Country Stars Tweet Prayers

OFFSTAGE: Country Stars Tweet Prayers
August 15, 2011; Written by Alison Bonaguro

When it comes to the power of prayer, I think social media works wonders. When the country artists we know and love tweet that they are praying for the people of Indiana after the tragic stage collapse prior to a Sugarland concert on Saturday night (Aug. 13), their followers may join them in that prayer. It’s a ripple effect, in the best way. Here are some of the recent tweets I read that made me pray a little harder:

Dierks Bentley: “man… my heart goes out to all the country fans at the Indiana state fair. praying for you all…. #fb”

Little Big Town: “Our hearts are heavy this morning for the people of Indiana and for our dear friends in Sugarland. Our thoughts & prayers are with you. J”

David Nail: “Huge knot in stomach, feeling completely sick watching/reading about Indy! All of us in Idaho are praying for ya!”

Blake Shelton: “My prayers to the people at the Sugarland concert in Indianapolis…. Absolutely shocking and hard to comprehend… Beyond belief…”

Martina McBride: “So sad to hear about the State Fair in Indianapolis. Our prayers are with Sugarland, their fans, and all the personnel working there. And most importantly, our prayers are with the families of the injured and the families of the four people who were killed.”

Rascal Flatts’ Jay DeMarcus: “All thoughts and prayers go to the folks in Indy and Sugarlands camp tonight… What an awful tragedy…”

Jake Owen: “Every guy in our crew has thoughts and prayers going out to folks at Indiana State Fair and our friends @Sugarlandmusic”

Brad Paisley: “Really sad about the sugarland stage collapse. What a tragedy.”

Keith Urban: “I just saw the footage from Indiana State Fair tonight on youtube and am absolutely in shock. We send our prayers and thoughts to each and every one of you who were there and your families and loved ones as well. God bless you all.”

Reba: “What happened in Indianapolis tonight is what promoters, artists, crews and fans pray never happens. From my band, crew and the entire Starstruck organization, we send our thoughts and prayers to the 4 people who lost their lives tonight and to everyone who was at the concert. Jennifer and Kristian, I love you both.”

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What About Google Minus?

article by Philippa Warr

Google launched Google+ (their long-awaited social network) on Tuesday and, while everyone else seems to be asking “Will it kill Facebook?”, it got me thinking about a general positive trend in social media.

Part of the Google Plus project is the +1 button for websites and pages which is billed as similar to Facebook’s ‘Like’ and ‘Recommend’ options. Hitting the button on a particular page will, in Google’s own words, say “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out”.

Notable by its absence is the counterbalancing option — Google are giving us Google Plus — what of Google Minus?

It’s a similar question that which has been asked on Facebook for years — “Where’s the ‘dislike’ button?” There’s even a 3 million strong Facebook page dedicated to that very question.

Looking at other well used social networking services you’ll see a similar story. Twitter has favourites, Tumblr has liking — heck, even socially influenced reality television shows such as X Factor are set up so viewer vote for the people they want to succeed rather than those they want to be eliminated.

The negative option seems to be becoming outdated. Older social recommendation sites like Digg and StumbleUpon still have their own versions of negative feedback but in both cases they’re not as prominent as the positive. StumbleUpon’s thumbs down is a physically smaller button on the toolbar and is missing the text that goes with the thumbs up. Digg actually got rid of their ‘bury’ function for a while due to abuses but then reinstated it. At the present moment is sits a distance away from the positive option and is far less prominent.

So what’s this positivity trend about?

I think it’s the result of two main things:

One is that the internet, for all its glory, is a place where anonymity often breeds negativity. It’s all too easy to type out a spiteful comment because you will almost never see or have to deal with the results of that remark. The human connection that prevents a lot of callous real-world spite is missing.

Looking at the comments on sites can be quite the education (depending on the level of moderation) with commenters more likely to be moved to comment negatively than positively.

Even when the comments are more balanced, the negative is frequently more extreme and more personal. Comments about the writer’s personal appearance, calls for them to be fired or to get a proper job form a contrast with the positive which tend towards the far less emotionally charged “I enjoyed the article” model.

Bearing this in mind, why introduce a button to fan the flames? Why would Facebook introduce a mechanism to enable bullying? Why would a news site introduce a method of undermining its staff? Why would a blogging platform build in a casual smackdown option? The point is to encourage communication — what better way to ruin that than to admit via the interface that its users’ content could be worthless?

The second is that the amount of content online is increasing at some astronomical rate.

Anyone with a stable connection can create something on the internet. And they do — as evidenced by the proliferation of blogs, personal websites, home businesses, Twitter accounts and so on.

But not everyone is a genius and not every piece of content produced by a great content creator will be a sparkling tour de force.

What this means is that the great and the good and the fascinating are floating about in the swirling morass of content that Google is trying to organise and make searchable. When you start thinking in terms of Google and in terms of search, a Plus without a Minus starts to make more sense. Google has determined that the content we want to see is the stuff that is relevant, well written and interesting to others — i.e. what we expect from the stuff on the first page of Google search results.

What only offering a positive option does is tacitly acknowledge the fact that the internet contains a lot of middling content and then ask its users to elevate the good from the rest.

When the end goal is to lift up and share the best, is there really any need to pick out the worst?

Follow Philippa Warr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/philippawarr

Social Media in the Renewable Energy World

A New Goal for the Renewable Energy Industry: Educating the Public

by Al Maiorino

In a world full of excess- from energy consumption to environmental pollution- it is only natural that companies explore alternative sources of energy. It appears that most people outside of the energy industry view renewable energy as the panacea to saving the world. Yet in reality, the public support of ‘clean’ energy is not as absolute as the industry may hope for. One of the reasons that may cause this gap between theory and practice is the fact that common knowledge of renewable energy production is rather limited. The majority of the public understands the dangers of environmental pollution and, thus, supports any initiatives to prevent or at least minimize it. The problem is that while most people comprehend what renewable energy means in theory, they know very little about the process involved in its production. They fear it as the ‘unknown’, and that stigma can act as a strong motivation to oppose a renewable energy development.

The answer to this problem lies in educating the public. During the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, people were skeptical of many innovations. Yet with time, as they had become familiarized with the new ‘technology’, they began to appreciate the improvements it brought to their lives. The same thing needs to happen within the renewable energy industry. If information about clean energy becomes more accessible, people will probably feel less alarmed around wind farms and biodiesel plants. Luckily, with modern technology and decades of creative advancement in media and public relations, getting the message out is as easy as ever.

When investing in a renewable energy project, any developer should launch an informational campaign that will educate the local community and prevent potential damaging misunderstandings. One of the best ways to achieve that is by employing the new technological phenomenon known as social media. Below are some of the reasons why a social media campaign is a crucial step in acquiring public support.

Two-way traffic

One of the main advantages of social media is that it provides a two-way channel of communication. Of course, there are many forms of promotion, such as print and television ads, that help you get your message out. However, traditional advertising is often limited when it comes to obtaining the public’s feedback. No matter how much research you do, you can never be sure what exact information your community needs to receive to understand your project. Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets allow your audience to respond, express their opinion, and ask questions. That communication is essential if you want to avoid opposition. You are given the opportunity to correct any misunderstandings people may have about the renewable energy industry and about your project. It also gives you a chance to show that you take pride and caution about the local residents’ opinions and their neighborhoods.

Making the Connection

Unlike most industrial publications, social media allows (and even often requires) you to use simple language that will be accessible to a larger audience. Describing your project, as well as the renewable energy industry in general, in basic terms will ensure a better understanding from your community. In addition, the informal tone will help bridge the gap between you and your audience. Chances are local residents will express less antagonism if they think of you as a ‘friend’ rather than a ‘developer’ or ‘corporation.’

Infinite possibilities

When using social media, the choices of how you convey your message are almost limitless. We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, and social media allows you to use that to your advantage. Along with traditional text you can apply photographs, videos, sound clips, animation and more to get your message across to the masses. Imagine how much information you can relay in a five-minute YouTube clip versus a newspaper article. In addition, video gives you an opportunity to humanize your project by showing the speaker’s face, rather than a distant voice of a radio advertisement. Overall, the modern public seems to be more open and have a more positive reaction to messages carried out by digital media rather than ‘old-fashioned’ articles and ads.

Perfect Timing

Given the fast-paced lifestyle of the modern world, timing is everything. Sometimes, getting the information out quickly makes all the difference. Social media has no waiting period, no printing delays, and no broadcasting limitations. You can deliver your message to the audience in the matter of minutes, if not seconds. You can keep the local residents updated on project progress, legislative changes, scheduled meetings, and anything else that may be relevant to your support/opposition battle. In return, the community will appreciate your thoughtfulness and courtesy of communicating with them.

It has been established decades ago that educating your public is a crucial attribute for a successful outcome of any venture (especially in a young and controversial industry like renewable energy). The question is no longer why, but how. Regardless of whether you approve of social media as a part of our lives, it is a very useful tool when it comes to public relations. In addition to the advantages discussed above, social media is significantly cheaper than traditional advertising, which allows you to focus your finances on other areas that may require extra resources.

Our world may be far from perfect, but we (especially those of us involved in any campaign) should appreciate living in an era with social media and other communication innovations at our disposal. When it comes to facing opposition to your renewable energy project, a social media campaign is a beneficial, and even necessary, weapon to have in your arsenal. Use it to the fullest at an early stage and, perhaps, you will avoid opposition all together.

Al Maiorino started Public Strategy Group, Inc. in 1996. He has developed and managed multiple corporate public affairs campaigns in a variety of industries such as gaming, cable television, retail development, auto racing, power plant/wind farm projects, and housing/residential projects. Al received his BA in political science and a MA in American Studies from the University of Connecticut.

National Hurricane Center, FEMA chief encourage social media as part of disaster preparedness

MIAMI — Nobody is going to push the “like” button for a hurricane, but the National Hurricane Center hopes to get some Facebook fans for its storm advisories.

The hurricane center joined the online social network in January to give a behind-the-scenes look at Director Bill Read and hurricane specialists at work well before any storm starts brewing in the tropics.

The new outreach effort comes as the nation’s emergency management chief urges Americans to make social media part of their disaster preparedness plans.

People should know which local agencies disseminate information on Twitter or Facebook, and they should set aside extra batteries or solar chargers so that even in a power outage they can update their status with a simple “I’m OK.”

That can help reduce the volume of phone calls in a disaster-stricken area, leaving vital communication lines open, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate testified May 5 before a Senate subcommittee.

Fugate also urges local emergency managers to develop mobile websites to be viewed on cell phones, so that residents can both receive and contribute real-time updates during a disaster.

“Rather than trying to convince the public to adjust to the way we at FEMA communicate, we must adapt to the way the public communicates by leveraging the tools that people use on a daily basis,” Fugate said.

FEMA maintains 16 separate accounts on Twitter alone, including Fugate’s individual feed, in addition to Facebook and YouTube accounts.

The National Weather Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Florida Division of Emergency Management also are among the federal and state agencies that post severe weather updates, warnings, videos, behind-the-scenes photos and other graphics on the major social media channels.

Justin Kenney, communications director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, tweets on his individual account about the agency’s marine, weather and climate research, along with interesting tidbits of information related to severe weather news, such as aerial images of recent tornado damage in Alabama.

Social media channels help NOAA update the public about events such as a pod of pilot whales stranding in the Florida Keys, even after those events stop being breaking news, he says.

The informal posts often also boost traffic to NOAA’s official website. One such spike was recorded after animations illustrating Japan’s tsunami in March were posted on its YouTube channel and relayed on Twitter, Kenney says.

“Yes, there’s a lot of information that useful as one-time information, but I think it’s useful to try to continue the conversation,” Kenney says.

The hurricane center’s Facebook page supplements its website, email alerts and a mobile website for cell phones. Posts so far have showcased hurricane hunter aircraft, individual forecasters and the center’s reports on the 2010 hurricane season.

By posting a link to an updated tropical cyclones preparedness guide or writing a note about how much storm track forecasts have improved in recent years, shrinking the “cone of uncertainty,” officials are trying to address concerns and answer questions well before coastal residents need to consider evacuating, says hurricane specialist Dan Brown.

Starting June 1, the official start of the six-month Atlantic hurricane season, daily updates about conditions in the tropics will be posted on the Facebook page.

“When there is a threat you’ll see an increase in our postings. We’ll talk about watches and warnings, but truly what I think it’s going to be is directing people to our website for all our storm information,” Brown says.

Hurricane center officials say that by engaging the public informally through Facebook, they hope to combat complacency in coastal residents skeptical of storm warnings and evacuation advisories after five years without a major hurricane making a U.S. landfall.

The bottom line of most postings is “be prepared,” urging readers not to join the millions who don’t stock up on nonperishable food or water until a storm is imminent, stressing the system and risking the possibility of having to recover from a hurricane with few or no resources.

“We can certainly always try to reach more people. It’s an excellent tool to educate the public not just during an event,” Brown says.

Some Floridians who have befriended the hurricane center on Facebook say they’ll add the page to the online forecasts and maps they regularly check during storm season.

Lois Crockett, 60, in Coconut Creek, who works for a local pest control company, says checking the hurricane center’s Facebook page is part of her preparedness plans. She already checks online resources, TV news, the Weather Channel and the newspaper for storm information, and Facebook is just another tool to stay up to date.

“I’ve found that NOAA is the best source because these are the facts, not the hype, so this (Facebook page) will be a little memory jog to go to the NOAA website,” Crockett said.

But she said she’d only be checking Facebook before a storm, not during and certainly not after if the power was out. She doesn’t have a smart phone, but she does plan to get a backup generator this year, and she would plan to check Facebook for updates only after she had power.

Non-traditional communication streams such as social media have proven lifesaving, emergency officials say.

After an earthquake leveled much of Haiti’s capital in January 2010 and left roughly a million people living under tarps or flimsy shacks, many feared heavy winds and flooding from Hurricane Tomas would cause thousands more deaths in early November.

Read says he was relieved when the death toll in Haiti topped out at 35. The storm’s heaviest winds and rains had remained offshore, but Haitians also had been able to request help from emergency responders and get storm information through text messaging.

In spite of the catastrophic earthquake damage to Haiti’s government and infrastructure, its cellular capability bounced back quickly, and mobile messaging proved helpful for everything from search and rescue to aid distribution, Read and Fugate said.

Transmedia Storytelling

Seven Myths About Transmedia Storytelling Debunked
BY FC EXPERT BLOGGER HENRY JENKINSFri Apr 8, 2011
This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert’s views alone.

Over the past few years, transmedia storytelling has become a hot buzzword in Hollywood and Madison Avenue alike–“the next big thing” or “the last big thing” depending on whom you ask. Last year, the Producer’s Guild announced a new job title, Transmedia Producer, a decision that has more or less established the term as an industry standard. More and more companies are laying claim to expertise in producing transmedia content. But many using the term don’t really understand what they are saying. So let’s look at what people are getting wrong about transmedia.
Myth 1: Transmedia Storytelling refers to any strategy involving more than one media platform.
The entertainment industry has long developed licensed products, reproducing the same stories across multiple channels (for example, novelizations). Increasingly, broadcast content is also available on line. And many films are adopted from books (or now, comic books). None of these necessarily constitute transmedia storytelling. In transmedia, elements of a story are dispersed systematically across multiple media platforms, each making their own unique contribution to the whole. Each medium does what it does best–comics might provide back-story, games might allow you to explore the world, and the television series offers unfolding episodes.
Myth 2: Transmedia is basically a new promotional strategy.
Yes, many early transmedia experiments were funded through marketing budgets. Transmedia has been closely linked to the industry’s new focus on “audience engagement” and sometimes uses “viral” (or “spreadable”) media strategies. But, the best transmedia is driven by a creative impulse. Transmedia allows gifted storytellers to expand their canvas and share more of their vision with their most dedicated fans.
Myth 3: Transmedia means games.
The rise of alternate reality games coupled with mass media properties is part of what’s generating excitement here. Transmedia properties combine cultural attractors (which draw together a highly invested audience) and cultural activators (which gives that audience something to do). Games are a good way to give your fans something to do, but they are by no means the only model out there.
Myth 4: Transmedia is for geeks.
So far, most of transmedia has been designed for early adapters–folks at home with digital applications, with disposable time and income, and especially the 18-27 year old males who have disappeared from the Nielsen Ratings. So far, much transmedia content has targeted children through cartoons or geeks through science fiction, horror, and fantasy franchises. But, there are plenty of signs that transmedia experiences may appeal more broadly. For example, some believe transmedia strategies may be key to the survival of soap operas.
Myth 5: Transmedia requires a large budget.
Fans now expect transmedia content around blockbuster films and cult television series, but there are also many successes with using transmedia to build audience awareness around low budget and independent media productions–from The Blair Witch Project to District 9 to Paranormal Activity. It’s about developing the appropriate mix of media for the genre, the audience, and the budget of a particular production.
Myth 6: Everything should go transmedia.
Many stories are told perfectly well within a single medium, and the audience leaves satisfied, ready for something else. Transmedia represents a strategy for telling stories where there is a particularly diverse set of characters, where the world is richly realized, and where there is a strong back-story or mythology that can extend beyond the specific episodes being depicted in the film or television series. Transmedia represents a creative opportunity, but it should never be a mandate for all entertainment.
Myth 7: Transmedia is “so ten minutes ago.”
The first generation series to push transmedia, (Lost, Heroes, Ghost Whisperer, and 24) ended last season, and some of attempts to replace them–from Flash Forward to The Event–failed. But many of the big hits–including Glee, True Blood, and The Walking Dead–model new transmedia strategies to attract and sustain audience engagement. Transmedia storytelling is still about the stories and if the stories do not capture the imagination, no amount of transmedia extension can repair the damage. But, we will see innovative new approaches because transmedia as a strategy responds to a media environment that rewards being everywhere your audience might be and giving your fans a chance to drill deeper into the stories they love.
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Henry Jenkins is the Provost’s Professor of Communications, Journalism, Cinematic Arts, and Education at the University of Southern California. His book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, has been credited with inspiring much of the buzz on transmedia. On Monday 4/11, he is moderating a session on transmedia at the 2011 NAB Show, the annual media & technology industry conference in Las Vegas, which features a dream team of transmedia experts: Starlight Runner’s Jeff Gomez, Red Faction’s Danny Bilson, The Ghost Whisperer’s Kim Moses, The Walking Dead’s Gale Anne Hurd, and Conspiracy for Good’s Tim Kring.

VCs trade biotech for social networking

VCs trade biotech for social networking

By Clare Baldwin
NEW YORK | Mon Apr 4, 2011 8:53pm EDT
(Reuters) – Venture capitalists are shifting their attention to social networking companies and away from biotech companies, bankers told the Reuters Global Mergers and Acquisitions Summit on Monday.

Venture capitalists, who make high-risk investments in start-ups, are tired of waiting years for biotech companies to generate real products and be marketable as initial public offerings, bankers said. They’d rather invest in companies that could go public in just a year or two.

“Think of an IPO for an early stage biotech company. You’re 5, 7, 9 years away from revenues and profitability. That’s a big stretch today for most investors,” said Frederick Frank, vice chairman at investment banking advisory firm Peter J. Solomon Company.

“The IPO market for biotech companies is close to moribund,” he added.

A quicker turnaround on an investment could be attractive. In August 2008, the IPO market dried up, preventing investors including venture capital funds from exiting investments for about a year.

“Look at the choice a venture capital fund has: to invest in the next social network that might go public in 12 months, versus a scientific idea where they might get the opportunity to take it to the FDA eight years from now, and then maybe get a letter where they have to do additional clinical trials on top of that,” said Drew Burch, head of healthcare mergers and acquisitions at Barclays (BARC.L) in New York.

“A greater percentage of the dollars has moved toward technology investments,” Burch said.

That’s not just true for venture capitalists. Wealthy investors are eager to buy shares of social media companies like Facebook, even before those companies go public.

Following a high-profile private share sale earlier this year, Facebook said it would open its books to investors in 2012 — a statement many say is code for an IPO. The social network is the largest in the world.

Groupon has spoken with bankers about an IPO. Other Internet companies including Zynga and Twitter are expected to tap the public markets.

Private market valuations of some social media companies are in the multibillion dollar range.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin; Editing by Richard Chang)

Holy social media, Batman! Video rentals come to Facebook

Posted by JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter
March 8, 2011 2:44 PM

Facebook users can now watch The Dark Knight right on the website. It won’t be the last time content providers come to where the users are.

Would you watch movies on Facebook? That’s what Warner Brothers, a division of Time Warner (parent company of Fortune), wants to know by offering up The Dark Knight for viewing on the movie’s Facebook fan page. 3.9 million fans have already “Liked” it and they and other Facebook users can rent it for 48 hours for 30 Facebook Credits, the equivalent of $3. There are some caveats though: it’s only available in the United States, only streams in Standard Definition, and sharing remains limited to posting the activity to the NewsFeed, “Liking,” or Tweeting it. Pretty barebones at this point, considering the wealth of features Facebook currently offers.

But the move is less notable for what it’s lacking and more for what it means for content programming going forward. Recently, Warner Brothers also dabbled with other unorthodox distribution methods, by creating iPad, iPhone, and iPod apps specifically for The Dark Knight and Inception. Not an ideal solution — who wants to download an iOS app for each and every movie? –but it does show that the studio wants to reach as many markets as possible. Its movie apps reach 35 worldwide markets, more than the 23 that iTunes covers. With Facebook, Warner Brothers has the potential to one day reach some 600 million users in more than 200 countries, from Jordan and Senegal to Botswana and Martinique. In doing so, it becomes the first studio to offer movie content within a social network. No outside links or shuttling to third-party web sites.

It might all sound pretty strange at first. Because when users signed up for Facebook, they envisioned using it for connecting with friends and acquaintances, and in some cases, people they’re dying to date. Watching movies probably didn’t register. After all, there are better, dedicated services like Netflix to handle that, right?

But the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. Facebook’s userbase spends an average of 55 minutes a day, 6.5 hours a week, or 1.2 days a month on the site, a significant chunk of time only rivaled by email usage, and one that will grow even further as Facebook matures and introduces more time-sucking features. Rather than force Facebookers to leave the network to some external service or site, a huge barrier of entry in and of itself, content providers are bringing programming to where the users are.

“It’s a great opportunity to bring a shared viewing experience back to folks who have gotten geographically dispersed,” says David Raycroft, VP of Product Strategy for Milyoni, the social commerce platform used for the Dark Knight-Facebook viewing and ecommerce app. Development of such projects can take as little as three days, though in this case, The Dark Knight app took 30 days to develop.

While it’s a solid first step — the user interface is simple and responsive — it also raises several thorny issues. Once the whole trend of Facebook movie streaming takes off, and I firmly believe it will eventually, there’s the issue of fragmentation. Will users be forced to seek out movie fan pages to watch that particular flick? How will they know when a particular new movie becomes available for viewing?

A content streaming hub will become vital as more studios bring content over to the social network, not only to aggregate and highlight content in one central location, but also to update users. Of course, in doing so, it brings Facebook one step closer to being even more integral to your daily life, which, if you’re Mark Zuckerberg, is a good thing.

Will Social Media Change the Insurance Industry?

by Gloria Vogel
In recent weeks we have all observed the power of new social media to facilitate change. From protests in Egypt to current clashes in Libya, the power of new media is now readily apparent. So the question to ask is whether or not the insurance industry is ready for these newer forms of social communication? How will social media transform the insurance industry?

While social media itself is undergoing rapid change, current attention has focused on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and LinkedIn as the leaders in the field. In a quick check of major insurers, many firms have already established a presence on those sites, primarily to distribute announcements from press releases and provide some background description of their firms, or to facilitate recruiting. Traders, employees, and others have made some comments on those company pages. But, the insurance industry has not yet effectively used social media to market its products, to handle claims, or to better communicate with and engage its customers and employees.

Insurers do not readily embrace change, so the slow response to date is not a surprise. But social media is quickly evolving and it has the potential to significantly alter the way insurance business is conducted in the areas of marketing, underwriting, and claims.

What if the industry shifted more of its marketing to social media?

Insurers typically market products through independent or captive agents, brokers, or directly to consumers. Most direct marketing is done via standard postal mail or phone solicitations, with some Internet commerce. The roadblocks to quick adoption of social media in insurance marketing concern the notion that the brokers/agents currently control the business and maintain the customer relationships; that the products are too complex to be readily saleable in a social media format; and that the open communication associated with social media does not effectively protect privacy. Moreover, many agents/brokers view social media as a threat that could eliminate their middleman status, and this could hinder progress in industry adoption.

However, marketing costs account for significant charges to first year sales, especially for life insurance products. If expenses could be brought down, then insurers could reap additional profits from those sales. The cost of maintaining an agency force is high, while the direct cost associated with social media is significantly lower. In a marketplace that demands efficiency, that difference in cost could be meaningful.

To date, most consumers use the Internet to learn about products and to scout out companies, and then seek the advice of agents/brokers to actually purchase their policies. This is especially true for more complex life insurance products or commercial casualty coverages, rather than for straightforward standard auto insurance policies. However, with social media, consumers can receive rapid response to their questions, buyers can quickly make price comparisons between companies, and consumers can get immediate feedback from existing policyholders concerning levels of satisfaction. As such, social media has the potential to transform insurance marketing into new cost structures and methods for product distribution. Notably, with social media, consumers will be more likely to purchase a policy if someone they know recommends it, rather than receiving the recommendation from a cold calling insurance representative, so the need to satisfy consumers will become paramount. With younger generations reliant upon social media as their favored form of communication, the future will most likely include more direct selling to end-user customers via these new distribution methods.

The critical elements that social media would appear to offer include: speed of response (text messaging), trust of provider (recommendation by friends), open communication (opinion of existing policyholders), and ease of sale completion (via smartphone apps). The benefits would be savings in time and cost. Some insurers would be expected to have business models that allow for this kind of dramatic change, while others will naturally be slow to adopt.

Application of social media to other insurance functions

Underwriting also has potential to benefit from use of social media. Social media enables underwriters to learn more about their policyholders than ever before, leading to better pricing and better policing of claims. Just as recruiters currently check social media to learn about unsavory habits of applicants, underwriters could learn more about their customers from social media. Community relationships and sharing of knowledge could also help solve problems associated with risk assessment, especially with respect to global issues of climate or other environmental threats, pandemics, emerging risks, etc.

The web already allows consumers to download claim forms and file claims electronically. Social media combined with new smartphone apps could enable claimants to file claims immediately after an event. Photos could be taken on the spot and claims submitted quickly. Payments could be credited directly to an account for immediate use by the claimant. Social media could also serve as a good tool for fraud detection.

The biggest potential drawback in using social media for insurance transactions involves the issues of privacy, risk, and control. Policyholders don’t want their individual information to be widely distributed. Also, companies don’t want to have negative comments posted on their social media pages about their poor claims processing or competitively more expensive products, so reputational risk is likely higher with use of social media. Nonetheless, change is constant, and it is only a matter of time until the insurance industry begins to use social media as a tool to more effectively conduct business. Cost pressures and focus on younger consumers will force its eventual adoption.

10 Laws of Social Media Marketing

By Susan Gunelius at Entrepreneur.com

Leveraging the power of content and social media marketing can help elevate your audience and customer base in a dramatic way. But getting started without any previous experience or insight could be challenging.

It’s vital that you understand social media marketing fundamentals. From maximizing quality to increasing your online entry points, abiding by these 10 laws will help build a foundation that will serve your customers, your brand and — perhaps most importantly — your bottom line.

1. The Law of Listening
Success with social media and content marketing requires more listening and less talking. Read your target audience’s online content and join discussions to learn what’s important to them. Only then can you create content and spark conversations that add value rather than clutter to their lives.

2. The Law of Focus
It’s better to specialize than to be a jack-of-all-trades. A highly-focused social media and content marketing strategy intended to build a strong brand has a better chance for success than a broad strategy that attempts to be all things to all people.

3. The Law of Quality
Quality trumps quantity. It’s better to have 1,000 online connections who read, share and talk about your content with their own audiences than 10,000 connections who disappear after connecting with you the first time.

4. The Law of Patience
Social media and content marketing success doesn’t happen overnight. While it’s possible to catch lightning in a bottle, it’s far more likely that you’ll need to commit to the long haul to achieve results.

5. The Law of Compounding
If you publish amazing, quality content and work to build your online audience of quality followers, they’ll share it with their own audiences on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, their own blogs and more.

This sharing and discussing of your content opens new entry points for search engines like Google to find it in keyword searches. Those entry points could grow to hundreds or thousands of more potential ways for people to find you online.

6. The Law of Influence
Spend time finding the online influencers in your market who have quality audiences and are likely to be interested in your products, services and business. Connect with those people and work to build relationships with them.

If you get on their radar as an authoritative, interesting source of useful information, they might share your content with their own followers, which could put you and your business in front of a huge new audience.

7. The Law of Value
If you spend all your time on the social Web directly promoting your products and services, people will stop listening. You must add value to the conversation. Focus less on conversions and more on creating amazing content and developing relationships with online influencers. In time, those people will become a powerful catalyst for word-of-mouth marketing for your business.

8. The Law of Acknowledgment
You wouldn’t ignore someone who reaches out to you in person so don’t ignore them online. Building relationships is one of the most important parts of social media marketing success, so always acknowledge every person who reaches out to you.

9. The Law of Accessibility
Don’t publish your content and then disappear. Be available to your audience. That means you need to consistently publish content and participate in conversations. Followers online can be fickle and they won’t hesitate to replace you if you disappear for weeks or months.

10. The Law of Reciprocity
You can’t expect others to share your content and talk about you if you don’t do the same for them. So, a portion of the time you spend on social media should be focused on sharing and talking about content published by others.

For alcohol brand-related social media issues

For alcohol brands, social media a stiff cocktail
by Caroline McCarthy

On a Monday morning late last month, at the headquarters of the Finger Lakes Wine Country Tourism Marketing Association, the promotional vehicle for a vineyard-speckled region about four hours northwest of Manhattan, something was amiss with Foursquare.
Namely, the Corning, N.Y.-based tourism group’s account on the location-sharing social-media site was doing something funny: It was triggering friend requests. That’s not supposed to happen with a Foursquare account that’s set up as a brand or business page–users should be able to automatically follow the brand or company, rather than having to wait to have their requests approved individually, as would be the case with a regular personal profile. The switch seemed to indicate that Finger Lakes Wine Country’s brand page had been, in effect, demoted.
“My office manager, who handles all of our general e-mail inquiries, said, ‘Has there been a change to our Foursquare page? All of a sudden I’m getting all these friend requests’,” related Morgen McLaughlin, the president of the tourism group. “Then we received an e-mail from Foursquare that they had suspended the account because of the alcohol content.”
When some of the trendiest destinations for digital brand marketing and advertising are small social networks with limited resources, brands in restricted sectors like the alcohol industry–and those that might be on the periphery of it–start to run into these kinds of problems. Foursquare built a name for itself as a way for nightlife-happy 20-somethings to “check in” to bars in cities and let their friends know where they were throwing back brews. But because Foursquare does not at present have technology in place to effectively verify users’ ages, alcohol-related brands are currently barred from participating in its brand pages program.
Twitter, too, has been hesitant to permit the promotion or inclusion of alcohol in its Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends ad program, excluding them from it at first and now cautiously allowing a few very large companies. (It should be noted that Promoted Products are still restricted overall to a few hundred brands. None of the alcohol brands that have been permitted access have bought Twitter ads yet, according to a company spokesman.)

Advertising wine, or even activities that may be related to wine, can be tough on social-media sites like Foursquare and Twitter.
(Credit: CC: Flickr user umbrialovers)
Finger Lakes Wine Country managed to contact Foursquare to resolve the problem, and after explaining that it was a tourist group rather than an organization that actually sells wine, its brand page was reinstated. McLaughlin says she can see where Foursquare was coming from. “It absolutely makes sense, especially when you’re talking about specific businesses that sell and market alcohol. So, yeah, a winery should have its page restricted. Thirteen-year-olds or 15-year-olds probably shouldn’t be thinking about wineries and breweries,” she told CNET. “We’re not a wine marketing company, per se, we’re a destination, and so for some people, especially in legal, that becomes a very hard point of definition.”
Social-media companies like Foursquare do, of course, ask for users’ ages and can theoretically use that to gauge which users are of legal drinking age. But it’s not that easy, explains Ted Zeller, an attorney with law firm Norris McLaughlin and Marcus, P.A. who specializes in alcohol beverage law. “If you’re an alcohol brand, I know of no federal Internet law restrictions as far as advertisements go–the same would be applicable to TV advertisements,” Zeller said. “The problems that you run into are more state-based regulations.”
A few states, like Utah and Pennsylvania–where Zeller, who has represented the Yuengling brewing company in court, is based–have extremely stringent regulations that extend all the way up the alcohol industry’s chain of command from wholesalers to consumer marketing. Foursquare’s hurdle here would be that it would either need to abide by different laws for different states, or put in place overarching age verification and advertising regulations that adhere to even the strictest state laws. “That’s the difficulty,” Zeller said. “It’s a tremendous hurdle from a legal perspective.”
The irony is that social media, given the vast amount of personal information that users are prone to entering into profiles, ought to make things easier for an industry that needs to carefully target its advertising and marketing based on legal restrictions. But that information can be so vast and unverifiable, and a social-networking site’s reach so global, that it can instead get even more complex. Geolocation services like Foursquare, where an essential part of the experience is moving from place to place, crossing state or even international boundaries in the process, brings a whole new piece to the puzzle. In comparison, traditional advertisements–TV ads distributed based on a static television market, ensuring that billboard ads are kept the required distance from churches or schools based on state laws–seem far simpler.
The company that’s perhaps figured this out best is Facebook, which has fine-tuned its targeted display ads so meticulously that it’s been able to put forth a precise set of regulations for alcohol advertisers. Age-based restrictions are in place for multiple countries, as are some outright bans in countries like Egypt, Norway, and the United Arab Emirates, which prohibit alcohol advertising of any type. If a Facebook user has not filled out his or her profile extensively enough to determine age or location, that user will not see any alcohol-related ads. Access to alcohol-related “fan pages” can also be age-restricted.
And some alcohol-related brands have actually taken advantage of restrictions in order to create campaigns that give their brands an elite, “secret club” vibe. Tequila company Patron and beer brand Stella Artois have created, respectively, the “Patron Social Club” and “La Societe Stella Artois,” members-only networking communities that offer perks and promotions in exchange for top-of-the-line age verification.
But when it comes to the most basic and obvious uses of social media–a Foursquare brand page, a promoted tweet on Twitter–the roadblocks can be frustrating for companies ranging from a local winery or brewpub to a mass-market rum company looking to launch a spring break promotion.
“I feel sorry for a lot of these small start-up companies, because the percentage of usage growth is huge, so the companies don’t have the internal infrastructure to be able to deal with these things case by case,” Finger Lakes Wine Country’s Morgen McLaughlin said. “I remember in the beginning with Facebook, I actually got thrown off because I was posting about our new travel guide to too many friends.”
But in spite of the inherent red tape that comes from working with small start-ups in a rigid advertising environment–and the continual need to explain that, no, her company doesn’t sell liquor–social media is where McLaughlin plans to continue focusing. “In 2010, Facebook was the No. 1 Web referral to our Web site outside of organic search, by huge numbers,” she told CNET. “We’ve connected with major wine and travel writers on Twitter. Without those tools, our destination would not be nearly as visible.”