Here’re two of my own personal social media experiences that both happened over the past week.

Virgin Active, South Africa

My local gym is the Virgin Active in Cape Town – specifically, The Point.  Unfortunately it’s a lot of other peoples local gym too, and although I try to vary my workout time, sometimes one has to fight fat at peak hour.  Myself & a couple of mates have all noticed how busy its become, and free workout space has become a real problem.  This is how Virgin reacted, and there’s a good & bad side to the story, but overall a big win for Virgin.

The bad part of the story first…First, I posted this tweet yesterday -

My Tweet to Virgin Active

I’ve had no response to my tweet.  Also, @VirginActiveSA’s named comes up as Wayne Ronn – I can only assume that this is their social media manager, but that’s a little confusing.  It should be ‘Virgin Active SA’.

Now the really good bit.  I posted this on Facebook this afternoon -

… and the Virgin Active manager of The Point called me within the hour – he was polite, explained some of the plans they are exploring to handle capacity (which sound awesome), and he invited me to pop in & chat to him if I have wanted to address the issue further.  Well done Virgin & Robert.

Vodacom, South Africa

My single best feature of my iPhone is Visual Voicemail (which isn’t even available on Vodafone in the UK, but Vodacom SA has always offered).  When I moved to iPhone5, though, it stopped working.  I posted on Vodacom’s Facebook wall, and after a few standard responses prompting me to reboot etc… they asked me to email the details of my issue to them, which I did.  The next morning I awoke to Visual Voicemail functioning once more, AND I received a phone call later that morning to confirm that I was 100% happy.  Well done Vodacom!

Why Social Media is the New Customer Support Platform

Social media gives everyone a voice.  Brands can’t afford to ignore or neglect you as you & your issues are now visible to the world.  I also believe that FAQs were built for geeks.  Nerds love ‘em but no one else reads them.  With everyone’s service issues published in the public forum of social media, Facebook & Twitter have evolved into the FAQ for the everyday man.

South Africa also has the unique challenge of 11 official languages.  Quite frankly, I don’t have the patience to spend the first 5 minutes of a phone call trying to spell my 4 letter first name to someone who speaks a different home language.  Social media has provided a platform where we are all heard, and brands are able to traffic conversations to the best suited individual.

1. Lead generation cards make it easy for people to express interest in what you offer.
2. No click through required: the user expands your tweet & views your offer.
3. No form to complete: the user simply clicks the submit button.
4. Any Promoted Tweet campaign qualifies to Lead Generation Cards.

Talk to our social team today for more details on getting started. social at addynamo.com

Download Now - Ad Dynamo – Twitter – Promoted Products

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Case Study – Promoted Tweets

I was fortunate to participate in USTART’s South African contest last night – BOOMSA.  19 finalists got to pitch their business in only 3 minutes & 6 winners were selected to present their business to an international panel of investors in Milan in May.  Ad Dynamo was one of the lucky ones & I’m excited to showcase our business.  The most impressive individual of the night, though, was Maseko Mnaka.  His business didn’t qualify as a winner as it is too early stage, but Maseko taught us all what being an entrepreneur is all about.

Mseko pitched a set of kinetic charging products needed in a typical township environment where electricity can be unreliable.  The products included a charger for a mobile phone, a pedal powered charger for a laptop, a wind-up radio & wind-up light.  Components had already been identified within South Africa and China. He spoke from first hand experience with a clear understanding of his market, the consumer’s needs, and his possible competitors.  Mseko travelled by bus from Pretoria (a 24 hour journey) to be with us last night.  He spoke eloquently and passionately.  His business plan was well thought through & practical in terms of Africa’s unique challenges.  The presentation wouldn’t have won a design award, but the important bit, the content, was world-class.  The business plan was clearly communicated with a maturity that blew me away.

Well done Mr Naka – you touched many people’s hearts with your commitment & I have no doubt that you’re going to attract an investor in no time.

Sean Riley

This year, MWC was bigger than ever, with over 72 000 attendees from 200 countries, and over 1700 companies exhibited.

The congress provided a wealth of knowledge, networking opportunities, product announcements and global innovations. This years list of keynote speakers were as impressive as always, with the likes of:

• Franco Bernabè, Chairman, GSMA, Chairman & CEO, Telecom Italia Group
• Randall Stephenson, President & CEO, AT&T
• Peter Bale, GM, CNN Digital
• Drew Houston, Founder & CEO, Dropbox
• Hans Vestberg, President & CEO, Ericsson
• Dennis Crowley, Founder & CEO, Foursquare
• Gary Kovacs, CEO, Mozilla
• Susan Whiting, Vice Chair, Nielsen
• Stephen Elop, President & CEO, Nokia
• Vittorio Colao, Chief Executive, Vodafone

Just to name a few!

Product Launches

Some exciting new product launches were showcased by well-known manufacturers, including thinner and slicker tablets, phones using e-ink and many smartphones for elderly or impaired users.

Samsung debuted its HomeSync box, a small, high-capacity hard drive that works as a connected server, allowing you to stream movies from the 1TB box to your Samsung phone or tablet from around the house, or around the world.

Nokia’s emphasis was on value, with two new Lumia smartphones and two super-budget phones that will cost around R200 and R800 each.

LG detailed a range of phones, several at budget prices. But its recurring theme was powerful batteries – LG is aiming to create smartphones that last two days or more between charges.

Mobile Advertising

From an advertising and marketing point of view, Nielson spoke about the time spent on mobile vs. pc. Time spent in mobile web grew 22% while mobile apps grew by 120% and PC only grew by 4%, yet mobile only accounts for 1% of marketing budgets.

Consumer confidence in mobile commerce is at an all-time high.
Over the past two years, companies from all over the world have rolled out mobile wallets and other types of payment plans.

Mobile in Africa

The African Mobile Market was a huge topic of interest with South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Zambia being current mobile advertising hotspots with a fast growing mobile penetration, as well as mobile web usage.

Nigeria had a phenomenal growth of in 2012, but smartphone penetration remains modest in relation to the rest of the network, and advertisers are targeting feature phones users before they migrate to smartphones.

South Africa’s mobile market penetration is well above 100% and smartphone penetration has grown to 32% and is rapidly becoming a mainstream device. Usage is expected to grow, as many more will enjoy the benefits of reduced bandwidth costs and improved infrastructure.

Firstly, this data is a great proof point to secure the budget necessary to reach mobile customers. Secondly, you can use these mobile growing habits to help grow other, more traditional channels as well.

If mobile has not been added as an integral focus within an advertisers media plan, then a huge market is being missed out on!

Watch Ipad vs Paper Now

Here at Ad Dynamo we are excited to harness the opportunities this brings for mobile publishers as well as advertisers.

While we currently have a substantial global mobile network, this year we will be focused on expanding this even further, as well keeping hot on the heels of the latest mobile innovations such as:

M-commerce, In-app advertising, Real Time Bidding, advanced targeting,  & ROI costing models (CPI, CPA, CPD)

This will allow our advertisers greater variety, access to specific target markets, and at the same time generate higher eCPM’s for our publishers.

That being said, we are very excited to be sending members of our Ad Dynamo team to the annual World Mobile Conference 2013 (25 Feb – 28 Feb) in Barcelona, Spain.

Candace Newton: Key Account and Mobile Manager &  Alexandra Toro: Spain Country Manager and Head of Mobile will be attending various mobile programmes, meeting with multiple advertisers, publishers and networks regarding mobile opportunities as well as networking with industry players at the MWC 2013.

To arrange a meeting with Alexandra,or Candace, attendees at MWC should contact us directly to schedule a meeting or quick chat.

Please see contact details below.

Candace - 

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/candacenewton
@candynewton
candace at addynamo.com

Alexandra - 

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alexandra-toro/16/665/968
@Alexandra_TG
alexandra at addynamo.com

Candace Newton

Alexandra Toro

Thanks to the team at Twitter for sharing this useful data with us.  One of the perks now that Ad Dynamo is an authorised Twitter representative.

What’s available to advertisers?

Twitter ad campaigns fall into 4 basic categories:

Promoted Account
A top spot promotion in the ‘Who to follow’ section to grow your follower base, brand advocates and the reach of every future Tweet.

Promoted Trend
A 24hr takeover of the top Trends spot.  A high reach & high earned media placement.

Promoted Tweet
Extend the reach of a Tweet.Target your Tweets to the top of relevant users Timelines or against real-time search results.

Expanded Tweet
Media content and interactive experiences within Tweets, including audio & video players, live stream, commerce points & photos.

When to use which product?

Below follows a great illustration of the best fit Twitter advertising product against the lifecycle of a product launch.

When to use which Twitter advertising product

Finally, what do the followers of a brand want?

What followers expect from Brands

I think it is safe to assume, that at some point Facebook will introduce sponsored content into Graph Search results. We have already seen them tiptoe into a similar space with sponsored typeahead results, enabling advertisers to pay to display their pages and apps amongst organic search queries.

Graph Search takes this a few steps further, allowing users to discover people, photos interests and places through their existing friends and connections. For me, it is places that really stands out. At first glance, it looks like it could help Facebook address one of the aspects that their current advertising products probably lack – local recommendations. Potentially this positions it to compete directly with the likes of Yelp and Foursquare for marketing budgets. When Graph Search (inevitably) rolls out to mobile, it will become even more valuable to advertisers.

Lets consider some of the searches that people are likely to make. We will see searches along the lines of, “restaurants my friends like in London”. Imagine if restaurants and bars could pay to highlight their page above the organic results? It’s not a huge leap, but it is a valuable extension to Facebook’s coveted sponsored stories, which Facebook suggest act like ‘word of mouth recommendations’ from friends. However, with Graph Search Facebook add one ingredient that is currently missing from sponsored stories – purchase intent.

Graph Search goes further than all other ad formats which focus on generating awareness and demand and looks at fulfilling demand. Graph Search will allow advertisers to more easily attribute sales to Facebook advertising as they capture eyeballs one step further down the purchase funnel, when people are actively looking to make a purchase. Watch out Google?

Things become more interesting when you start to consider sponsored results on mobile. If you can start to make searches along the lines of “bars nearby with happy hour” or “restaurants in Soho for cocktails” in real-time and Facebook can give businesses the ability to place ads related to these queries it becomes a very powerful tool for generating mobile ad revenue. Furthermore by separating Graph Search from the Timeline and Newsfeed, Facebook can minimize the impact on user experience. Even though it would be a bit much to run ads through, it would be pretty cool to ask Siri those same questions, and receive Graph Search results through your mobile device.

Without a doubt, Facebook’s Graph Search tool has the potential to be a hugely powerful tool for advertisers. Whilst we are unlikely to see Sponsored Results appearing in the near future it would be shortsighted to assume that they won’t be considering how they can further monetise their ecosystem, and for anyone who is involved with Facebook marketing it will be an exciting time.