Google’s attempt to compete with the massively popular app Flipboard is just that…an attempt. Flipboard by far my favorite iPad app. I use it religiously throughout the day and it’s my primary source for news. However, being a Google fan, I downloaded Currents and gave it a shot. The end result: it does some things nicely, others not so much.

The problem with new products that come out and attempt to compete with other products that are already very successful is there really needs to be an incentive to change. Outside of experiencing a major issue with a product or service, the act of changing one’s behavior requires something more than “comparable.” The new product needs to offer something the current product doesn’t — and that’s where I believe, at least for me, Currents fails.

Currents is a nice app. It has a beautiful design, it has a lot of publication feeds and it’s fairly easy to set-up and use. To be honest, the one thing that Currents does better than Flipboard is the set-up function. It’s a lot easier to find and add a publication to your feed in Currents than it is through Flipboard.  But that’s where it ends. Currents doesn’t offer me anything Flipboard doesn’t. I’ve invested a lot of time and I’ve become comfortable with Flipboard. If Currents doesn’t offer me anything Flipboard doesn’t, why would I change?

Outside of not differeniating itself from Flipboard, at its core, Currents isn’t social. Right now, that’s what I love about Flipboard. Flipboard makes it easy to share what I’m reading. Currents does allow you to +1 (recommend) an article and does allow you to share via Facebook, Twitter, etc., but it’s not as easy as it is on Flipboard.

Overall, Currents is a fine newsreader app. It mirrors Flipboard…just not as nicely. While Currents is a good option for those looking for a news aggreator app, Flipboard does it better and is more social. I’m sure Google will make some improvements to Currents, but right now, I’m sticking with Flipboard.

P.S. How the heck does one get to the original article through Currents? Flipboard gives you the article’s link, but I have no idea how to access the original article through Currents. Someone help me out.

• Social business will die – Here’s a term I hate. It’s also a term I don’t understand. You know what a “social business” is — it’s a business that understands what it’s doing. You know why Sears won’t be around in 5 years (yeah, I said it. It’s another topic for another day)? It’s not because they aren’t “social.” It’s not because they don’t understand change management. It’s because the consumer no longer has a need for their goods and services. Here’s the key to successful business: make great products and listen to your customers. It’s been that way from the beginning and it’ll be that way until the end. Quit throwing the term “social” in front of other words and trying to coin buzzwords.
• Influence still not understood – Brands and business professionals still won’t have a grasp on true influence. Unfortunately, digital folks still live in a bubble. We still have a false sense of worth and entitlement. Folks, the general population still doesn’t know who you are and they still don’t care. No one cares that your blog was named an AdAge Power150 blog. Quit confusing reach with influence and quit using automated tools.
• Another major social media crisis – This is a bold statement, huh? Have you seen some of the other “predictions” on the web, though. Let’s get a little bold here folks. I’ll take it one step further. There will be another major social media crisis in 2012. It will come from a major brand in a major industry. It won’t be a financial company and it won’t be an airline. I have my feeling on what brand it’ll be, but I’ll elect to keep it to myself. DM me, or get me going on a rant, and I’ll probably tell you who I think it’ll be. It’s going to happen, folks, and I can’t wait!
• Pinterest is the new foursquare – We’re already seeing the buzz around Pinterest pick up — and rightfully so. It’s an incredible time suck and I love it. I think 2012 will prove to be the year Pinterest gets major buzz and really picks up even more steam. It’s an amazing tool that has so many untapped possibilities. You’ll be hearing and seeing a lot more of Pinterest in the new year.
• Social jumps the shark  in entertainment – We’re already seeing it now with more and more television shows trying to integrate social into their programs. I think next year we’ll get it thrown in our face a bit with networks going a bit overboard and trying too hard with social. And I don’t think television is where it’ll live — I also see the music industry going a bit overboard as well. On one side, it’s good that they’re trying to figure it out. On the other, it’ll be slightly annoying and a bit obvious.
• Communities for social change – It’s a natural evolution for social media. We saw it with Egypt, we saw it with Occupy Wall St — social can make a difference. You have people like Jeff Pulver who are using social to make a difference and bring the human fundamental of what social truly stands for, and  I think 2012 will see some pretty impressive accomplishments in this space.

Warning:  You are about to lay your eyes on some of the best and most valuable data you will ever come across. I spent hours upon hours compiling secretive data that will likely blow your mind. I am not responsible for the sudden life changes my findings will surely cause.

Now that we have the obligatory warning out of the way, let me preface this post by saying I spent about 15 minutes, at most, over a span of 3 days looking at numbers that are readily available to anyone who spends any time on Facebook. The most grueling part was copying and pasting the numbers into Excel.

Facebook recently made a few changes/additions to data available on a brand’s page. One of the new changes they made was adding a “Talking About This” feature on every brand page. According to Facebook:

“People Talking about this” counts ‘stories” – structured content that people choose to share through Facebook that is eligible to appear in a user’s news feed:

• liking your Page
• posting to your Page’s Wall
• liking, commenting or sharing one of your Page posts (or other content on your page – like photos, videos, albums)
• answering a Question you posted, RSVP-ing to one of your events
• mentioning your Page, phototagging your Page
• liking or sharing a check-in deal, or checking in at your Place.

While relatively new, this feature is quite interesting and valuable for anyone who manages a Facebook page for a brand. While browsing around a few brand’s pages that I “like” and scan each day, I noticed a common theme — most of the pages I visited had a relatively low number of “people talking about this.” So I did what any brilliant mind would do and I started to plug some numbers (aka enter into Excel). Scholarly, huh?

I took a look at 10 of the most “liked” brand pages, and even threw in a few celebrities (they’re brands, too). I then took a look at a few of the top Minnesota brands, just for the heck of it. Here are my amazing findings, that again, will likely blow your mind:

Obviously I’ve been kidding around about my “research” being scientific or scholarly. However, even with this brief glimpse, it does present some interesting data. Outside of Justin Bieber — the kids sure like them some Biebs — most of the brands I looked at had between .05% – 1.5% of their “likes” talking about them. A few brands were a bit higher, a few a bit lower, but it was pretty consistent across the board.

This got me thinking, and I came up with a few possible conclusions from the unscientific and rushed research project that I spent less than 15 minutes on:

• People “like” brands and rarely, if ever, return.
• It shows the importance of the News Feed.
• Your content isn’t as compelling as you think.

I think it can be a combination of all three; however, it’s most likely the first point. Early on, we got trigger happy with the “like” button, liked a bunch of brands, and then we simply never return to their page.

This little research project wasn’t meant to uncover the secret to Facebook success. Instead, it was simply meant to show that while we’re out there spreading the gospel of Facebook as the key to our organization’s success, we simply need to take a step back into reality a bit. I don’t want to take away the importance of Facebook — Coca Cola’s 250,000+ people “talking about this” is a pretty significant amount of eyeballs. It does indicate that while we’re claiming a lot of success on behalf of brands, the reality is there’s still a huge amount of opportunity and a lot of room for improvement.

A key component of a successful promotional campaign is awareness and understanding. Your brand needs to make it easy for consumers to know you’re having a promotional campaign and exactly what the campaign is about. Unfortunately, for Nestlé, they started out on the wrong foot. See evidence below.

Umm…wait, you gave me a promotion code and then ask me to call an 800-number to learn more? Last time I checked, it wasn’t 1996 (choose any year between 1985 – 2000). First of all, I don’t imagine that the conversion rate for these promotion codes (typically found under the bottle cap of soda bottles) are that high. And now you make it even more difficult for me by requiring I call an 800-number? Maybe I’m wrong, but why would you take a highly ineffective marketing ploy and make it even more difficult?

Typically, I’d toss the wrapper away and move on with my day. But not this time. By now, I’m thoroughly confused. What is this promotion code? Why is it on the inside of the wrapper? So I flipped the wrapper around to read the fine print about what this promotion code ultimately leads to. Unfortunately, I ran into this…

I don’t see any mention of a promotion code or contest anywhere. All I know is that I’m getting 30% less fat than normal chocolate bars — at least there’s something positive from breaking my Lent promise.

Another key component of a successful promotional campaign is that it’s easy for your consumers to redeem/enter said campaign. So, just one would expect, I called the 800-number to enter the contest…and to “learn more.” Common sense would probably suggest that one would have to enter the promotion code via the 800-number to find out if they’re  a winner. Again, Nestlé failed on this key component as well.

When one dials the 800-number listed on the wrapper, you are immediately greeted with a voice attempting to talk like a cowboy. Apparently Nestlé has partnered with Universal Studios (wouldn’t know based on the wrapper) to promote the upcoming movie Cowboys and Aliens. However, here is where the promotion gets even more confusing — the cowboy on the other line directs me to Facebook. But not just any Facebook account. He informs me that to see if I’m a winner, I need to redeem my code on Butterfinger’s Facebook page or Nestlé Crunch’s Facebook page. Kind of odd considering I found out about this campaign by eating a 100 Grand bar.

Running a promotional campaign isn’t that difficult.

• Make sure it’s blatantly obvious on whatever platform you host it on. Don’t make consumers dig for details.
• Make the sign-up/redemption process simple. Don’t make me jump through multiple hoops just to enter.
• Don’t ask for my entire life history just to sign up. Let me enter my name, email address, age (if needed) and phone number. That’s all. Don’t make me create an account for something I likely won’t win.
• If the campaign is going to last longer than 30 days, make sure the prize is worth it. In Nestlé’s case, I have to wait 4 months for a prize I will likely forget about by tomorrow.
• Integrate it on all channels. Go to Buttfinger’s or Nestlé Crunch’s website…no mention of this promotion. They have other promotions, but not this on. Why?

Nestlé could have hit a home run with this campaign, but instead, they missed the mark on all counts. In the end, they made it too confusing and too difficult for me to find out about this campaign. They’ll likely get a bunch of entries based simply on the size of their brand. But I’m willing to bet, they’d get far better results if they simply directed me to Facebook from the beginning, didn’t ask my life story just to enter and didn’t make me wait four months to find out if I won.

These type of promotional campaigns can be very successful and are vital for brands to collect important data — names, email address, phone numbers. When it comes to promotional campaigns – Keep It Simple, Stupid.

The logical answer to this question is that brand loyalty matters more than ever. Now more than ever, consumers are in control of the relationship process. We choose which brands we interact with, where we interact with them and how we interact with said brands. That being sad, I’m not quite sure this is the most accurate answer to this question.

As immediate as our interactions are, a large part of interactions are based around value. How I define value is different than how you define value. While a lot of brands struggle to provide this value, technology has definitely made it easier for consumers to seek this value from the brands they decide are worth their time, and hopefully in the end, their money. With the speed in which interaction and news is gathered and shared, consumers are demanding more value, more quickly, for a longer period of time. As a result, one can argue that the concept of brand loyalty and how quickly that loyalty is gained and/or lost has changed dramatically. For this reason, I’m not quite sure brandy loyalty exists.

Ironically, I think it’s completely fair to say that the argument I just made against brand loyalty could be flipped and used to argue that social has made brandy loyalty even more important and easier. And to be honest, I’m not sure which side of the argument I’m on. I’m really undecided about this discussion.

What do you think? What impact has social played on brand loyalty? Does brand loyalty even exist anymore?

Look, this happens with every medium and anything that involves technology. Radio is dead, newspapers are dead, television ads are no longer effective. Print campaigns have failed, data from focus groups have proven to be incorrect…nothing is perfect. With anything new, we all buy into the hype; certain people get tired of the teet sucking and start complaining. Next thing you know, someone produces some form on content declaring that we’re all doing it wrong and are suckers for buying into the hype. Life is cyclical and it all comes back eventually.

Here’s the thing: it’s not the tool or practice that’s the problem. It’s user error.

The beauty about this campaign – which will likely find great success – is that it opens the true beauty of how brands should be utilizing social channels. It allows McDonald’s to push content out in a manner that doesn’t come across as one-way. Whereas most brands simply push content about their products/services out, by utilizing a scavenger hunt approach, the content is now interactive.

While I’m sure this campaign will find success – purely because of the McDonald’s name – it’ll be interesting to see the actual execution. Since this promotion is only in nine markets, McDonald’s needs to balance its use of each channel. If it focuses too much on utilizing the national channels (greater reach), they risk pushing content that the majority of their followers might find irrelevant. However, if they focus too much on market-specific channels, they risk missing the opportunity for wider media coverage.

In the end, I think this opens up the opportunity for a large, international brand to attempt to connect to consumers on a market level. It takes some of the big, out-of-touch corporate feel out of the McDonald’s brand. It also is a great example of the power that social media can bring a brand. While the campaign is focused on a small percentage of McDonald’s actual customer base, they’ll likely get national and international coverage. At about half the price they would have spent on a traditional campaign.

What are your thoughts on this campaign?

PR Breakfast Club – I spoke about how we’re preaching about using social media to listen to our customers, but ultimately, it comes down to sales and increasing profit. You may use listening to increase sales, but in the end, in business it’s always about making money.

One True Sentence – I had commented that I felt mobile was a lot of hype and Rebecca Denison reached out and asked if I’d be interested in elaborating. One of the benefits of mobile is that it’s incredibly easy to measure, and knowing that Rebecca is a huge measurement and analytics guru, what better platform to post on than her blog.

So take a look if you have already. I’d be interested in hearing your comments on either post.