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

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.

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.

- The reality of daily Page views: If any brand ever questioned the value of Facebook’s edgerank algorithm this data is here to humble many of us. We at Fluid have been hoping Facebook would add repeat visitor data for a long time, the addition of Page Views and Unique Visitors gets us closer. And I think many brands will be surprised at these daily numbers. Bottom line for the majority of brands: The Wall is where it’s at.

- Who’s talking the talk and walking the walk: Demographics of your fans remain in Insights. What gets interesting is when you compare the demographics of your fans to the demographics of who’s Talking About This. Any discrepancies are a big opportunity.

Bring on more data. We dig it.

Cheers,
Amy

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.

2. Craftsman
Key point: Mystery makes people want to show off their knowledge – even if 40 people have already posted the same answer. The Monday Mystery Car for Craftsman also fuels conversation amongst the community.

3. Ride NSS
Key point: What Fans talk about in social mirrors what they talk about socially. Skateboarders want to give you their opinion on tricks – just like they would at the skate park. Ask for opinions.

4. Protege
Key point: Keep it simple with either / or options. They’re easy to answer, they fuel the fire behind people taking a side and they encourage voyeurism to see which option wins.

Cheers,
Amy

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

I dragged and dropped colleagues (we digital geeks are in Google+ in full force) and friends into circles. I hung out in Hangouts (my favorite feature) and scrolled through Sparks. I floated like I was in a neighborhood without the grounding of profile houses.

Then I watched logged out and watched my Facebook wall scroll with Google+ opinions.

What is Google+? David Pogue of the New York Times explains it well.

The top seven things that strike me:

1. Exclusive invites: Google excels at invitation-only. Gmail invitees forgot to care that their emails were being used for ad targeting. We still don’t mind. The club with the red rope is enticing. Even if we don’t know what’s inside.

2. The “not yet public” launch: Google has downplayed this launch. The NYT blogger above stated “it’s unfair to mention bugs because the service isn’t even public yet.” Really? Put a product launch behind a invitation wall, say it’s just a part of a bigger whole and people will concede on criticism. Brilliant.

3. Aimed at Facebooks’ achilles: Circles within Google+ strike Facebook where it’s weak – filtering and content distribution to specific friend networks. Within 3 minutes I could see streams of content coming only from my work connections. It’s easy.

Plus drag and drop is fun. Remember when digital driving what happened offline was exciting? Now we’ve moved on to Smart Phone and tablets changing the way people interact with computers. Polyvore caught on early. Now it’s everywhere.

If they want to issue a double blow, Google+ needs to kick in search. Hard. Facebook is notoriously lacking in search. (Does anyone else love that the Google+ name can be rough in search because the + can be a command or a proper noun?)

4. Competition as key publicity: The earliest stories about Google+? Mark Zuckerberg is the most popular person on it. No it’s not surprising he’s on it. But it didn’t hurt Google+ that the media gobbled this up and ran with it. He’s since activated his privacy settings – which has sparked a whole other set of stories.

5. Brands as different entities: Brands and Facebook took a while to get their footing. Google has decided to treat brands differently than regular users. Now brands are chomping at the bit to get in. Ah the intrigue.

6. Sparks to shift traffic: Here I can pick topics sorted by categories of interest. It’s the social network version of the “I’m feeling lucky” button. It’s also a smart way to circulate traffic around to all sorts of destinations. I see it as a twist on search.

7. Alluring hangouts: Video chat across Circles of friends – or however you label your Circles. Up to 10 at a time. Consider it a tame version of Chat Roulette. Or a collaboration tool with colleagues. It’s addicting.

The core issue for me? Definition.

- Facebook is my constantly updating database of everyone I’ve ever known.
- Twitter is my stream of cutting edge digital examples and conversation.
- LinkedIn is my source for new candidates and where, out of intrigue, I sneak a peek at who’s viewed me.

Google+ right now is about what it can do vs. what people are actually doing with it. It’s full of tire kickers. And people thinking hard about the product vs. its purpose.

When the story shifts to what people are doing with Google+ I’ll be logging in more frequently. Google+ needs to become a means to an end or ends.

To me Google+ is like sitting in a theater watching a movie that is getting rave reviews and trying to figure out the big deal. But better. Because this is a make your own adventure movie. And since it’s social no one person can define it alone. It’s going to take the masses – and some time. Which is likely why Google released it “early” anyway.

With this many digeratis in the mix I predict the definition(s) won’t take long.

It’s purpose won’t be to voyeur pictures of old prom dates or to see how life has treated people from grade school. Facebook (thankfully) has that covered.

Plus with Google+ I’m choosing my circles carefully.

I was inspired by: The power of collective action. Open sourcing of ideas. And unabashed sharing that explodes out of the dreams that used to be held in locked diaries.

We talk about these things a lot at Fluid. These examples will fuel our thinking. Here’s what I saw:

1. Inside Out Project: JR won the TED prize in 2011. If you haven’t seen his work this video will move you. It is Banksy with local awareness and impact. It is work that volunteers in the community vs. dropping you in the gift shop. The new addition? A call to action. This week they made it participatory.

2. Open IDEO: The premise: People design better together. It’s an open casting call for ideas that answer socially responsible challenges. The ideas are submitted based on phase of the design process. IDEO is enough to compel a lot of folks to participate.

3. The Internet Wishlist: This one teeters on the edge of a debate over proprietary ideas. That’s why I find it fascinating. A wishlist of ideas for the Internet. Not all ideas should be free. It also matters who’s asking for the ideas (GapLogo anyone?). Who wouldn’t though like the idea of a FourSquare cab-sharing app for when you’re waiting in the cab line at JFK?

4. It Gets Better: You’ve likely seen this before. Which is fantastic. It is a 24/7 advocacy movement and support group that was sparked by the desire to reach out to LGBT teens. The message: Life gets better. It is grassroots connection that started from a heartfelt, gut reaction.

I’m aware that none of these are brand led. I actually think that’s a lesson. In my opinion community for brands needs to do at least one of three things:

1. Be grounded in an issue or cause. Think method’s People Against Dirty or Pepsi Refresh.

2. Give participants a stake in the action. Think Threadless or Wal-Mart’s Eleven Moms.

3. Be fun. Think Skittles Mob the Rainbow or Miracle Whip.

What have I missed? Bring on any discussion or debate…

Cheers,
Amy

What are Sponsored Stories? A great name for ads created from brand relevant content that is produced by Facebook user actions. Important: These ads are only seen within a users friend network.

The included actions: Likes, check-ins, actions within custom applications and Page posts. User postings on brand walls can also be used.

Best case description: Brands are highlighting relevant content that a user may have missed in the steady stream of their Walls.

Worst case description: User actions are unwittingly being turned into brand endorsements without any kick back.

This is not unlike what Gmail does by selling ads based on keywords within emails, although these Facebook ads are more overt with the identification of the user and their action. Twitter Promoted Tweets are also similar – although Twitter’s solution is more closely aligned with search ranking or a Digg model. It is also based on aggregated, anonymous data.

Why are Sponsored Stories important:

- They are a new ad format for Facebook. They dip a toe in the old Beacon pool but don’t dive in fully. I think this is the major reason why they’re launching with lots of non-profit partners – which is smart. Users are going to be a lot more amenable to, and potentially lenient towards, non-profits than to for-profit brands.

- These Stories reveal what many users don’t fully understand when they take Facebook actions. Their actions are public. And so is the data affiliated with each action they take. Other than Etsy’s holiday gift finder, there have been very few uses of this data. Sponsored Stories are at the forefront of what could be a personalization frenzy. We’re all watching for the consumer reaction.

- The success of the responses may override any risks brands see as affiliated with these Stories. Facebook has seen great results. Brands are hungry for great results – especially given the average CPC and click-thru rates they are likely seeing.

- Users cannot opt out of this functionality. Let the PR work and product positioning begin.

Sponsored Stories are currently available for testing via the self-admin platform (which Fluid is doing right now). Strong opinions can be found, as always, in the blogosphere.

Cheers,
Amy

The four examples you need to see:

1. Etsy’s Gift Guide

The best use of Facebook liking data that I’ve seen yet. Pick a friend and Etsy matches their likes (and interests) to Etsy products. It’s a peep show of the possibilities this public data holds.

2. J.Crew’s Very Merry Gift Guide

This stands out for two reasons: 1. Talk about beautiful, curated collections. It tells a story that makes me forget that it’s cross-sell. 2. Of-the-month offering. Subscription selling finally meets style. Why aren’t more brands doing this? Expect them to be doing so in 2011.

3. Victoria’s Secret Gift Cards (on Facebook)

Sharing gets sexy. Not only can you comment on photos from last night’s holiday party, now you can share a gift card – without ever leaving Facebook. Buying just got easier for last-minute Lucys. (Starbucks has Facebook gift cards too).

4. Coach’s Gift List (on Facebook)

The ripple effect of Polyvore permeates this design (as it continues to do throughout fashion). Drag and drop from Coach’s yummy collection to a wish list within Facebook – and affiliate each item with a friend.

Who’s going to top this in 2011? Fluid has some tricks up our sleeve. Exciting.

Happy Holidays,
Amy

The score according to the study? Twitter followers are more likely to recommend the brands they follow to friends (33% vs. 21%) and to buy from them (37% vs. 21%).

My interpretation: This is misapplied competitiveness. I’m the first to egg on arm wrestling, cage matches and ego over ability efforts but these channels serve different purposes. Consumer expectations and interactions vary accordingly. The channels can amplify and augment each other. I will be using this data to make the case for each channel independently.

That said, I’m going to cheer on Forrester’s winner with three of my favorite Twitter examples. Share these with your creative team to spark ideas. After all, both mediums need ideas to survive.

Uniqlo’s Lucky Counter: Every tweet means the price gets cheaper. For a set time in September Uniqlo posted a collection of clothing with the simple call to action – more tweets, lower prices. Flash sales meet GroupOn with a twist of simplicity.

World Cup Cheering: Yay open API. The Guardian in the UK created an interface to visually watch the tweets affiliated with each World Cup game. It brings new excitement to goals. Ghana vs. U.S. is my personal favorite.

Diane von Furstenberg’s Fall Collection: In a convergence of social and shopping Diane von Furstenberg integrated iconic lip rollovers on their imagery to let users Tweet or Like in context. (Click on “Shop the Catalog”)

Reminder: I’ve also posted this entry at ad:techNY. Let me know if you’ll be in town for the event next week!