Results from initial campaigns show a double-digit lift in the interaction rate of Social Ad and Socialite units as compared to standard CPG rich media benchmarks of 5.68 percent.

The Social Ad product is for brands using the Ripple6 Social Hub. It pulls approved comments from conversations taking place within a brand’s online social community and places them into a display ad unit.  Social Ad gives brands the power to extend the reach of their brand community to any site where ads can be served. With one click, consumers can view a Social Ad and begin to participate in the brand’s Social Hub conversation. Through this integration with the Social Hub, the conversation within the ad can also be rippled throughout Facebook, Twitter, brand sites and more.

The Socialite offering is for brands that have yet to invest in a Social Hub but want to explore and benefit from the power of social integration in display advertising. It is ideal for single campaigns, event-based promotions or new product launches. Socialite enables brands to create a dialog in ads where users can view and interact without joining or registering with that community. When consumers interact with the conversation in Socialite, they can view and participate in the conversation, share it with their friends and even return to the conversation on a corresponding landing page at a later time.

“These products are about giving marketers more tools to seamlessly build their online communities of brand advocates,” said Sang Kim, CEO of Ripple6. “Social Ad and Socialite give brands further reach with the power to take their positive social messages to audiences beyond Facebook or Twitter to wherever consumers are on the web.”

Both Social Ad and Socialite include a robust analytics tool that measures social activity within the ad unit and gives quantitative ad performance metrics plus qualitative analysis of real-time conversations. The tool provides marketers valuable insights based on consumers’ activity within the ad.

Social Ad and Socialite provide brands with a flexible level of control because the ad manager has the power to decide which consumer comments appear within the ad at any given time. The manager can change the comments appearing within the ad hourly, daily or weekly, and the system is flexible enough to ensure that only brand-consistent information runs within the ad unit. With Socialite, brands can choose whether to audit the conversation or let posts appear as they occur. A profanity filter is always used for any posts, whether managed or otherwise.

About Ripple6
Ripple6, the social marketing division of PointRoll and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), provides a platform that enables brands to connect, listen and engage with social audiences through community management tools and social analytic solutions. Founded in 2006, Ripple6 gives brands an enterprise grade platform to manage their entire social strategy. Ripple6 is based in New York and its list of clients and partners includes P&G, Meredith Corporation, and Unilever. For more information, please visit www.ripple6.com.

Media Contact:

Jessica Fletcher, 646-202-9753, Jessica.fletcher@horngroup.com

NEW YORK, NY — May 13, 2010 — PointRoll, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) and the leading provider of digital marketing solutions, today announced the integration of Ripple6, the premier provider of social media technology and expertise for marketers and publishers, into its full suite of offerings. Marketers now have the ability to unify their social marketing with rich media, video and mobile efforts.

The integration will combine sales and operational efforts and tie together product offerings into a comprehensive digital marketing suite. Sang Kim, Founder and CEO of Ripple6, will continue to oversee the division under PointRoll. Ripple6 headquarters will remain in New York City.

“The future of marketing will be driven by how social media can turn audiences into advocates,” said Jason Tafler, CEO of PointRoll. “Together with Ripple6, we can offer marketers a true full-service solution for not only reaching the right audience, but engaging them with compelling rich media creative across platforms.  The combined offerings unite the advertising and social elements that can turn audiences into buyers and brand believers. Marketers must think about an entire cohesive effort across display, mobile, video, circulars and social. We’re able to deliver that with one point of entry.”

The two companies have collaborated to introduce the Social Hub and other offerings including Social Ads, which incorporate real-time conversations from online communities, and Social Insights, an advanced social media research product.

The Social Hub is a ‘build once, deploy everywhere’ social marketing platform that enables the world’s largest brands to connect, listen and engage with a critical mass of consumers.  It is the only platform that synchronizes conversations across multiple online destinations and communities, providing marketers the ability to extend one conversation across every spoke of their social presence –  significantly increasing the word-of-mouth impact of a brand’s most active and influential online advocates.

Click here to see a Social Hub demo video.

“Brands are commonly managing communities across multiple social destinations or networks, injecting a near unmanageable level of complexity into their overall digital marketing efforts,” said Sang Kim, CEO, Ripple6.  “The Social Hub helps marketers harness, manage and unlock the power of not just Facebook, Twitter or any other individual brand community, but the entire ecosystem of conversations about their brand happening across the social web.”

Brands using PointRoll’s Ripple6 social offering will benefit from easy access to high-level and impactful social ads. Social ads incorporate conversations from online communities, in real-time, and create opportunities for new users to join and converse directly in the ad unit. The ads help marketers measurably extend conversations around their brands and provide new consumer engagement options.

Click here to see a Social Ad demo.

PointRoll and Ripple6 are both wholly-owned by Gannett Co., Inc. PointRoll was acquired by Gannett in 2005 and Gannett fully acquired ShopLocal, the retail division of PointRoll, in 2008. Ripple6 was acquired by Gannett in 2008.

About PointRoll

PointRoll, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), is the leading provider of digital marketing services and technology enabling advertisers, agencies and Web publishers to create, deliver and measure interactive and action-inspiring online video, rich media display, mobile, social, and search campaigns. Understanding both the art and science of the digital medium, PointRoll provides the creative tools, analytics, distributed content, and expertise marketers need to effectively engage consumers and make a memorable and measurable impression. Evolving beyond the banner, PointRoll allows marketers to find consumers wherever they are across any digital platform or social channel and deliver a relevant and engaging experience, dramatically improving marketing effectiveness. Serving more than 350 billion impressions for more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500 brands, PointRoll delivers measurable campaign results. For more information, please visit www.pointroll.com.

About Ripple6

Ripple6, the social marketing division of PointRoll, provides a platform that enables brands to connect, listen and engage with social audiences through community management tools and social analytic solutions, designed to give brands an enterprise grade platform to manage their entire social strategy. Ripple6 is based in New York and its list of clients and partners includes P&G, Meredith Corporation, and Unilever. For more information, please visit www.ripple6.com.

Media Contact
Corie Pierce
Horn Group
646-202-9758 / corie.pierce@horngroup.com

For some time, microsites acted as a core component of many marketing campaigns. They provided fast, shorter-term focal points to introduce new lines or new promotions. But not so much anymore. The inability to scale individual microsites or connect them in your marketing efforts pushed them away from the forefront. Today’s quickly evolving landscape offers many solutions for listening, engaging, and interacting with consumers, creating relationships in social networks. But how can you translate those efforts into a comprehensive strategy, with the right tools and technology to scale your efforts long term?

In this webinar, you’ll learn how to quickly deploy a more engaging and scalable microsite model that can both connect and scale your social marketing. You’ll get answers to the following questions:

• How can you scale your social media strategy across the Internet?
• How do you put user generated content to work for you?
• How do you find advocates and then unlock their value in more places than one?

Register today because seating is limited!

Quick and easy registration:

1. Complete the online registration form.
2. Check your email Inbox for the instructions to login to the webinar.

We’ll see you there!

The Social Hub:
A Comprehensive Social Media Strategy

Date: Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Time: 2:00 PM ET

Engaging with your customers through social networks is becoming a vital part in any company’s brand marketing strategy. However, there are high demands of time and resources, plus difficulties measuring return on investment.

From this Webinar, you’ll learn how to create a Social Hub to improve efficiencies in your social marketing and you will find out answers to the following questions:

• How can you scale your social media strategy across the Internet?
• How do you manage multiple social marketing efforts?
• How do you put user generated content to work for you?
• How do you build and leverage advocates?

Register today because seating is limited!

Quick and easy registration:

1. Complete the online registration form.
2. Check your email Inbox for the instructions to login to the webinar.

We’ll see you there!

We’ll be talking more about the community in the coming days and weeks (so stay tuned), but today want to share some of the cool community features, as well as let you know why we’re so excited about this community.

Why We’re Excited

Meredith chose the Ripple6 social networking platform when they began developing Mixingbowl.com over a year ago. They’ve shown through the development of MixingBowl, as well as the special-edition magazine of the same name, that Meredith is committed to utilizing communities (and our platform) strategically.

Parents (magazine and website) is the “go to” resource for millions of moms and dads.  Now they’ve deployed our platform on Parents.com, giving that audience the ability to connect with each other, share ideas/tips, talk to editors, and have fun with contests!   We think it’s an extension of their commitment not just to our platform, but to connect people and marketers across social networks.  And we think that’s cool.

What’s Cool in Parents Community

Here’s a quick look at some cool features for users of the Parents Community.

• “Talk to The Editors” section: Allows users to submit and discuss story ideas for Parents and American Baby magazines, as well as Parents.com.
• Due Date Clubs: Users can join moms with similar due dates to share the joys and struggles of their pregnancy brings.
• “Meet Moms”: Using Ripple6 Smart Groups, users can find groups and other moms with similar interests based on their submitted profiles.
• Facebook Connect: Users can link their activity in the Parents Community with their FB news feed…sharing stories, posts and groups they belong to.
• Treats: Users can send their friends special messages and online treats as a way to have fun and build online relationships.

We’ll talk more about the community in the coming days and weeks, so check back for more!

As we all know, a magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Jan. 12.

Most of us, thankfully, will never be personally touched by a tragedy of this magnitude.  As a native New Yorker, I know first-hand what it is like to have tragedy thrust on your doorstep.  Human nature dictates that most of the world will begin to settle back into their routine within a month or two. Not to forget, but to pick up the pieces and move on, as we are resilient.  Many will pay attention to the news in Haiti, send funds, or volunteer their time to help them rebuild.  Others, due to distance from Haiti or a lack of a personal connection, may not truly ‘process’ what happened to the people, country, and economy there.  For many reasons, Haiti hit home for me, and it has remained on my mind ever since.

One of my dear friends has family in Haiti. She’s not only a friend of mine but a friend of Ripple6.   Her brother was in Haiti visiting family when the quake struck.  Luckily, he and the rest of the family came through physically OK.  Her brother has since stayed on to help with the relief efforts, which makes me wonder about what we can do to help him.

We’re a mere 1500 or so miles away from this country in desperate need of our help. However, when I think about our quality of life, sadly, we’re light years away.   I know that my colleagues, partners and friends in the advertising community have been some of the first to donate their time, resources, energy and attention to disasters like this.  I look forward to helping Haiti with what I can, and welcome you contact me with an idea for a benefit to raise funds.

I was asked to come and moderate a panel about social media in the music industry, and had the great pleasure of asking Tessa Horhled, Ted Wright, Stephen Linn and Ben Bennett questions submitted by Social Fresh community members and Twitter, as well as a few of my own.

While moderating the panel was great, the highlight of the event for me was talking with fellow attendees and attending many of the other stellar sessions.

In no particular order, here are the things that stuck with me through my flight home and day back at the office:

• Dan Zarrella Wow. If you aren’t paying attention to him, you should start.  He looks at social media from a scientific perspective, and his presentation left me with an urge to go back and look at our own metrics and historical data with a new eye.
• The ROI of Community panelists (DJ Waldow, Lisa Hoffmann, Amber Naslund and Zena Weist) This panel was absolutely enlightening.  The panelists come from a variety of companies, including Blue Sky Factory, Duke Power, Radian6 and H&R Block. The audience wasn’t shy about asking hard-hitting questions, and the panelists responded candidly, with great insight about what the challenges and rewards are of developing a community.
• Southwest Airlines Paula Berg (formerly of Southwest Airlines, now with Linhart PR) gave a great presentation to open up the day.  Southwest Airlines has really shown consumers that they care about them as people, not just wallets, over the last few years. It was refreshing to see how truthful this message was carried throughout the organization, and I learned a lot about the culture inside the Southwest organization. If possible, I respect them even more after hearing Paula speak, even though I raised my hand as one not in favor of their “open seating” policy.

Some sessions stick out in my mind as “I wish I had attended”. Jason Falls gave a much-tweeted about presentation, talking about moving the needle in social media. Geno Church closed out the day with a presentation referred to by attendees as “a work of art”, speaking about the work of Brains on Fire.

What was the biggest takeaway for me? The people.

Connecting in a community online, commenting on a blog, posting on a message board, exchanging messages on Twitter or Facebook are all great methods to keep up with people who may be in a distant location, but nothing beats sitting down and sharing a meal, or chatting over a cup (or three) of coffee.

If you haven’t been to Social Fresh, I highly urge you to take a look at the schedule of events of the rest of the year and go to an upcoming conference. We are happy to have been a part of two events so far, and are looking forward to being a part of Social Fresh Tampa as well.

Sang Kim, our CEO, spoke last fall at the inaugural Charlotte Social Fresh event, which was attended by over 200 marketing professionals from companies including Walmart, Best Buy, Lowe’s, Duke Energy, Bank of America, Family Dollar, Ruby Tuesday, IBM, Rubbermaid, and the Humane Society.  We were thrilled to be invited to speak at both Nashville and Tampa, and have been monitoring the buzz about the upcoming events on Twitter, the Social Fresh Community and through our RSS feeds ever since.

Nashville’s complete lineup can be found here, and we’re speaking as part of the “Social Media in the Music Industry” panel in the 10:15-11:00am slot.

Our fellow panelists include Tessa Horehled, Senior Strategist – Social Media at THINK Interactive, Ben Bennett, Online Promotions and Mobile Marketing Manager at the Country Music Association (CMA) and Justin McIntosh, Manager of Web Services and Marketing at Big Machine Records.

In advance of the panel, here are some interesting music-related statistics (full report):

• Digital platforms now account for around 20% of recorded music sales, up from 15% in 2007
• Single track downloads, up 24% in 2008 to 1.4 billion units globally, continue to drive the online market, but digital albums are also growing steadily (up 37%).

Hypebot recently posted a short article about George Howard, taken from his 9GiantSteps blog.

“The first moment of leveling occurred with the advent of ProTools. No longer did one need to collateralize their creativity in exchange for funds from a record label to create a competitive recording.

The second moment of leveling arose via firms like TuneCore. No longer did one have to be signed to a label to have distribution.

The third moment of leveling revolved around the emergence of social media. While not completely obviating the need for traditional promotion, the rise of social media certainly shifted the power away from people like publicists and into the hands of the creator.We now arrive at a place where musicians/artists are comparable to chefs. All chefs, within reason, have access to the same ingredients. Certainly, geography plays a role for access to ingredients, in a similar manner as geography plays a role for musicians/artists – if you don’t like your geography/feel it’s a competitive disadvantage, move.”

For further thought on the subject, check out Ian Rogers, CEO of Topspin Media being interviewed by Wired.  It’s a long(ish) video, but worth the watch.

NARM 2009 Keynote Interview With Ian Rogers from NARM on Vimeo.

We’ll be keeping these points in mind as we head to Nashville, and are looking forward to discussing how social media has/is impacting the music industry on Monday with our fellow panelists.

What do you think?

We’d love to hear your questions, and you can either leave them in the comments or submit them directly to the panelists on the Social Fresh Community.

The article was about the digiday:TARGET conference last month, and a conversation among several executives about the way “brands are showing up online.”  I wasn’t there, so I can’t offer the full context of what appeared to be a pretty interesting media buying debate.  However, the real tension – the most captivating point – and the thing that made me stop was the idea of “showing up.”

What does it mean when a brand shows up?

Well, it used to mean that you were looking at research, perhaps a list, or some piece of syndicated data on who had spent media dollars.  You might have seen brands listed as having advertised in print or on TV or radio. They might have shown up on a list of good brands or bad brands, but did they actually do anything other than make a cursory appearance before the page was turned, the commercial skipped or the channel changed?

That’s the way I used to think about it.  But not anymore.

Today, my first reaction is to laugh, because when you talk about brands “showing up” now, it’s not about traditional media.  You mean social marketing.  The phrase has a new context; the bar has been raised, and most marketers playing in the online media sandbox realize that there’s a new set of rules.  For them, “showing up” means participating in people’s lives – and not just as a tool, product or service.

The social web is what changed that.  Interpersonal communication is not always face to face anymore.  It happens via web sites, through text messages, and comments and photo  and video uploads and more.  When you consider the way people use the web now – relying on it to connect and share with others – you begin to think of the web as something other than an advertising medium.  Something altogether different than other marketing channels.

For many people, the web is just plain integrated to the way they live.  For some, their most intimate relationships are with those whom they connect online.  Yes, people still “visit” web sites, but their motivations and expectations are much greater than even a few years ago.

That’s the difference (and the difficulty) in showing up now.

When brands show up online now, they are actively participating in people’s lives. Marketers have the potential to create experiences that are as inspiring (or not) as the daily interactions people have with their brands.  And inspiring people is what creates word-of-mouth, the most desirable and trusted form of communication.

This makes the online marketing mix an interesting place – one where the brand imagery truly has to fit with the brand delivery.  In addition, research isn’t something you do before and after you communicate; it’s something that happens while you communicate and within the medium.  Show up in this medium, and you’d better not just be lobbing in messages about how you’re better than the competition.  You’d better be real, authentic, transparent, (insert next social buzzword here).  That’s the fact, though.

A lot of brands have shown up this year.  Fan pages, Twitter accounts, and iPhone apps are among the places where they’re done it.  Many of them have even shown up on a list of the Top 100 Social Brands (according to Vitrue).  It’s a list that is dominated by brands that have traditionally inspired people with their marketing and product delivery.  Many of the usual suspects, you might say.

But next year, that should change considerably.  Because in 2010, a lot more brands are going to show up.  Will you be one of them?