Pheed Insights for Brands and Marketers

• February 25, 2013
• 2 notes
• #pheed
• #marketing
• #social media
• #brands
• #emerging platforms

The social Web is constantly evolving, and new technologies regularly reshape the marketing landscape that brands must consider as they work to engage with consumers. The smartest brands and marketers should constantly scout emerging platforms to determine whether they could provide an edge of relevance with their target audience.

Pheed, a social media platform which Forbes is calling “The New Twitter,” is growing fast. In fact, it launched only in October and boasts “around a million” users. Growth is credited to teens, a valuable, elusive target audience for brands.

Let’s dig in…

BUILD BRAND WITH STORYTELLING, RICH CONTENT AND CONTENT CURATION

Pinterest, Tumblr, and Instagram emerged last year providing a way to tell our story through visual content creation and curation. Pheed continues this trend offering users a powerful, comprehensive storytelling platform.

On Pheed, you express yourself by creating or curating texts, photos, videos, audio tracks, voice-notes and live broadcasts. This integrated toolset provides rich storytelling capabilities that was previously distributed across many platforms. Further, it provides an opportunity to experiment with audio and live broadcasts.

Content moves extremely fast through the platform thanks to the “remix” feature which is similar to Twitter’s Retweet or Pinterest’s Repin. Like empowering “digital paperboys,” branded content could be shared with an entire network of supporters through a trusted voice.

A brand should develop a comprehensive content strategy that focuses on telling their story through the many different content options and include “remixing” content created by users who support their brand.

Here are a few interesting brands and people on Pheed: WWE, Vibe Magazine, Mike Tyson, Miley Ray Cyrus, Nick Bilton, Naomi Campbell, Jamie Foxx, and Paris Hilton. Oh, and then there’s me, who is still figuring it out.

PROTECT YOUR BRAND BY ACTIVELY PARTICIPATING

Brands help us express who we are so it is no surprise that users on Pheed are already posting content of the brands they care about. A search for Nike, Red Bull and Coca-Cola shows pictures of new #Nike shoes, cans of #RedBull with comments of how it “would give them wings,” and their love for #coke.

At a high-level, this represents the reality — the message of the brand is in the hands of the customers. But by not participating in the conversation and providing an “official” voice, it potentially risks its reputation. For example, there are hundreds of “channels” and thousands of pheeds for Nike:

My assumption after looking at the branded “channels” is that they are being managed by someone other than official Nike brand managers which should raise flags up in Beaverton. It even looks like someone is trying to monetize a faux Nike Skateboarding account.

CONCLUSION

The marketing battleground has evolved and will continue to do so. Pheed represents an emerging platform that is attracting a specific target audience and builds on key storytelling trends. At a time when everyone is a brand, and everyone wants our attention, the smartest brands and marketers will develop a nimble strategy to move quickly to secure valuable mindshare.

Pinterest 101

• March 21, 2012
• #pinterest
• #social media
• #tech
• #brands

Ever since I met Ben Silbermann a few years ago at the Altitude Design Summit in Salt Lake City and he told me about his start-up, Pinterest, I’ve been collecting things I find that represent who I am and sharing them on my Pinboard. I love it.

Since the platform has gained a lot of recent attention and traction, the DAG team has released a Pinterest 101 tip sheet and presentation to help folks figure out how best to use the platform.

Here’s a link to our Pinterest page where you can click-through to the PDF of the tip sheet. Here’s the presentation: