Here’s a great IMI client success story as we move past hump day and head into the weekend.  Audioo, a new voicemail sharing platform that launched at TechCrunch Disrupt last month, has come right out the gate with an extremely successful social media campaign. It’s a great story about how being controversial and polarizing will gain you attention.  In short, Audioo is a site that let’s users publicly post their funny and entertaining voicemail messages – think of Audioo as “Text From Last Night for Voicemail”.  Here’s a little example of one of their hilarious uploads from a drunk girlfriend in area code 818:

By choosing something that’s traditionally private (voicemail) and making it public, Audioo has gained many critics who are completely frightened by the idea of personal messages being outed on the internet. At the same time, they’ve been able to gain a lot of new users and traffic from social media exhibitionists (those who like to share content) who are not afraid to publish their entertaining content. On the other side of the fence, social media voyeurs (those who like to consume shared content) are flocking to the site as a new entertainment destination.  It seems that by taking the stance that privacy is not important anymore, Audioo has been able to attract the attention it needed to come out of the gate and attract voicemail uploaders and addicts – exactly the types of users that they need to turn the site into a viral entertainment success.

The site’s been covered on a few notable blogs in the tech community, including TechCrunch and Gizmodo (of Apple iPhone 4 leak fame).  The company’s founder will be a guest on the popular web TV series This Week in Social Media with Sean Percival today at 11am PST. Tune in by following the link below to hear more about the Audioo’s history and future plans. Here’s the full video –>

Audioo (which is owned and operated by royalty free music and sound effects distributor AudioMicro) is an interesting phenomena in that Audioo’s popularity is coming to light smack in the middle of all the Facebook privacy issues.  This leads us to wonder, is privacy dead?   Is anything we record electronically (email, text messages, voicemail, etc.) really private anymore?  Let’s take that one step further…wasn’t it the Tiger Woods voicemail that actually broke the story on his infidelity?  If it can happy to Tiger, is it really that surprising that voicemails you leave on other people’s phones could be publicly shared?  Please let us know your opinions in the comment.

A recently released report by Marketing Charts titled “State of Inbound Marketing Report” from HubSpot, reveals a growing trend of brands focusing their energy and funding on “inbound” marketing versus “outbound.”  Outbound techniques have long been employed and still constitute the majority of marketing techniques, but that is beginning to change.  Last year’s numbers indicated brands were beginning to rely more on inbound marketing techniques to generate leads; this year the outbound marketing budge­ts contracted further, closing the gap between the two opposing approaches.

What’s the Difference between Inbound and Outbound?

So what exactly constitutes an inbound approach versus an outbound approach?  And what techniques are brands turning to?  Essentially, an outbound approach is that where a marketer pushes his message out to the masses whereas an inbound approach is designed to pull in people who are already looking for your product or service.  HubSpot classified these techniques based on how important they were perceived by the company, and also allowed for multiple responses in order to account for brands that place value in more than one technique.  From their data, we see that popular and time-tested outbound techniques, such as direct mail and telemarketing, contracted 1% and 6% respectively, only generating 10% of leads each.  Trade shows remained flat at 10% importance among respondents, meaning outbound techniques are preferred by less than 1/3 of brands.

Meanwhile, inbound techniques have become increasingly important to brands.  Paid search and AdWords were the only inbound methods that fell in importance, now at 22%.  However, social media, company blogs, and SEO methods have all increased in importance to brands, with social media and SEO methods important to 60% and 59% of companies, respectively.  Company blogs were claimed to be important to 49% of the survey’s respondents.

Follow the Money, Inbound Marketing Budgets on the Rise

But let’s get down to the bottom-line: company budgets.  When asked whether budgets for inbound marketing strategies increased or decreased for the year 2010, 51% of respondents claimed their budget had increased, with an additional 37% claiming it had remained constant.  This means that 88% of American companies have maintained a healthy budget for inbound techniques, such as social media and SEO marketing strategies.  Furthermore, of the companies that claimed to have a lower budget for inbound marketing campaigns, 92% claimed that the economy, not performance, was the reason for the decrease.

Specifically, social media campaigns returned high confidence numbers from brands, with four in 10 companies overall acquiring customers from major social networks.  Businesses are increasingly placing their confidence in inbound marketing strategies, believing social media and SEO to be the two most important channels in gaining leads and bolstering their brand image.

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerburg, surprised his almost 500 million man strong user-verse this week by unveiling new features for the social network at the F8 Developer Conference in San Francisco.  Some initial response has been hyperbolic, claiming an end to the Internet as we know it; however, conventional wisdom indicates that major changes to one of the Internet’s most popular Websites will doubtlessly impact our online experience in a dramatic way.  Zuckerburg’s vision is extraordinary and revolutionary; in his keynote, Zuckerburg proposed the Web as a social being, where you, your friends, your brands , and your favorite bands (among other things) are all a part of the experience.  Ultimately, Facebook is attempting to socialize the Web in a much deeper way than any previous vision.

Open Graph to Blur Existing Distinctions between Websites

The main feature of Zuckerburg’s vision includes the “Open Graph.”  The CEO highlighted current issues in connecting Facebook friends to one another through their Yelp or Pandora accounts, leaving many people unconnected precisely when they are sharing informed personal insight.  As a result, Zuckerburg has proposed the Open Graph, blurring the lines of current distinct Websites.

The Open Graph is essentially Facebook’s method for reading tags from other Websites to decipher what information their users are “liking.”  For example, IMDb starting immediately will include “Like” buttons for films, and Facebook will publish your recent favorite film. Likewise, favorite plays on Pandora will be published on your profile. Furthermore, this process will be fluid, allowing for information from a CNN article –  liked on CNN.com and published on Facebook –  to appear when you hover over the News Feed story.  Facebook has paired with major partners – including Microsoft, CNN, and ESPN – ensuring that there will be enough Websites from which users can begin to test these features.

A lot to “Like” about the Changes to Fan Pages

For brands and businesses, it just got a lot easier to gain fans.  Zuckerburg announced that a single line of code will integrate a “Like” option onto Websites, so that one click can ensure an interested customer has connected to the brand via Facebook. Just like the major partners, brands that include this code will make their website, a fan’s News Feed, and their fan page separated by less than three clicks.

There are skeptics who question whether the public desires to be so steeply invested in Facebook, or social networking for that matter, that are unsure of whether these changes to Facebook will indeed succeed.  It is important to keep in mind that Facebook’s 500 million person strong network can certainly find a sizeable group of test subjects.  The future of social networking and the Internet is uncertain; however, it seems there’s consensus to the claim that major changes are in the pipeline.

As of April 19th, 2010, Facebook no longer offers users the ability to “Become a Fan” of a page.  Instead, the option to “Like” a page will be the new way to connect with a company’s fan page.  This is not to be confused with the option to “Like” a status, comment, photo, etc. however, which will still simply mean showing one’s approval for another’s action.

Instead, this new form of liking will carry all the same connotation as becoming a fan used to, meaning stories from a page one likes will still show up in their newsfeed and a list of pages one likes will still be displayed in their info section. This change may seem arbitrary and unnecessary on Facebook’s behalf—considering the web has seen a flurry of articles about the existence and effect of this change on Facebook and SEM.

Why Change One Word?

So, many people are wondering why Facebook would go through all this trouble to change one word on their website.  Facebook has stated that they made this change to promote consistency throughout the site.  Basically, instead of having different terms for different actions, Facebook wants to group as many actions together as possible.

Moreover, a recent study revealed that Facebook users click the “Like” button much more frequently than they click the “Become a Fan” button. Therefore, there may be some grounds to support changing the button based upon this study; however, it would seem to us, as Internet marketers, like comparing apples and oranges.

Future of the Changes

In general, this change reflects Facebook’s attempt to make connecting with a fan page less committal, in an effort to promote user fan page interaction, as this is their main source of revenue. They are considering “liking” something to be less serious than “becoming a fan.” Facebook expects that this change will positively affect users’ probabilities of connecting with a page.

The question then becomes, once users realize the change and comprehend that “liking” a page is equivalent to previously “becoming a fan,” will their behavior still confirm to Facebook’s predictions?  We aren’t sold but regardless, Facebook contends it will stimulate a permanent shift in user perception of connecting to fan pages.

Only time will tell whether this change will have a significant effect on Facebook users’ behavior, but in the meantime, Facebook page owners should ensure their followers understand that nothing has changed about their relationship with the fan page, other than the name of the most important action.

Long the subject of speculation and prediction, the world’s most active micro blog, Twitter, announced major changes to their social network in an attempt to position their network as a profitable enterprise.  Twitter Feeds will no longer be free of the influence of the almighty dollar as Twitter unveiled its new Promoted Tweets function, which is basically Adwords for Twitter, and TweetUp, the latest development out of Idealab which is a search engine and bidding marketplace that works in collusion with Twitter.

Twitter offers advertising partners top post

On the Twitter blog, the company enumerated specific expectations of the advent of Promoted Tweets.  Advertising partners can bid for keywords to ensure their tweets reach the top of the pile once a certain keyword is searched for, much akin to the Google Adwords model.  Twitter lined up commercial partners to start using Promoted Tweets that include Starbucks, Virgin America, Best Buy, Red Bull and Bravo, and offers as example that Starbucks Tweets will always turn up first for a Twitter search for the term “coffee,” provided Starbucks continues to bid on the term.

Twitter emphasizes that they are only in the first phase of their Promoted Tweets program and insists that the promotional aspect of the tweet placement does not mean a decay of quality.  Promoted Tweets, according to Twitter, must meet a higher standard than your average tweet, resonating with users and garnering retweets to maintain its placement as a top tweet.

TweetUp seeks to establish bidding marketplace

TweetUp is a bit more complicated than Twitter’s Promoted Tweets as it utilizes an algorithm taking into account a tweet’s author, number of followers, influence score, number of retweets, along with the user’s bid for their tweet.  Keywords will cost 1 cent per impression; however, if a tweet does not meet the aforementioned qualifications, there is no bid high enough to launch it to the top of the feed (like an Adwords quality score).

All in all, major changes lie ahead for the social network taking its first steps toward monetization; however, Twitter promises the integrity of its network will be maintained, if not emboldened, as the white noise of real time updates won’t hide relevant tweets in the shuffle.

If you’ve ever wondered what makes something go viral, hopefully this blog post will uncover some of these hidden characteristics. Last Friday, viral scientist and author of The Social Media Marketing Book, Dan Zarrella, gave a webinar on The Science of ReTweets. He collected over 100,000,000 retweets and observed almost every element possible within its 140 characters. He looked at everything from word choice to punctuation to the time of day – all in his quest to discover what makes something “retweetable.” In the end, he came up with a collection of tips and tricks to make your tweets go viral.

1.    Use the most retweetable words

Of the millions of tweets in his database, Zarrella identified 20 words or phrases that are more retweeted than others. These include (in order): ‘you,’ ‘twitter,’ ‘please,’ ‘retweets,’ ‘post,’ ‘blog,’ ‘social,’ ‘free,’ ‘media,’ ‘help,’ ‘please retweet,’ ‘great,’ ‘social media,’ ‘10,’ ‘follow,’ ‘how to,’ ‘top,’ ‘blog post,’ ‘check out,’ and ‘new blog post.’
While it’s unsurprising that the most retweeted words are those relating to Twitter or social media, it’s interesting to see that the phrase “top 10” makes the top 20. Zarrella explained that people, on average, like to see “chunked content” or readings that are easy to skim and digest. Seeing words such as “top 10” or even “how to” are signals to people that the link is easily readable and, therefore, sharable.

2.    Avoid the least retweetable words

Here’s some words you should probably avoid using in your next tweet (also in order): ‘game,’ ‘going,’ ‘haha,’ ‘lol,’ ‘but,’ ‘watching,’ ‘work,’ ‘home,’ ‘night,’ ‘bed,’ ‘well,’ ‘sleep,’ ‘gonna,’ ‘hey,’ ‘tomorrow,’ ‘tired,’ ‘some,’ ‘back,’ ‘bored,’ and ‘listening.’ In other words, don’t be boring! Ask someone why they’re not on Twitter and you might hear: “why would I want to know when you’re eating breakfast?” Well now there’s proof of the unattractiveness of these status updates.

3.    Include a link in your tweet

It’s hard for something newsworthy and sharable to be self-contained within only 140 characters. That’s why the most retweetable tweets include a link to something interesting. Also, the use of URL shorteners (especially bit.ly) leaves enough room in the tweet for others to add a short comment. Don’t miss this opportunity. Link to the story and keep it short!

4.    Tweet the news

Another unsurprising tip, but important nonetheless. Breaking news, in particular, is one of the most sharable types of content. And again, guess what’s not sharable: small talk.

5.    Use longer and more unique words

The average tweet has about 1.58 syllables per word, while retweets have 1.62 syllables. Also, retweets often contain words that are uncommon in average tweets. In other words, be unique and interesting in your choice of words and you’ll be the social butterfly of the Twitter Party.

6.    Use colons, not semicolons.

In general, Zarrella proved that tweets with more punctuation are more retweetable. While you would think that the opposite would be true given the focus on rationing your characters, it turns out proper punctuation is a more attractive characteristic. And the use of colons makes for great “Headline: Sub-headline” news stories. Semicolons, interestingly, actually make it less likely for you to be retweeted—perhaps given the ambiguous nature of when to use it properly.

7.    Write entertainment tweets for women, opinion tweets for men.

This tip is actually more dependent on your particular audience. But if you’re unsure what kind of content your followers would be willing to share and you skew a particular gender, use this rule of thumb.

8.    Avoid the self-reference

Even though Twitter previously asked its users to share “What’s on your mind,” it turns out that the self-referential tweets are the least retweetable. In fact, this goes for every sensory experience that just involves you. Instead, your tweets should focus on social experiences, focusing more on “we” instead of “me”

9.    Time your tweet for Friday 4-5pm EST

Like every good comedian knows, timing is everything. And it’s no different in the world of twitter. Zarrella identified that people are more likely to share another tweet on a Friday and anytime from late afternoon to evening. But the sweet spot is definitely from 4-5pm EST.

10.    Ask for it!

They always say the simplest solution is the correct one, but on Twitter this is especially true. Adding “please retweet” to your next tweet makes it 5x more likely to be retweeted! (Just remember to use this tip sparingly since it can become a bit annoying).

So Why Should I Care About Retweets?

It may seem a bit geeky to focus so much attention on just one of Twitter’s features, but in reality, learning to craft better tweets can have a great impact on your bottom line. The more your message is retweeted, the more other followers will notice you. And the more followers you gain, the more traffic you can convert on your website! Even more, learning the rules to go viral on Twitter can help shed light on other ways to make your other content more viral. So with that said, I’d like to craft the perfect tweet given our tips on retweets:

“Please Retweet: Top 10 Ways to Write Retweetable Tweets on Twitter!”

A new study detailing the likelihood of referrals and purchases from Facebook fans and Twitter followers has revealed, perhaps unsurprisingly so, that fans and followers are a brand’s best friends.  The study explains that 60% of Facebook fans and a whopping 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend a brand or brands after becoming a fan or follower.  Furthermore 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to purchase products or services offered by a brand after becoming a fan or follower.

New meaning to “brand loyalty”

Skeptics of the lasting impact or advantage of a brand maintaining its presence on Facebook or Twitter may insert their feet into their mouths now.  The simple act of clicking “become a fan” or “follow” is likely not the sole reason these brand loyalists are recommending or purchasing from a brand.  Still, the regular interaction with and updates from their brand of choice remain influential in their decisions to recommend or purchase.  In some ways, a person’s news feed is the ultimate location to stage a marketing campaign, as updates are mixed between posts from a user’s friends, subliminally asserting that this brand itself is a friend. 

The end of the email era?

If critics still need convincing, they need only look at the frequency with which Facebook users are logging onto the social network.  The raw numbers of daily log-ins were detailed in a previous post, but they, nonetheless, indicate that almost half of Facebook’s user-verse (universe reference, anyone?) logs in each day, most times more than once, ensuring that an update or promotion is not left unnoticed.  Furthermore, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal announced the “End of the Email Era,” positing Facebook messages had replaced emails, citing a study by Prompt Communications.  In the study, 96% of respondents claimed to use Facebook messages as a means of communication, with only 91% of respondents admitting the same for email.

Just like video killed the radio star, Facebook messages have killed the email.   Armed with the knowledge that radio remains a viable means of mass communication, we know that death is not quite as final as the Buggles suggested.  Nonetheless, as medium replaces medium, the broad encompassing tool of email has been edged out in sheer usage by its cousin, the Facebook message.  The question remains over the qualitative differences between these media, as almost certainly deeper conversations and more information can be exchanged via email than Facebook message.  That being said, it is becoming increasingly clear, given the frequency with which the social network is utilized by everyday people and the inherent loyalty of fans and followers, that social networks are and will remain a crucial arena for marketing campaigns.

Two new studies of social behavior over everyone’s favorite social networking site were released this week, detailing the nature and extent of sharing links and information on the network.  The network, which grew from 250 million users to 400 million in only the last six months, was the subject of criticism once again this week as users debated the merits of the facelift the site received.

Sharing is caring on the social network

One study, an update on Facebook’s statistics page, indicates that users are moving away from using their statuses to really tell friends “what’s on their minds.”  Instead, people are using Facebook more often to share links, news articles, songs, YouTube videos, and the like.  And they’re doing it a lot.  Five billions links shared a week in the whole of the Facebook network – a staggering figure – averages to 12 shared pieces a week per user.  Facebook also revealed that 175 million people log in to the network each day, meaning just shy of half of all Facebook account holders are checking their friends’s links daily.  This trend points to a great importance on the part of fan pages of businesses to take an active role in the conversation by sharing as frequently as possible.  Sharing content other than promotional status updates has amazing potential to be commented on or liked by other users, thus reposting the article in their news feeds and keeping the fan page in the public eye.  Fandom increased dramatically as well as the number of fan pages doubled in the same time, fuel largely by new pages

for local, small- and mid-sized businesses.

The Facebook Gazette

Facebook called on its users at the end of January to share more news links with friends through their account, a move aimed at undermining the attraction of Twitter and RSS feeds to web surfers looking for quick itemized news updates.  As a result, Facebook has surpassed Google News as the dominant driver of traffic to news sites, currently beating it handedly by sending a 350 people to every news article Google News sends 1 to.

What do these numbers boil down to?

Ultimately these numbers indicate a growing legitimacy of Facebook.  This is not something that happened over night, nor has Facebook replaced the newspaper, but Facebook is nonetheless consistently adapting and evolving and incorporating new features that the community ends up adopting and utilizing with great frequency.  So maybe we shouldn’t complain about the new face of the social network just yet…it appears they know what they’re doing.

In case you didn’t know, we’re in tough economic times.  These economic conditions have drastically cut budgets across the nation and world, leaving meager allowances for marketing and advertising in its wake.

Nonetheless, expectations for 2010 remain optimistic.  In a new study released yesterday, StrongMail reveals nine out of ten business executives plan to maintain or increase their marketing budgets.  Execs aren’t thinking conventionally for the new decade either, instead the survey’s respondents indicated they were open to marketing strategies that utilize the Internet and maximize their dollar.  Next year, 69 and 59 percent of business executives anticipate increasing their email and social media marketing, respectively. Another 42 percent claimed they expect to spend more on search engine initiatives, such as SEO and PPC.  The survey’s results indicate a migration to internet marketing tactics, as advertising and direct mailing initiatives are expected by less than 30 percent of execs.

Furthermore, the study showed a desire among business executives to combine the tested and proven tactics of emailing potential customers with social media.  Execs did not, however, demonstrate uniform confidence about how they would go about implementing such strategies in the upcoming year.  Instead, one out of five executives claimed they had no idea where to begin.  With more businesses seeking to establish an online presence in hopes of finding cheaper alternatives to conventional advertising, it is certain that social media marketing and search engine initiatives will play integral roles in the year 2010.

Not just for elementary school playgrounds anymore, Foursquare, a new online social network/gaming platform, is catching on like the common cold in a fifth grade classroom.  And this isn’t their first venture: just a few years ago, this same crew gave us the mobile social network Dodgeball, which was acquired by Google in 2005, and then later canned.  But unlike Dodgeball, FourSquare presents an expansion to the simple notion of broadcasting your location to your friends.  Foursquare tracks your “check-ins” at various locations like bars, restaurants, museums, retail outlets, and even street vendors, and awards you for such notable achievements as “Gym Rat” (for frequent visits to the gym), “Mayor of ___” (for frequent visits to a certain location), and “School Night” (for checking in late on a weeknight).  These achievements are then published on your personal profile and available for viewing for the whole Foursquare community.

Friends can use Foursquare as a means of finding each other when they’re out as well as compete with each other to get the most badges or Mayor statuses.  One can see how addictive the game could get; similar to Facebook, Twitter, and the likes, users can easily become preoccupied with the number of “check-ins” and forget the real reason they even go out.

The team has also partnered with Twitter as another broadcasting channel for their check-ins, a partnership which spurred some chatter about the similarities between the two social networks.  Mashable blogger Pete Cashmore commented on Robert Scoble’s observation: “Go back three years ago. Twitter was being used by the same crowd that is playing with Foursquare today.”

The application also allows for highly targeted marketing initiatives for participating locations, such as drink specials for the “Mayor” of a bar or reduced ticket prices for those who frequent a specific art gallery.  The novelty in this could quickly wear out, though, as many perceive to be the fate of Twitter’s marketing abilities.

With key competitors including Gowalla, Loopt, Brightkite and Google’s Latitude, Foursquare’s path to success won’t be smooth sailing.  But their unique offerings will surely give them a head start against the rest of the pack, and I’m sure we can expect many more great things added to the Foursquare platform in the near future.