The Official Fluid Blog

The 2013 Tony Award nominees were announced today and it got me thinking about how much technology, people and shopping have evolved over the last 17 years. If Broadway theatre, technology and shopping seem like wildly unrelated topics, allow me to explain.

Back in 1996, I was the founding editor of the Tony Awards website, a joint venture between the organizations that run the Tonys and a startup Web development company. Because the Web was so new and unfamiliar, the folks running the awards (and everyone else on Broadway!) didn’t understand or appreciate the value of another communications platform. They tolerated our online efforts, but were strident about us not scooping the traditional press, even though we were an extension of the official brand.

On this morning 17 years ago, after the nominees were announced at Sardi’s, I was handed a print-out and CD-rom with the full list of nominees, straight-armed my way past the donut table to the subway, and hurried back to the office so we could post the full list on the site. As if this delay wasn’t bad enough, I came back to an email from the talented actor Mark Linn-Baker wanting to know why the Tonys couldn’t get our act together enough to post the nominees at the same time as the television announcement.

“What do you want me to say?” I considered replying. Instead I wrote back to tell him the nominees were finally up on the site. And that I’m a big fan of his work.

“Success requires agility, adapting to evolving human behavior, meeting your customers where they are, not forcing them to meet you where you are.”

Flash forward light years to this morning, when I turned on the TV just as the announcement was ending.

I sparked up the Tony Awards site on my iPad to read the full list.

An alert pinged on my iPhone from the New York Times with more information about the awards.

Facebook started lighting up.

I texted a good friend to congratulate her for receiving a nomination for her performance in a play.

I even started shoping for an appropriate congratulations gift on Amazon.

The changes in technology between then and now are obvious—smartphones, tablets and social media weren’t even glimmers in their creators’ eyes back then—but the changes in people (especially the ones responsible for brands) and shopping are especially noteworthy.

Organizations like the Tony Awards, not to mention retailers, financial institutions, healthcare providers, etc., have learned that they are content creators just like the media that they courted so assiduously for so many decades.  And, as content creators, it’s not enough to be present in just one platform.  To succeed in today’s environment brands—particularly retailers—need to be present where their customer lives—everywhere, immediately and always.  It’s the Omnichannel Evolution.

After 17 years in this industry, I understand firsthand how challenging it is to keep up with technology and shifts in human behavior. But I also understand the cost of not evolving and innovating.  Probably the most important lesson I’ve learned as a digital strategist is that there is no “one size fits all” solution to getting from here to there.  Success requires agility, adapting to evolving human behavior, meeting your customers where they are, not forcing them to meet you where you are.

That’s why I’m proud to be part of the Fluid team. My colleagues are experts in understanding what makes individual brands unique, what their customers want most from them, and leading the brands through the Omnichannel Evolution, be it through e-commerce, in-store tablets with endless aisles, shoppable images, or strategic planning.

Still, I envy the person who’s running the Tony Awards website today.  He or she probably had plenty of time to enjoy that donut table and didn’t come back to any angry emails from famous people. And he didn’t have to wander from store to store to find just the right gift that says, “Congratulations on your nomination!”

I’ve $30 on my mind. $28.57 to be exact. This is the per user price that Facebook paid for Instagram last week based on Facebook’s $1B offer and Instagram’s 35M users. In my favorite article about the acquisition Andy Baio of Wired (my ten year-old self hopes he’s related to Scott Baio) breaks down the cost per user of thirty notable internet acquisitions over the last ten years.

His conclusion: Instagram was a good deal. And not indicative of a bubble. See his analysis here.

Three reasons why this is awesome:

1. Cold hard facts. Baio uses a cost per acquisition model to which any marketer can relate. It makes $1B tangible. eBay paid $84.42 per PayPal user. Yahoo $111.11 per Flickr user. Google $48.53 per YouTube user. Intuit $113.33 per Mint.com user. At $28.57 per Instagram user, Facebook is looking rather savvy.

If the relative data cohort was how much it costs to feed hungry children or how far to the moon Kevin Systrom’s 400M new $1 bills would reach, we’d be telling a different story. This is what I love about data – it holds rich stories.

2. $30 can get you a lot of different things. Some ways to spend $30:

15. Fifteen days of access to a San Francisco gym
14. 3.75 months of NetFlix (streaming)
13. Five round-trips over the Golden Gate bridge (cash not FastTrak)
12. Thirty $1 tips to buskers on the L subway platform in NYC
11. 37.5 clicks on a Facebook ad (based on average CPC of $.8)
10. Ten minutes of a therapy session
9. Two mixed drinks in a swanky Manhattan bar
8. Thirty songs on iTunes (more…)

Last week, Facebook announced that brand pages will be switching over to the Timeline layout on March 30. We at Fluid think that corporate pages may actually be better suited to this format than profile pages. For starters, it’s significantly less creepy to find out what Coca Cola was up to in 2001 than a casual acquaintance. It also makes the experience on brand pages much more interesting and personable for visitors.

With that said, remember the most valuable company exposure isn’t on brand pages. According to a May 2011 Comscore report, 27% of a user’s time spent on Facebook occurs in News Feed. Comscore also reported that three top brand pages saw 40 to 150 times more impressions in News Feed on their pages.

Timeline won’t affect the way these stories are shared in News Feed, but the posts that resonate on Timeline will likewise drive engagement in News Feed. That’s because the Edgerank algorithm that determines News Feed placement rewards highly engaged posts and Friend activity. Additionally, posts with images- the kind of posts you’ll want to be using regularly on your Timeline- generate twice the engagement of other posts types, according to Facebook’s internal studies.

Fluid has taken a look at the first Timeline pages to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and what we can work around.

Hence our first recommendation: convert to Timeline as soon as possible.

You’ll be required to make the switch on March 30, so why not leverage some early adopter swag? While you’re at it, use this opportunity to re-evaluate your social media strategy. A few points to consider:

Is your page easy to find? An additional feature added on Wednesday allows admin to easily change page names. Many brands have multiple pages, some unofficial fan pages, some company-run. Makes sure it’s clear that yours is the correct page.

Pick a cover photo that complements your profile picture. You can use this background to creatively interact with your profile picture. Swap it out seasonally as you would a landing page, but take note: Facebook has prohibited the following:

• Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
• Contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that should go in your Page’s “About” section
• References to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features
• Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

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The social inspiration and curation market is on fire in digital. The land grab for market share and consumer pins, posts, hearts, bookmarks and nails is obviously on.

Pinterest remains the marshall of this parade. This has not changed since my last Pinterest post. The one where I said stop reading about Pinterest and start playing with it – but bear with me. I like what I’ve seen this week.

Noteworthy parade participants:

- Juxtapost: 52 days in operation. 50K images bookmarked. They are hot on the heels of the lead dog.
- Little Monsters: It’s Lady Gaga. Her touch is social gold. And she loves a parade.
- We heart it: Around since 2008, this serious contender draws more than folks who dot their “i”s like Junior High girls.

Remember the race last year to optimize men’s style and fashion (Mr. Porter, Gilt Man and CLAD)? The men have officially entered the social inspiration arena. Notably Gentlemint, Fancy and Manteresting. Note: Items are “nailed” on Manteresting, not “pinned.” Put those pins away.

For the record, pinning used to be how a sweaty man in a singlet won a wrestling match.

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Like a designer loving, unique style finding, in-the-know fashionista who ends up in a room full of people dressed just like her, I delve into writing about Pinterest. I almost feel silly. What can I say that hasn’t been said by the volume of articles flooding my in-box and social media?

I made a Pinterest board to show a sample deluge of articles from the last two weeks. This doesn’t include tweets or Facebook posts:

For the record, my favorite one is Bianca Bosker’s The Secret of Pinterest’s Success: We’re Sick Of Each Other.

The whole digital industry is running to catch-up with a high school friend who lives in Minnesota and discovered Pinterest first. She’s busy making bird nests out of cut string with her kids (found on a How to Make or Grow board) while we all try to figure out when she got so cool.

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In the holiday season when hope reigns and we all want to believe, consumers came up with a “campaign” that was (in my opinion) one of the best in 2011.

Read about it here. Agencies (including Fluid) take note.

It started in Michigan when a woman anonymously paid off three Kmart layaway accounts. From there it went viral. It spread across social networks in a way that makes those of us who create social strategies salivate. And to top it off, the content was user generated.

Let me clarify. The story spread, so did the giving. And in a time where social updates define status, the majority of those who donated did so anonymously.

Sure there are naysayers who called it “Kmarketing,” saying Kmart was exaggerating a few instances and plugging them into their PR machine. But whether that’s the case or not, I don’t care.

The bottom line: People had an idea about being good to others and it caught fire. It was one of those ideas that I, at an agency, wish I had thought of first. It told an irresistible story, hit the social goals we usually set for our clients and felt good.

Are consumers eligible for a Clio? Could they win at the One Show? If they tweaked this to pay lists off via digital, perhaps a Cyber Lion?

I love the look of the new competition.

Happy New Year,
Amy

Here at Fluid, we love the iPad. We love all the possibilities it presents, and all of the amazing types of innovation it makes possible. Fortunately for us, our clients at Craftsman share that view. Coupled with a DIY ethos and a drive to do something really different, we went about designing and building Torque, the first shoppable iPad magazine for Craftsman.

Fluid’s guiding principle as a company is that content, community and creativity together drive commerce. With Torque, we put that belief into action by creating an experience that took the best of Craftsman’s vast amount branded content, added in their highly engaged community of DIY’ers and brand enthusiasts and transformed it into a richly interactive, fully shoppable iPad magazine.

The list of innovative things we did for this app is pretty comprehensive:

• Almost all content within the app is actionable in some way. Whether it’s shopping, signing up for the Craftsman Club, engaging with the brand on Facebook and Twitter, following along with DIY projects, or accessing exclusive videos and articles, the content leads the way
• Using an updated version of Sears eCommerce API, we enabled users to add products to their cart right from articles and content within the app, then checkout seamlessly on craftsman.com
• Live video streams directly from the Craftsman Experience studio, and the app alerts users when the stream goes live
• Social media streams are universally accessible, giving every interaction a potential
• Blurs the line between editorial, branded content and eCommerce
• Content is streamed into the app via a CDN, allowing easier updates without having to release full updates into the app store

How Fluid designed it
Fluid started the discovery process by first auditing all of Craftsman’s existing content as well as their upcoming campaigns and initiatives. We then created an editorial structure and content flow for the app, which is actually much more like creating a magazine for print than creating an “app.”

After nailing down the table of contents, Fluid worked out all of the possible user interactions. This included everything from basic page behaviors all the way down to multiple content interaction scenarios. As we worked on the interaction design and started merging it with our editorial structure, we began brainstorming ideas for an editorial voice and identity. Fluid presented one naming option to Craftsman: “Torque”. Craftsman promptly trademarked the name.

We then began the process of breaking the editorial structure apart into smaller chunks to work on. For content that already existed (like the step by step projects), Fluid redesigned it to fit into the edgier, grittier, DIY-inspired look and feel of the app. For content that needed to be created or expanded, Fluid designed those sections from scratch and provided clear direction and guidance to the Craftsman marketing team so that they could start writing those remaining sections – the most notable of which are the Top 100 and Mystery Car Vault. Our process continued on iteratively until the content for the entire experience was completely fleshed out.

How Fluid built it
On the UX and visual design side, Fluid began prototyping very early on in the creative process. In some of the very first designs presented, we used video layers in Photoshop and exported the files as quicktime movies so that the client could immediately see how both the look and feel and the interactivity worked together.

On the technology side, Fluid’s developers immediately started testing different options for build and eventually settled on using a combination of HTML 5 and Javascript. Structurally, Torque was set up in a way that makes content updates achievable without having to push an update to the app store. All of the content, from videos and images to text, is served via an Akami CDN. In other words, much of the content doesn’t actually live “inside” of the app, so the initial download is very fast and all of the content loads on-demand.

In order to make sure that the eCommerce layer worked seamlessly with Craftsman’s existing system, Fluid worked with Craftsman’s technology team to create new API’s that allowed Craftsman’s “Quick View” to be displayed within the app. Adding items to a cart was seamless via the UIWebView (in-app browser), and checkout was handled by craftsman.com. Once the app was in working order, the entire tech, creative and ux team all spent time working together to test for bugs, optimize, and refine the experience. The final handoff was to the Sears Mobile team, who then submitted the app to iTunes for approval. The app was approved in one weeks time.

Why we think it’s cool
Opportunities like this are rare. Fluid got to create, name, design, and build a branded, shoppable iPad magazine on the hottest technology platform in existence for one of the most well-respected brands in the world. At Fluid, we believe strongly that experiences like this – the ones that merge content, community and creativity in delightful and innovative ways – are the future of eCommerce and brand engagement. We were honored to work with a legendary brand like Craftsman and their very talented marketing team to create a cutting edge product that their consumers are thrilled about.

Facebook has updated Insights. Some of you may have had a sneak peek, especially if you’re a brand with a Facebook relationship. Now though, it’s rolled out and here’s what you need to know.

First and foremost, read this from Facebook. It’s a great description of the changes.

Or if you learn by doing, log-in to Facebook, go to Insights and use the question mark roll-overs as your guide.

The highlights as we see them:

- A heavy shift to engagement: Brands are shifting to quantity and quality on Facebook (vs. just quantity). The new metrics of “People Talking About This” and “Reach” directly coincide with this shift. They hit at what people are doing with your content and give you a sense of the potential reach you could achieve.

- Page posts get prioritized: Which content is working? This will tell you. And it broadens the range of what working means based on your objective. Reach + Engaged Users drive at awareness; Talking About This and Virality drive at conversation.

- Infusion of ad data: Reach is a term media buyers understand and we see the terminology of Stories enter the picture here. With Reach we can now see how people were reached – via Organic, Paid or Viral. Viral may be a lower percent of the whole than expected for some brands. Paid may also bootstrap Organic and Viral.

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The trend we’re seeing (and driving): Shifting Facebook focus from the pursuit of Fan volume to Fan engagement. I’m convinced there’s a reason Facebook doesn’t include repeat visits in their Insights metrics – the majority of Fans likely don’t come back after they fan a brand.

That said, Fluid and our clients have been experimenting with ways to change that. Especially amongst core customers who are likely to be big brand advocates.

First step = edge rank. This is the algorithm Facebook uses to prioritize what makes it to Walls and which friends or Fans see it. This article from econsultancy gives a good overview.

Show and tell: Here are four posts that yielded great response rates as a percentage of their Fan bases in the last week.

1. Sears Footwear Fashion First
Key point: Albums get showcased beautifully in Facebook’s new photo layout. Sassy red shoes and anything affiliated with the Kardashians (Sears has a Kardashian Kollection for shoes) spark interactions.

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Hi all,

Fluid got to take the stage at eTail East’s Social Commerce Summit last week. So fun. We share our presentation with you here: