During a Social Media Week 2012 panel at JWT on Tuesday, Jennifer Creegan, General Manager, Brand Advertising Business for Microsoft Advertising and Brant Barton Co-founder & Chief Innovation Officer for Bazaar Voice announced an ad platform partnership dubbed “People Powered Stories.”

Recent research by Microsoft’s Bing shows that consumers trust sources outside of social networks when making purchasing decisions – mainly online reviews. Based on this research, Microsoft will soon introduce a new ad format for brands and publishers aimed at providing consumers with the purchasing information they need, when they need it – all around the web. Think Facebook sponsored stories outside of the Facebook domain.

In order to do this, they’ve enlisted the services of Bazaar Voice, a “a Software as a Service (SaaS) company that turns social media into social commerce by enabling authentic customer-powered marketing.” In simpler terms, Bazaar Voice is the preeminent source for customer reviews, powering the review platforms for many of the top Global brands.

Starting soon, Microsoft’s ad publishers will have the option to activate this new type of targeted display ad featuring a brand message and highlighted consumer reviews. The initial test campaign was for Windows 7 and was targeted at college students. The ad ran across Microsoft properties that offered audience targeting capabilities to assure college students would see the Windows 7 reviews at sites they visited frequently online. The results Microsoft reported back were impressive:

Ad believability increased 20 points above the market norms for technology ads

6.3% lift in purchase intent

13.5% lift in unaided brand awareness

Example of "People Powered Stories" creative

Despite the encouraging sales pitch and test results from Microsoft and Bazaar Voice, there are some still some pending questions about the product. For example, will consumers trust that the advertiser and Bazaar Voice are serving up authentic customer reviews? Bazaar Voice prides themselves on this very concept, but consumers tend to be wary.

Further, there isn’t any connection to the social graph within the ad unit. If someone decides to click on the ad, they can’t easily share what they’ve learned with their own social graph. Although Microsoft is trying to “go beyond the like,” it is important to recognize the importance of the social graph and layer it across all media properties.

Finally, the quality of review curation remains to be seen. The reviews will be contextual, based on the interests of the consumer being targeted. But will this targeting have as great of an impact as Yelp’s “highlighted reviews,” which take the most mentioned terms in a database of reviews and bring them to the forefront? That might be a feature that is integrated in the future, but in the Windows 7 example, reviews weren’t curated in that manner.

Leave a comment if you’ve come across any of these ads yet, or what you think of the idea.

As Brand Channel Manager at pure-play social media agency Big Fuel, Ross Sheingold focuses on trying to keep the “social” in social media by creating lifestyle content that consumers actually care about. Aside from the four years spent at Penn State University, Ross has been a New Yorker living in Manhattan for the whole of his nearly 30 years on the planet. When he isn’t staying up to date on the current digital and social media trends and “geeking out” on the latest tech gadget, he spends time on his fan advocacy cause as the man behind @StadiumInsider. You can follow Ross on Twitter @RossSheingold and on Google+ http://gplus.to/RossS

• Collaborative Storytelling: Transmedia and Social Media: A panel of creators from Broadcastr, GMD Studios, Lina Srivastava Consulting, and host Storycode dove into discussion on how exactly the transmedia form enhances collaboration and innovation platforms, and what it means for the future of entertainment, activism, marketing, branding and business. Amidst the debate, the speakers utilized an interactive demo of an innovative digital storytelling tool to outline how social media storytelling in a variety of sectors can benefit from the practice of Transmedia.

• How and Why We Share: The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media: A fine group of panelists from various advertising, digital media, and publication backgrounds came together to address how social media vices and virtues drive our actions online — from cyber-bullying behaviors to blind re-tweeting and rampant over-sharing. The highly interactive conversation between the panelists and audience alike incorporated various trends, research findings and real life examples that added a layer of necessary concreteness to a largely anecdotal panel theme.

• New Business Models to Convert Human Intent into Tangible Action (followed by free after party): The evening came to a close with a fascinating discussion – held at the very cool Brooklyn Brewery – from an expert panel addressing how new business models they have created leverage social media to unlock underutilized human intent for social good and convert it into tangible action. From living greener to hitting the gym more often, the diverse panelists from StickK, Purpose, Oceana, Opower, Yoxi.tv, and host The Mutual highlighted some very enlightening ways that social media can guide us to better lifestyle choices. The Mutual sponsored after party that followed – featuring an amazing open bar of Brooklyn Brewery drafts and enormous spread of appetizers – capped the evening off with perfection.

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A highly-anticipated event, with over a hundred guests in attendance, Beyond the Like was filled to its capacity with guests even standing throughout the presentation.

It was the launch of Microsoft’s new product, “People Powered Stories.”

Microsoft Advertising collaborated with Bazaar Voice, a software as a service (SaaS) company that integrates customers social data to help brands leverage content. Microsoft Advertising’s General Manager for Brand Advertising, Jennifer Creegan, and Bazaar Voice’s co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Brant Barton, came to introduce the product.

Using the “Back to School” campaign as their test pad, Microsoft took reviews of Windows 7 from their target audience, high school students, and displayed them on their banner ads. Microsoft is aiming to make banner ads content more social to add relate-ability with clients. And they were did it. “Back to School” was a success for Microsoft, who now looks toward marketing “People Powered Stories” to other brands.

The move to produce “People Powered Stories” came when Bing, a Microsoft company, conducted research that showed audiences look to reviews more than to social networks for advice on products. This prompted Microsoft to look into developing a user-generated reviews to market a product. The company believes that having users submit their reviews adds believability to the ad on sites.

The company still uses engagement time as a metric to determine relevancy of ad with consumers, a metric that was dismissed by another panel: Why Engagement Should Be Spelled A-T-T-E-N-T-I-O-N. When interviewed, Creegan stressed that Microsoft isn’t using engagement time as the only metric but does factor it into their evaluations.

“That’s why we have three metrics: purchase, believability and engagement time,” said Creegan, making their process a sound launching pad.

 
Trinna Leong is from Malaysia and had two years of work experience in the online advertising industry before deciding to trade the sweltering tropical heat for a chance to pursue journalism at Columbia University. Prior to switching fields, she has worked on projects for Nike, IKEA and Citibank. You can follow her on Twitter at @trinnaleong.

“If you are asking for someone to pay attention, you are probably doing the wrong thing.”

Engaging consumers has been a difficult task for all advertisers in today’s fast paced age. The day’s panel of five industry experts in the field of advertising and marketing came together to discuss what works and what doesn’t in capturing audience’s attention.

“People are more interested in being the curator, purveyor,” said Vanessa Montes, Vice President of Integrated Marketing at Fuse. All panelists agreed that consumers usually pay attention through “word of mouth” when friends introduce an item or brand.

That said, brands would want to generate positive talk-ability amongst its audience. Examples given by the panel included the Chipotle ad that aired at the Grammys; an ad that Adrian Barrow, Head of Planning at JWT’s New York office, thought was “artful” (while stating that overall “brands have developed the touch on how to behave on entertainment channels”); and the PETA ad that Michael Learmonth, Digital Editor at Advertising Age, felt strongly against. With the PETA ad, Leamonth felt that the message was that being vegan increases sex drive, but by painting a woman who looks sexually abused, PETA was not sending out a positive message.

Another key point brought up by the panelists is that in social media networks, brands have ended up looking at numbers instead of content. Quantity has been ranked higher than quality, causing brands to lose sight of engagement with their audience.

“Social media is a media that exists between people. For it to pay off, it has to be nurtured,” added Ian Schafer, CEO and founder of Deep Focus.

“Instead of focusing on number of likes and posts, advertisers should focus on what people are talking about on the page,” said Schafer.

The general consensus from the panelists was that advertisers in the midst of trying to pull in more fans end up failing to determine what to do with the fans they have on social media. The worst metric to measure is one that measures how long users spend on a page.

Barrow also argued that consumers now want “something that can help them make the best use of their time” because then “they’ll award brands with some attention.” This defines a new role for agencies to produce new ideas that is useful for consumers.

Panelists also commented on the importance of brands making sure that their brand stays relevant by encouraging audiences to talk about the brand instead of the celebrity that endorses it. Ultimately, the main takeaway for brands is to have engagement fueled by consumers not by brands.

 
Trinna Leong is from Malaysia and had two years of work experience in the online advertising industry before deciding to trade the sweltering tropical heat for a chance to pursue journalism at Columbia University. Prior to switching fields, she has worked on projects for Nike, IKEA and Citibank. You can follow her on Twitter at @trinnaleong.

“YouTube will not kill TV,” said Robert Davis, Director of Ogilvy’s Advanced Video Practice. “And actually, video never really killed the radio star.” What Davis meant by his colorful introduction is that agencies of the future need to stop thinking in absolutes. And instead focus on common threads.

Davis highlighted content as the most obvious common thread. The content remains the same in any medium, but how companies think about content needs to change. Davis, accompanied by Mitch Bernstein, Client Strategy Director and Martin Lange, executive Marketing Director of Digital Strategy, laid out ten strategies to create, what they called, a “Content Revolution.”

Briefly, those points included speaking in languages that audiences understand, making content more interactive, creating good distribution methods, measuring success rates by more than just views, creating content that is liberated from the interface, focusing on hand held devices to deliver content, and identifying who the target audience is and when and how they best receive content.

Social TV is one of the most important emerging strategies. A panel comprised of Peter Naylor of NBC Universal, Kimberly Meyers of GetGlue, Matt Crenshaw of Discovery Cannel, and Mark Ghuneim of Trendrr talked about how to socially activate TV audiences.

Ghuneim identified “calls to action” as great ways to get viewers involved. For example, American Idol asks viewers to discuss and vote for their favorite competitors. According to Trendrr, 420,000 people mentioned American Idol on social media sites during its premier on January 18 of this year. This shows increased involvement and a new way to measure a show’s success.

Meyers talked about one of her clients, Pepsi, and one of their new social media campaigns. Viewers that checked into watching the Super Bowl on Foursquare and Facebook received a sticker in the mail worth a free Pepsi. Without mentioning numbers, Meyers said that they strategy was very successful.

Social TV can actually change the artistic direction of a show. The USA Network allowed viewers to tweet about the new opening credits of the television drama White Collar. After an outpouring of negative comments, the network decided to change back to the old opening. “USA took the opinions of its viewers to heart,” said Naylor. “That is what social TV is all about.”

The way that people are watching TV has changed and Social TV is the networks’ response to that change. “People want to be able to discuss the shows that they love with other fans,” said Ghuneim. “Social TV allows viewers to do just that.”

Janet Upadhye is a multimedia journalist covering Hunts Point in the Bronx. In a past life, she was the Development Director at San Francisco Women Against Rape. During her decade in the Bay Area, she also organized within queer and trans communities for safety and justice. You can follow her on Twitter at jupadhye.

• Keynote: Scott Belsky, CEO of Behance, followed by GOOD Panel: Beyond Crowdsourcing: Using The Community To Report: Behance CEO, and Cornell grad (Go Big Red!), Scott Belsky kicked off the full-house session with a keynote addressing many his company’s initiatives to organize and empower the creative world to display and find talent every month. Named one of Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business”, Scott kept packed audience compelled by sharing dynamic examples of how companies can harness their creative energy to yield the optimal output. The ensuing “Crowdsourcing” panel was a more broadly focused discussion on media’s relationship with its community – addressing media’s failures and successes to get authentic, meaningful anecdotes from its communities directly.

• Creating community around your blog: Savvy self-promoting bloggers and freelancers alike came out in droves to the quirky Gershwin Hotel to enjoy an animated and refreshingly candid debate, hosted by Blogads, addressing ways bloggers can build strong communities. The discussion benefitted from each of the panelists’ divergent backgrounds and their keen willingness to offer very specific, actionable advice to the hyper engaged audience they were speaking to. Big kudos to the bloggers at GalaDarling.com, JessicaHarlow.com and ConcreteLoop.com for a job well done.

• A Quizzical Evening in Social Media, hosted by BuzzFeed: Closing the day at JWT meant an early evening of light-hearted panel banter, a highly entertaining, rapid-fire game of Pub Quiz, and free T-shirts, food and booze to boot! Relevant thought leaders from BuzzFeed, OMD Word, GE and AdAge engaged the audience with a brief debate on how good social content is almost always surprising, unexpected, and – of course – quizzical.  The open bar and prizes that followed were just delicious icing on top of a very scrumptious #socialmediaweek cake.

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In the evolving world of music, where listeners are not only discovering songs and artists through their friends, but also through automated listening processes like Pandora, Pitchfork is using social media in conjunction with its website as a means of maintaining contextual relevancy and trustworthiness for its fans.  Kaskie pointed out how the definition of “music ownership” is changing, and that some day he’ll leave his kids with “logins to cloud accounts and not record collections.” And while it isn’t Pitchfork’s responsibility to figure out how musicians can continue to generate revenue in light of this change in music consumption, he feels it is Pitchfork’s responsibility to cover music that their audience is interested in.

At present, Pitchfork finds that Twitter and Tumblr are two social media networks that augment their audience’s music discovery experience–as platforms to have conversations (Pitchfork.com does not allow user comments) and also to find content that is re-contextualized from Pitchfork.com.

Creating Music for the Social Web
The panel included a range of industry professionals: Jessie Kirshbaum (Nue Agency and SoundCtrl), Maura Johnson (Music Editor at Village Voice), Josh Deutsch (CEO at Downtown Music), Asher Roth (rapper) and Chris Kaskie (President at Pitchfork Media).

The panel, lead by Josh Deutsch, discussed the role that the web has played in the music business. Asher Roth, the only musician on the panel, gave insight into how the musician is tasked with not only creating music, but also navigating the social space in a way that is effective and efficient. Because, as he remarked, it seems that right now there are “so many tools…I just need a knife and a fork.”

Creating music for the social web, however, can be a liberating process. The creative freedom that comes from being unbound by the expectations and constraints imposed by traditional record labels can be a major reward for an artist. Kaskie also pointed out that although there are many record labels doing great things, today people don’t pay as much attention to record labels. The production, distribution and success of an artist all come down to the audience’s interest level in the music and the artist. Fans are often artists’ greatest promoters, taking it upon themselves to tweet, share and blog about the music.  So in essence, all musicians are on the same playing field. There are varying degrees of popularity and production quality, but because musicians now have the ability to create and release songs from their bedrooms, critics like Pitchfork, will treat the music the same.  To quote Maura Johnson, “If the craft is there, it’s there despite the business side.”

Take-Aways From the Panel
The social web continues to create opportunities for musicians. Artists need to be able to find out what works for them. They must be mindful of focusing on those networks that will help achieve their specific goals. As Josh Deutsch answered when asked what the top things an artist should know to get their music in front of the right music curators and editors, “it all depends on who you are as an artist and what you want to accomplish.”

Laurie Amodeo is Senior Community Manager at Big Fuel, where she has worked on social media campaigns for clients such as General Motors, Nutrisystem and H&M. She has also created marketing and social media campaigns for public and private sector organizations including the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade and Peeled Snacks. When she’s not executing innovative social programs for clients, Laurie can be found singing, writing, hooping and cooking with veggies. flavors.me/laurieamodeo

Before we bring this year’s festivities to a close, we wanted to post a little throw back to a Monday night and Tuesday morning not too long ago.  We began #SMW12 with two epic SocialVibe collaborations; the first being our #SMW12 opening party which took place at Greenwich Village Country club and was hosted by Nokia and sponsored by Social Vibe.

The evening was centered around engaging activities, like miniature golf and pictures with animal statues, epitomizing the social nature of SMW12- and SocialVibe. Surprises littered the evening from Nokia’s special room to the SocialPix photobooth immediate upload to Facebook.

Then on Tuesday at our Advertising & Marketing Hub JWT, SocialVibe hosted a panel entitled Why Engagement Should Be Spelled A-T-T-E-N-T-I-O-N that featured Digital Editor Michael Learmonth, SocialVibe SVP of Sales Mike Barbeau, Head of Planning at SocialVibe Adrian Barrow, VP of Integrated Marketing at Fuse Vanessa Montes, and CEO of Deep Focus Ian Schafer

The panel focused on consumer engagement in digital advertising and consumer “exchanges.” Looking at services, R&D, and creativity as critical aspects to earn value and enhance engagement. By creating opportunities to do social good, giving your community attention or creating unique experiences will increase the likelihood that consumers will do things for you.

Citing case studies from companies like HP’s use of consumer forums to DuoLingo for translation services, SocialVibe really highlighted what you can do and the type of thinking that truly resonates with consumers. “If you have to ask your consumers to pay attention, you’re not doing it right,” just may characterize the views of the event. And with over 600 views on their Livestream and more than 15 comments, we think they get the hang of engagement and meeting people where they are, making this one event you’ll want to see if you missed it in action.

Many thanks to SocialVibe for partnering up with us at this years #SMW12! Partners like them are what make Social Media Week everything that it is.

You can check out more photos from the opening party by clicking here or here! 

8:30-9:30am at Bloomberg: Keynote: Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of LinkedIn on The StartUp of You: A revolutionary new guide to thriving in today’s fractured world of work

9-9:30am at Big Fuel: The Guardian Interviews: Alec Ross

9-10am at Hearst: Where is social media taking the travel industry in 2012?

9-11am at Thomson Reuters: Keynote: Jeremy Heimans, CEO of Purpose, followed by Panel: Building A Transnational Human Rights Movement

10-11am at Big Fuel: RAPP presents RAPPATHON- Hacking for Change: A New Way of Collaboration

10-11am at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness: Biomarkers & Technology: Can Age be Reversed?

10:30-11:30am at Hearst: Untapped Drive: How innovation and entrepreneurship is revolutionizing daily life through social media & tech platforms

12-12:30pm at Big Fuel: Digital Fireside Chat: David Hirsch on Venture Funding

12-2pm at Hearst: The New Role Models: Chefs, Cooks, Bloggers & You — An Interview with Amanda Hesser, Robyn O'Brien & Bun Lai, followed by Who is Kale's PR Agent & What Dictates a Food Trend?

12-2pm at JWT: The LinkedIn Difference: How Brands Are Building Deep Connections with Professionals

2-3pm at Quirky: The Freelance Revolution: Independent Worker Collaboration & Innovation Through Online Communities

2-3pm at NY Public Library: GAME/WORLD: The New Collaborative Community

2:30-3:30pm at Big Fuel: Peer Pressure: Using the skills we learned in 6th grade for good

2:30-4:30pm at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness: Feast on Health

3-4pm at Thomson Reuters: Leveraging online platforms to inspire social good

3-4pm at Hearst: Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll: Social's Steamy Side

3-5pm at Bloomberg: Keynote: Jalak Jobanputra on What in the World? The Global Startup Scene: Micro and Macro Trends Fueling Tech Growth around the World followed by Panel: NYC’s Digital Growth through Public Private Sector Innovation: The Role of Government in Fostering NYC

5-6pm at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness: TEDx New York Salon Explores Health & Wellness

6-8pm at Columbia Journalism School: Challenging Conventional Wisdom of Social Media: Socmedia editors share their latest ideas

6:30-8:30pm at ShowBiz Cafe: Getaway To A Healthier Gorgeous You: How Social Media Empowers Change In Medical Tourism (sponsored by Medaway Health)

Keep your eyes posted on Twitter (and maybe ensure your phone's camera is intact…) for some fun closing activities tomorrow. And don't forget you can get around in style this week: Download the (free!) GroundLink mobile app now, and you save $20 on your first ride. Just use Invite Code “SMW20” when you set-up your account.

See you tomorrow!

Social Media Week 2012 NYC started strong on Monday morning with a keynote by David Eastman, CEO of JWT America and a thought-proving presentation by Ann Mack, JWT Director of Trendspotting. Both Eastman and Mack touched on the fundamental shift in the ways consumers are connecting with brands, while providing marketers with ways to prepare for potential pitfalls that lie ahead such as “Facebook Fatigue, “de-teching” and “hyper-personilization” pushback.

Eastman discussed the perils of lazy social marketing (the false notion that “nobody ever got fired for marketing on Facebook”) and the importance of tapping into consumer passion points. Much to the delight of seasoned social media professionals, Eastman urged brand marketers to have genuine conversations with customers – if messaging is uninspired or boring, people will doze off. And this doesn’t only apply to what happens on social media channels. Eastman argued that “social” media should roll up into digital and any other form of media, even suggesting that next year’s “Social Media Week” should just be called “Media Week.” Mack would later support this by touching on the opportunities that exist with social commerce and integrating interactive screens in brick and mortar retail.

Eastman also didn’t shy away from sharing strong opinions on hot button items such as Facebook’s frictionless sharing and the rapid growth of Pinterest. Engaging social experiences are key, and to Eastman, Facebook’s frictionless sharing almost feels like spam. In his words “sharing should be active, otherwise it is meaningless.” As for Pinterest, he recognized that “pinning” has hit the mainstream, but isn’t sold on the long-term value. To Eastman, “over-pinning” is something to look out for – Pinterest might make it hard to separate what people really care about, the same way “over-friending” on social networks has devalued friendship.

Ann Mack followed with a lively presentation touching on social media trends to look out for in 2012 and beyond. As she said, “conspicuous living” has reached an all-time high. Between social media, the advancement of mobile technology and location based services, there is a radical transparency in all of our lives. This way of life is actually leading to social angst, a result of FOMO (fear of missing out). “Radical transparency remorse” (did I really tweet that last night?!) is becoming more prevalent and people are starting to become wary of the opt-out data culture that companies like Facebook have embraced. All of this can lead to “Facebook Fatigue” and eventually “de-teching” a very real concept that will only grow stronger as fledgling social networks such as Google+ and Diaspora gain more mainstream exposure.

Mack also warned about user pushback against “hyper-personalization” while discussing what she called “The Filter Bubble.” From ads on Facebook to news stories curated through Zite all the way to search results from Google Search Plus Your World, personalization has become the norm in our digital world. In a recent JWT study, 69% of respondents stated that they felt this tailored content was useful, but 79% said they’d prefer to see things through an unfiltered lens. Meanwhile, 86% were curious about what is being left out when content is tailored to them. “Reengineering randomness” by providing different POVs and serendipity is a trend that has caught on with social services such as Meetup.com, Grubwithus, Yobongo and Turntable.FM. Consumers will continue to expect personalization, but also want the option of randomness – it’s a delicate balance.

Both Eastman and Mack made it very clear that none of this is going to end “social” commerce – it will only enhance it. Human beings are wired to socialize and will continue to do so with the means they are provided. The key for brands and marketers is to create a message that drives people to socialize and overlay the social graph across the digital experience. Brands should use social as a driver for good, advocate for opt-in instead of opt-out data and should experiment with social commerce, collaborative consumption and digital integration at retail.