Propagation Planning

PostRank Analytics Free Trial

I got an email from PostRank where they are giving people free trial to PostRank Analytics and I really like the user experience and dashboard that I wanted to share the trail with my readers. The website measures engagement, something that all of us agency people have been talking about. 

For example here is the Engagement Analytics for the Lessons in Propagation Planning 2009 post:

Here you can see 324 page views, 16 Engagement Events and 111 Engagement Points. This is a pretty cool way to measure the propagation of a Blog post.

If you want to try it out for yourself here is the invite code and the registration URL:

Invite code: 2009topblogs
Registration URL: http://bit.ly/4FZ3wo

Lessons in Propagation Planning 2009

I wanted to share the best of what I learned in Propagation Planning over the last year of writing this Blog. This presentation describes the theory, examples from the past year or two, tools that you can use in your plans and how to bring Propagation Planning into your agency.

I hope you enjoy it (PDF has been loaded so web links should work). I don't think it will be as popular as my Strategic Planning in Advertising presentation but I think it is more important for where the industry is heading.  

Lessons in Propagation Planning 2009

View more documents from Griffin Farley.

Creative Agency Websites

Margery Nabors wrote a nice presentation on agency websites and website redesign fodder. I liked what she said about moving from agency sizzle to agency content.

Congratulations Buffalo Wild Wings: 1 Million Fans

Just wanted to congratulate Buffalo Wild Wings (a 22squared client) for reaching 1 Million Fans on its Facebook page last night. Monday Night Football may have helped that final push.

I'll keep you informed of the various ways that Buffalo Wild Wings use this platform for propagation.

A brief history of Propagation Planning

Connection Planning has been around for 10 years and has been practiced at agencies like Fallon and Chiat Day. For our agency to be a part of the next shift in industry thinking we needed to know, “what comes after connection planning?” 

I think Propagation Planning could be that next big shift.

Ivan Pollard from Naked Communications presented the theory of propagation planning at the APG Battle of Big Thinking in October of 2006. Steve Wing from The Guardian was in attendance and suggested to Ivan that he should call his theory Propagation Planning.

Since then, Faris Yakob (now at McCaan NY) has been sited with the most press regarding Propagation Planning. In 2007 Faris wrote an essay where the subject was mentioned and the essay was featured in Campaign Magazine.

In November of 2008 I wrote a presentation on Propagation Planning for 22squared based on a Blog post by Ivan that was posted on Naked Communications Tokyo Blog (luckily it was in English). The presentation earned me a trip to the Futures of Entertainment 3 conference at MIT where I learned more about the subject.

In December of 2008 I created this Blog where I archive articles, examples, jobs, theories and tools in propagation planning. For such a narrow subject in one year the Blog has had 300+ posts, 100+ comments and 9,000+ unique visitors from 86 countries (top three are USA, UK and Brazil). 

So thank you for visiting the Blog this year and I hope next year will be even better!

Asking the Right Questions

A few weeks ago I stayed at a great Boston hotel and to get on the internet I had to sign up for the loyalty program. What I found interesting was the types of questions that they asked for their loyalty program, I thought it helped customize the hotel experience to make a more enjoyable experience which will increase advocacy in the long run.

Sometimes asking the right questions makes all the difference.

Trends for 2010

What is Transmedia?

This is a great video that features some of the grad students and professors at MIT C3. I really like the explanation that William gives about Transmedia (individual creative in each medium) vs. Cross Media (the same creative idea in other mediums).

Barclaycard Waterslide iPhone Ad Extension

One of the best spots in 2008 came from BBH London to promote the Barclay Bank Card.

This amazing production sparked an idea for a branded iPhone app called Waterslide Extreme from digital agency Dare. The app became the most popular branded iPhone app in 57 countries. This game has been downloaded 7 Million times to date (3 Million in just 12 days alone). This is a nice case study of using the iPhone as a propagation platform.

Humans as Sensors: Measure earthquakes with Twitter

This is a great post found on Mobile Behavior and the BBC:

The US Geological Survey has been tracking tweets to get instant public reaction to earthquakes. Similar to sentiment analysis and mobile crowdsourcing, the tactic involves scraping public opinion, and putting it to use in ways not originally intended. Tweets with geo-data attached help in more accurately pinpointing location.

Through harnessing the masses, the USGS is able to graph spikes in Twitter traffic and assess whether or not a situation is serious enough for deploying emergency responders. While the strategy is not entirely dependable (results for the videogame Quake clutter the search), it is yet another case for the power and flexibility of social media.