SocialChorus Blog

Our Picks for Social Media Week in SF & NYC

by Anna Eschenburg on February 13, 2012

We’re excited about Social Media Week taking place this week all around the world. Here are some of our favorite picks in downtown San Francisco and NYC. Greg Shove, our CEO and Peter Horan, our chairman will be speaking at Social Media Week in SF on Thursday. Be sure to check out their events as well!

San Francisco

Tuesday Feb 14th
10:00 – 10:50 am - Social Big Data Analytics: Current Challenges, Future Opportunities
A discussion with Marie Wallace, Social Analytics Strategist of IBM Collaborative Solutions; Joe Davy, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of EvoApp, and Angela Morgenstern, Sr. VP, Digital, CurrentTV.

Thursday Feb 16th
9:00 – 9:50 am - How Our Social Circles Influence What We Do, Go & How We Decide
Talk with Paul Adam, Global Brand Manager of Facebook. His goal is for you to walk away with concrete ideas about building great products, campaigns and experiences built around social behavior.

10:00 – 10:50 am – Greg Shove, SocialChorus CEO – More info coming soon!

5:00 – 5:30 pm - Your New Partner: The Consumer
With the advent of social media, companies have discovered that their customers have become an integral partner in the success of their business. Peter Horan, SocialChorus’ Executive Chairman, will discuss how brands like Nike, Microsoft, along with the entertainment industry have used social media to accelerate the customer partnership process and will provide a roadmap for companies to integrate “partnership” opportunities into their social media marketing.

New York

Tuesday Feb 14th
9:00 – 11:00 am - Screw Earning Media and Start Earning Value
We hear a lot of talk about “earned media” in social environments, but it seems the bigger opportunity for innovation lies in earning commercial value. Many companies have turned to social tools to collaborate with consumers in ways that earn them free services, free research-and-development, and even free creativity. This is not crowdsourcing. This is true collaboration on a scale well beyond what’s happening on Facebook walls. We’ll look at companies that are doing it well, and pay specific attention to how transparent they are about what exactly they’re getting out of this earned value.

Wednesday Feb 15th
1:00 – 2:00 pm - Global Influence
You’ve built a global community around your brand – but how do you activate your community members? Enter the influencers: high-impact individuals whose expertise and advice is trusted among the community. This discussion will cover the following topics:

How do you define and identify an influencer?
What are the various influencer metrics?
How can a brand approach and then work with influencers?
What are some best practices for running a global influencer program?

Thursday Feb 16th
9:00 – 11:00 am - Keynote: Michael Lazerow on the People are the Message
In this keynote, Buddy Media founder and CEO Michael Lazerow will discuss how companies can grow shareholder value by realizing that “the people are the message.”

12:00 – 2:00 pm - Keynote: Rohit Bhargava on the Seductive Myth of Brand Storytelling
In this talk from Rohit Bhargava, best selling author of Personality Not Included and a member of Ogilvy social media team, attendees will not only learn some of the principles of great storytelling, but also learn how some pioneering brands are already using those lessons to succeed today. Merging social media with newer concepts like content curation and transmedia storytelling – this session will give you plenty of ideas for telling better brand stories, and proving the value to others in your organization who may be storytelling skeptics.

1:30 – 2:30 pm - We all have Influence Somewhere: The Next Great Social Media Transformation nfluence measures based on social data are creating new opportunities to identify and activate influential people by their interests, passions and affiliations. As the line between Friends and Trusted Strangers blurs, engaging with influential people provides avenues to spread messages, deepen customer relationships, and perform research in real time. In this session, Kred CEO Andrew Grill and a panel of senior marketers will discuss the science and philosophy behind Influence, and why used properly it is an essential tool for building rich engagements and brand loyalty.

Friday Feb 17th
3:00 – 5:00 pm - Left Brain Meets Right Brain – The Blueprints for a Sophisticated Social Media Campaign
The convergence of strategy and creative has arrived in the world of global social campaign planning and execution. Architecting a sophisticated campaign for increased engagement and customer growth requires strategic planning, strong creative, and the proper infrastructure for data acquisition and consumer segmentation to be successful. In this session, Shoutlet CEO Jason Weaver moderates a panel of social leaders including Rayovac, Edelman Digital, and MWW Group to discuss and debate the methods and tools necessary to ensure all elements of a successful social campaign are in place.

Let us know which events you plan on checking out and follow us @socialchorus for live-tweeting of the events we’ll be at!

February 13, 2012

Brands Must Engage in New Ways to Reach Millennials

by Anna Eschenburg on February 3, 2012

Being a millennial myself, I already know I rely on social media daily. It’s the way millennials have learned to communicate, socialize and explore the world around them. I’m constantly on, accessible and sharing the latest updates with my friends, family and often times strangers. If I’m looking for a new restaurant in the neighborhood, I automatically pull up Yelp or Foursquare’s Explore feature. Shopping online? I likely follow your brand on Twitter or Facebook and before making a purchase I read reviews on your product, how it fits, works and its quality. Upset that my flight is late? Oh you better believe I’ve already tweeted about it.

A recent survey done by Bazaarvoice, only cements these facts about millennials and how they relate to their world and therefore interact with companies and brands. Bazaarvoice writes, “the bottom line is, millennials shop and interact with brands differently. As they start to control spending, their habits will inevitably change the way businesses sell – and with it, the way all consumers buy.”

One of the most stunning facts from the recent survey is that when trying to learn about a brand, product or service, 51% of millennials trust user-generated content significantly more than any other form of information, including brand messaging, news articles and advertisements. Perhaps even more surprising is that millennials say they trust advice from strangers more than recommendations from friends and family (49%).

In addition, the study found that 42% of millennials share their brand experiences (positive or negative) across their social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc) compared to only 17% of boomers.

This study leaves no doubt that brands need to continue to utilize social media to engage with the millennial generation. By embracing social media, reacting in real time and adopting a policy of authentic transparency, brands will earn respect and trust from millennials. Even more so, brands need to inspire their advocates and superfans to create user-generated content to influence millennials about their products.

February 3, 2012 millennials

Media Buying Must Prepare for Automation

by Anna Eschenburg on February 1, 2012

At Halogen, we think a lot about the effect that automated display media is having on ad networks, advertising agencies and media buyers. Today, our executive chairman, Peter Horan, tackles the topic in a post on DigiDay.

As Peter says, “We are heading into a market in which 75-80 percent of all online ad dollars will be spent in a highly automated environment, essentially the entire display budget for standard creative running in a square box. The remaining 20-25 percent will be designated for deep integrations, social-media programs and highly customized marketing programs. This is reality. Accept it. More importantly, prepare for the ramifications.”

Media companies and ad agencies will need to address the inevitable sooner or later. Just one example came earlier this week as P&G announced they would lay off 1600 employees and rely on digital advertising for cost savings. “In the digital space, with things like Facebook and Google and others, we find that return on investment of the advertising when properly designed, when the big idea is there, can be much more efficient,” says P&G Chairman/CEO Bob McDonald.

For our own take on what’s next, watch our blog and site for exciting announcements in the coming week or two! Can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on.

Peter will also be speaking at the DigiDay Agency conference in LA on this topic on February 29. He’ll be joined on a panel by Dave Goodrich, President, Targetwise and Suhaila Suhimi-Hobba, EVP, Director Digital Communications, Initiative.

February 1, 2012 ad network, Peter Horan, Technology

Intel ‘Always On’ – A Program Summary and Award Nomination

by Anna Eschenburg on January 31, 2012

Every once in awhile we like to share what we’ve been up to and show off some of our work. Today’s campaign: Intel ‘Always On.’

Over the past few months, Halogen has been working with our influential publishers to create creative, authentic and engaging content on behalf of Intel and the 2011 Always On campaign. The goal of the campaign was to boost awareness and drive association of Intel among their target lifestyle audiences.

Through our genuine, enduring and direct relationships with influencers like Matador Network, Fora.tv, uInterview, Design Milk, PSFK, ScreenCrave, Geekosystem, Technabob, Jamie Oliver, Guest of a Guest, Global Post, Dealbreaker, Big Girls Small Kitchen, Gear Patrol, Fashionista and Food52 we effectively created an always-on social content channel to align with Intel’s marketing calendar.

Check out some of the content our publishers created:

Gear Patrol: Smart Lives of Smart Men

Watch the 2nd installment, Smart Lives of Smart Men: Tomorrow here.

Global Post: The Futurists: The Science of Cyborgs

In addition to videos, our publishers created many unique content pieces. Some examples include Matador Network’s 23 incredible new technologies you’ll see by 2021 and Design Milk’s Designer Tools of The Trade.

The biggest nod to our fantastic publishers and our internal crew is that the program is up for a Social Media Influencer Award! You can check it out and vote here! (It’s the ‘Smart Lives of Smart Men’ icon).

January 31, 2012

Job: VP of Product Management

by Greg Shove on January 24, 2012

Chorus - San Francisco Bay Area

- Reports to: President/COO

- Direct Reports: Director of Product Development

- Compensation: competitive salary, stock options, performance-based bonus, and competitive health benefits.

Job Description

We are currently developing V2.0 of our proprietary enterprise software called Chorus. A preview can be found at www.socialchorus.com. The product is on track to launch in Feb 2012 with a variety of highly valuable features and functionality. Additional upgrades and features are planned for releases/upgrades for the foreseeable future.

The VP of Product Management will report to the President & COO and work collaboratively with the Executive team to define and develop the vision, strategy, and product roadmap for a world-class SaaS platform for social media marketing for global brands.

The candidate will manage all product initiatives through the entire lifecycle from ideation and inception through development, testing, launch, measurement and ongoing enhancement. The VP of Product Management will also be a product representative, involved in marketing & selling and communicating product benefits to clients and potential clients.

This position is responsible for building and managing the team that is developing our proprietary software platform, and for deploying a final product that is completely functional allowing hundreds of major brands to quickly deploy in multiple global markets.

Strategic vision and leadership:

- Collaborate with the CEO, President/COO, and Executive Team to define and manage the product vision, strategy, and roadmap that will fulfill user and client needs and stay one step ahead of the market.

- Provide inspirational leadership, motivation and hands-on direction to all product development and engineering staff.

- Cultivate a milestone-driven culture, in which consistent innovation and progress are expected. Provide strong process management to a ‘sprint-based’ development environment (using the Rails stack).

Direct Responsibilities:

- Manage the product roadmap, getting internal consensus and incorporating feedback from clients and prospects. This will delight our clients with product excellence that is fast, easy, smart, and fun

- Define the development schedule, based on team size/capabilities and product priorities

- Manage the development team to hit weekly and monthly milestones for major and minor product releases.

- Recruit and mentor world-class product team, including product managers, designers, and product marketers.

- Ensure Q&A approaches consistent with serving Fortune 500 brands.

- Plans, develops, and establishes policies, procedures, and objectives of all the Company’s research and development functions in accordance with objectives

Leadership Style:

- Inspirational leader who can thrive in a fast-paced environment

- Self-starter who can simultaneously manage multiple internal and external initiatives/projects and deliver outstanding results

- Ability to work collaboratively with employees at all levels of the organization and establish and maintain strong relationships with strategic partners

- Strong project management skills

- Thinks quickly on his/her feet, is practical and “street smart” – and wants win.

Desired Skills & Experience

- BA/BS required. MBA preferred

- Minimum 6-8 years experience leading development teams that delivered consumer or enterprise facing software solutions that dominated their competitors.

- 3-5 years experience building and releasing SaaS or PaaS software in both start-ups and established companies.

- Highly technical, able to communicate with engineers on technical topics. Past development experience a plus.

- Consumer social/community/marketing software platform experience preferred

- Proven success with rapid development environments and tools.

- Preferred experience with Ruby on Rails.

- Tenacious and resourceful problem solver with deep analytics skills

- Proven ability to influence and lead cross-functional teams.

- Demonstrated financial management experience, including the development of financial projections, budgets, resources and managing to these appropriately

- Strong business acumen and the ability to synthesize and analyze data to identify trends and marketing opportunities

- Excellent communication and presentation skills, written and verbal

- Strong project management and performance management skills

Company Description

We believe that brands should develop direct and enduring relationships with influencers and advocates. We are a software and services company that enables brands and agencies to create and distribute content and social currency to their influencers, soon-to-be influencers and superfans across all major social networks.

Our platform powers on-going, transparent relationships with these social influencers, and enables the brand to manage and reward these relationships directly. Our technology tracks all the marketing outcomes, and demonstrates the media and business ROI.

Our focus as an organization will be on software platform sales (bundled or unbundled with services) with global firms that deploy our solution quickly across multiple brands and markets.

If you are interested, please contact us at jobs@halogennetwork.com.

January 24, 2012 hiring, Jobs

Must Keep Pinning: Some Thoughts on Pinterest

by Anna Eschenburg on January 23, 2012

I’ll be honest; I’m a little obsessed. Over the past couple months, I’ve curated a collection of my favorite quotes, items I’d love for my future home, DIY projects I want to undertake and without any doubt of inevitability, a collection of party favors, recipes, and decorations for that amazing dinner party I keep promising to host.

Although it may seem like Pinterest is just the “women’s version of fantasty football,” Pinterest has already seen an influx of companies and brands that are ready to be a part of the pinning phenomenon and some are quickly seeing real results. Real Simple recently told Ad Age, Pinterest drives more traffic for them than Facebook.

In case you aren’t familiar with Pinterest, here’s a quick rundown. Pinterest is a social networking site that allows users to create virtual pinboards for collecting and sharing beautiful content online. Users collect photos and links to pretty much anything they find online that they love, creating their own pinboards and following the pinboards of other people or brands whom they find interesting.

While the site is still in beta and currently invitation only, Pinterest has experienced explosive growth in the last six months. The latest data from ComScore (December 2011) shows that Pinterest has over 7.5 million monthly unique visitors up from 4.9 million in November. When it comes to engagement, Pinterest users spend an average of 14.8 minutes on the site per visit. These recent numbers skyrocketed Pinterest into one of the top 10 social networks according to Hitwise.

So why should brands care?

1) Engaged Audience

Social media has given the consumer back their voice and on Pinterest that voice is the ability to share what they like, what they want to buy and what inspires them. Brands should use this as an opportunity for consumer research. Follow those people who are already posting about your brand or specific keywords that are important to you. Pay attention to what they are sharing to pick up on key trends among your target audience. Engage these users by commenting, liking or re-pinning their pins to a VIP board. If you don’t know who your audience is yet, host a Pinterest contest and follow those who participate.

2) SEO Benefits

Content shared to Pinterest directly from your site or blog links back, even when the item is re-pinned. The description field of the pin lets you enter relevant keywords as well.

3) Show Off Your Brand Personality

Sites likes Pinterest give brands an opportunity to humanize and expose a little brand personality. It is a great opportunity to promote the lifestyle or essence of your brand. Show off your team working hard on the latest product or your employees enjoying an office party. Make it personal.

Now let’s see these in action.

Below are a few of our favorite ways we’ve seen brands use Pinterest.

Chobani

This yogurt brand brings their product to life with inspirational quotes, recipes, and even a flavor inspirations board.

Bergdorf Goodman

The department store uses fashion trends to inspire their boards (eg. Spring Trend: Tribal Beat)

Whole Foods Market

The high end grocery chain highlights recipes, party ideas, and even their Whole Foods foundation on the Pinterest page.

And let’s not forget some of our own publishers: MatadorNetwork, Glitter Guide & Design Milk have also started to share the essence of their sites using Pinterest.

Like any other social network, before you join, make sure it makes sense for your brand. But if it does – what are your hesitations about joining Pinterest (if any)? Will you be jumping on the pinning wagon?

Anyone who needs an invite, leave your email in the comments below and we’ll make sure you get one.

January 23, 2012 Pinterest

Halogen Reads: SOPA Blackout, Instagram & 94% of Marketers Use Facebook

by Anna Eschenburg on January 21, 2012

This week saw the biggest online protest in history to protest SOPA/PIPA. Over 40,000 sites participated by completely blacking out their sites, and another 30,000 sites participated by altering their homepages in some way. In addition, 4 of the top 10 most popular websites on the Internet (Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter) participated in some way. More of the stunning numbers here.

Instagram could reach 1 billion photos by April, hitting this mile-marker over twice as fast as Flickr.

Tablet users spend 50% more per purchase than smartphone owners, and 20% more than laptop/desktop users said a study put out by Adobe. Retailers should take advantage of their mobile consumers.

A report put out this week by social marketing company Wildfire Interactive says that Facebook is still the dominant social network in terms of marketing. 94 percent of respondents said they use Facebook in their social media efforts. Twitter was a close second, at 74 percent. In 3rd place, 41 percent of respondents said they use blogs for their social efforts, more than LinkedIn (32%) and YouTube (30%).