Brand Newsrooms at the Speed of Social

With the increase usage of Social Media marketing "on-the-fly"or real-time marketing is gaining increased interest. Consumers have higher expectations for responsiveness, participation and relevance than ever before. A study conducted by Edison research shows that 42% of consumers think brands should respond to their questions within an hour; they also expect brands to react to breaking news and engage in conversations about trending topics at the speed of social.

There is 60 times more content from brands in our newsfeeds than just two years ago, as the amount of branded content increases our attention spans keep getting shorter, in fact they have dropped by 58% in the last 10 years, from 12 minutes to 5. Here is where Brand Newsrooms have become an essential part of the modern business model allowing the brand to engage customer with precise content and timing. The poster child and most successful example to date is the Oreo tweet during the 2012 Superbowl blackout, the tweet read "You can still dunk in the dark" "Power out? No problem." that single tweet generated more buzz than their Superbowl ad.

Here we share the best ways to ensure that you create an effective brand newsroom:

1. Define your reader

Clearly define the brand traits into a social persona and create your ideal reader including tone, linguistics, attitude, enthusiasm, humor and cadence. Then every time you create content think about whether he or she would want to read, watch, or share it. Consider their needs and wants. 

2. Have a pulse on your audience

Explore the interests and affinities of your audience, make sure you know what is trending, what is engaging them in real time, most importantly be ready to REACT to breaking news. The more a brand talks about itself, the more likely it is to turn a potential audience off, instead provide news and information that are useful and valuable to your audience. 

3. Develop a content plan

Use an editorial calendar to help you pinpoint and plan stories that connect to your audience at particular points throughout the year. Establish a critical filter for evaluating whether news, events, trends or memes are relevant for your brand and its audience. 

4. Establish no-go areas

Just as important as defining what you will talk about it is critical to define upfront the subject areas that should be never used for newsroom content, or that should be handled with extreme care. 

Ready to sprout your brand to the next level? Take the first step. Call us at 305.454.4106

Facebook's Controversial Mood Manipulation

Did you know that in early 2012 for one week Facebook manipulated the content viewed on its News Feeds? Facebook conducted a research manipulating what 690,000 subjects saw, the results of this experiment where published this month on the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

The research was designed to show two groups of people different types of content in their News Feeds, one group saw mostly positive posts from their friends while the other group was shown mostly negative posts. Interestingly the people in the negative posts group wrote a higher number of negative posts themselves and the positive group wrote a higher number of positive posts. The implications? Facebook successfully manipulated subjects mood making them happier or sadder for a week. 

Facebook's terms of service allows them to perform this kind of research but many users are outraged and believe that this experiment is a dangerous form of social manipulation. Also, users feel that their privacy was violated because they were was not informed consent which raises ethical concerns.

Adam D. I. Kramer, the Facebook researcher who designed the experiment said "I can understand why some people have concerns about it, and my coauthors and I are very sorry for the way the paper described the research and any anxiety it caused" Kramer wrote. "In hindsight, the research benefits of the paper may not have justified all of this anxiety."

Susan Fiske, the Princeton professor who edited the research stated to The Atlantic "I was concerned, until I queried the authors and they said their local institutional review board had approved it, and apparently on the grounds that Facebook apparently manipulates people's News Feeds all the time...I understand why people have concerns. I think their beef is with Facebook, really, not the research."

Gabriela Borja

SEED Branding Studio