We are having a BLAST with Tennis Channel and the U.S. Open, despite the rain. Today the sun is poking through the clouds and it’s game on! We’ve partnered on some really fun initiatives with Tennis Channel to support their participation in the U.S. Open. Here, we’ll volley a few of them at you:

Andy Roddick Photo Retrospective: We launched a photo retrospective of Andy Roddick’s career, exclusive to our Facebook fans. We curated 35 images ranging from his professional career in 2000 through his Round 1 victory in this year’s U.S. Open. In addition, we added a module at the bottom of the app where fans can share their good luck wishes to Roddick, with the option to post that message on their Facebook wall.

Tennis Channel Top Fan

Our Top Fan contests are incredible new fan recruitment tools. AND because by design they fill your community with friends of friends, the opportunity to influence the affinity score of your EdgeRank is tremendous. The contest lasts until September 12, 2011, so we invite you to “LIKE” Tennis Channel as well and play along! We’ll be giving away a $500 Amex Gift Card to the one fan that recruits the highest number of friends to become fans of Tennis Channel on Facebook each week. In addition, we’ll be giving away Tennis Channel prize packs (t-shirt, hat, jacket, etc) to the nine runners-up each week.

Live coverage

This is obviously the most fun – watching along with and interacting with passionate fans of tennis.  The fans on Tennis Channel’s Facebook page know every backstory, every piece of trivia, they’re the truest kind of fan.  We’ve been polling them every morning to see what matches they’re most interested in seeing covered.  We listen. Based on their votes, we then cover those matches on the Tennis Channel Facebook wall, utilizing the Comments section as a live chat. As news breaks, we add additional posts, keeping fans up to date on all scores and news from NYC. We’ve also been working with their community management team, which has been a great team working experience.

If you’re following along with the U.S. Open, you should pop into Tennis Channel’s Facebook page and join in the fun, the debate, and the celebration (and maybe a little agony of defeat…): https://www.facebook.com/tennischannel

New York — August 25, 2011 enter:new media, a digital media agency specializing in fashion, retail and entertainment, has announced that leading retailer Urban Outfitters is the first client to utilize enter:new media’s news feed magazine platform. The inaugural issue highlights favorite looks from the Urban Outfitters Early Fall Catalog and provides deep links directly into Urban Outfitters’ ecommerce website. Facebook users who have “Liked” Urban Outfitters will find the shoppable magazine in their own Facebook news feeds. It is available to everyone else on the retailer’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/urbanoutfitters.

“Marketers are actively looking for new ways to deliver value to their communities and new streams of value to their brands,” said Mark Curtis, president of enter:new media. “With fans spending more than twice as much time in their news feed than they do in applications, this tool enables a new, highly useful class of interactive Facebook content. We are proud to launch this application with Urban Outfitters, a clear leader in social media and online retail.”

Activated within the brand’s post in the Facebo
ok news feed, the magazine allows users to virtually “turn pages” of editorial content and deep link directly to product pages and additional content sources. The magazine platform is highly flexible and can be used to:

• Launch shoppable magazines.

• Deliver interactive catalogs.

• Promote traffic to highlighted content on your site.

• Integrate with other promotions such as contests and sweepstakes.
For more information about enter:new media’s retail marketing services, please contact Julia Zaborowski at 212-731-2033 or jz@enternewmedia.com.

About enter: new media

enter:new media (ENM) is a leading social media agency  focused on growing, activating and optimizing social media communities for entertainment, fashion, and retail brands. Unlike other agencies offering social media services, ENM was designed from the ground up to deliver end-to-end social media capabilities encompassing Strategy, Outreach, Content, Analytics, Marketing, and Media. ENM is an independent agency based in New York City. For more information, please visit: http://enternewmedia.com

About Urban Outfitters

Founded in 1970, Urban Outfitters operates more than 130 stores in the United States, Canada and Europe, all offering an eclectic mix of merchandise. We stock our stores with what we love, calling on our — and our customer’s — interest in contemporary art, music and fashion. From men’s & women’s apparel and accessories to items for the apartment, we offer a lifestyle-specific shopping experience for the educated, urban-minded individual in the 18 to 30 year-old range — both online and in our stores as well as through our catalog.

– Emily Sobol, Director of Communications @ enter:new media

Colbert and Comedy Central teamed with enter:new media to create a custom Facebook tab to act as the social media headquarters for the show’s “Skate Expectations” campaign.

This custom, updatable application, provides fans access to a curated selection of videos and articles related to the U.S. Speed Skating team, the Winter Olympics and ColbertNation.com. Colbert’s Twitter feed, @StephenAtHome, is woven into the application, affording fans the chance to expand their relationship with the show across social media platforms.

But like all good social platforms, this tab does more than just provide cool content. Fans can show their support for the U.S. Speed Skating team by posting to the page as well as their own profile. Fans can even take their commitment a step further by donating to the team.

Finally the custom tab is designed to easily resize to the new Facebook tab standards being rolled out before the end of the month.

UPDATE: Facebook decided to feature this tab on their “Celebs on Facebook,”  page.

Versace decided to get in front of this trend. Rather than enter social media with trepidation, a common approach in the luxury apparel market, this premier apparel and accessories brand worked with enter:new media to launch an integrated online-to-boutique concierge service to engage its customers through the holiday season, cultivate brand loyalty and infuse a personal touch into the online retailing environment.

Through a custom microsite, versacewishlist.com, visitors could choose from a wide range of Versace merchandise, including new items not yet available to the general public. The application includes the capability to track clothing sizes, as well, ensuring that the user’s exact preferences could be recorded. Then, they could either forward the list to the people most likely to buy the contents for them – such as a husband or family member – or make a purchase directly. After having been opened to a targeted list of Versace customers, access was later extended to fans of the brand on Facebook and followers on Twitter.

Instead of merely receiving the order via mail, the custom application sends it to a local boutique, where the recipient can see the clothing, try it on and work with a specialist to ensure that the gifts or personal purchases are exactly what she wants. High-touch service is thus wrapped into the experience, differentiating Versace’s social media marketing and selling technique from the rest of the market.

Through the Versace Wishlist site, we created a new way to induce customers to enter the in-store experience, which remains highly valued in the luxury sector. Once a customer enters the store to complete the Wishlist purchase, opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling open up, delivering an opportunity to increase the value of the transaction – and the ROI from the social media marketing effort.

The social media space doesn’t preclude personal interaction. In fact, it can drive more opportunities for high-value client interaction, as long as the marketing program is constructed properly. As we’ve seen with Versace, customer engagement should be pervasive and ongoing. What starts on the web can end in the store, especially when your most loyal customers are given access to products before they reach the shelves.

The digital economy has embraced the luxury sector – and vice versa. The industry’s new challenge is to harness this environment to deepen the customer relationship and increase the frequency and size of purchases. As we’ve shown with Versace, a clear ROI on social media marketing is not only possible but attainable.

iVillage is one of the first and largest communities for women online. Their decision to make the move onto new social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook was more than just a ploy to increase traffic back to their page. The brand is focused on extending its community onto these platforms in a way that creates new value for the business and unique experiences for users.

As Michele Mitchell, VP of Audience Development and Retention for iVillage explains, “For us Facebook is not simply a place for us to advertise, it’s a new platform for us to build our business and extend our community.”

Check out the new iVillage Facebook presence and stay tuned to see how we continue to help this initiative grow to become an increasingly important part of their business.

Brands often ask us if we design and build websites. Of course we do! In fact the sites we build kick bootay. Check out our latest creation. We gave our beloved client WeightView a new web makeover more in line with their brand and maturity of their overall business. It’s been pretty fun giving WeightView their very own before and after image.

It didn’t take long for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions to recognize that the SAT/ACT-studying market is spending a lot of their free time on Facebook. In fact, we helped them create their first Facebook applications over a year ago, specifically designed to let teens deal with the stress of testing and the admissions process.

Fast forward to today and boy how the demographics of Facebook have changed! Almost half (45%) of Facebook’s US audience is now 26 years old or older, and the fastest growing age group by total users is 26-34. Facebook is no longer just for kids- time to expand to their other markets, the grad markets.

SO… we have just launched a highly specialized application for 2nd year Medical students studying for the US Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), called the Kaplan USMLE Qbank Challenge. The application helps med students prepare to take an exam that will largely determine their fate in landing a residency at a top-tier hospital (no pressure or anything). It gives them the ability to challenge themselves, and their peers, to three questions daily, straight from Kaplan’s test prep material, free of charge- who doesn’t love free stuff?!?! Users can to accrue points, which can then be redeemed for Kaplan materials (e.g. 20 points – 20% off of Anatomy Flashcards, 40 points – 25% off USMLE Pharmacology, etc.)

While mangy brands are leveraging Facebook as a key part of their marketing plan, e.g. Skittles, Burger King, Mountain Dew, Dunkin Donuts, etc., Kaplan is taking some pretty progressive steps by creating useful applications with social gaming hooks, publicly demonstrating the quality of their content, and making it easy for users to convert into customers.

Think that’s cool? Apparently, you’re not alone. Inside Facebook thinks it’s pretty nifty too.

What’s better than getting sites and blogs to talk about the awesomeness of your online service and community? How about allowing them to embed your service right into their site! In collaboration between our Communications team and our New Media team, we have just released the WeightView “Virtual Weight Loss” widget. Now, publisher sites can offer the power of WeightView to their readers without them even leaving the site.

The result is a true win-win. The publisher sites get to offer their readers a new tool right on their site and WeightView gets results over a much longer time period than any single placement could drive.