Treat different people differently... but how?

We are just doing some customer research at Justaxi - a mobile phone app which helps you get the best price taxi service in Manchester - and so this blog by Seth Godin is rather well timed.

He has a great point - but in a way - he doesn't have the answer.

His point is treat different people differently.

"Don't teach your students as if they are a monolithic population of learners. They learn differently, they have different goals, different skills, different backgrounds.

Don't sell to your customers as if they are a fungible commodity, a walking ATM waiting for you to punch. Six of one are not like half a dozen of the other. They tell themselves different stories, have different needs and demand something different from you.

Different voters, different donors, different employees--we have the choice to treat them as individuals. Not only do they need different things, but they offer differing amounts of value to you and to your project.

The moment your policy interferes with their uniqueness, the policy has cost you something.

We used to have no choice. There was only one set of data for the student body, one way to put things on the shelf of the local market, one opportunity to talk to the entire audience...

One of the biggest unfilled promises of the digital age is the opportunity to go beyond demographics and census data. Personalization wasn't supposed to be a cleverly veiled way to chase prospects around the web, showing them the same spammy ad for the same lame stuff as everyone else sees.

No, it is a chance to differentiate at a human scale, to use behavior as the most important clue about what people want and more important, what they need.

It's a no-brainer to treat the quarterback of the football team differently from the head of the chess club. We treat our bank's biggest investor with more care than someone who merely wants to trade in a bag of pennies. Instead of reserving this special treatment for a few outliers, though, we ought to consider what happens if we offer it to all of those we value.

The long tail of everything means that there's something for everyone--a blog to read, a charity to donate to, a skill to learn. When you send everyone the same email, demand everyone learn from the same lesson plan or try to sell everyone the same service, you've missed it.

A very long time ago, shoe salespeople realized that shoes that don't fit are difficult to sell, regardless of what you've got in stock. Today, the people you serve are coming to realize that like their shoe size, their needs are different, regardless of what your urgent agenda might be.

So.... what does this mean for an taxi comparison app like JusTaxi - in truth - I don't know. I know that it means that perhaps we aim for personalization but how we do that - is in the hands of the techies - which means.... we will have to ask nicely and tread softly.

Perhaps bringing in the Facebook and social login's will make a difference as the more we know about each customer the more we can personalise the offer. But how much can you personalize the best price on a taxi in Manchester?  

Buying shares and social advertising and perhaps what it all means...

I just bought some Facebook shares today.

Nothing amazing in this news. I wanted to buy them ages ago - when they almost hit $15 - which for some reason I had in my head they would do - and so stubbornly (like an amateur) I didn't buy any!

As even, if I had wanted to buy them at $18 - I didn't know how to or where to and so each time my mind hit that tiny bit of friction I would stop and do something else and forget about shares for a while.

Then last week I remembered about doing it again - but not because of a chat with friends (I had already done that the week before) or a talk with family (again done the week before with a recommendation from my father that I go into a bank and chat to them about it... ) but my mental reminder came from a Facebook ad on my mobile phone. Right in my stream, right in my social area, right smack bang where it should be.

Fair play to Facebook and fair play to eToro (who I am now buying social shares with... even though I don't know how I own the shares or whether I really do...)

The point I suppose is that when Facebook marketing is done right - it really works. I have been thinking about buying shares for YEARS. Literally. Then three clicks later I had bought shares with my first $50 being free. All thanks for mobile and facebook and facebook mobile ads.

Yet apparently, so people are saying that it is precisely Facebook's solving of it's mobile problem (i.e. how to make money from it) that could be it's very undoing. As Mobile Marketeer reports: 

"Facebook recently revealed that its mobile application install ads are responsible for driving 175 million application downloads so far this year. At the same time, the company is stepping up efforts to leverage its mobile news feed to link users with news and other content from media sources, pointing to how it is evolving away from being a way for users to connect with one another to become more of a content platform.

“Facebook is far from its roots as a social network, and are now functioning more as a social publisher,” said Jordan Schenck, senior strategist at Rokkan, New York. “Their priorities for this platform will remain around serving up ads and less about functioning as a person-to-person engagement tool.

“Facebook and Instagram's biggest challenge will be remaining authentic to their roots as a social network and photo-sharing network, respectively,” he said.

“They will need to figure out creative ways to re-target millennials without over-saturating their platforms with ad units. Consumers are smart and see straight through that.”

Instagram COO jumps ship Facebook is experiencing significant growth in the use of its platform by mobile users and has been responding to the need to monetize this audience by building out its mobile advertising offerings, which has been successful to date.

Facebook recently reported that 49 percent of its ad revenue is coming from mobile.

However, the platform is increasingly facing pressure from newer social networks that are inherently more mobile oriented, such as Twitter, which is quickly growing its own mobile ad business. Vine, SnapChat and others are also expected to introduce advertising soon.

Just this week, Instagram’s chief operating officer Emily White, who brought advertising to the platform, jumped ship for SnapChat.

Facebook is not even the most popular social messaging app any longer. That spot is now occupied by WhatsApp, according to On Device Research.

Content referralIn the face of the growing competition, Facebook is doubling down on app install ads, last month introducing new capabilities enabling developers to use deep links in mobile app ads that direct users to a customized, specific location inside an app such as a sale, promotion or specific content.

“Mobile app install ads make up a significant and growing portion of Facebook's mobile ad revenue, and this is an example of Facebook successfully identifying and capitalizing on the huge opportunity that stems from advertisers' need to drive discovery, installation and usage of their mobile apps,” said Todd Herrold, San Francisco-based senior director of product marketing forKenshoo.

Facebook is also giving articles and other content from media companies a more prominent role, particularly in mobile, via links to articles users might find interesting. The idea is to increase the amount of time people spend there, which in turn will help Facebook sell more ads.

The move comes as the average referral traffic from Facebook to media sites has increased by over 170 percent in the past year.

Users will start to see links to articles more often, particularly in mobile, about current events, sports teams and other news. Facebook is also planning to include links to three related articles once users click on a link to an article of interest.

It remains to be seen if these efforts will overwhelm users with too many marketing messages.

Cross-device targetingGoing forward, the social network will need to focus on leveraging its significant scale to deliver more relevant cross-device advertising so it does not turn off users with too many brand messages. The risk that Facebook and others face with tracking user activity across devices is running afoul of consumers and regulators who are concerned about privacy.

“Facebook's biggest opportunity and challenge related to mobile in 2014 will be to develop capabilities for cross-device consumer ad targeting, measurement and optimization," Mr. Herrold said. “This will be a hot topic in 2014 and Facebook is uniquely positioned to capitalize on it and innovate in this area.

“Rather than rely on device fingerprinting technology which is complicated and doesn't take into account multiple users who share devices, Facebook has the scale necessary to simply link user activity across device through association with the individual user's login,” he said.

“Enabling advertisers to target users and measure performance across devices will open up many new advertising and revenue opportunities and will solidify Facebook as the leading digital and mobile marketing channel.”

So perhaps the solving of Facebook's mobile problem is going to be OK in the end... I hope so as I own $50 worth of their stock - at a starting price of around double what I would have paid if I hadn't been so slow... on that note .... anyone want any Netflix shares ;) 

On the eve of myself preparing for a new trends talk at NSEC

Thinking about new trends and for me - the most exciting are in mobile.

But Facebook are doing rather BIG things with social (as well as moving into mobile with their mobile advertising - which is a HUGE thing for mobile)

As Vladimir Fedorov reports - there are some wonderful early Success Stories for Timeline Apps and Open Graph.

There should be an app for everyone on Facebook, and people are quickly starting to use the apps you build to experience all of the things they love – shopping, reading books, eating and traveling – with their friends.

A few weeks ago, more than 60 new timeline apps went live. These apps - many in the lifestyle category - broadened what was available to people on Facebook beyond the music, news and video apps that were introduced at f8 in September.

Music apps like Spotify, Songza and Deezer are seeing dramatic increases in sharing and music discovery. People have shared more than 5 billion songs through these apps, and their availability has increased from eight to 50 countries.

We’re now seeing new content discovery and increases in traffic and engagement happening more broadly for companies of all sizes. For large companies, they've been able to scale and re-introduce their products to new audiences. For startups with small teams and a small user-base, open graph has driven a lot of discovery and growth, allowing many companies to double the size of their user base in weeks. Here are a few examples from startups:
Shopping and Fashion

Pinterest: Since launching their open graph integration less than a month ago, the number of Facebook users visiting Pinterest every day has increased by more than 60%. The virtual pinboard site has made it fun and easy to share the items you’ve pinned and follow the boards of people you find interesting.

Pose: The fashion trend and style discovery app has seen a 5X increase in daily web signups for their website and mobile app by helping people share the different products they like with their friends.

Fab.com: The design shopping site and mobile app has seen a 50% increase in traffic from Facebook as a result of their social shopping timeline app and live feed implementation.

Entertainment

Artfinder: The art discovery and collector site has seen a 60% increase in time spent on the site by new visitors from Facebook by giving people a way to share art with friends.

Rockmelt: Rockmelt users are adding 14 new articles every day through the social browser, driving 20% new traffic and new users to the site.

Food

Foodspotting: The food finding and sharing app has seen a 3X increase in number of visits and activities shared by helping people share the dishes they want, try and ate with friends on Facebook

Foodily: The foodie and recipe site has seen a 4X increase in new users by allowing people to share what they crave and are cooking.

These apps have a few things in common. They’re built around something people care about and identify with, they enable people to share things they want their friends to see, and they provide easy ways to control the social experience.

For example, Pinterest makes it easy for people to pin and share items (Figure 1). Pinning an item is simple and has a clear call to action to enter a message (Figure 2). People can also easily control when items are added to timeline (Figure 3). This sort of integrated experience not only helps to generate meaningful content, but also deepens engagement.

Some great Facebook facts - the new stuff after Timeline :)

Facebook is essential to every brand’s social media strategy and they have made big changes that affect the way marketers communicate with the public. The new Facebook timelines literally display user’s life stories from the time of birth to current day. As marketers, we must be able to leverage Facebook timelines to increase brand visibility and reach.

Here’s what you need to know:

Although it has not been confirmed, Facebook has indicated that timelines may be coming to brand pages soon.

Users have the option of sharing links on their own timeline, on a friend’s timeline, with a group, on a page they have administrative rights to, or in a private message.

News feed content, not to be confused with ticker updates, is displayed based on an Open Graph algorithm that factors in the popularity, recency of the post, and the user’s activity history. Post compelling and engaging content more often to increase visibility.

Historically, Open Graph only applied to websites and pages. With the new timelines, it now applies to applications/apps. Apps are now more interactive and integrated into the social networking experience. In a nutshell, user’s networks will see their app activity in their tickers and it may appear in newsfeeds and on timelines depending on usage and settings.

‘Likes’ instantly appear in friend’s tickers. Make sure you are asking users to ‘Like’ your brand page. With the help of customized landing pages you can also generate and qualify leads.

Users ‘Check In’ when they visit a businesses physical location. ‘Check Ins’ are displayed in a user’s ticker for their entire network to see. This feature is only available to businesses that list physical addresses on Facebook.

Users can feature stories or links on their timeline. This means the content will appear in a large rectangular box that occupies both sides of the timeline increasing the content’s visibility to the user’s network.

Users have complete control over what is shown in their timelines and who is able to view it.

Applications allow users to feature their activities (ie. listening to music, reading a book, watching movies, etc.). Apps update when used and activities are displayed in the network’s ticker.

Frequent posts increase your content’s visibility. B2B marketers must also remember that Facebook is always accessible so the standard work week does not apply. Make sure you are engaging prospects and customers after work hours and on the weekends with useful content.

Users can choose to display a large cover photo at the top of their timelines above their profile pictures. Which I am going to do with mine.... and do some kind of nice collage of my speaking gigs.

The size for the Facebook Timeline banner (or cover as they call it) is 849 x 313 pixels. Such information is rather useful if / when you are designing it in Picnik (thanks to Leigh McDonald for this info)

I tried to quickly search and reference the Facebook Timeline banner size but nothing came up. Also if you want to save a little bit of time, we have created a quick template for you to use that includes the guidelines and a mockup of where your avatar would exist (this will help accommodate for the design).

The ticker displays user activity to everyone in his or her network. This can work for or against you. Be engaging and monitor social activity.

Looks like Facebook is about to change the way that social media marketing is done (again) and so we had all best get with the beat .... :)