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The Importance of Social Sign-On

Posted by Tom Edwards on February 9th, 2012 at 11:50 am

We have all dealt with "YAN" in one form or another over the past few years. YAN stands for Yet Another Network login. This stems from brands using proprietary authentication methods vs. leveraging Open Authorization (OAuth) such as Facebook's Graph API (OAuth 2.0). To put it simply, brands like to use their own username & passwords vs. allowing a user to login with their Facebook or Twitter ID's.
YAN is an even bigger issue when combined with the fact that 88% of online buyers had at some point intentionally left registration information blank or used incorrect information when signing up for a new account, up 12% from 2010. Also, the expectation of consumers for brands to support Social Sign-On has increased significantly as eMarketer and Janrain recently reported that consumer desire for Social Sign-On has increased to 77% of US Online Buyers in 2011.

The importance of leveraging a single sign on authentication platform that is socially enabled becomes the key to unlocking a brands social CRM strategy. The reason for this is that Social Sign-On can lower the barrier of entry for a user, increase validity of data via the users social graph as well as increase stay rates.
According to recent... Read more

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Posted in Emerging Platforms, Social Media, Targeting, Word of Mouth | No Comments »

3 Brand Benefits of Klout

Posted by Tom Edwards on January 27th, 2012 at 9:56 am

Identifying topical influencers has been a key to driving awareness and activation for many socially progressive brands over the past few years. One of the measurement variables many brands have come to rely on is Klout.
Much has been written about Klout since it's founding in 2008. Some praise & swear by the service, others question the validity of the score and ability to "game" the system. Regardless, users work each day to increase their Klout score and brands are eager to reward those indiviuduals.

At it's core, Klout provides social media analytics to measure a user's influence across their social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin, Foursquare, and many more and assigns a score to the user. This daily score is meant to reflect the influence that individual has to drive action in social networks.
Currently, Klout boasts over 100 million profiles, 2.7 billion+ pieces of content & connections analyzed daily and 5,000+ partners & developers with over 45 billion+ API calls.
From a brand perspective, there are multiple ways to leverage this data and audience to drive action. From the Klout Perks program, to leveraging Klout's API to the upcoming Klout brand pages.
Klout Perks - The most visible brand programs associated... Read more

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Posted in Social Media | 1 Comment »

5 Brand Benefits of Twitter Brand Pages

Posted by Tom Edwards on December 9th, 2011 at 10:50 am

At long last Twitter has decided to allow brands to create Facebook/Google+ style brand pages. This along with a major redesign focused on usability & discoverability of content was unveiled yesterday.

With a slew of launch partners such as Best Buy, American Express, Dell, GE, Nike, Heineken, Disney and more, Twitter is following in the footsteps of Google's recent roll-out of Google+ brand pages.
One of the primary reasons for the roll-out is to better support advertisers. According to eMarketer, Twitter's global ad revenue is projected to reach $139.5 million in 2011 and approach $399 million in 2013.

By creating branded destinations vs. simply aggregating content, advertisers may engage in more robust programs via Twitter if the possibility to drive additional engagement with specific content over longer periods of time becomes a consistent option.
What is the value for a brand to embrace the change? Here are 5 feature benefits of the new Twitter Brand pages.
1) Customizable Headers | Brands have the ability to further express their essence with a larger profile image and a customizable header.
In the Pepsi example below, they take a creative approach to their header

2) Promoted Tweet | Brands have the opportunity to control the message visitors see when they... Read more

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Posted in Emerging Platforms, Social Media | 4 Comments »

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