Spark shows you the sentiment behind online conversations.
Stepping outside the comfortable corporate bubble to see the real-world conversations being had about your brand is tough. Accepting that you can’t control those conversations is tougher. Relinquishing message control to consumers is scary.
There are ways to help generate positive buzz, though. A new study shows that audiences like participating in brand-initiated user-generated content:
Twenty percent of young broadband users worldwide have already engaged in some form of it and another 30 percent say they plan to in the future.
The biggest draw for those willing to create content is free stuff. Duh. Swag can range from free dinner to more luxurious perks. AMC gave local bloggers a free movie and Current offers $2,500 for ads that air on their channel.
Positive influence comes with a price - a “what’s in it for me?” attitude - but the benefits could be priceless:
The technique is best used to enhance brand perception, the study reports. Indeed, brands can benefit from just asking consumers to participate in some form of UGC.
At Spiral16 we recognize the importance of online sentiment. That’s why one of the best features we offer is a sentiment monitoring tool. You can navigate directly to the good and bad in a matter of seconds. Perfect for monitoring the effects of UGC.
For the past few months, my friends and I have been planning a fundraiser for Operation Breakthrough - an organization that helps children living in poverty in the Kansas city area.
If you can’t attend, you can contribute a donation to Operation Breakthrough, too. As the holidays approach, I encourage you - wherever you are - to give back to your communities.
Yesterday I got a cool opportunity to be in a national commercial for Coke Zero put together by our good friends at Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
Obviously I was a lowly extra, but it was fun to observe how these Hollywoodesque things work.
About 90 people spent all day in Allen Fieldhouse in magical Lawrence, home to the University of Kansas(a.k.a. 2008 NCAA Basketball and Orange Bowl champs). I wore the first t-shirt I bought after Bill Self became KU’s coach my sophomore year. It’s blue and says “Self Respect” with a Jayhawk on the front. After six years, it’s showing it’s age, but it’s still my favorite.
The costume lady asked me to wear some red, sparkly sunglasses… so I wore those, too.
They placed me just behind the “principles,” so hopefully I won’t end up on the cutting room floor!
I got to scream the Rock Chalk chant and perform a few other KU basketball traditions for the camera. When the commercial starts airing nationwide around the time of conference play (Jan/Feb), I’ll be sure to track it’s impact and show you the results!
Having read a blog post speculating that a discontinuation of the current Mac mini line overseas may be indicative of the product’s ultimate demise, one advocate of the tiny desktops fired off an email with his concerns to Apple’s newly-crowned Mac hardware engineering chief Bob Mansfield.
Although Mansfield didn’t issue a personal reply, a colleague in Apple’s executive care division did almost immediately, offering no timetable for a Mac mini update but assuring that the company was well aware of system’s market value, and suggesting the customer continue to exercise patience.
[said the customer], “”I certainly appreciated the contact, and I think it was a nice way of letting me know that rather than bug their head guys.”
Of course, Apple could have been monitoring the rumor mills in the first place and addressed the issue at the source, but Bob Mansfield gets a solid B+!
I have been using LinkedIn and Plaxo for a long time. It’s nice to see both sites start to understand the power of connections and external content.
LinkedIn added a new applications platform, so now - with the new WordPress feature - my network is able to see my updates as they’re posted. I can also add a presentation to my connections’ profiles using Google Docs Beta. I also recommend the CompanyBuzz application.
Maybe one day you will see a Spark app so you can do data analytics and virtualization of your own profile to see how it connects internally to LinkedIn and beyond.
If you’re sick of election posts… sorry. It’s all anyone is talking about today (other than Kansas State coach Ron Prince ain’t welcome no mo after Kansas destroyed his team last weekend).
Chances are you Googled something on Tuesday’s Hot Trends list. Google put together three blog posts (one, two, three) on the top searches for election day. Trends shifted throughout the day (from polling locations to exit poll results).
Here are some interesting trends, according to Whitney:
The Huffington Post and FiveThirtyEight.comwere two of the top political news outlets of the day. I wonder what will happen to the Huff’s traffic now that the election is ovah.
Chuck Norris and Tina Fey were in the top names searched (including Obama, McCain, Palin, Bristol Palin and Colin Powell)
Comedy Central’s Indecision 2008 was ranked among the major news networks.
Chicago-area residents searched for Metra Schedule information - maybe to get to that ginormous party in Grant Park. I know from experience that you always want to check the train schedule before you leave the house…
Toward midnight President Obama, Proposition 8 and CNN’s hologram technology were popular searches - as well as Obama jokes.
But how much of that material is legal to share with others?
When I went to vote, I was told to put my camera away. However, according to the Citizen Media Law Project, the law in Kansas doesn’t expressly prohibit cameras in polling places (same for Missouri).
I should’ve fought to keep my camera rolling… though it would be illegal for me to post a photo or video of a marked ballot.
Check the laws in your state before you share your content!
Our blog won't bore you. It's not something we have to make us look better than our competitors. It's about sharing who we are as a company... and behind every great company, there are stories to tell.
We know it's the talented people who make up Spiral 16 that make our company special.
So this is where you'll read about us, our product and some of the insane things we do that help us achieve excellence by the end of the work day.
