Socially Engaged brands

I've written a number of times about brands who have unique ways of engaging their followers and customers through social media like twitter, instagram, and facebook.

So it was really interesting to me to see this analysis of the 25 most engaged brands on Twitter (Hat Tip to Ashley Tevatia for linking to this in her daily brief!)

What Are the 25 Most Engaged Brands on Twitter?

Some of the most interesting takeaways may seem pretty obvious from a user's standpoint, but it's remarkable how it plays out in terms of actual engagement.

The first point is that a high follower count does not equal high level of engagement with those followers. This is clear from a somewhat surprising metric which shows that 73% of tweets sent out by major brands never have responses. This, to me, shows that these tweets are basically a one-way marketing vehicle and really no different than a TV or magazine ad.

There are also some metrics about how the frequency and timing of tweets really affects engagement, but the actual needs for the frequency and timing depends on each brand. Basically, a brand should stay consistent with frequency and timing of tweets, but other brands may choose to tweet more or less frequently and it may still work well for them.

The final thing that struck me is that the top two "brands" in this list are things which I would barely consider brands: @notebook and @disneywords. They're basically social media accounts that have developed followings and they followers really "connect" with the social content they're delivering. Either through quotes from Disney movies or love notes.

How the heck did two such random twitter accounts achieve such success? Well, that's something the marketing guys are these other bigger brands should look more closely at! My guess is that a lot of the engagement that @Notebook and @DisneyWords generate is in the form of retweets, but a retweet still spreads the word and brand message of a twitter account so even something as simple as an interesting quote can spread branding. Similarly, seven of the top twenty on this list are news or sports brands. MY guess is that those brands have a lot of news in their tweets and their followers want to retweet and comment about the news item. For the non-news or sports sites, I'm very curious to see how they achieve engagement and whether they follow a similar model to @Notebook and @DisneyWords.

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Getting the right social content...it can be more involved than you imagine

Earlier this week, I wrote about how LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter still live and breathe content, even though we think of them as social companies.

LinkedIn's mechanism to show content to users is much more traditional in the sense that people (Influencers) write articles and they're in the feed that users see when they login (or when they read their emails)

Facebook has long had something called EdgeRank which determines what you see when you view your newsfeed. It's actually somewhat of a mystery how any particular piece of content (photo, status, link, etc) gets posted onto someone's timeline, but a recent infographic has been making the rounds since it helps explain the major factors really well.

Demystifying How Facebook's EdgeRank Algorithm Works

All of this interest in LinkedIn's Influencers and Facebook's EdgeRank just confirms for me that what's displayed on social media sites - the content - is still the most important thing which drives usage and really helps to connect people to what is important for them

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Is Content Still King?

What's more important about Social Media Sites? The "Social" or the "Media"?

I read an interesting article earlier this week about how LinkedIn has created a massive media empire. Of course the headline sounds a bit outlandish since most people typically think of LinkedIn as a social (albeit professional) site, but what the article gets at is something which is pretty core to any social media site: the content that matters in your social group.

Each of the major social sites has a different focus of content, but it's still the content which users are typically referring to on the sites themselves.

As the article above states, LinkedIn has created a unique niche with Influencers and the daily emails which are sent recapping a series fo interesting articles. In fact, I actually subscribe to those emails and find them pretty interesting. So I can personally vouch for the idea that this method of having a small number of content creators and very focused articles drives a lot of views and engagement.

Unlike LinkedIn, I'd say that most Facebook users aren't heading to facebook to read articles. They're typically looking to catch up on their friends' activities. The activities are listed in the newsfeed are content. But if you've visited your newsfeed lately, you obviously know that it's not just a listing of random status updates. People post articles they've read, photos they've taken, music they're listening to, etc, etc. So the newsfeed is actually full of a wide variety of content posted by a large number of users (ahem, the content creators). So while Facebook may seem like just a place to read about the lives of your friends & families, when you visit the site, it's about a lot more than that.

Similarly, Twitter has long tried to enhance the content of the timeline after recognizing the types of things people were tweeting about. So rather than just seeing 140 characters of stream of consciousness, you'll see content summaries of articles, you'll see twitter cards linking out to other sites, and if you go to the #Discover tab, you'll see summaries of that. In way, it's quite similar to what Facebook is doing.

On the face of it, it may seem like LinkedIn is taking a completely different path to engagement than what Facebook and Twitter are doing, but at the core of it, it's quite similar. LinkedIn has determined what can drive interest, engagement, and page views. Facebook has done the same. Twitter has done the same. Yes, it's social, but it's still about content. It may not be long investigative articles, but it's still content.

The methods of displaying that content may differ between sites, but it's clear to me that content is still king.

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Being more social

There's been a lot going on with features recently introduced by some of the major social media sites. And I want to take a few moments to talk about how these features are built to encourage us to be more social.

Some of the most recent rundown of features, as you may know, are:

• Facebook Home for Android phones and a revised Facebook iOS app featuring chatheads and some other goodies
• Twitter with it's #music foray
• LinkedIn with its completely revised mobile apps

Facebook's Chatheads

What would be the purpose of these new featuresets other than to entice users to stay on the site longer? Of course, that's the purpose of any website (or storefront) improvements...get the user to stay on the site longer and come back more often (or get the shopper to browse more in the aisles). But the major features we've been seeing lately aren't just about spending more time on the websites or apps, but about using the services in new and different ways.

LinkedIn's new mobile app

Chatheads is meant to pull people into using messaging more like a IM app and not just the pseudo-email it has been typically been used as.

Twitter's new music suggestion

LinkedIn's new apps re-focus them and shift a lot of the intended use to researching people you might be meeting with (the website continues to stay more focused on news & article posts)

#Music is meant as a new resource connecting your twitter-verse with other services that you'd probably not connect otherwise.

So this isn't just about showing more updates from your contacts, it's about connecting with them in different ways...whether it's real-time updates & messages, quick lookups for their professional background, or about what type of music their listening to, these companies are finding new ways which they're hoping pull people back over and over and over. Just like we instinctively head to google to look up anything and everything, these companies are looking for their own sort of "just google it"

Facebook's "Suggested Page" layout has
improved to be clear and separated

Facebook's "Suggested App" started
showing up last fall, but its layout has
improved over time.

Now, let me also say that the features these companies have been focusing on are not just whiz bang new features like chatheads or #music discovery, the features also include incremental improvements to each of these sites & apps which make them easier to use or just plain more useful.

The facebook website and mobile apps look quite a bit different now than they did just six months ago and many of those differences are about making the app look better and I've definitely noticed the improvements...and yes, I'd call them improvements. I've provided just two examples from the Facebook iOS app, but Twitter has made lots of tweeks which make it easier to scroll through your tweetstream, click on links for other users or websites. Each of these seemingly small improvements make each service more friendly to use

I love to see all of this change in this space. While we may sometimes wonder what big new feature a site may release and we may sometimes be underwhelmed those big features, each of those big changes is a try and expanding and changing our usage on the site. Additionally, between those big feature announcements, there are so many little things done that over the course of just six months, those incremental changes amount to big things.

And I believe that is all designed to encourage us to use their services more often, for different reasons, and help us all be more social.

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Social Media Platforms Playing Well With Others

If you're reading this, then you likely frequent Facebook and Twitter. And while you may see a lot of content from friends, family, and other contacts, when there's an article, photo or video posted, you pretty much experience in a couple of ways:

• Embedded within the stream
• As a click to a new page with the full content

This isn't a big deal when you're on your computer, but it can be sort of a pain when you're on your smartphone.

• If it's embedded in your stream, it's likely just a tiny snippet and you'll have to click through to the site anyways
• If you have to click through to the full site, you may end up some place that's not well formatted for smartphones. You might get popups to install their mobile app, interstitial ads, or you simply have to double click on the content column just to read an article

Basically, you have to leave what is a pretty well designed mobile app into an unknown. Twitter and Facebook may be fine providing you links to other content outside of their networks, but they typically leave it at that. They don't care if they leave with you a nice pat on the shoulder or a kick in the pants.

Well, Twitter just announced an expansion of their "tweet cards" which may be an interesting way  help ensure that as users walk out of Twitter, they're given a nice handshake and pat on the shoulder.

Tweet Cards first showed in June 2012 and they're a nice way to show some good embedded content within the stream so you can make a better decision about whether you want to click through to another site. This is actually pretty nice on a computer, but on a smartphone, it's not always helpful for the reasons I mentioned above.

So what's new? Now tweet cards can actually be really helpful on smartphones. Not only will they show some additional content within the stream, if you click through, they don't have to simply go to a website, they can actually open up the relevant app on your phone. So if it's a photo on Flickr, you don't just go to their mobile site, if you have the Flickr app on your phone, it would open up the photo in that app, which is a much nicer experience than their mobile site. Presumably, the same could happen  with a Pinterest or Tumbler link.

While this can be seen as a double-edged sword, as noted on this GigaOm article by Mathew Ingram, I think this is a great sign. It shows that social media platforms are actually thinking about how to provide a good experience for users. Not just a kick in the pants as you leave the network, but hopefully a warm  "Au Revior". Not only that, users can be made aware of interesting or useful smartphone apps. As the article notes, this could mean that Twitter could wield its power to push developers and smaller players around, but that's just part of reality. Twitter can do that since it is indeed so popular. And while doing so, it can presumably make more money without degrading the experience for its users through more in-stream ads.

I'd love to hear from you all about your experiences in frequently multiple social media sites and how you discover new sites or content through them.

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