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Right now the SocialMedia.com team is chugging full-steam ahead on developing the first social-advertising platform for publishers. But to continue to make killer social ads in the future, it was important for us to reflect on what happened in social advertising in 2009 and identify the most important lessons that we learned. Here they are:

1. Trust is everything. Because social advertising brings real people and real relationships into the mix, it’s essential to preserve trust around the board. If belief in the message is removed, then the added value from social is non-existent. In the same vein, don’t pay people to say good things about you. Paying users to tweet or promote your brand reduces trust between people, and therefore reduces the value of the message.

2. Advertising through someone’s social graph is the most influential form of marketing. In our experience the most engaging social campaigns aren’t big flashy ads, rather they are bite-sized pieces of content from real people (status updates, recommendations, shared preferences). Ads that incorporate such social messages perform better than ads that don’t. Across our campaigns the social ad (word of mouth impression) has consistently higher CTR than the non-social ad (opt-in impression). Earlier in the year we partnered with a third-party research group, Dynamic Logic, to conduct the first-ever social advertising research study. The results established that social ads perform better than their non-social counterparts with regards to purchase intent, online ad awareness, and brand favorability.

3. Social isn’t always obvious. Social is easy to see when in the form of a simple social graph on a networking site such as Facebook or LinkedIn, in which the social relationships are one-to-one connections formed by users. But social goes well beyond that boundary. All publishers have some form of social graph.  However, it’s likely transparent. Individual readers on a site are not directly connected via friendship, but they do interact with one another and they all share similar interests and experiences.  These common interactions, interests, and experiences bind users and form an implicit social community.  Everyone in the community cares about what the rest of the community thinks, and therefore shared messages and media within the community carry additional meaning and influence.

4. Twitter is a broadcast medium. Harvard Business research found this year that over 90% of content on Twitter is created by only 10% of Twitter users. Advertisers should discover authentic message about their brand from the 10%, and then surface and amplify those messages to the rest of millions who are listening. Other social sites are also trending towards this play, e.g. Facebook fan pages.

5. It’s not just about the click. While social ads perform better, marketers need to look beyond CTR to user engagement activities such as share, like, recommend, tweet, and become a fan. All of these activities should be measured and weighed along with traditional marketing metrics. And, as the research showed, social ads are particularly useful for increasing purchase intent, online ad awareness, and favorability — all of these are must-have metrics for the marketer’s dashboard.

SocialMedia.com is developing the first platform for social advertising, and we need someone to make sure it looks great! We are looking to hire a multi-talented graphic and web designer who can turn out production-ready display banners and build new pages on our company website all in a single day.  Your time will be split approximately 65% on design and 35% on web development work. Therefore, we need someone with a strong background in design, typography, and branding while at the same time being able to code web pages, web forms, email templates, Wordpress themes, etc.

Candidates should take a strategic approach to projects, always looking for ways to improve ideas and to better the end result. At SocialMedia, you will have the opportunity to work on brand advertising for some of the world’s best-known companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Chevrolet, Kraft, Universal Studios, Target, Walmart, and many others!

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with the Business Development team to create polished display ads, including mock-ups for pitching and production-ready ads that will run on our network
• Help create pitches for large publishers companies by professionally packaging product collateral including ad mocks, presentations, spec sheets, etc.
• Conceptualize and build fully-functionally new product ideas for our advertising units, drawing on best practices in usability. Background in user experience design is highly preferred.
• Work with Marketing Manager to oversee the continued development and deployment of SocialMedia’s public-facing website. This includes creating original webpage designs and coding them into fully-functioning, standards-compliant pages for deployment on the web.
• Work with Marketing Manager to design and develop promotional materials, including custom-built newsletters and product guides.
• Maintain an organized collection of creative and branding assets for use by other team members.

Must-have technical skills

• Expert graphic designer with extensive experience using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator (Flash experience a major plus).
• Front-end web design and development, including mastery of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP.
• Experience with the WordPress CMS.
• Experience developing for modern browsers and degrading sites gracefully for older ones.

Qualifications

• Leadership qualities and strong communication skills
• Strong multi-tasking skills
• Attention to detail and quality a must
• Desire to work in a fast-paced environment and ability to meet deadlines

About SocialMedia.com

We are a young, fast paced company continually innovating and growing in the constantly changing world of social advertising. We are looking for great people who are aligned with our values, want to move the ball forward, and do insanely great work:

• We are a small, talented team with great camaraderie.
• Everybody has a lot of responsibility and the opportunity to make a huge difference.
• We’re totally focused on what we believe is the next big wave in web advertising, which is bringing the social element into the mix.
• We were the first ad network dedicated to social network applications, and we continue to be the first to produce key offerings in the social media advertising category.
• We are widely regarded as the leader in this space.

Our office is located on the water at Pier 38 in San Francisco, just a short walk from the 4th & King Caltrain station.  Social Media is an EOE, competitive in salary, upside, equity and benefits. We are conveniently located near public transportation

To apply please send an resume and link to portfolio to jobs@socialmedia.com.

SocialMedia.com and Adknowledge announced today that SocialMedia.com’s ad network will be moving to Adknowledge, effective this Friday, November 20.  We at SocialMedia.com are excited about this transition as it will allow us to focus 100% of our time and effort into developing the first social advertising platform for publishers and advertisers, enabling them to make all online ads social, anywhere on the web.

Below are excerpts from a joint press release between SocialMedia.com and Adknowledge:

Adknowledge currently partners with more than 2,000 publishers and developers. In the past two years, the company has made four acquisitions in the social media space. Cubics, an Adknowledge company, delivers more than 700 million banner impressions daily to consumers using Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites. Super Rewards, another Adknowledge company, is the leading virtual currency platform. Together, they deliver over 10% of total daily page impressions on Facebook. By adding the ad network business of SocialMedia.com, Adknowledge is providing publishers with increased monetization opportunities.

“We are excited to welcome SocialMedia’s publishers to our network.  We are committed to providing them with highly competitive payouts and industry-leading, ad content management tools,” commented Dwayne Lafleur, General Manager of Social Advertising at Adknowledge. “As the only major social ad network that does not build applications that compete with developers, we can assure developers that we only have their best interests at heart,” he added.

Effective November 18, publishers will be able to access a new Cubics account from Adknowledge and can elect to replace their existing ad code. Publishers will also be able to source administrative reports and stats.

SocialMedia.com and Adknowledge will continue to work closely together in the future.  Adknowledge will continue to provide publishers with industry-leading payouts and will be running branded ads that SocialMedia.com will be selling.

The transition of SocialMedia.com’s ad network to Adknowledge will allow SocialMedia to focus solely on its core business of developing the first social advertising platform. SocialMedia.com is focused on powering the next generation of social ads across the web through this platform. SocialMedia.com has been a pioneer in social advertising since 2007, building a Facebook ad platform that has allowed app developers to manage, market, and monetize their inventory. Moving forward, the company is going to bring this level of holistic publisher service beyond Facebook app developers, allowing web publishers to socially enable their inventory across the web.

Information for SocialMedia.com Developers:

• SocialMedia.com will continue to serve ads and record activity in your Social Media account until Friday, November 20, noon (PST). Please direct questions to adsupport@socialmedia.com
• On Friday your inventory will be directed to Adknowledge. Adknowledge has already set up accounts for you that can be accessed at cubics.com. You will receive an email with your login information.

It’s easy to make the case that social online ads are good for brands. At SocialMedia.com we’ve seen that social ads enjoy a significant lift in CTR, brand awareness, and purchase intent — compared to their non-social counterparts.

But what is it about social ads that leads to higher performance? We believe the reason that social ads are better for brands is because they are better for consumers. And, social ads are better for consumers because they provide relevant connections with real people whose opinions consumers care about.

Performics and ROI Research just released a joint survey study of over 3,000 US consumers, with some compelling data showing that many consumers are actively using their social networks to recommend and to learn about brands*:

• 46% of respondents say they would talk about or recommend a product on Facebook
• 44% of Twitter users have recommended a product

Michael Kahn, SVP of Marketing at Performics, presented more of the survey findings this morning at ad:tech in NY, including the slide below:

© 2009. All rights reserved. Performics Inc. and ROI Research Inc.

The implications are clear: advertising on social networks can be powerful. At SocialMedia.com we are taking this idea to the next level by extending the power of social advertising beyond social networks and into the broader social web. We hope you’ll join us.

*Read the full press release from November 5, 2009 here.

We’re excited to announce the formal launch of our newest product, Twitter Sparq. As the name suggests, we’re “sparking” conversations within Twitter in a natural, authentic way. We see this as another step in one of the many ways that the advertising world is converging. Traditional, tried and true tools for advertising are merging with the brave new world of social, conversational media and we’re creating tools like Sparq for advertisers to reach their consumers.

The basic idea behind Sparq is actually pretty simple. An advertiser creates an “ad” which is essentially a text-based prompt that asks a user a question and encourages them to share their opinion. That tweet is distributed to their followers and multiple conversations are sparked, resulting in awareness for the brand’s message and click-thrus to the landing page for those curious to learn more.

Behind this simple idea, there is actually a lot going on behind the scenes. We’ve designed a self-serve interface to keep up with the dynamic nature of the product, there’s keyword targeting to strengthen prompt relevancy to the end users, and analytics on the backend to report # of tweets, the audience for those messages, and click thru statistics.

We’ll be looking to scale up our publisher inventory to keep pace with our new advertisers, so please email us at sparq@socialmedia.com to learn more! We currently welcome all types of publishers, and are actively exploring the ways in which Twitter Sparq will drive maximum value for publishers and advertisers. If you’re looking to effectively monetize your client in a way that only adds to your user experience, this is the way to go!

We wanted to give as many advertisers as possible a chance to try out Sparq, so we’re going to open this up as a free trial for the next 2 weeks. So log-in and start sparking conversations about your brand today!

Michael Learmonth of AdAge got the scoop on our first Twitter Pulse campaign. The campaign is for Nestle’s Juicy Juice line and features parenting related questions. You can learn more about the campaign from Michael’s article. You can contact us about customizing a campaign of your own through info@socialmedia.com.

Twitter Pulse lets brands capture the stream of Twitter conversations related to their brand and promote them across the web. Twitter Pulse shows the latest Tweets from a managed feed around a topic or question and lets viewers submit Tweets of their own.

Setting up a campaign is simple. Twitter Pulse Ads feature a fully customizable skin and questions your audience can Tweet about right from the ad unit. Campaigns feature multiple questions (50 characters each) to optimize and add variety to the campaign. Ads are served in a 300 x 250 IAB standard ad inventory and can be delivered across DoubleClick and Atlas ad servers.

Last week in New York, we held a Social Media Boot Camp for brands and ad agencies. The event featured thoughts on the social media space from a long list of industry luminaries.

We were lucky enough to get commentary from two of the investors behind Twitter, Fred Wilson and John Borthwick. Fred, a partner at Union Square Ventures, was an early investor in Twitter, while John was an investor in Summize, a search startup acquired by Twitter.

Rather than posting the entire discussion, we’ve selected a few key videos parts of the panel.

Seth Goldstein on how social media gives new brands an opportunity to advertise online…

A role for brands… from Social Media on Vimeo.

Fred Wilson on why Twitter is a success…

The success of Twitter… from Social Media on Vimeo.

Fred Wilson on the power of passed links…

The power of passed links… from Social Media on Vimeo.

Somewhat related to Fred’s early point on Twitter’s platform, John Borthwick on the growth of Bit.ly

The growth of bit.ly… from Social Media on Vimeo.

Fred Wilson on social media as channels…

The next layer on the stack… from Social Media on Vimeo.

Fred Wilson on the greatest media ever created…

The greatest media ever created… from Social Media on Vimeo.

SocialMedia.com is holding another Social Media Boot Camp in New York. The event features a conversation around how to effectively leverage social media in marketing campaigns including panels from industry luminaries and case studies from industry experts. As presentations become available, I will post them here.

Some photos of the event:

Keynote from Seth Goldstein:

Social Media Principles by Nick Gonzalez:

Macy’s Case Study from Gedioen Aloula:

Joshua Stylman’s Presentation:

Ian Schaffer’s Presentation:

As part of a company that makes social ads, I’m excited that the IAB has released a new set of social advertising best practices to help bring consistency to the marketplace, similar to the way IAB standards brought efficiency to online advertising back in the 90’s.

The best practices were announced in New York at the IAB Marketplace on Social Media. SocialMedia.com was privileged to be part of the committee of over two hundred companies who put the document together. The ingredients of a social ad can include profile data, social targeting (by encouraging people to pass ads along to their friends), and social interactions within the ad itself, such as sharing or commenting. I strongly suggest you take a look.

Social Advertising Best Practices Social Advertising Best Practices nick3896 IAB’s suggestes social advertising best practices.

Videoblogging as ‘a life-altering experience’ from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

I used to be heavily involved in the videoblogging movement back when video on the Web was just starting out in late 2004. I was one of the first 50 members of the Yahoo Videoblogging Group (now about 3,000 members) and launched Ourmedia, the first free video hosting and sharing site, in March 2005.

Video creation and sharing went mainstream in 2006, so much so that Mashable reports YouTube Is the Top Social Media Innovation of the Decade.

So I love to highlight people who have successfully incorporated video into their online lives and can evangelize its import without getting preachy.

I shot this video interview with Sukhjit Ghag back during the 140 Character conference in New York. Since then Sukhjit (pronounced sook-jeet) has become the social media rep for Sony Electronics (@SonyElectronics on Twitter).

Sukhjit talks about how videoblogging has gone mainstream and how liberating it is compared with her past career as a television producer-writer. She calls it “a life-altering experience.” Her most important piece of advice? “Just forgive yourself — just do it!” Don’t get caught up in the technology — it’s simple to use a Flip cam, Kodak Zi8 or Nokia video-enabled video camera to capture slices of everyday life.

Watch, download or embed video on Vimeo

“It’s still really early for video,” she says, but it’s becoming a tool that people are now using in their everyday lives.

A word about the production: Though I used Final Cut’s “lighten” function, the video is too dark (I need to buy a brighter lighting attachment for my Canon HV20) and too close up (because it was so loud with the street noise nearby).

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• 4 Simple Steps to Getting Started in Online Video (socialwebschool.com)

JD Lasica works with major companies and nonprofits on social media strategies. See his business profile, contact JD or leave a comment.

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