. It’s important to research where your business should and should not be. You have to learn how to listen, what to say, and how to adapt posts and comments effectively for each site. Popular blogger Chris Brogan has a social media task checklist that is a good place to start.

•    Avoid posting automated messages – Every now and then when I follow a new person on Twitter that seems interesting, I will immediately receive a direct message saying: “Thanks for following; I look forward to reading your great content!” As soon as I see this, my interest in the user goes down immediately and I will often remove them from my list. The whole point of social media sites is to interact on a personal level – and users that post the same thing over and over aren’t accomplishing that.

•    Remember that this is about business – Sometimes it appears difficult to use a social media site for other reasons than interacting with family and friends. However, you can save a lot of time by making sure you don’t get sidetracked. Focus on your business social media endeavors all at once to get the most out of it. There is plenty of other time for your family and friends.

While the list of ways to “devote your social media hours” can go on and on, these five points area good start to getting the most out of your day. As social media is integrated more into our lives, we will have to continue focusing on how to spend our hours more effectively.  What other tips do you have?

So many social networks, so little time? Here’s your solution

By Simon Landon, Account Executive

Most small businesses know the value that social media can add to their organization.  And individuals know what it can do for them and the company they work for.  However, with the massive number of social networks out there today, we are often overwhelmed in our attempts at staying on top of the game.

There simply is not enough time to update statuses and find out what everyone is saying about you across all of these networks. Fortunately, some great tools are out there, such as Postling (geared more toward small businesses) and Hellotxt (geared primarily toward individuals) that can make your life easier.

Using social media to increase business is all about interaction, and finding out useful information. Take, for instance, being able to address a customer inquiry or complaint. The Postling social media management tool lets you keep up to speed as it allows small businesses to see all brand activity from various social media platforms. It also offers the ability to click one button to reply to any post immediately. To top it all off, Postling is free for personal and small business use.

Butter Lane, a cupcake bakery in New York City, has had great success with Postling. The business is not only on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, but also manages venue pages on Foursquare and Yelp and runs specials on Groupon and other group-buying sites. There’s a lot to keep up with on the customer service front. Co-owner Maria Baugh says: “Obviously it’s crucial to make a great product, but it’s also extremely important to give the customer a great experience. It’s so incredibly simple, yet it’s so often overlooked. Go the extra step with service and you’ll win customers for life. Social media helps us do this in a variety of ways.”

Hellotxt is a site that has become a success for a simple reason: it “make(s) it easy to post text and media to separate accounts on multiple social networks, publishing platforms, and micro-communication services.” The site allows you to update your status via SMS text message, e-mail, or by using their iPhone, iPad or Android apps.

Hellotxt has also added a “tagging” feature allowing you to post to different groups of networks based on keywords you have created. For example, post your update with #work and the update is only posted to the social network(s) you have identified with the word “work.” All in all, Hellotxt is a great tool for those who are on the go who want to be able to post pictures, videos, etc. And the best part is – you don’t even need a smartphone!

As businesses and individuals continue to adopt social media into their everyday routines, these “aggregating” platforms will become increasingly important. It’s a great advantage to stay on top of your customer preferences and tailor your next business moves without having to keep up with each individual social network. Butter Lane in New York was able to amass a cult following this way. Are you next?

Is this How Bloggers Should Role (sic) When Presenting Articles?

By Christy Lukes, Account Executive

While collecting clips recently for a client, I came across a piece in Cellular-News.com that included the following opening line: “What should be the roll (sic) of mobile devices in the learning process?”

For anyone who grew up with a mother as strict about grammar as my own, this sentence is worse than nails on a chalkboard. And in this case, the guilty author isn’t even violating one of those forgivable hazy areas of language like toward vs. towards (though the AP Stylebook says “towards” isn’t even a word and my mother would wash my mouth out with soap for using it). Now, I’ll give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume he or she knew the difference between a roll of quarters and a role in a play, but that means there was little or no attention paid to detail in the editing process of this article.

If there was an editing process.

Chris Scott, our senior vice president, also saw the article, and he and I briefly spoke about how mistakes like this have understandably increased skepticism and uncertainty of society’s growing dependence on blogs and other digital channels that haven’t been vetted as sources of news.

When there are language and grammatical errors in supposed “news” pieces, how can I be confident that other (arguably more important) elements of the author’s work are error-free? Am I to trust his or her research? How can I be sure that quotes are accurate or sources were checked? Sure, this particular article is trivial when compared to the rest of the news world, but careless language mistakes happen in the “real news” too.  Plus, blogs and “citizen journalists” cover every subject and have come to be more than casual commentary.

Because professional journalists are held to higher writing standards than the typical blogger, they comb through their work and then send it off to an editor who takes out another fine-toothed comb in the interest of eliminating errors. But should such thorough editing be reserved for professional journalists? I think it’s safe to expect proper use of there, their and they’re (at the very least) while browsing the blogosphere.

By no means am I demanding that bloggers be banned from the Internet for pronoun agreement mistakes. Rather, I simply want to stress the importance of meticulousness when writing, blogging or posting anything that will serve as a source of public information.

I also want to remind those who use non-traditional or citizen journalists as sources of news (myself included) that a claim made in a sentence, paragraph or article on any website does not make it a cold hard fact.

I like the current state of the Internet; blogs and other user-created content sites (like Trenchview) allow everyone to be heard, encouraging open and enriched conversations. But to maintain credibility as writers, we (citizens and professional journalists alike) must adhere to the simple standards of language we learned in third grade.

When bros ice bros: an intoxicating social media success story

By Sara Brown

If you read the news or hang out with young men, you’ve probably heard about bros icing bros. Here’s a quick recap: one man creatively surprises another man with a bottle of Smirnoff Ice. The surprised man must then get down on one knee and chug the Ice, unless he has his own Ice within reach. If he presents his own Ice, it blocks the original Ice and the man who intended to do the “icing” must take a knee and chug both. The more creative the “icing,” the better.

So, what can we learn from this seemingly immature drinking game? How about an engaging, creative and successful way to utilize social networking and user-generated marketing. Surprised? So was I.

First, understand that Smirnoff has denied any involvement with the game and took steps to shut down BrosIcingBros.com, the website that promoted it. A 22-year-old recent college graduate, known only as “Joe,” has taken credit for the popular website, but the origins of the game itself are still unknown.

This means the game is completely user-generated, a sought-after rarity in viral marketing. Many companies pay big money for campaigns that emphasize crowdsourcing or consumer involvement. Smirnoff supposedly paid nothing for the creation or proliferation of this viral game, yet it’s enjoying more sales to bros who may have never bought the drink otherwise. New female consumers are entering the game as well. Two of my female friends were recently victims of icing, one at her wedding and the other at her 21^st birthday party. I doubt that either would drink a Smirnoff Ice if they hadn’t been “iced” with it.

Not only are consumers purchasing more Smirnoff Ice in order to play the game, but they’re also uploading videos, photos and icing ideas to social networks and independent websites, further promoting it. Popular comedy site College Humor recently got in the game with a video called “Bros Icing Movies” that plants bros in classic movies and has them “icing” famous actors. The video has over 150 comments and more than 16,000 likes by Facebook users. Even if, as some have speculated, Smirnoff had a hand in creating or promoting bros icing bros, they certainly didn’t pay people to like a video or to upload their own pictures and stories. Authenticity is key in viral marketing and bros icing bros has it in spades.

There are a few downsides to handing your brand image over to consumers. Smirnoff has suffered backlash because some say the game encourages irresponsible or underage drinking. It has released several statements denying involvement with the game but some still view it as a flagrant contradiction to its “drink responsibly” advertising. Allowing users to promote your brand requires some risk-taking, and the end result may not always come out in your favor.

BrosIcingBros.com was created in April and the game started showing up in the news in May. While most viral campaigns might enjoy a few weeks or a month of extreme popularity, bros icing bros has been going strong for almost four months with no end to the phenomenon in sight. Whether it’s simply a social media trend or an elaborate viral campaign from Smirnoff, we won’t be forgetting “icing” anytime soon.

Facebook imitates life vs. Facebook is life

By Sara Brown

A recent survey by Lightspeed Research has been getting a lot of attention for finding that 39 percent of young women are addicted to Facebook. However, the more startling statistics for me were about young men: 20 percent said they use Facebook to “hook up” and 24 percent said they would end a relationship on the social networking site. Are these the kind of men I’m dating, and maybe even one day marrying? I shudder to think that the guy I had dinner with last week was breaking up with his girlfriend via Facebook rather than sending a quick text message, but he very well may have been.

The survey covered ages 18 to 34, and I doubt the results would have been the same had it covered the growing population of older adults on Facebook. My parents aren’t likely to be sending each other break up texts, but I have a few 20-something friends who have received one. Even Sandra Bullock has been victim to “hooking up” online; her now ex-husband reportedly met his mistress, Michelle “Bombshell” McGee, on a social networking site after she added his business, West Coast Choppers, as a friend.

The Oscar winner’s divorce isn’t the only one affected by social networks. A survey from the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers said that 81 percent of its members have used evidence pulled from a social networking site. Sixty-six percent of those lawyers cited Facebook as the source for their evidence. My parents may not be breaking up with each other on Facebook, but other adults (who should know better) are posting incriminating pictures or divorce grievances there.

I added my dad as a friend on Facebook over a year ago and my friends often ask me if I limit him with privacy controls or if I’m embarrassed to let him see my profile. My personal mantra has always been that if I wouldn’t want my father to see it, I shouldn’t be posting it, so I don’t feel the need to limit his access. Judging by the amount of evidence being pulled from Facebook these days though, it seems most people haven’t been following strict guidelines like mine.

All of this can lead me to only one conclusion: social networking isn’t just networking anymore. My use of Facebook to catch up with old friends or share an interesting website is no longer typical. I’m pretty sure “hooking up” isn’t in the definition of networking – online or in person. Furthermore, posting pictures or statements that can get you in trouble in court might be considered over-sharing, certainly not networking.

Social networking is now social living (my newest buzzword), where your life is fully integrated with your online persona for better, or more often, for worse. Hopefully your online persona is in line with your offline life, otherwise it seems you may be in for some trouble.

Fast Food Ads Sans Photoshop?

by Christy Lukes

For most of my life, I have been aware that the delicious-looking McDonald’s cheeseburgers I see on billboards are not the same burger that my $1 will buy.  Just like I can use Photoshop to give myself a Caribbean cruise-worthy tan, food advertisers can alter any image to portray culinary perfection for a mere 99 cents.

In fact, I have come to expect Photoshopped images in ads, which was why I was interested to see Domino’s boasting lack of doctored images in ads in its latest campaign: “Show Us Your Pizza.”  Similar to Dove’s Real Beauty campaign from 2004, the pizza chain stresses the importance of beauty (in food form) that is free of any digital doctoring and invites users to submit home photos of actual pizza (no professional equipment allowed), rewarding the user with the most appetizing photo $500 and the chance to have the photo used in an ad.

Aside from helping the company recover from a social media nightmare last year, this campaign accomplishes a couple things important to social media marketing success: transparency and customer interaction. Domino’s uses the contest to make a disclaimer about the real pizzas used in its own ads and so far, over 1,751 people on Facebook “Like” the contest.

Key to the reality of this campaign is the fact that each image is uploaded by users; Domino’s relinquishes control over which photos will be displayed on the site, assuring visitors and customers that there was no image-altering or photo selection process on the company’s part.  With photos from real customers, the company is able to show future customers exactly what they will get when ordering Domino’s by displaying to site visitors photos of real pizza from real customers, as opposed to images of pizza with perfect steam created in five hours by a graphic designer.  Skeptical at first about real photos looking appetizing, I must admit that some of the user images induce a craving for pizza; I may be calling Domino’s tonight to deliver.

The World Cup reaches new heights through the power of social media

By Simon Landon

There is no sport that grabs the world’s attention like the FIFA World Cup. Since 1930, every four years the tournament brings the world together to watch soccer on its biggest stage. However, South Africa 2010 marks the first year that social media (including Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and the digital age are playing a crucial role. Because social media so easily connects people across the globe, fans are able to interact at the click of a mouse – meaning great things for the World Cup and its sponsors.

In the past, fans could watch games on TV or in person – but to be heard beyond that was extremely limited. Not anymore. The implementation of social media as part of South Africa 2010 has been in the works for months: for example, the Sports Illustrated World Cup preview issue mentions the Twitter usernames of U.S. Soccer stars to encourage fan interaction. Twitter employee Robin Sloan says, “… The World Cup will eclipse everything we have seen so far on Twitter, including the U.S. election, the Oscars, or the Super Bowl simply because it is so international.”

To understand what the World Cup and social media means to attracting internet users, take for example day one and day 13 of the tournament. According to Akamai’s Net Usage Index, which tracks visitors per minute on more than 100 of the major news sites, June 11 (day one) sees the overall highest spike in traffic ever with over 12 million visitors per minute. June 23 (Day 13) sees the second overall highest spike in traffic with over 11.2 million visitors per minute (this moves past the 2008 presidential election, just to give you an idea of what we’re talking about). The picture below shows the jump in traffic after U.S. star Landon Donovan’s goal in extra-time against Algeria on June 23.

Sponsors of the World Cup (14 major sponsors in total) have seen great jumps in followers/subscribers during the 2010 tournament. While many sponsors see increases in Facebook and Twitter followers, YouTube sees the biggest changes during the first 10 days. A great example is Visa, who is holding a contest with tickets to the World Cup final as the grand prize. The challenge is for fans to submit their best celebration video. Through the first 10 days of the World Cup, the Visa YouTube channel sees an increase of 55% from 540 to 1,202 subscribers.

However, it isn’t just the major corporations who can get exposure from the World Cup. An individual or small company has much to gain by appealing to soccer fans through their social media accounts during the month-long tournament. This can be done by:
•    Mentioning a product that would appeal to soccer fans

•    Having a company voice to share soccer enthusiasm with fans

•    Implementing a way for your business to somehow get involved with the event.

It has been 80 years in the making, but the World Cup and social media are proving to bring in new fans from all over the world like never before. As internet records have already been broken during the first 2 weeks of the tournament, it will be interesting to see what happens for the remainder and for events in the future. With social media here to stay, the sky is the limit.

PS3s, Pink Cordless Drills and the New American Woman

By Ashley Weber, Account Executive

I’m not ashamed to say that I have chosen a TV strictly on how it looks with my furniture. I don’t really know much about 720p vs. 1080p or plasma vs. LCD but the new headboard was white and I wanted the TV to match. I also decided to get an iPhone because I liked the Google Maps feature, I wouldn’t have to carry around both a cell phone and an iPod, and I could play Words With Friends or Uno when I was bored. I didn’t buy these gadgets because I’m an early adopter and had to have the newest, coolest things. I bought this stuff (and later rationalized the purchases) because they’re useful items that filled a need in my life.

I was also part of the decision when my husband and I bought our other flat screen televisions, the outdoor grill and our PlayStation 3. And I purchased our Xbox, Xbox 360 and Wii by myself. These devices account for thousands of dollars in retail sales, yet none of them were marketed to me.

As consumer researcher Paco Underhill explains in his new book “What Women Want,” women are the breadwinners or co-breadwinners in two thirds of American households. So where is the recognition and respect?

Currently, most products marketed to me fit in one of two categories: 1. Traditional “girly” items like makeup or vacuum cleaners (a purchase my husband made, by the way) or fat free yogurt, or 2. A conventionally male purchase painted pink. Seriously, how many sports teams have pink as an official color? I’m pretty sure most people can tell that I’m just a girl at a ball game, they don’t need me to prance around in a pink jersey for clarity.

On the flip side, many of my consumer experiences completely ignore the fact that I’m a woman. Chipotle, I love you, but your counters are not conducive to my 5’3 stature. I have to stand on my tiptoes and yell for the people constructing my delicious burrito to hear that yes, I know the guacamole is extra but I still want it! I appreciate the sneeze guards but can’t they be a little lower?

As this Newsweek article says, women already attain college degrees at a rate 20 percent higher than men. The Great “Mancession” puts U.S. male unemployment at 11 percent versus 8.3 for women. By 2024, the average American woman will outearn the average man, and that’s factoring in the 77 cents a woman makes for every $1 a man earns. American women are responsible for 83 percent of all consumer purchases, 89 percent of bank accounts and 51 percent of personal wealth. (I personally eat Chipotle twice as much as anyone else – man or woman – that I know.)

And this is all just in the United States, where equality is accepted. The emergence of global gender parity makes a woman the greatest potential target market in the history of the world. It baffles the mind that marketers haven’t really caught on yet. I’m also giving them the benefit of the doubt by assuming they haven’t noticed, because if they do know, and selling pink power tools is their solution, then we have further to go than I thought.

AT&T’s secret weapon: social media

By Sara Brown, Intern

AT&T doesn’t have the greatest reputation. A survey conducted at the end of 2009 by Consumer Reports had it at the very bottom of the list for customer satisfaction. This is not to say that the company is doing poorly. In fact, it continues to add customers due to the prolific success of the iPhone. A Consumer Reports survey of iPhone users showed that 98 percent would buy the phone again, despite AT&T’s poor customer service.

So, the company isn’t about to go bankrupt, but there is clearly still a problem and AT&T knows it. The solution? Social media, of course. AT&T has been building and training a team of 19 employees since August to monitor sites like Facebook and Twitter and respond to customer comments or complaints. AT&T is also promoting this new form of conversation with customers on monthly bills and websites.

Whether this tactic will have any real effect on customer satisfaction has yet to be seen. The team has only been working for a few months, and the customer complaints don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Quick responses to customer problems are one way to increase customer service, and social media is the perfect place to do that. On the other hand, the worst scores in the customer survey were in connectivity, something a 140-character response from @ATTCustomerCare can’t really fix.