Friday Social Media Fun
November 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment
If you're new here, and interested in the latest news and insights on social media marketing, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting Ignite Social Media.
When you work in a social media agency, people send you all sorts of comics and stuff. (For the record, I enjoy that, send me stuff.) This one happens to come from one of my favorite comics, Pearls Before Swine. It’s consistently funny. Enjoy today’s strip.
If you like it, click on the comic to go to the main site so you can become a fan. Maybe if enough of you do that, I won’t get a letter from a lawyer asking me to take it down. Because that would make me sad.
Have a good weekend.
Will Rise of Social Media Marketing Lead to Boom for Apple?
October 8, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Look at this picture (found on the BrandInfection blog). If you’re Microsoft, or Dell, this should terrify you.
But it also made me wonder, since social media marketing is part content creation (podcasts, vlogs, etc.), when these folks all graduate and come to work for social media agencies like mine, or get jobs as social media specialists at corporations, do you think Apple’s teeny-tiny market share will finally take off??
I’m Cooler Online.
October 3, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I have no other reason to post this video except that I think it is funny, it says MySpace in it, and it reminds me of Jim (at least the socks and sandals part).
Enjoy.
The “Blog Cabin” - TV meets Social Media
September 24, 2007 | Leave a Comment
This weekend I was watching some home improvement television. It was one of those ironic Saturdays, spent watching how hard other people are working on their homes while sitting on the couch and gasping at how much money they spent on upgrading appliances. 8,000 for a refrigerator. I’m still too cheap.
Anyway as I was watching, I saw a commercial for “Blog Cabin” from the Do it Yourself Network. From the quick commercial I heard that it was a log cabin that was designed with the blog input from the shows viewers, to actually be built on the network, and to be given away in a sweepstakes. So I decided to check it out today.
Upon review, it’s an interesting connect between traditional media and social media, and it has potential to be a new source for advertisers to really connect to their audience. Below are a few thoughts I had on why I think it works:
1. It consistently fuels conversations. Blog posts are written to get feedback from the audience on the design of the cabin. So far, it seems to have worked by gaining over 4 million votes on the design a number of comments ranging for some posts over 100. By asking the audience for specific feedback on the design of the cabin, Blog Cabin’s viewers are obviously more engaged than me - a viewer who only sits on the couch and absorbs.
2. It reaches an advertiser’s niche audience. This show reaches a niche audience of viewers - the blog is an extra resource and platform for sidebar discussions and recommendations. By placing a “resources” page on the blog, the niche audience looking to build a log cabin can be connected to “Log Homes of The Smokies”
3. It makes me want to go to the Smoky Mountains. I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but the blog posts naturally talk about the beautiful surroundings of the Smoky Mountains that the cabin is built in, and promote the city of Kinzel Springs, TN. Comments by viewers supplement this by talking about their positive experiences visiting the Smokies. Conversations and tie-in’s like this have enormous potential in tourism advertising.
According to the site, this year’s cabin is finished and the sweepstakes are wrapping up. It looks like a 2008 Blog Cabin is in the works, so perhaps the network is also viewing it as a success.
Delta Starts a Blog. I’m still Laughing.
August 31, 2007 | 6 Comments
I have an odd sense of humor. I find tripping funny. If you take a spill in front of me, I will have to finish laughing before I help you up. Have a piece of toilet paper on your shoe? I might not be able to conjure the words to tell you.
Perhaps I’m easily amused (and a little too into social media) , but I started rolling when I saw Delta’s blog , the company’s formal attempt to “reach out to customers” and “start conversations”.
The comments are what really throw the whole thing over the edge for me. From the first post there are 29 responses, mostly which look like they are written from their own employees. Here’s a sampling of my favorite:
” What a great idea. It’s going to be nice to be able to communicate with the best domestic airline in the sky’s today! Hopefully, you’ll be able to have meat communications and not just use the blog as a marketing tool, but a true communications medium just like some of the most-read blogs out there do.”
“This is why I love working for this airline. I hope that our customers leave meaningful feedback. And please don’t hesitate to accentuate the positive. GO DELTA!”
Is this for real?! Who really says “best domestic airline?”, and why would someone encourage readers to not be afraid to “accentuate the positive?”.
Perhaps an airline that is slightly scared of social media.
After all, that is the only reason I can come up with for Delta writing a post that announces a Delta iMix on iTunes. I still can’t understand why anybody in their right mind would be excited about a boarding music playlist, and why there weren’t any responses that recommended Delta to get bett
er music. And for the post “What’s up with JFK in a good way?! , I can’t be the only person who thinks that there is nothing elite about “JFK’s elite area”? (shown right)
Why is this? Perhaps because the site limits viewers to logging in with user names and passwords to post comments. I’m still waiting on my commenting access so I can tell them what’s on my mind. After this post, I’m not sure I’ll ever receive it.
However, as much as I take humor in this, the reality is that if the blog’s positive employee feedback is the only feedback, and the posts don’t really address real concerns, Delta will ultimately fall flat on its face. So here’s your Friday tip: If you are writing or starting a blog - don’t be scared of negative feedback to the point it limits your discussions. Instead, expect and anticipate this feedback. Write posts that may shake things up a bit. In the long run this will increase your company’s value and credibility.
Buzzing about Phillip’s Bodygroom
August 13, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Around the office we’ve had quite a few laughs at this Phillip’s Bodygroom campaign.
The campaign is built around an uncomfortable subject - male shaving in areas below the neck. But even if you are completely grossed out by the thought of hair removal products for hairy men, it is a clear social media success, exceeding and expanding the company’s original goals.
Below are the three lessons we can learn from it.
1. Social media can go where traditional media cannot.
2. Social media can increase awareness of new product uses or developments.
3. Social media effectively reaches specific audiences.
When Those in Power Realize They Aren’t
August 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment
You can almost feel sorry for the powerful elite who used to control the flow of information in this country
and around the world. But then there is the perverse pleasure in watching the power of crowds setting things right. Two stories come to mind to illustrate the point:
Story #1: In Michigan, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, an otherwise solid legislator, inexplicably tried to ban one particular blog from all state senate computers. He had the IT team block access to this blog, written by a political hobbyist. His ground were that people in the Senate were spending too much time on her blog. Perhaps her left leaning views irked him?
Of course, being banned was the best thing that ever happened to Blogging for Michigan, her website. Traffic spiked. Even conservative blogs like RightMichigan.com said Bishop was wrong. Bishop relented, and access was restored.
Power shift #1: The leader of the Senate was trumped by a part time publisher. In fact, he inadvertently turned her into a power player in Michigan politics.
Story #2: In Germany, in January of 2006, an ad agency released a slogan designed to “fight grumpiness” in the country. Unfortunately, the themeline (You are Germany) was very close to a Nazi convention sign (Because You are Germany) that Hitler stood in front of in an obscure 1935 photo, found of course, by bloggers and posted.
The campaign was crushed. The head of the advertising agency, who was no doubt trained to control messages, sent an internal email calling blogs “the toilet walls of the Internet” and asked what gave bloggers the “right” to express their opinions? Of course, this email ended up on the blogs, forcing the ad executive to quickly apologize and run.
Power shift #2: While advertising still very much has a strong role in promoting ideas, every campaign now exists in the unfettered marketplace of ideas. No creative director, no chief marketing officer, no company controls their brand anymore.
Napoleon, take your hand out of your shirt, step off the pedestal, and come on over here and just talk to us.
Listening is Social Media’s Step One
August 3, 2007 | 4 Comments
Yesterday, on my general marketing blog, I did a pretty basic post about the
new ad campaign for the VW Touareg 2 and the Bourne Ultimatum. By last night, I’d seen an interesting spike in traffic coming from Miami and Littleton, Colorado. It took me a minute to make the connection: I’d mentioned Crispin Porter, the ad agency that did the campaign in the post. I knew they were in Miami, but then I remembered an Adweek article from several months ago about what they went through to open their Colorado office.
This means that someone from Crispin found my post this morning, sent the link out to the whole company, and 65 folks in Miami and 61 in Colorado cared enough about blog chatter about them to read it.
That’s great. No wonder this firm is hot. They seem to get it, and to look outwards. Ask yourself, if someone wrote a post about your firm today, would you know it? How many people in your company would care?
Apparently, the World Bank has taken this to an art form. Their communications guy, Pierre-Guillaume Wielezynski, has built a tool that captures all the Internet traffic mentioning the World Bank in one place, so he can quickly scan it, react and comment about it. This was likely on overload during the Wolfowitz scandal.
People are talking about you. Are you listening? Will your company even know?
And how long will it take someone at Crispin to leave me a comment that they found this? How long will it take Wielezynski? The race is on… I’ve tagged you both and sent pings out to all the blog search engines.
UPDATE: Just hung up with Steve from Crispin Porter, who simply asked “Did we beat the World Bank?” Yes, Steve, you did. Pierre, where are you? I bragged about you, but the Crispin people beat you, even with your time zone advantage… I’m waiting. Is Buzz Monitor working?
Thanks for the call Steve. Our whole team is cracking up…
UPDATE #2: Just hung up with Pierre, who simply asked, “How long ago did the Crispin guy call?” Just a 30-minute gap. Not bad, not bad… Gotta stop going to meetings Pierre, but 2 bonus points for you for leaving a comment.
Thanks for the fun guys…
Fun with Viral Marketing
July 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment
In light of it being Friday I thought I’d share that I actually think a printed shirt is funny. Since I’m a fan of solids, this is monumental.
I stumbled upon the shirt on the site Experience Curve who had posted this under”Viral Marketing Doesn’t Work”. Needless to say the post title caught my eye, sent me into laughter, and quickly got passed around the office.
Hope you enjoy.
