Over 2 billion people worldwide use the internet, for various purposes, and almost all of them come into contact with social media through one means or another. It’s difficult to get an actual statistic on how many people use social media since a single person might participate in multiple ways, from tweeting to blogging to posting, but Facebook alone is poised to top 1 billion active users by August 2012, over 3 billion videos are viewed daily on YouTube, Twitter is at 100 million active users and Google+ is at well over 100 Million. Since social media is how people are communicating and interacting with each other online, brands and businesses have to be a part of those conversations.

2. Social media is accessible

Social media is really, really easy to access. Anyone with a name and an email address can sign up for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Foursquare or any number of social networking sites, and start connecting with friends. Even people who don’t have friends can get their social media fix by starting or reading a blog and making comments. As smartphones and wifi become almost omnipresent, your target audience no longer needs to be sitting down in front of a desktop to be able to access the internet, meaning that social media has become a constant, easily-accessible presence in public (and private) life.

3. Social media is personal

Unlike typical advertising, social media is intensely personal because it depends on word-of-mouth (or -blog, or -post) relations to communicate your brand messages. In an age where the general public demands transparency and is distrustful of big corporations (see Occupy Wall Street), social media communications take on a legitimacy that large previously-faceless companies, such as Dow Chemicals or Coca-Cola, could never capture on their own. By bringing communication down to the most basic, from-one-person-to-another level, social media allows brands to connect with consumers on a more intimate level.

4. Social media is anonymous

As well as providing a form of communication that is more personal and intimate, social media can also provide the perfect landscape for anonymity. For some people, the internet is a magical place where one can do or say anything from behind a dense wall of anonymity. For brands, this provides a goldmine of information. Social media allows brands an unprecedented opportunity to mine positive and negative feedback and find out what consumers really think of them, from the specifics of their products to the good and bad marketing choices they’re making. This type of feedback, solicited or unsolicited, is especially valuable during new product development and launch phases.

5. Social media provides cool factor

As humans, we’re social creatures and we hate being out of the loop. Social media is the perfect place for brands to plug into pop culture and become part of the ongoing conversation. The internet is a fast-paced landscape of constantly-renewing media and brands need to make sure their ads, videos, and communications not only catch users’ attention, but that they are instrumental in creating or becoming part of popular trends and memes. It only takes a couple thousand shares for something to start going viral because people want to know what their friends are into, and like to show off their discoveries, interests, and passions.

6. Social media allows for dialogue between brands and consumers

Perhaps the most obvious and revolutionary point of all is that social media allows for dialogue between brands and consumers. For the first time, consumers are being asked by large brands about what they’d like to see in their products. Consumers tend to find this flattering, and become even stronger brand advocates as a result. Win-win. The key in this relationship is for brands to keep the conversations going by engaging on a personal level, measure overall consumer sentiment, and look for positive change.

7. Social media allows for precise demographic targeting

The instant responses brands receive to their ads or products mean that they can very quickly gauge their current status in a certain demographic, and adjust their marketing tactics accordingly. Brands can also launch broader, though specialized, marketing campaigns, with each ad or video tailored slightly for a different demographic, resulting in greater clout and efficiency. Some social media sites, such as Facebook, even allow your fans to deselect the ads that don’t pertain to them, and other sites allow consumers to choose from a selection of ads, insuring that the right ads get to the right consumers.

8. Social media provides consumers with immediate access

Not only does social media provide brands with real-time market research information, it also provides instant access for consumers. After viewing a TV or video ad, consumers can go to that brand’s social media sites to interact with others, get advice, or go directly to the brand’s website to learn more, and purchase products instantly. Stores may be closed for the day, but the internet never sleeps.

9. There’s no one “right” way to do social media marketing

Since social media is still relatively new, it means that there’s a whole plethora of new ideas, strategies, and campaigns that haven’t even been attempted yet, much less dreamt of. Consumers are as excited as brands are about what’s going on. We’re all still trying to push the boundaries and figure out what this thing called social media is capable of, and it’s awesome. If your brand is engaging and interacting with your consumers online, and sales are going up, then you’re likely doing it right.

10. People love to be entertained

People will watch or play just about anything online that is entertaining, informative or engaging, provided it interests them as individuals. Work your brand message into video and gaming content that matches your audience’s likes and dislikes. If they like what you’re offering, they’ll spend time with your brand. Just search YouTube for “puppies” and tell me if you’re not still doing the same thing half an hour later.

Ali Cottong is an avid Quidditch enthusiast, an amateur vegetable-eater, and a huge fan of reality TV. As a social media enthusiast, she loves lurking around the newsfeed on Facebook and prowling the online magazine xoJane, where she occasionally makes an appearance in the comments. A graduate of UCLA, Ali lives in Los Angeles with her three roommates and hopes one day to own a cat. Ali is a contributing writer to the Supercool Creative Blog.

Who’s in charge here?
Establish your Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Google+ as the go-to authority for all the information your fans need. First, develop and release creative content on a regular basis. Write and schedule updates well in advance that include events, contests, videos and other content. Be prepared to throw some of that out the window and update on the fly as needed.

Second, have a social media manager in place that is engaging and replying to users’ questions, comments and responses in real time. Do (and continue to do) those two simple things and fans will know you’re the boss.

Let’s Get Hardcore!
Hardcore gamers are fewer than casual gamers but they are the most vocal, and therefore influential in the success or failure of your campaign. Get them on your side fast by gaining public support from respected professional gamers who show no affiliation to your title. Once on your side, you will keep them there by being consistent and interacting with any and every user possible.

Engage Fans With Insider Information
Interact with your fans in ways that will make them feel “in.” Your social media manager and specialists should know the game inside and out. If your game is The Mario Brothers, then they should know when Mario brushes his teeth and what color underwear he prefers (red right?).  Use that inside information to interact then watch your users engage more, share more, and come back every day.

N3rd Love
Fans taking time to interact with and share your content deserve recognition. Give them some swag like free games, T-shirts, or posters. Run regular and frequent contests on Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. A good contest is easy to enter, features exclusive prizes, and boosts subscriber/follower/user counts. Once you have your winners, make it known and give them online shoutouts. Others will take note, share with friends, interact and get you more buzz.

Where Is Everyone? (Pick a Platform)
Decide on which platform you are going to run the core of your social media campaign, major contests, and develop your content for first. Likely, it will be Facebook because it has the largest user base. Run your large, national and international contests here to ensure the greatest number of people can access it with the least amount of effort. Developing content for that platform first to serves as a guide for creating content on other platforms.

Tease Fans With Exclusive Content
Maintain the attention of ADHD video gamers by keeping exclusive screenshots, gameplay videos, interviews and announcements up your sleeve and never give away too much at once. Tease fans by telling them you have exclusives coming their way soon to start the conversation and build hype. Take it a step further and leverage their anticipation, “If we hit 1 million Likes, we’ll release an exclusive character trailer.” Doing so makes your limited quantity of exclusive content and announcements as valuable, shareable and effective as possible.

Coordinate Announcements
Big announcements should be made on every available social media outlet at the same time. Blast out that important release date or big contest on each outlet concurrently including top tier blogs.  Keep the information the same, but change the delivery so fans that engage you on multiple platforms are rewarded with extra unique content. Also, be sure to coordinate new content releases and announcements across other departments including sales, marketing and especially PR.

Develop New Fan Bases
Fans that already follow, like and subscribe to you are a captivated audience so focus on reaching new fans as well. Do so by running ad campaigns on Facebook and YouTube, reaching out to relevant blogs and publications, and encouraging your existing fan base to share your content with friends. Also, cross-promote the different social media platforms with each other and within all online and TV ad campaigns to increase traffic and awareness.

Now… If you need a Social Media Agency… Let me know… john AT supercoolcreative.com

Originally published on iMedia Connection Blog, written by John Newell

Supercool Creative has just launched Round 4 of the contest we’re running for Capcom’s new game title  Street Fighter X Tekken. This round is called “Flat Ono vs Flat Harada” and we’re asking fans to download  and cut out a “flat” version of either Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono or Namco Bandai producer Katsuhiro Harada and snap a photo of him in a cool place!

To enter the contest or check out the campaign go to the official Street Fighter Facebook page.

Round 4 Flat Ono vs Flat Harada is part of a 5 month social media campaign that Supercool Creative is running for Capcom that includes 5 facebook contests, custom Facebook tabs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube management and a 12-episode video series called X The Line, starring video game host Andrea Rene who interviews some of the fighting game world’s top players and influencers. The series also features SFxTK-related news and events, a fan feedback segment called Cross Talk (X Talk) and frequent fan giveaways!

As a digital creative and social media marketing agency, we’re often asked “where do you think up your ideas and how do you share your work.” Well, we have a little device called  the “Idea Machine” that runs on magic… and AA batteries.. You just tell it what you need and it makes up ideas. The way we like to share ideas is through a complex network of social media influencers, fiber optics arrays and a disciplined team of miniaturized bike messengers that deliver brand messages into people’s brains while they are doing other things like being at work. We like to make them think it’s their idea. We’ve said too much.

About The Cow In the Video: The cow’s name is Alice and she lives in this cool, custom, 2-story cow hut you can’t see in the video. She asked us not to show it because she’s paranoid about drone strikes. Cows are ridiculous about that sort of thing. Alice was not harmed in the making of this video, although we tried several times. Cows are smarter and more illusive than we give them credit for, and they play wicked mind games. Alice has been playing the cowbell for almost 2 years.

Supercool Creative is a digital creative and social media marketing agency in Los Angeles specializing in big ideas, marketing, interactive & online video production.

In the latest series of X The Line, the video series Supercool Creative is producing as part of the social media campaign we’re running for Street Fighter X Tekken, Capcom Senior Product Manager Matt Dahlgren reveals exclusive Gems System info and sits down for an interview with X The Line host Andrea Rene. New Gems System screen captures and gameplay are featured!

Also, be sure to enter our Street Fighter X Tekken Facebook Contest  for a chance to win a PS3, a signed copy of the game and the Ultimate Gamer Cave!

For more details on the Gems System check out the post on Capcom-Unity.

Our social media campaign for Capcom’s Street Fighter X Tekken also includes 5 butt-kicking contests on Facebook! where fans can win HUGE prizes including PS3s, signed copies of SFXTK, and the ULTIMATE GAMER CAVE which includes a huge TV, gamer chairs, headphones, fight sticks, a custom games collection and even a mini fridge, so you never have to leave the room. Round 3 of the X The Line Contest WAR PAINT opens on Monday, December 12th, 2011.

Facebook recently re-vamped the Insights feature, adding a critical facet called Virality. Facebook defines Virality as “the percentage of people who have created a story from your Page post out of the total number of unique people who have seen it.”

After liking, commenting on, or sharing your post a user makes that interaction stream to their friends Newsfeed. According to Facebook, the average user has 130 friends and that means a lot of potential new customers will see your content. Virality represents all users who advertised your page in that fashion.

I used the Virality data from a social media campaign that we recently launched for a AAA video game title to better understand what types of posts are viral. I studied each post over the course of a month and placed them into five categories…

• Question – Ask a question to initiate feedback through a comment, like, or share
• Action – Tell the user to complete an action, e.g. “Like this Post,” or “share with your friends”
• Media – Embedding a video, picture, or song into the post
• Link – Using a link as a post. The link can lead you to somewhere within or outside of Facebook
• Informative – Posting information about your product or service

The graph below shows the relationship between type of post (Question, Action, Media, Link, Informative) and the Virality it possesses. The posts are arranged from least Viral on the left to most Viral on the right.

Look at the lower Virality rated posts on the left hand side of the graph. You can see that Link andInformative posts almost all sit on the left side. In fact, all of the Informative posts and all but three of the Link posts sit below the average Virality of .40%.

Now, let’s examine the higher Virality-rated posts on the right side of the graph. Question and Actionposts make up the majority of the highest Virality posts. All of the Question and Action posts sit above the average Virality rating of .40%

Media posts have the largest variation of Virality rating. They make up the highest and lowest valued posts and the rest of them are pretty evenly spread. I examined the content of each Media post again and found that the four Media posts on the right side of the graph also asked a Question or called for Action while the Media posts on the left side were simply informative.

Now that we know what types of post are most Viral, let’s talk about strategies to make those posts effective.

Question: The question you ask needs to be simple and direct. What do you think? Should this. . .? How do you feel? These questions usually yield a response that is opinion- and/or emotion-oriented. People want to talk about their opinions and feelings and if you can generate a question that asks those things of them then it will be a good post. Also, consider that an answer to your post doesn’t necessarily need to be a comment. “Like” is commonly used as “yes” for an answer. Asking a question that will likely yield a yes response is also a good route for a Question post.

Action: These posts call to action but let’s face it . . . People are lazy and even more so when it comes to the Internet. If you are going beyond asking someone to Like, Comment, or Share then you need to make the task simple (or have good incentives). Spending extra time to interact with users who follow through on your Action posts will benefit you by driving them to participate more heavily in the future and create interest in all users who note that interaction.

Media: Media posts can be your power house. Use them sparingly as they take up more room on Newsfeed and can clutter it easily. Media posts in conjunction with Action and Question posts are most effective. Consider generating buzz prior to a Media posts but utilizing Action and Question posts. “We are releasing a video sneak preview of our new product in one week, who’s excited to see it?!”

Link & Informative: These types of posts are inevitable to some extent. Sometimes you need to convey information to your audience. Whenever possible, try to change Link & Informative posts to Question or Action posts. Example: “Our New Game launches in one week!” Boring, right? You could post “It’s almost time! Only one week until the new game is available, are you going to camp out for the release?” and you will likely get a much greater response.

I hope this information is useful in helping your brand create a more successful marketing campaign and reach a larger audience in the Facebook Realm. Understanding what type of posts are Viral and the ideas for making those posts effective will give your marketing team a head start. Continuing to monitor the Virality of your posts will keep you ahead of the game. Make sure to keep your posts consistent, stay true to your brand, and have fun because it will be conveyed in your work and compel people with the urge to promote your message.

Written by John Newell. Originally published on iMedia Connection

X The Line: Interview With Clockw0rk” is the second in a series of 12 videos that are part of the social media campaign being run by Supercool Creative for Capcom’s Street Fighter X Tekken video game due out in March 2012. Street Fighter X Tekken is the latest in the legendary Street Fighter series. The social media campaign also includes 5 Facebook contests running through March.

Fight Clubs happen all over the world, so see if the next Fight Club is going to be in your town by Liking Street Fighter on Facebook!

Here are some pictures:

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