Think social media can’t get any more personalized? Think again. Thanks to the increased popularity of location-sharing, people not only know what you are doing at all times, but where you are doing it.

This location-sharing frenzy can most aptly be described as place-dropping, the casual insertion of a place for social status points. This isn’t simply about letting someone know where you are- that would be too simple. Place-dropping, like status updates, is about self-promoting a vision of yourself to others. It adds another element of intrigue that can be shared and discussed among those you connect with.

Facebook plans to introduce its own location-sharing feature during the f8 annual developer conference next month. In addition to users’ ability to share location information with friends, third-party developers will be able to use the Facebook API to tab into location-based services for their applications. Of the site’s more than 400 million users, about 50 percent of people log in at least once a day, and 100 million people log in from mobile devices. We’re willing to bet that they’re not in the same place each time.

Twitter recently jumped on the location-sharing bandwagon with the introduction of its Tweet With Your Location feature. Once you opt to use the feature, you can add location information to your Tweets in the form of direct location via coordinates or place via town or region.

Forget texting your dinner date to let them know you’re early; Foursquare is a mobile app that lets you “check-in” to a place upon arrival, which sends an alert to your friends to let them know where you are. The social network, which boasts more than 500,000 users and 1.6 million check-ins per week, recently announced its introduction of new features to give businesses more information about the customers who shop there. The new analytics tool will give businesses real-time data about Foursquare users- who checked in, what time they got there, and other customer statistics. It will also allow businesses to reinforce relationships by reaching out to customers out with rewards and promotions.

At Brand Networks, we highly encourage brands to take advantage of the viral nature of this “place-dropping.” Our Social PIX application was developed with that goal in mind. Social PIX is an event photography solution that uses Facebook Connect to upload photos to a Facebook Page’s photo album and a user’s News Feed for all of their friends to see in real time. Different than attendees doing their own place-dropping, Social PIX allows for customized brand messaging through fun frames and News feed stories. Check out how PUMA, Teen Vogue Haute Spot, and Progressive Auto Insurance have used Social PIX to reap the viral rewards of this place-dropping phenomenon.

(Posted by Natalee Ranii-Dropcho, Intern)

You already know Facebook as the central hub for sharing photos, planning events and connecting with friends, but with the introduction of e-commerce to the social-networking giant, you may make it your primary shopping destination, too.

A new study by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies found that consumers are 51% more likely to buy from a company if they are a Fan on Facebook. Companies have been trying to gauge the monetary value of social media for years, and we’re getting closer to finding out.

More agencies and developers have started to explore the potential of social commerce. Brand Networks worked with Coach to help “socialize” their Gift Finder promotion this Holiday Season. Our Tab-based Facebook application enabled users to shop for friends and family, assemble the perfect Gift Bundle, share it, and ultimately click through to purchase it on Coach.com.

Also late last year, Payvment introduced an application on the Facebook platform that allows companies to build an e-commerce storefront within their Facebook page. Unlike other e-commerce sites on the web, this allows the over 400 million Facebook users to shop, order and buy using PayPal without ever leaving their account. The application features an Open Cart Network, which allows all items searched within Facebook storefronts to collect in one shopping cart for check out.

Fluid Social’s Fan Shop embeds a fans-only shopping site into a tab on a Facebook fan page. With its Fluid Socialize feature, consumers can discuss purchases with a network of shoppers or private chat with a friend. The interactive agency has executed the platform for such brands as Rachel Roy and Nine West.

Off the Wall is leading the social shopping curve. In addition to shopping through an e-commerce storefront within Facebook, the agency developed a widget that allows a brand to post a status update with an item for sale. Fans can then purchase the product directly from their feed or the brand’s wall and share the status update with friends.

Adgregate Markets is currently developing Shopfans, to “take social shopping to a whole new level of social engagement,” but the features of the application are yet to be released.

Another trend on the social commerce radar is group buying: city-specific sites that offer steep promotions for local restaurants, retailers, and services. Group-Buy site Groupon works by having you sign up for daily emails deals, which you pay for online and can print the voucher to redeem for anything from a Shiatsu massage to helicopter lessons. LivingSocial works along the same lines while encouraging sharing among social media platforms. After buying a deal you can connect with Facebook, Twitter and other social sites to let your friends know; if 3 friends buy the deal, your purchase is free.

So what does this mean for the future fusion of e-commerce and social media? If Facebook is any indicator, the lines between e-commerce and social media will dissolve into social commerce- a network-while-you-shop phenomena. For companies, this transforms Facebook from a marketing tool to a sales tool.

Stronger relationships between retailer and consumer will develop. Unlike traditional e-commerce sites, where the consumer and buyer worlds remain independent, social commerce fuses the two. The retailer can put a face(book) to a name, learn about the buyer’s interests and establish direct communication beyond the standard sales confirmation email.

Most importantly, this development foreshadows the shift from individual buying to social buying. Consumers will have the ability to post their purchases to the newsfeed, allowing friends to see and comment on what they have bought, producing word of mouth buzz without any additional work from the retailer.

We’re predicting this is the Year of Social Commerce, shaking the retail industry one Fan page at a time. How do you plan on using social commerce to turbo-charge online sales?

(Posted by Natalee Ranii-Dropcho, Intern)

Fans, Friends, Followers and Family,

Since founding Brand Networks just over three years ago, I’ve noticed there are very few milestones that have a transformational effect on an entire organization. Celebrations of things like new business wins, application launches, new product roll-outs, and new employee hires, can be blurred by the pace of day-to-day operations and the sheer volume of the work. Being recognized officially by Facebook as a “Preferred Developer Consultant” however is one of those milestones we hope you’ll let us just soak in (for a few hours anyway, we’re on deadline to launch two new Applications this week!).

We’re part of a small group of companies in the world that can proudly display this badge. You can check out the full list, process, and criteria here. The process has made me a bit nostalgic, thinking about our beginnings and early work. Way back in 2007, we spent a lot of our time evangelizing to clients and brands about the importance of creating their first engaging presence on the Facebook Platform. We held hands, we dipped toes, and we nudged just a bit.

As the Facebook Platform has evolved and grown, so has Brand Networks. Today, our team in Rochester and Boston is poised to continue leading the way with innovative Applications and Pages on the Facebook Platform for years to come.

There’s many to thank for helping us reach this milestone. In the spirit of the Academy Awards, I’ll keep this brief. To the BN Team, you’re the most talented, hard working, and fun group I’ve ever worked with. To our clients new and longstanding, we thank you for your trust and letting us be part of your brands. To our families and friends, thanks for the continued support and patience. And to Facebook, thank you for creating and including us in this important program.

You no longer have to stay glued to the television to get your daily dose of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Not when you can stream, share, tweet, blog and bookmark them, anyway. While companies and event promoters have embraced social media as a way to establish relationships, the 2010 Winter Olympics has taken it to a whole new level of interaction, setting the bar higher than Cypress Mountain.

According to Nielsen, 13 percent of the audience who watched the Olympic opening ceremonies on TV also watched them simultaneously online. Fourty-one percent of which watched on Facebook. Yes, Facebook. The you-can’t-go-a-day-without-checking-because-you-might-miss-a-wall-post-Facebook.

Compare this to the zero people who watched the 2006 Turnio Olympics on Facebook, when it was only available for high school and college students and “Fan Page” meant your favorite unofficial band website in middle school. Vancouver 2010’s Facebook page has well over 1 million fans, with the number increasing by the minute. Made for Olympic lovers to share their enthusiasm, fans can comment on photo albums, post to discussions boards and upload video content… then update their status to let their friends know.

Just as the Olympics aims to bring people together on a global scale, NBC and the Vancouver Organizing Committee are using social media to foster interactive discussion and action in what may be the largest campaign ever— with Olympic viewers all over the world.

Let’s put this into perspective. NBC plans to stream 400 hours of live video content, compared to the mere two hours streamed from Turino that was done as a test. In the first two days of the Olympic ceremonies, NBCOlympics.com had 4.5 million unique visitors, which is 30 percent more than Turnio.

NBC has made it a priority to keep viewers connected through its social media center Olympic Pulse. Through Olympic Pulse, users can share Olympic content on almost any social platform and track the Twitter activity of both Olympic Athletes and fans. At the time of this post, the Twitter Tracker reported 265 Olympics-related tweets in ten minutes. Compare that with the zero tweets in 2006, before Twitter revamped communication in 140 characters.

Looking for Olympic coverage by phone? Of course there’s an App for that. With more than 1 million downloads, the Official Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games Mobile Spectacular Guide took the Gold for most popular free iTunes App when it was released. The application delivers more than 2,000 events over the 17 days of the Olympics to your phone, combining schedule listings, news, photo and video with enough social media tools to rival your computer. For added personalization, the App adjusts to your time zone to give you the most relevant content. For those attending the Games, the App tells you what events are happening closest to you, complete with maps and directions to get there. This kind of technology was not available for the 2006 Winter Olympics, as the iPhone and App revolution were not introduced until 2007.

If you can’t seem to stream enough video, the Vancouver Organizing Committee has you covered. On YouTube. With over 800,000 upload views, the VANOCwebteam uploads Daily Host Videos, which recap the day’s events in both English and French. This is leaps and bounds over the 2006 Winter Olympics, which had no official video on YouTube. We don’t believe it, either.

With endless ways to connect to the Vancouver Olympics, you don’t even need a television. USA may be leading the medal count, but in our opinion the real winner is social media. How’s that for 21st century? Or 2010 for that matter.

(Posted by Natalee Ranii-Dropcho, Intern)

Dear Clients, Fans, Friends and Followers:

As you may have heard, Facebook is in the process of making some major changes to the site. The purpose of this post is to inform you about a few of these important changes. Namely, the ones that will have an impact on your Facebook Page(s):

· Boxes Tab - In early 2010, Facebook is removing all boxes and the Boxes tab from all profiles and pages. The Boxes tab will disappear, but any Static FBML boxes you have made will have the option to turn into individual tabs.

· Tab width - Facebook is changing the width of tabs from 760 pixels to 520 pixels. Any application or creative on your tabs that are more than 520 pixels wide will no longer fit.

We recommend moving any of your content on the Boxes tab into its own individual tab. This Facebook change has not been made live yet, but we want you to be prepared for when it does. If you’d like some guidance, that’s what we are here for. Brand Networks can design and code a tab to display the content you currently have displayed by boxes. We will work with you so your page can have a flawless transition into the new Facebook format.

We are really excited about one particular Facebook change – the Open Graph API, which will give websites the ability to have all of the features as a Facebook page. Read more about the Open Graph API here. Stay tuned for a future blog post about the Open Graph API and it’s implications for your social media presence.

We are constantly tracking and monitoring the changes that Facebook is releasing and will inform you of any other major changes that you should be aware of. Please get in touch with any questions or concerns!

Best,
The Brand Networks team

First an admission. We’ve been bad long-form bloggers. So much to say, so little time and so many places to say it. Is this a reflection on us, or are others feeling the gravitational pull to micro-blogging at the expense of full blog posts?

Anyway, we are going to post more, shorter stuff here at Networked Brands. Hope it’s easier to prepare, still full flavored, and easy to digest.

In this spirt, I wanted to share a recent interview I did at this year’s WOMMA Summit in Las Vegas.
Customer crusader Peter Blackshaw interviewed myself and Gary Spangler about what we’re seeing in terms of the evolution of WOMMA and Social Media in general. Gary and I served on the WOMMA Board together and his perspective from the Brand side (DuPont) is always interesting and dead on. Love his point about “Brand to Public” communications strategy. A great reminder that all your stakeholders can be found in public places and networks and communicating with them collectively and individually is an art.

When asked about game changers, the first thing that popped to my mind was the “Social Graph.” I don’t think I’ve witnessed anything with the potential transformative power of the Social Graph in my 15 plus years in marketing. Have you?

Former Forrester Analyst and social media visionary Charlene Li has added fuel to a topical flame dubbed the “Personal CPM.” She hypothesizes that marketers will bid for access to personal social networking profiles with greater reach and influence among their peers. Inherent in this discussion is whether these individuals share in the windfall of this influence. I will be participating in a panel on the topic at this month’s OMMA Social in San Francisco so I thought I’d put a few ideas out there and see if I can crowdsource an analysis.

First, this is not a new topic, it has been tackled by other industries and wrestled by other thought leaders under different monikers and in alternate contexts. Social Media shares DNA with sister discipline Word of Mouth. As a former Board Member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) and student of the burgeoning Social Media industry, I’ve witnessed both industries obsess over “influencer methodologies.” From this debate, messiahs have been created, definitive tomes written and disciples deputized. Two dominant “religions” seem to have risen from the fertile influencer landscape even before the context of social networking evolved the conversation: The Influentials vs. The Everyday Evangelists. Malcolm Gladwell’s breakthrough work The Tipping Point was the Old Testament to Charlene Li’s New Testament Groundswell. His research located those “maven” consumers, the cool kids, who’s fashion, music and consumerism were the seeds of all trends. Tipping Point gave rise to a legion of “cool hunters” that splintered into a more scientific approach outlined in Keller/Berry’s book The Influentials, with a descriptor that says it all “One American in Ten tells the other Nine how to vote, where to eat and what to buy.”

The Everyday Evangelists argue that the search for alphas, mavens, sneezers and the like is a fools pursuit. Companies like Bzz Agent have led this splinter faction, assembling legions of hand-raising, would be evangelists to try stuff, talk about the stuff that they like, and report on the conversations. They make no claims that these people are screened for influence, size of network, or persuasive personality traits. They have, however, placed a line in the sand around the idea of a CPC, or cost per conversation. Based on some nifty math and established media metrics they’ve established a de facto standard of $.50 per conversation. In a performance based world, would you give two quarters for a conversation about your brand?

These models of course were conceived BF (Before Facebook). If Google established the common practices and pricing models of performance advertising, I argue Facebook will be the battleground of the Personal CPM holy war. On one side, marketers await, anxious to “buy” social influence at the human being and personal profile level. Lining up against them will be the privacy zealots and marketing skeptics, defending the sanctity of our profiles and the actions within our social networks. Somewhere in the middle will be consumers with a growing sense of their marketability and looking for a little something, you know, for effort.

Mark Zuckerberg once called Facebook “Word of Mouth on Steroids” and his Beacon advertising program planted the philosophical seeds for the idea of tapping purchase influence within social networks. Beacon may have lost the battle but Facebook will win the war. Out of the ashes has risen three new weapons of mass influence: Social Ads, Pages and Connect.

How can advertisers tap into the social graph and “Personal CPM” to have greater impact in Social Networks? Should they? I’d love any thoughts.

Next post I’ll be be tackling “CPF- What is a Fan worth?”

Published in MediaPost’s Marketing Daily on November 7th, 2008

Social Networks are a legitimate worldwide phenomenon. Global user numbers have exceeded all reasonable expectations. And yet, even the largest networks have reported difficulty monetizing this enormous base. Why? We’re seeing two things. First, “traditional” advertising in social networks is inefficient at best and obtrusive at worst. Second, brands are still, by and large, in the slow lane of the social networking superhighway.

Social is the new Green
It seems “going social” or doing “the social thing” needs an inflection point in the way that “going green” got its lightning rod in the form of Al Gore. First, companies had to accept that “going green” wasn’t a campaign, and that “green-washing” posers would get called out ultimately harming the perception of their brand. The creation of an authentic Green Brand requires a top to bottom, honest-to-goodness, paradigm and business model shift. When customers stood up and demanded the products and services they purchase come from green companies, the revolution truly began and it is one of the most powerful forces in marketing today.

Socializing with Customers
Recommending an anti-social brand strategy would be as silly as espousing an anti-green marketing approach. Yet, many companies firm footing on the sidelines of the social movement is putting out a less than social vibe and raising the question, “why aren’t you here.” A recent study by Cone points out, Sixty percent of Americans use social media, and of those, 59 percent interact with companies on social media Web sites. One in four interacts more than once per week. According to the study, Americans who use social media believe:
• Companies should use social networks to solve my problems (43%)
• Companies should solicit feedback on their products and services (41%)
• Companies should develop new ways for consumers to interact with their brand (37%)

Looking in the mirror
So what is going to be the tipping point for brands to “socialize” themselves? Let’s first examine the end state of what we’re calling “Social Brands” and what you’d see when you check your look in the mirror.

Brands
Solicit customers
Sell to cold prospects
Seek satisfaction
Talk about themselves
Retain customers
Incentivize frequent purchase
All business, all the time
Do well
Advertise
Send mass email
Target demos
9-5

Social Brands
Make friends
Network with happy customers to meet prospects
Strive for passion
Listen more than talk
Engage fans
Reward engagement
Make time for play time
Do good
Invite
Message friends and fans
Seek shared interests
Leave the front porch light on

If we can all agree we’d like to get on the road to a more social brand, then we can start focusing on the route to get there. It reminds me of the positioning statement my former agency Arnold created for VW over a decade ago. “On the road of life, there are passengers and drivers. Drivers Wanted.” The brilliance was the absence of choice that it created. Who in their right mind would raise their hand and say “Yeah, I’m more the passenger type, just along for the ride.” Even if that was true in reality, there’s a part of us all that wants to be the driver in life.

And as with any road-trip, it’s about the journey, not the destination. Becoming a Social Brand takes commitment and flexibility. It will require a curiosity and open-mindedness usually reserved for our life’s passions, not our work endeavors.

Social Brand Signposts
Here’s a few signposts along the road to a more social brand.
• Facebook Page
• MySpace Group
• Twitter
• Blog
• Online community of brand fans
• Online listening community
• Engagement rewards
• Social application
• Social advertising
• iPhone/Mobile application

You’ve made these stops and you want explore the more exotic locales on the social map? OK, but let’s make sure you’ve really socialized with the 200+ million people in Facebook and MySpace before building that remote island in Second Life. As with real friendships, it’s about going deep not wide.

A look down the road
Imagine the state in which your brand moves from the periphery of a “social” network and into the middle of your own brand network. Your Social Ads recruit Fans to your Pages, Groups and Apps. Those Fans seamlessly migrate into a community where they share their opinions, grab tools to evangelize on your brand’s behalf and receive recognition for their engagement. Each activity is broadcasted to friends through tools like Facebook Connect. Open Social has enabled your Fans to follow your applications between multiple social networks and mobile devices. Your blog posts and tweets get synced with messages to that same, constantly growing, ever-green network of friends and fans announcing the arrival of your Social Brand.

The destination is in sight. Check the map. Get on the road and enjoy the ride.

We’re proud to announce the launch of TRAKclips in Facebook, now an exclusive reward for users of MonsterTRAK’s Job Search Agent application. Powered by our Tokns platform, TRAKclips is a first of its kind viral video widget featuring career-related movie clips from popular films like Superbad, Talladega Nights, Jerry Maguire, and more. Users earn Tokns for engagement within the Job Search Agent application, unlocking additional clips within the player which can be viewed, sent to friends, and displayed on users’ profiles.

TRAKclips is available exclusively through Job Search Agent - check it out here.

People are dropping boredom killing apps on facebook like bad habits. Wait, they are bad habits. Productivity killers. Time thiefs. Just plain silly. So what’s happening, is it the death of the app? As a company that’s part of the facebook economy, we hope not. In fact, we’re seeing the opposite trend. Brands have seen the dust settle and they’re jumping in. Not as advertisers but as developers. and they’re not interested in poking, or biting, or taking a never-ending quiz, they’re focused on utility.

Alley Insider published this post recently, highlighting ten apps that “don’t suck.” We’re pleased that one of our apps, Monster’s Job Search Agent was highlighted. Not sucking has never felt so good for us or our clients. As the author points out, the applications should be judged on their true utility to users, not just their install base.

What do you think makes a good application? What questions do you ask yourself before clicking the “Install this Application” button?