February 23rd, 2010
Social marketing company Context Optional is launching an all-in-one social marketing suite for Facebook today. The move comes as Facebook fan pages and applications are increasingly becoming hubs for brand marketing, and the suite aims to help brands stand out and better engage Facebook users.
While competitors like Vitrue and Scout Labs provide alternatives to various features in the suite, Context Optional co-founder and CEO Kevin Barenblat claims Faceook executives told him the company’s product is the only comprehensive enterprise social marketing tool on the Facebook platform after he demoed it for them recently. The software lets corporations and ad agencies build custom applications and publish branded content, contests and promotions across numerous Facebook pages. Brands can use analytic tools to track user engagement and sentiment and use that information to create and measure a campaign’s effectiveness and if necessary change it on the fly.
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February 22nd, 2010
Context Optional, a social marketing most known for its apps and brand fanpage management, has expanded and integrated it services with the launch its Social Marketing Suite (SMS), San Francisco-based company announced Monday. The Suite, a more sophisticated kind of content management system for brand presence on Facebook, offers a dashboard to access publishing, comment moderation, applications, and analytics tools.
“Brands that have taken social seriously need to find more efficient ways to stay involved in consumer conversations while keeping pages interesting and free of profanity,” said Kevin Barenblat, cofounder and CEO, Context Optional.
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February 22nd, 2010
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 22 — Context Optional, the social marketing company, announced today the launch of its Social Marketing Suite, a customizable software solution for brands and agencies to manage and build brand presence on Facebook.
The Social Marketing Suite brings together Context Optional’s enterprise-class social marketing modules — Applications, Moderation, Publishing and Analytics — into one easy-to-use platform that is now available on a subscription basis. The Social Marketing Suite is the first offering that integrates campaign creation and management, fan engagement and measurement into a single product.
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February 19th, 2010
Courting youth: The radio industry is going nuts, worrying that younger listeners have abandoned the medium and consider it Squaresville, while they do their music listening on digital players, cell phones and online.
Try telling that to the thousands of youngsters who’ve graduated from Youth Radio, or to the two guys who are in the organization’s lobby in downtown Oakland, hunched over their applications, hoping to get into its tuition-free program.
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January 15th, 2010
Become a fan, get a free bagel — and schmear!
So goes the new pitch from Einstein Bros Bagels and Noah’s Bagels, both part of the Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Inc., which began giving away free bagels and spread to Facebook users Monday in exchange for becoming a fan of their pages.
Upon visiting the pages a Facebook user lands on the Free Bagel tab of either store, once you become a fan and allow access to the Free Bagel app, a printable coupon for a free bagel and spread appears, redeemable at any participating Einstein Bros or Noah’s Bagels store.
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January 15th, 2010
News brief:
Noah’s Bagels and Einstein Bros. Bagels are offering a coupon for a free bagel with schmear to consumers who sign up as Facebook fans of the brands.
In addition to coupon promotions, the brands’ Facebook pages now offer store locators powered by Google Maps. Context Optional is developing a series of enhanced Facebook features for the bagel chains.
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January 13th, 2010
This is a contributed article written by Context Optional CEO Kevin Barenblat
With a user base of more than 350 million people worldwide, Facebook has become a focal point of attention for marketers in 2010. Brands are devoting significant advertising dollars to grow their Facebook Page fan bases, and websites are implementing Facebook Connect to leverage word of mouth. Some brands are even naming products after Facebook, such as Vitaminwater’s newest flavor, Connect.
Before diving headfirst into the social waters, make sure you’re avoiding common pitfalls that many marketers fall into when building applications. Here’s a look at what not to do.
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January 13th, 2010
Context Optional, the social marketing company, today announced it has been named to the OnMedia Top 100, AlwaysOn’s annual listing of the hottest emerging companies in digital advertising.
Inclusion in the OnMedia 100 signifies the company’s leadership amongst its peers in game-changing technologies that are likely to disrupt existing markets and entrenched players. Context Optional offers major brands and agencies the tools to launch large-scale social marketing programs. In addition to creating some of the most popular branded applications for Facebook Platform, Context Optional built and launched the first moderation tool for Facebook Pages.
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January 7th, 2010
Context Optional’s latest app, Stop Me from Spending!, launched yesterday, is designed to help users gain a better understanding of the economy with tips while helping them set financial goals and avoid spending “temptations.”
The app was created by San Francisco-based Context Optional in collaboration with Youth Radio (Youth Media International) as part of a public media initiative backed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting meant to educate people about the economy.
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January 6th, 2010
Youth Media International (Youth Radio) and Context Optional, the social marketing company, today announced the launch of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting-backed “Stop Me From Spending!” Facebook application. The Context Optional-powered application is the first from Youth Media International and is aimed at giving young people a social way to encourage each other to be more thoughtful spenders.
Youth Media International approached its first venture in application development by collaborating with young people to create the Temptation Converter, a composite tool capturing young people’s ideas for what they want and need as they navigate this tough economy. The Temptation Converter allows users to type in “tempting” items, select price and category, upload a picture and immediately translate these temptations into reasonable ways to spend money. Additionally, the application allows friends to post temptations on each others’ walls, and comment on these temptations to help each other make better spending decisions.
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