R to Z Studios

Is Slow Sharing Going To Take Off?

This Is My Jam is a new music sharing network, and it’s different from other social sites. It asks users to choose and feature one piece of content on their profiles at a time.

You choose a favorite song to display on your profile, where it can be left for up to seven days. By adding friends and following people with similar tastes, you can listen to a playlist of all of your friends’ featured jams.

This concept is striking to us because it doesn’t focus on encouraging users to share new content quickly and often. This Is My Jam’s About page says, “This is your jam, and it’s yours for up to seven days. Change it whenever the mood strikes, but choose wisely. You only have one!” 

This “7 days left” suggestion on your profile anchors users to think in terms of a longer time frame when choosing a song. That, and the fact that users can only choose one song to display on their profiles at a time, makes each individual song choice feel a little more permanent compared to Tweets and Facebook posts that can get buried under all the noise. 

Though it may be meant to remind users to change their songs to avoid stale profiles, the 1-song, 7-days limit sounds like an eternity in the social media world. 

This Is My Jam just opened to the public and is still in beta. If the network takes off, it will say something about the power of content that is slowly shared for one moment at a time. 

Do you think it’s more valuable when users share different types of content often, or when they share one carefully chosen piece each week?

How To Foster Post-Campaign Buzz

Your social media campaign that you’ve been planning for months becomes a huge hit: hundreds of new fans Liked your Facebook Page or followed you on Twitter, and you saw a significant spike in engagement and discussion.

You take note of the results, label the campaign as a success, and move on to brainstorming the next big initiative with your team. What most companies forget is the vital step in between: continuing the buzz and re-engaging fans after each campaign.

Take advantage of the buzz you’ve created by sparking new post-event discussions, following through on your promises, and rewarding top contributors to your campaign by featuring them.

By building and strengthening your relationship with your new fans and existing community, you’ll be creating the loyalty program for future campaigns. Remember that there’s no such thing as the easy ‘Like’ anymore; fans want to gain value from the posts that they subscribed to.

Randi spoke at the Centurion Jewelry Show last month, where she highlighted various jewelers who are rocking it on social media. Ritani Jewelers engages its audience both during and between campaigns, creating a community of loyal fans on its Facebook Page.

Ritani’s ‘Real Moments’ campaign called for fans to submit wedding, engagement, or proposal photos where Ritani jewelry was exchanged. The best photos were chosen to be featured in Ritani’s official profile photo and print ads. Then, the company continued the conversations by posting about the winners and announcing a new winner bi-weekly. The result? The Facebook Page saw a 50% increase in post interactions, and the company gained exposure from bloggers and print publications.

Ritani frequently posts questions such as “what is the most romantic date you’ve ever been on,” or “my favorite part of this ring [pictured] above is ___,” driving engagement and fostering conversations between the fans themselves.

Having a post-campaign strategy that will provide value to newly acquired fans is just as important as the campaign itself. Keep that in mind, and your audience will love you for it!

How Pinterest Can Work For Non-Visual Brands

We love Pinterest. It has been a hot topic the past few months, and there’s a reason for it. Pinterest is a virtual pinboard that allows you to visually curate your interests. It’s beautiful — almost entirely based on visual communication, it has less chatter and noise compared to other social networks.

Pinterest is perfect for brands and individuals who have visually compelling content to share. Scroll through the site, and endless mouth-watering dishes, wedding rings, home decor ideas, and travel photos will catch your eye. Now, even news and media companies are becoming regular “pinners,” displaying infographics and photos in novel ways.

Does your brand have to have products or services with great visual appeal to be successful on Pinterest? Not necessarily. Though it may be more of a stretch, with a little creativity you might find ways that Pinterest can be useful for your company. There’s more to Pinterest than pinning products and things — you can pin ideas, showcase compelling stories, or give a sneak peek of your office and employees behind the scenes.

Some companies like Mashable create beautiful infographics and charts out of dull statistics. Is your company involved with charities and social causes? Then, use Pinterest as a visual representation of your values and your social responsibility or sustainability initiatives.

Take another approach and a human face to your brand by pinning behind the scenes photos of your office, events, and employees at work. You can even pin exclusive videos and clips to add variety. Invite employees to contribute as curators to show off their personalities and interests, and just like that, your Pinterest account becomes a unique tool for attracting consumers, clients, and future employees.       

Have fun and experiment. Hold contests, feature customers, and co-pin ideas with your clients. If you don’t want to create a corporate Pinterest account, you can still add ‘Pin It’ buttons your website so other users can re-pin and spread the content virally for you. Try it, and let us know what you think!

Why This Year’s Superbowl Is A Social First

It’s Superbowl Sunday! Today, over 100 million people in the United States will come together to watch the Superbowl on TV. About 68,000 fans will be cheering from their seats at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. It doesn’t stop there — this year’s Superbowl will be reaching a larger audience than ever before.

For the first time in Superbowl history, NBC will be streaming the game live, allowing the public to legally watch the game online. Added features to the stream that you won’t get to see on the TV broadcast include multiple camera angles, exclusive clips, real-time social updates, live statistics, and the ability to control your own instant replays. Verizon will also be streaming the game through an app to Verizon phones.      

During and after the game, millions more will watch and re-watch the ads on T.V., laptops, tablets, and phones. The ads will be available on countless websites and via Hulu, YouTube, free mobile apps, and NBC’s Google+ Hangout discussing the ads the next day. You’ll see the best (and the worst) ads shared virally through Facebook and Twitter. The countless discussions, debates, comments, and stories exchanged socially add yet another dimension to the Superbowl experience.  

We’re thrilled that the most-watched sporting event in America will be livestreamed, setting a precedent globally for future events like this one. The online stream will bring public eyes closer to the actual event and give people easy access to live chats and conversations.

When millions of people want to come together for a live event, there is no better way to capture and build that energy and momentum than through creating these meaningful experiences in social media. Cheers to a truly social Superbowl!

Watch It Live

Post-Game Update:

Twitter’s official account just tweeted this fun fact: during the final 3 minutes of tonight’s game, there were an average of 10,000 tweets per second about the Superbowl. The last three minutes were so intense, you’d expect fans to be glued to their screens.

1.8 million tweets during that time makes a statement about how people want to share their thoughts and be part of the conversation, right as each tweet-worthy moment is happening. 

Lose Weight By Social Gaming

It’s awesome to watch social media and health intersect as new fitness games and social networks are motivating people to get fit. These games and communities hold you accountable to your goals — by simply tracking your exercise and diet, punishing you for not going to the gym, or rewarding you for your progress with cash or other prizes. Participating and exchanging updates with friends can motivate you from skipping the gym or reaching for that second brownie. 

Nike’s new Nike+ FuelBand is an innovative wristband that tracks your calories, steps, and daily activity level in terms of NikeFuel. Nike announced partnerships with Path and Foursquare and integrated with Facebook, allowing users to sync updates online.

Set a goal for your daily activity level and watch the LED lights on the wristband change from red to green as you accumulate the NikeFuel points throughout the day. Merging the physical and digital worlds, the Nike+ FuelBand aims to help users make life a sport. 

A startup called Fitocracy, currently in limited private release, is turning fitness into an addicting game by pushing users to beat challenges against friends to earn points, levels, and achievements in fitness activities.

Here’s a great success story, on the extreme side: one Fitocracy member lost 300 pounds and now can deadlift with one leg. He’s 71 years old. Now that’s an accomplishment!

One of our clients, Audax Health Solutions, Inc., recently launched a health and wellness online community that is currently in beta. With Careverge, all the tools and resources that can help you achieve good health are stored in one place. You can securely store your health information, schedule medical reminders, and sync your fitness tracking devices to get real-time reports. Create a plan to achieve your fitness goals and track your progress individually or with teammates within the Careverge community. 

We can expect to see more technologies that seamlessly merge social media and health, as new apps and consumer-friendly devices allow us to record and learn more information about our bodies. What do you think the future of health and fitness gaming will look like? 

Create With Us

Welcome to our R to Z Studios blog. We want to use this space to pass along our thoughts on the latest trends in social and tech, highlight the work of our amazing clients, and give you a sneak peek of what we’re doing on-camera and behind-the-scenes at R to Z. We welcome your comments and look forward to discussing great ideas together. Stay tuned!