Sprout and Google’s Big Announcement
The first announcement comes from Sprout…and their new service Sproutmixer. The second big announcement comes from Google…they have now made Flash media trackable on Google Analytics. That’s right, you can now track Flash media with Google Analytics.Sproutmixer Overview
Sproutmixer…a new Flex-based service from Sprout, is the epitome of viral, social media. Before, with Sproutbuilder, you could create an account and build a multi-paged, interactive, viral media campaign within no time. And you could have that media online just seconds after completing it. Now you can go even further.With Sproutmixer you can create a set of templates for a widget in which the public can then modify, add to and redistribute across the web. This doesn’t sound like much, just neat interactivity, until you delve into the possibilities of being able to track it all with a built in Google Analytics Flash media tracking system.For example, this system is already in use by pop artist Pink. If Pink wants to know what videos are popular on college campuses around the nation and break it down by region, her marketing team can release a widget targeted at college students…then track the modifications made to the widget as it spreads virally across the web. If students in the upper mid-west region of the U.S. are adding one particular video more than others, they will know that that is the popular video for that region…not necessarily for the U.S. overall and thereby begin providing that region with music more geared to that particular video when doing radio releases in the future.What this means is that businesses can start to determine what their demographic wants and begin providing them with it…instead of traditional marketing where businesses simply told their demographic why they needed their product or service.It is helping to change the way business interact with their customers and how they attempt to meet their needs.Sproutmixer and Google Analytics at a Glance
Google’s big announcement about making flash media trackable is what makes Sproutmixer such a unique service. Without the ability to track it and cross-examine the data presented, Sproutmixer would just be a fun, interactive widget service. But in just a few easy steps, one can begin to see how useful this service is.Step OneCreate and publish your media rich, viral widget.
Step Two Visitors come and click your widget.
Step ThreeVisitors add media and/or text to one of your templates.
Step FourYour modified widget is redistributed on social sites, personal websites/blogs, and other business websites.
Step FiveTrack your campaign stats on Google Analytics.
The possibilities are endless as to how far a campaign can spread and the data that can be collected from that campaign for future decision making. And one can see how many ways this data can be segmented and viewed. You get real, decision-making data on a modern social media campaign.So with their announcements today, your business could be ahead of its competition by the end of the week via publishing a great media campaign using Sproutmixer and tracking it all with Google Analytics. Stay tuned for more great updates from Adobe Max 2008 North America.