Memes as Strategy

Cats and Babiesa content strategy for our social media age

Tyler FondaStrategy Director | Gotham, Inc.@tylerfonda

Wednesday, February 27, 13

We believe that social media is something to care desperately

about. Doing it right requires experimentation, honesty and a healthy distrust of “Best Practices.”

Our conviction that we can create our own best practices allows us to create social experiences that consumers love.

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Wednesday, February 27, 13

Wednesday, February 27, 13

memenouna cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.

Origin:

1976;  < Gk mīmeîsthai  to imitate, copy; coined by

R. Dawkins, Brit. biologist

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memes are the currency of social

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it starts with pattern recognition

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then we made our case to Denny’s

• 300,000 fans in 2011 was not enough

• We weren’t growing faster than our competition

• We would only fall farther and farther behind

• Shifting attention would only make social more important

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Some rights reserved by ilmungo

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so we went from this

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to this

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before and after

0

3.75

7.5

11.25

15

Top Virality Post %

2011 2012

0

150000

300000

450000

600000

Facebook Likes

0

2500

5000

7500

10000

Average Weekly Growth0

100000

200000

300000

400000

Highest Post Reach

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•TheNewsfeed

is all that matters

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by Arenamontanus

it came down to understanding Edgerank

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affinity• How “friendly” you are with a user• The closer you are, the more you appear in the newsfeed

edge weight• Highest weight: Photos, videos, and links• More likes on a post increases its edge weight

recency• Time decay• Newer items appear more often than older items

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in simple terms

In order to increase your Edgerank, you have to make people WANT to like, comment, click, and share your posts. Sharing

is the most valuable activity you can do on Facebook.

The most effective way to get shares and engagement is to

have compelling content AND lots of it.

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Wednesday, February 27, 13

Brands are responses to the world around us. We weren’t satisfied talking, because it wasn’t responsive. So we became a curator to SHOW the world what our brand is built on.

In Denny’s case it is easy conversation.

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to this

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We optimize through experimentation. We don't know exactly

what works till we try. However because every post is tagged

by content type once we find types and times that work we are able to maximize our Edgerank.

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memes became our trojan horse

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Facebook believes those who saw

Denny’s content before, will like what they see next. So our brand messages got huge boosts in reach.

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let’s compareThe top 5 brands on Facebook have between a 0.5 - 2% PTAT rate. PTAT is the key to unlocking success on Facebook.

0.9%

1.9%

1.8%

1.2%

0.8%

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denny’s had a 15% PTAT rate*

* Averaged this rate from March 2012-September 2012Wednesday, February 27, 13

When they share, your reach skyrockets. When your reach

expands, you acquire more likes. It’s all a part of a cycle, and we’ve figured out how to utilize it.

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or so we thought

Towards the end of the 3rd quarter Facebook changed its algorithm

and with the launch of Graph Search I think I know why it changed.

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eliminate facebook dependency

“I’m against sponsored posts being

the primary, if not the only way to

reach most of the people my

companies have built a connection

with on FB.”

-Mark Cuban

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Wednesday, February 27, 13

we’re becoming creators

By taking what we learned in 2012 about our customer and how we think we understand how content percolates through the social web.

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tumblr is our epicenter

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We are attempting to build a long term social platform at Denny’s that does not rely solely upon media spend to

maintain interest.

Memes are how we transmit our brand values across networks and to potential customers. They are the perfect vehicle if used properly.

in conclusion

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Wednesday, February 27, 13

thanks

http://youmeandmyapi.comtyler.fonda@gothaminc.com

Wednesday, February 27, 13