The Physical and Virtual Worlds Collide on the Streets of France

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By Angela Morabito

Over 3,000 miles from the United States’ closest Eastern boarder, a tractor-like robot branded as ‘Chalkbot’ pneumatically sprays electric-yellow messages in water-soluble paint along the Tour de France route. If this is the first you’ve heard about Chalkbot, you can check out the video of how it works, here.

This July, Digital Royalty was honored when we learned founder Amy Martin’s five-word message to Lance Armstrong had been painted on the streets of France. But Amy’s message is just one of many reasons the Digital Royalty team is so excited about Nike and LIVESTRONG‘s Chalkbot and its 40 character messages.

The messages, which will number more than 100,000 in total and are no more than 40 characters each in length, have been written to give hope and inspiration to cancer survivors and riders. Authored by a combination of average joes and luminaries from every corner of the world, the messages have a single common thread in regards to their origin–they were all submitted online. Some on LIVESTRONG’s Facebook page, others via the Chalkbot application.

The tradition of chalk-like messages of support and inspiration being written along the Tour de France isn’t new, but the delivery medium is. The Chalkbot, a now two-year old attendee of the Tour de France, is a high-tech and widely relevant take on a generations-old practice that was traditionally only relevant to two audiences–the 200 or so riders in the Tour de France and it’s spectators. It’s new audience? Everyone.

The Chalkbot is much more than a so-and-so ton robot scribbling messages. Instead, Chalkbot is the embodiment of a powerful trend: the convergence of the virtual world and the physical world. Although different in appearance, the Chalkbot campaign is same in theory as to what made the Digital Royalty-created concept of Hide and Tweet with clients Shaquille O’Neal, the White Sox and others, so successful: people want to see the virtual and physical world collide.

The concept that online messages can become physical messages is in itself powerful, but here Chalkbot goes a step further. The process comes full circle by taking now physical messages and putting them back online–this time in the form of TwitPics tweeted via Chalkbot’s very own Twitter account. What’s more is that the folks at Nike and LIVESTRONG behind Chalkbot have pre-identified influencers, labeled them as such, and put the TwitPic of their message in each influencer’s hands. That’s powerful. Not only is it powerful, but it’s smart.

The campaign not only encourages engagement on Nike and LIVESTRONG’s official touch points, but leverages social media influencers. Take our very own Amy Martin, and professional surfer Kelly Slater. Combined, the two have a presence of over 1.4 million directly-accessible impressions across Facebook and Twitter. And when the two tweet or post their Chalkbot message to their followers, awarenesss of Chalkbot is spread to a larger audience than would ever have been feasible.

Public Relations vs. Social Relations

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It may not be a new concept to pitch reporters via Twitter, but our office does a jump Hi-5 when that tweet turns into a news story without a press release anywhere insight. Traditional media relations as we used to know it, has drastically changed over the past two years, thanks to social media services like Peter Shankman’s Help A Reporter Out (HARO), and communication tools such as Twitter.

We are constantly monitoring the social media ecosystem for opportunities for our clients. To prove yet another power of Twitter and listening, here’s an example of how we recently used it as a public relations resource:

Sunday, June 27:
6:47PM Local ABC 15 reporter, Tim Vetscher sent a tweet seeking a source for his Foursquare story
7:05PM I sent a tweet in response to @Tim_Vetscher tweet
7:40PM Email sent to Tim Vetscher

Wednesday, June 30:
12:45PM TV segment shot with Amy who shared case studies
6:15PM Segment aired on ABC 15

Talk about a time-saver for everyone involved. The days of spending hours to draft a pitch or press release are limited. Now we’re drafting 140 character “pitch” tweets and DMs. More and more reporters have turned to Twitter and social media for a resource to gather information and sources for the stories they are writing. Twitter may be a powerful listening tool for consumers and potential customers, but lets not forget about the folks that are writing or producing stories about our brands.

So, shouldn’t we be listening closely for these golden opportunities? There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t see a tweet from a reporter or a blogger looking for a source or information for a story they are working on and if you aren’t listening, it’s likely your competitors are. Most media outlets have directories which allow us to easily identify who to silently stwalk.

Coming from a public relations background, I can appreciate how difficult it is to get a response from a reporter on an email pitch, let alone a phone call. So I am rejoiced to have another form of communication, and due to the nature of social media, we have the ability to communicate (in a more personable environment) with everyone and anyone we chose to, including @The_Real_Shaq or even @KingJames!

To watch how Amy’s interview with ABC 15 played out, visit: http://bit.ly/a8FHUC

On the flip side, brands also have the ability to announce breaking news via these new communication methods. For example, Tony Hsieh, Zappos.com CEO, announced the Zappos/Amazon marriage with a tweet linking to this open letter: http://blogs.zappos.com/ceoletter. This gives companies the ability to control the message and content, before it hits mainstream media.

The Miami Heat Goes MIA

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A few hours ago, I watched “The Decision” on ESPN and Lebron made his announcement. He’s Miami bound. So, I decided to click over to the Heat’s official Twitter page to see what they had to say and I discovered the unimaginable. They were speechless. Hadn’t tweeted a peep in over six hours.

Where were they I asked? How could they not show up to their own party? Did the NBA make them sit on their thumbs? Nope, because other NBA teams were active even though things didn’t net out as they’d hoped.

This was their time to shine. The spotlight doesn’t get much warmer than this. It was important for them to have a presence especially in the HEAT of their moment. The team just spent nearly $300 million on three people and the World was talking about them.

This was a land grab. Brand new eager fans and old fans with renewed hopes were ready to take a step up on their loyal fan ladder. They would have loved to hear from the official voice of the team. Instead, they heard an outdated message. The Heat’s Twitter page was still trying to recruit D. Wade who announced 48 hours prior that he was committed to their team along with Bosh.

What happened to the human behind the brand? Did the social media intern go on vacation? Thumb sprain perhaps? Maybe the Twitter password was misplaced? Nope, because Facebook was the same. I was expecting to see a virtual pep rally or live video of Will Smith performing “Welcome to Miami.” but instead I heard crickets.

Wouldn’t it have been nice to have Chris Bosh and D. Wade streaming live from the court? Maybe a little Miami Thrice music playing up and under? J. Lo could have popped in to do the happy dance with crowned Heat dancers? They could have RT’d all the celebs who were celebrating, or simply expose the emotion inside the office. The Miami Heat was the glue to make a production like this happen and tell the story . . .  virtually . . . live.

There were missed sponsorship opportunities as well. The Heat could have sold their twitter background, integrated marketing partners who are welcoming King James with open arms (and open checkbooks).

Then about an hour later, they arrived. Well, kinda. They shared the same quotes from their coach that we’re also live on TV. Fans want photos, exclusive video, things nobody else can hear, what insiders are saying, what it’s like to work in the front office right now . . . these are things that only the Heat could have provided. Nobody else on this planet had access like they did. Opportunity missed.

Lesson: This space is alive and it doesn’t turn off. You can’t disappear all of a sudden because fans will stop trusting you. Fans are GRADING you at all times.

And, the way Lebron and Dan Gilbert handled this is another post.

Do the People who “Like” You Actually “Like” You?

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So you just drafted a lovely Facebook status, attached a snazzy photo and shared it with all of those awesome people who “like” your page; but did you know that some of those people will never see your hard (crafty) work because they are hiding from you?

Yep, it’s true. And you can find out exactly how many by following these steps:

  1. Go to your Insights page and look at the bottom-left graph.
  2. Select Total Fans/Unsubscribed Fans
  3. Check the yellow “Hidden from Newsfeed” box.

Now that you have this information, what percentage of your brand’s fans are hiding from you? In our experience, an average of 3-8% don’t see your content in their News Feed. This percentage is something to keep your eye on.

If your percentage is higher than 10%, that could be a sign to rethink your Facebook strategy and tonality.  Here are some tips to consider when posting on Facebook, back to the basics:

Content: The key is delivering VALUE when, where and how your fans want to receive it. Share interesting, entertaining, informative and relevant content. It’s best to include a visual such as an image, video or thumbnail when posting. Keep it fresh and avoid re-posting the same content. Sound basic? It is. Yet we’ve all been victims of the paragraph-style text only updates that take up four inches in our feed. The hide button is just too tempting when you only have a hot second to check your Facebook feed at work. The essay updates can be a buzz kill.

Frequency: When people “like” your page they are subscribing to get updates from you on a semi-regular basis. This is a privilege and shouldn’t be abused by bombarding fans with updates. You don’t want your brand to seem desperate like it’s trying to hard or has too much time on its hands. (You know what we’re talking about here. We all have family members who fall into this category.) To most, this Facebook behavior results in an automatic “hide” button or even a (gasp) “unlike”. Do you know how many updates you post a week? Do you know how many fans you gain a week? Is there a correlation? Yes, it’s very likely. Pun intended.

Engage: Your fans love to hear about what is going on with you but also ask them what is going on with them. And then, LISTEN to the answer. Ask questions, respond to questions, and overall just be social with your “likes”.  They’ll, uh, like it. Many brands don’t respond to comments. So, the expectation is that. It’s an easy way to wow your fans and make them “like” you more. (Then they’ll tell their friends to “like” you.)

Make sure to monitor the “total fans” to “hide” ratio.  And the “unsubscribes” (or “unlikes”) to “hides” ratio. The early adopters are likely to be your loyalists and therefore you should experience less “hiders” in the beginning.


© Digital Royalty Inc.