SMWSF Event Summary – How Should Social Experience Designers think about Social APIs? Part 2

As a continuation of Part 1 of the summary of Ogilvy’s “Beyond the Like Button” event, we will summarize the panel discussion on the future use of the Social APIs in customer and audience engagement and a presentation by John Manoogian of 140 Proof  on the application of APIs for social targeting of a brand’s audience.

The Panel Speaks

The focus of the panel discussion was the Social API and thg benefits of social sign-on. Dirk Shaw moderated the discussion and the panel consisted of (left to right)

Dirk Shaw – SVP, Digital Influence at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide,

Peter Kang – Group Creative Director, Ogilvy West.

Dan Ziman – VP, Marketing at Lithium Technologies Inc.

John Manoogian III – Founder, 140Proof

Matt Binkowski – SVP, Digital Influence, Ogilvy-SF

What are the Benefits of the Social Sign-on?

PK – “goals, clients seeing a big shift (in thinking) that equates to their social presence”

DZ – ” the conversation will be out there and  how do you manage the social conversation?, the sign-on may be a way to manage it…”

JM – ” Balance between the user fear and their desire”  “(We) use twitter OAuth, – it is trusted, users understand it”

MB – “the Like button is used to express themselves today but we use it as permission to do something to someone”

What do you see is next, how do we take data and make something unexpected?

PK – “looking for new uses of how people will use technology-video social viewing may be a way”

JM – “all information that is being aggregated, short messages that will travel to all media, all places”

MB – “Like button is used to express themselves today but we use it as permission to do something to someone”

What do the next APIs look like?

DZ – “their(Brand’s) consumers are smarter these days, using APIs to manage feedback to change the Product Management roadmap dynamically”

“Social targeting – increasing targeting through APIs..”

PK -“from a large brand point of view, APIs will look at influencers in the deep internet”, “interesting to find APIs that find and tie-in all your personas, your niche interests…” “need smart channel planning…”

JM – ” we only use interests – public interest graph…  ”

MB – “We need to understand people better, APIs will need to help gather that data” “Finding influencers and the value of how to engage in communication…”

DZ – “1% of brand citizens are brand advocates, these are the influencers you need to find about – how often they return, what they say , what they know….”

Next shift, social commerce, “here is whose birthday is coming up and here is what they like” , “how will you see e-commerce sites leverage the social graph”

MB – “bringing in info from the deep layer will help personalize product purchases” ” help me find the right thing”

JM – blippe – “integrates into all accts – open sources to all your friends…your product like/dislikes…”, “we see the interest graph by combining all things from twitter / FB”

PK – “kinda hard to put things into threaded environments, discussions”

Discussion helps with context – threading discussions

DZ – “digitizing threads and marketing , beginnings in the brand community – beyond the forums”

“Content, is where APIs put things into context”, “need curation to make something relevant – Cisco Social viewing

How do we do it from a brand prospective?

PK – Multiphase stages – “sentiment, discreet goals per audience, relevancy is needed where my FB friends group is safe , where my personal interests are…”

JM – “Curating – big company bureaucracy blocks the use of some cool tools, customer service and support is an area brands can learn something about themselves” “sometimes someone will see an ad for a product and react negatively and the brand community will chime in – one negative message turns into 100 positives”

From the Sidebar to the Social Stream

John Manoogian III, founder of 140 Proof, describes 140 Proof’s product offerings as the “1st media platform for the social stream.”  140 Proof partners with Social stream developers and developers.  They have the ability to look the “noise” stream of messages and create “targeted or promoted”  advert tweets- it is indeed the “tweet behind the scenes.”

John gave an example of what 140 Proof can do.  140 Proof can take the “positivity” in the Social Stream and by using game mechanics to incentivise people creating more engagement which enables brand conversion.  In one campaign, the conversion was “upwards of 20% of the click through.”  If  a person needs to solve a problem quickly – 140 Proof has designed a persona matching API which basically takes   “Who we follow” + “What we say” and create an “interest graph” to match the problem/need with a solution.  Imagine, getting ideas for a birthday present of a loved one based on their digital/social tracks & social persona with promoted tweets and targeted ads.

As a social media practicioner, it is very exciting to see the laser focus targeting that we can use as a social branding tool.  On the flip side, as a consumer, is it worth  giving  up my persona for the convenience or solutions to my problems/need?  The debate ensues.