Engage visitors in relevant conversation to bolster existing client relationships.

The top 35 banks on Facebook reach a mere 0.6% of their base, according to a study by Retail Bank International. “If you exclude the three top-performing banks, the average drops to one in every 525 customers – only 0.2% of their base.”

The numbers point to three interesting challenges financial institutions face in crafting their social media outreach. First, not everyone who “likes” your page is or will become a customer. Second, measuring your outreach effort is more complex than counting friends. Third, lenders are missing countless opportunities to engage valued audiences.

For now, “likes” are the currency many organizations and their marketing arms use to measure their Facebook success. The numbers, however, have little correlation to real business objectives. They don’t tell you what, if anything, visitors did with the information they received on your page.

Many organizations cannot quantify their results because they launched their pages without having measurable business or communication objectives in mind. For example, how will the page reduce customer support calls, bolster business leads, increase queries about new accounts, etc.?

If banks want to use Facebook and other social media tools to attract prospects and bolster existing client relationships they must engage visitors in relevant conversation. Instead of focusing their posts solely on services, accomplishments and financial performance, they should customize messages that speak to the needs of small-business owners, minorities, the unbanked and other key audiences.

By developing a strategic, measurable social media campaign, banks can better position themselves to become business partners rather than mere service agents.

Accidental tweets are easy fodder for journalists.

Have you ever posted something you regret on your Facebook or Twitter? Maybe you posted an inside joke on someone’s wall that was supposed to be for their inbox. Or you tweeted a quote after a long night out that wasn’t as funny in the morning. Or — my personal favorite — you searched for someone on your Blackberry Facebook app, without realizing you posted his or her name as your status?

These little slip-ups can usually be fixed with a quick delete — unless of course your mistake reached thousands of people under someone else’s name. Take Scott Bartosiewicz. Chrysler fired him after he tweeted on the @ChryslerAutos Twitter, “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f***ing drive.”

Gloria Huang tweeted on @RedCross about #gettingslizzered on Dogfish Head beer. Instead of firing her, however, the Red Cross tweeted, “We’ve deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we’ve confiscated the keys.”

When the Red Cross and Chrysler are allowing potentially offensive posts to instantly reach thousands of people, you have to wonder whether they’re approaching social media as cautiously as they should be. Just because a message is nonchalant doesn’t mean a company’s process for releasing it to the public should be. If employees can post something in the company’s name from their phones while they’re bored in traffic, something’s wrong. Accidental tweets are easy fodder for journalists — they’re ready-made sound bites. No difficult analysis, just a quick turnaround story that’ll make a headline writer’s day.

So, all you big companies out there — and all you smaller ones, too — it’s time to take social media seriously. Respect its power. Devise a strategy for how to use Twitter and Facebook and the rest to your advantage. Then implement a clear process for how to achieve it.

And lock up your f***ing Dogfish Head.

Ball’s in your court, Netflix.

I remember when you first came out. You sent me unlimited DVDs in the mail each month, three at a time. Then you offered cheaper plans with fewer DVDs. Then came streaming videos — for free! — to compete with Redbox, free online streaming websites like Hulu and Fancast, On Demand content that comes with cable, and other streaming video rental applications like Vudu and Blockbuster On Demand. Life was sweet.

And then you dropped the ball. You decided to separate streaming content and DVDs or Blu-rays by mail into two different plans with, oh yeah, a price hike if I want to keep both.

What are you smoking?

OK, maybe you wanna move people away from DVDs and Blu-rays by mail because there are a lot more costs associated with this service — postage, packaging, actually purchasing enough hard copies of each video to keep customers off giant waiting lists, etc. Streaming content costs next to nothing, except licensing fees, and is as convenient as it gets.

I get it.

But here’s the thing, Netflix. Your library of instantly available content sucks! What you call “new” has already been out on DVD and Blu-ray for months. Chances are, I’ve already seen it — I rented it from the Redbox at ShopRite, I forked over the five bucks to watch it on Xbox with Vudu, or I actually went to the theatre. I’m not about to pay $7.99 to stream a movie that’s weeks away from the $2 bin at Kmart.

On the other hand, I’m not shelling out $7.99 a month for one DVD at a time, either. Sure, I can get as many as I can watch in a month — providing you have the “new releases” to keep up. But unless I can watch more than eight DVDs in a month, I might as well shop at the nearest Redbox.

Netflix, Netflix, Netflix. If you want to move your customers away from DVDs and Blu-rays in the mail and into the digital age with streaming content, you gotta pump up your offering. I want new movies, and I want them now. And if you can’t give them to me, someone else will.

Someone like Blockbuster. You may be ignoring all of the hate mail on your Facebook page, Twitter, blogs and other social media outlets, but Blockbuster isn’t. Having lost many customers to Netflix once upon a time, the once mighty retail outlet chain is determined to capitalize on your blunder. It’s using its own website to convert your disgruntled customers into users of Blockbuster Total Access service. And to give this particularly vocal group of cranky customers a place to spew their venom, Blockbuster created #HelloBlockbuster. Check it out. It isn’t pretty.

But there’s a bright side, Netflix. While Blockbuster’s patting itself on the back for being all up-to-date and integrating Twitter into a customer acquisition campaign, you actually have an opportunity to regain lost ground. Blockbuster provided a forum for your customers to tell you why they’re leaving — or have already left — and what it would take to get them back. I mean, a lot of people would pay someone (like AB&C, a full-service marketing communications agency) to run a bunch of focus groups, and here’s your competitor handing you this valuable information on a silver platter!

So here’s what’s gonna happen: At the end of August, after I and the rest of the disgruntled holdouts have finished our desperate attempt to ravage our Netflix accounts before the price goes up, we will sever our relationship with you. By September 1, you’ll look at the record number of account cancellations and Blockbuster’s stellar focus group results and figure out that, yeah, you really did piss off a lot of people. You’ll try to lure us back with lower prices, better offerings, whatever. Meanwhile, the blockheads at Blockbuster, complacent in their visions of regaining market dominance, will have neglected to add anything of value to their service. They will have forgotten to persuade people not to switch back to you. I mean, let’s face it, you do offer a combination of services that I can’t get anywhere else. And in the end, while once-loyal Netflix fans will never love you the way they once did, you can triumph.

Ball’s in your court, Netflix. Now’s your chance to smack one into the bleachers before you get tackled. Or whatever. I don’t watch movies about sports.

But you know that.

Yours truly,

Kat Simon

Part 2: Facebook PR Strategies for a Small Budget

Kohl’s department store has more than 4.8 million Facebook “likes,” a following largely built during a 2010 campaign that let fans vote for which 20 schools should receive $500,000 each. The company gave away $10 million, but gained a groundswell of good feelings and a legion of new fans who now receive the company’s updates every day.

But take heart — you don’t need a multimillion-dollar budget to build a Facebook following. Instead, take a lesson from Kim Miller, Vice President of Consumer Marketing for Time Inc. Style & Entertainment Group. Speaking at the PR News Facebook event for public relations professionals last month, Kim discussed the simple strategy that increased People Magazine’s Facebook following from a few thousand to more than 1.2 million. The magazine offered coupons, giveaways and fabulous sweepstakes — but in the end, the most successful tactic turned out to be a simple free survey that allowed fans to vote on a Sexiest Man Alive poll.

Kim’s advice works, even if your brand name isn’t People and you don’t have beefcake pictures of actors to post on your Facebook page. The strategy: Engage your fans. It’s cost-effective (if somewhat time-consuming), but by doing so, you’ll send a message that you’re building a community — and that you value your customers’ participation in it.

Here are some easy and inexpensive do’s and don’ts that will help you get the most out of your Facebook marketing campaign:

DO

• Appreciate your fans — acknowledge them, interact with them, ask them questions and respond to theirs. Your fans love you and want to be loved in return!

• Post quality content that resonates with your fan base. If you’re not sure what your fans want to see on your Facebook page, ask them!

• Use Facebook Places. Own your space. Check that all locations are accurate. If you are a restaurant, retail outlet or other consumer destination, encourage fans to “check in” by offering a small discount or other promotion.

• Offer incentives exclusively for fans. A coupon program may be less expensive than you think.

DON’T

• Over-promote, over-commercialize or over-post. Yes, it’s great that you can pull 10 snippets of information out of one press release. But flooding your fans’ newsfeed with commercials is a sure way to get them to click the “Block” or (worse) “Unlike” button.

• Ignore your page. Too much information is bad, but so is too little. And there is nothing worse than those poor abandoned pages created on a whim that now feature only “acai berry diet” and “dude I can’t believe I just got a free iPad 2!” spammers.

• Blow off fan feedback. You never know where the next great idea will start. Starbucks routinely asks fans for advice, and has incorporated several of those ideas in-store.

Remember: Some of the best Facebook tools are free. Facebook Insights offers a wealth of information on fan demographics, most popular posts, activity spikes and so much more. Link-shortening site www.bitly.com allows you to track the popularity of links posted, and also (shhh) lets you see stats on your competitors’ links. Finally, don’t forget about your company website. Post a link to your Facebook page prominently on your home page so your fans can easily find you.

Coming up Next in Part 3 … How to climb to the top of the Facebook news feed.

Part 1: Your Facebook cheat sheet

Facebook. One out of every 13 people on earth is on it. More than half of all social media traffic in the United States comes from it. It’s no wonder that it has become a component of every good PR strategy.

But unlike traditional media outlets, with their long histories of best practices and protocols to follow, Facebook and other social media outlets change the rules often by the day. The whole process of setting up a page, recruiting fans and interacting with them — not to mention making the whole thing valuable for the client — is new territory for many PR professionals.

To address this, PR News (an online public relations resource) recently hosted more than 300 public relations specialists for its first-ever Facebook Conference. The day-long, sold-out event brought together everyone from advertising industry thought leaders to overworked one-person communication “departments” for small businesses. All were seeking advice on the same subject. How can I build a successful Facebook page?

Sessions provided a crash course in everything from “How to Get People to ‘Like’ Your Brand” to “How to Manage Employee Facebook Activity for Optimal (and Safe) Results.” At the end of the day, 300 new Facebook experts returned home, armed with new terms such as “like-gate” (requiring users to “like” your page before viewing content) and “EdgeRank” (Facebook’s top-secret system for News Feed rankings).

Those two terms, and the following themes, repeated throughout the day’s sessions. Think of this as your Facebook cheat sheet:

Be authentic. Facebook is not the place to sell or be overly commercial. Think of it as a blind date — you want to look nice, ask questions, and show interest in what the other person is saying and doing. Brag a little, but not too much.

Resist the “me too” urge. Many companies rush to sign up for a Facebook page for the same reason: their competitors are there. A successful Facebook page launches only after the account team has thought through its objectives, strategy and measurement methods. Social media should be just one component of a comprehensive marketing plan. Remember — plan first, act second.

Social media is a team concept. The ideal Facebook team includes PR-driven content, with input from design, measurement and strategy — and an overall community manager to keep the whole thing in check. But no matter how large or small the social media team, it’s important to make sure everyone speaks with one voice so that the page stays consistent and on message.

Finally, a word about posting: The best time of day to post is before or after working hours. This ensures you will be at the top of the news feed for people logging on first thing in the morning at work, or in the evening before bedtime. There are various theories on the best day of the week to post, but the consensus seems to be Thursday.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Facebook strategies for small budgets.

Social Media and Recruitment

Social networking recruitment has become the “must do” sourcing activity across all of HR. Whether it’s using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – the pressure to use these channels is greater now than ever. And without knowing it, recruiters and talent evaluators are falling into some significant legal traps.

Using social networks is an excellent way to source potential employees. The trouble comes when we use personal information, photos or content found on a candidate’s profile to disqualify him or her for positions.

When you visit a potential candidate’s social networking page you may be privy to photos, religious beliefs, personal information about life events, personal information about drinking or drug use, and poor communication skills or lewd comments made to others. And once you learn any of these things about a candidate, you can’t unlearn it.

If a candidate suspects that you have disqualified him or her based on any of this information, you are opening up your organization to a discrimination lawsuit. How do you prevent this? Recruiters cannot use information from social networking sites for evaluating candidates. Decision makers cannot eliminate candidates based on what they see on their social media profiles. Candidates must receive thorough explanations as to why they are being eliminated; explanations should be recorded.

An additional resource on this topic is available here:

Social Media + Legal Reality & Perspective = Caution for Recruiters

"Cyberspace Rules of the Road" PSA

OK, I’m not embarrassed to admit it. I enjoy watching Disney Channel’s Phineas and Ferb with my 7- and 10-year-old. There, I said it. I’m a grown woman and I still like watching cartoons.

For those of you who haven’t seen the show, it follows two stepbrothers on summer vacation. Each day the boys embark on some grand new project. Their controlling older sister, Candace, spends the day trying to bust them. Joining them each episode and creating a subplot is their pet, Perry the Platypus, A.K.A. Agent P, a secret agent who fights an evil scientist named Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. At the end, the two plots intersect to erase all traces of the boys’ project just before Candace can show it to their mother.

OK, enough about the show. There is a point to this blog. Disney recently launched a new Phineas and Ferb PSA designed to educate kids on “Cyberspace Rules of the Road.” Once again, Disney has managed to simplify a complicated message and fit it into a one-minute cartoon that sums it all up for kids (and adults).

Although businesses probably need a little more detail to their social media policies, this PSA is a good start and a great reminder to keep it simple. According to the boys, if it’s not something you’d say to your mom, you probably shouldn’t put it on the Internet.

Check out the link, share it with your kids, and share it with your employees. Maybe you too will become an unabashed fan of Phineas and Ferb!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4Qd1WVRctc

Hospitals are using Social Media

Some hospitals are early adopters; others are still waiting on the sidelines. Some are high-tech, while others are high-touch. I’m not talking about whether or not a hospital has the latest robot or a brand personality, I’m talking about a social media presence.

At AB&C, our healthcare clients range all across the social media spectrum. Some have jumped in with both feet and have been posting and tweeting for more than a year. Others are just about ready to make the leap, while others still are trying to convince their senior leadership that they need a social media presence.

Research shows that 906 hospitals in the U.S. are active in social media, with Facebook and Twitter being the most popular vehicles. With these numbers growing and marketing budgets shrinking, it’s becoming more and more clear to healthcare marketers that social media is here to stay and can be an effective and cost-efficient part of any marketing plan.

Regardless of where you are on the social media spectrum, here are a couple of my favorite sites:

Children's Hospital Boston

Regions Hospital

California Pacific Medical Center

Everyone "likes" a good deed

Barb and I spent an amazing weekend in New York last month. We saw a lot of shows, including one at Carnegie Hall. Later, while enjoying dinner across the street, we realized our camera had slipped out of Barb’s purse while we were watching the show. We called Carnegie Hall and they told us they’d keep an eye out for it. We called again the next morning, but no luck. So we told ourselves, eh, it was an old camera and we wanted a new one anyway.

Cut to several days later. I receive a message on Facebook from someone I don’t recognize: “…my husband works at Carnegie Hall and recently found a camera. While scrolling through the photos I noticed that there were photos from a baptism. As luck would have it someone took a photo of the certificate listing the parents’ names and Godparents’ names. That is where you come in, you are the Godfather at this baptism.”

Now, I may appear to be a crusty old curmudgeon on the surface, but most people know I’m pretty mushy underneath. It blew my mind that someone would go to the trouble of reaching out to a stranger to return an item she could’ve easily kept. And how cool is it that she found me on Facebook? Finally, social media has been put to good use! I replied that Barb and I were incredibly grateful for her honesty and generosity and wanted to compensate her for the postage. I’m holding the note she enclosed with the camera: “No need to reimburse me. I am just happy to return it to its rightful owner. You can pay it forward...do something nice for a stranger! Enjoy your holidays!”

So Facebook has redeemed itself in this grump’s eyes for having some social value. More important, the human race may have some hope after all.

The AB&C Twitter Team

The AB&C Twitter team recently went to the #deltweet event at Firestone, a quarterly (ideally) networking event for Delaware tweeters. Nine of our tweeters attended the event, one of whom attended virtually via tweets, following the team and the deltweet hashtag. We kept @ChrisMarts updated and entertained while he lay sick in bed. “Oh @ABCadvertising twitter team, I feel like I am there (#deltweet) reading all your tweets,” he replied. Sure, we wished he were there — “hey @ChrisMarts The tweet team will miss you at #deltweet” — but it was nice to be able to include him via the channel that brought us all together.

There was a pretty good showing — 81 on the RSVP list — and everyone’s name tag included their Twitter handle. People came for many reasons: to grab a beer, to meet the tweeters that they follow in person, to win something (@BessDenney and @cdberta won!), to meet people with similar interests, or to do some good old-fashioned networking. While @heycraigbrown jokingly tweeted, “#deltweet is this real life?” the team’s friends and family didn’t quite understand what a tweetup is. But a tweetup is just like any other networking event — it’s a way to bring a community of people that have similar interests or professions together. And Twitter is just another catalyst — and you can make what you want of it.

Using (or overusing) product placement in the movies.

Have you seen the trailer for The Social Network, the movie about the founding of Facebook? Not only is the premise intriguing, the marketing prowess of the producers is awesome: This film is a three-hour product placement. And it made me a little nostalgic for some other product placement movies. If your favorite is missing from my top 5, please feel free to comment.

5. Demolition Man — 1993
As a movie fan I’m willing to suspend disbelief for as long as need be. So when you’re telling me a story about a cop and a criminal mastermind who are cryogenically frozen for decades only to reemerge as healthy as ever, I’ll stay with you. When you tell me that society in the future has become completely nonviolent and utopian, I’ll follow. But the second you try to sell me on the idea that this perfect, nonviolent society dines solely at Taco Bell, you have officially lost me.

4. You’ve Got Mail — 1998
Honestly, I liked this movie better when it was called Sleepless in Seattle, but I can’t deny the sheer marketing genius of AOL in choosing to be its email server. It was probably better use of their marketing dollars than mailing out all those free AOL CD-ROMs (which, by the way, made fantastic beverage coasters). In today’s world of email servers, it would be pretty difficult to find two people who actually still use AOL email and who could find one another, so maybe this product placement wasn’t so effective in the long run.

3. Cast Away — 2000
This movie was two-plus hours long, with no score, and the only characters in the movie were Tom Hanks, a Wilson volleyball and the FedEx logo in a variety of applications. As great as Hanks’ performance was, a lot of credit goes to FedEx for its supporting role (all apologies to Wilson).

2. Transformers — 2007
Transformers worked on so many levels — as a title if not as a movie. Jerry Bruckheimer transformed one of my favorite childhood toy franchises into a horrible movie, and my pronounced interest in Megan Fox had to do with me transforming into a man. Both Hasbro and Chevy used this movie to transform their brands. Chevy got the rights to be the official car of the Autobots (if it’s any consolation, Volkswagen, I’ll always remember Bumblebee as a Beetle) and Hasbro got to introduce a new line of toys that are even more difficult to transform than their predecessors.

1. The Wizard — 1989
This one gets such high status because: 1) it featured two of my favorite things from the ’80s — Fred Savage and Nintendo games; and 2) it was the first movie that showed me the power of product placement. I was 9 when this movie came out and, like every kid who liked Nintendo games, I wanted to see it because of all the cool new Nintendo products in it. This was the movie that introduced the Nintendo Power Glove and gave video game fans their first look at Super Mario Brothers 3. This movie was a 90-minute Nintendo commercial that doubled as an early Christmas list for kids who loved the games. In fact, it was so successful that Super Mario Brothers 3 is still one of the fastest-selling games of all time. Unfortunately the Power Glove shared the same fate as Fred Savage’s career.

Boosting sales via social media

Delaware-based Dogfish Head has a recipe for success both in the kettle and in the marketplace. According to Nielsen Co., the brewery spent a mere $2,000 on traditional media in 2008, and nothing in 2009. So what are they doing?

Founder Sam Calagione has found a nice mix of limited-release beers, such as the Miles Davis–inspired Bitches Brew; pairing advice (something usually associated with wine); and encouragement of fandom and brand advocacy by being very active within the craft brew community, constantly spreading the gospel.

The Dogfish Head team explained their choice to us like this: “Social media is a great way for us to connect with our customers & talk beer.” And connect they do, with close to 20,000 followers on Twitter alone.

And how is the craft brewer faring? The approach is definitely working: in 2009, Dogfish Head sold 97,000 barrels, giving them a 29% year-over-year increase with zero dollars spent in traditional media.

Traditional marketing tactics may be like your old mix tapes.

It seems like only yesterday. I wanted to catch the attention of that special person and I knew the perfect way to go about doing it — the mix tape! A combination of all those songs that would tell her exactly how I felt and why she should want my company as much as I wanted hers.

Times have certainly changed. Now you wouldn’t make a mix tape, or even a mix CD. Now it’s all about the playlist.

Are business relationships really any different?

Looking at it from a marketing perspective, traditional tactics are like that mix tape—time consuming, more expensive and once they are recorded they are unchanging.  Today’s nontraditional marketing tactics have a lot in common with the playlist. Messages can be shared quickly; you can ask friends and colleagues to share their opinions; and if the message you want is no longer being spread, it can be changed on the fly.

How do you communicate for your business? If you’re focused only on traditional marketing tactics, it’s as if you’re trying to reach your target with a mix tape. There’s a segment of the audience that appreciates the effort, and the medium, but the biggest part of your target has moved on.

It’s time to embrace new media, to realize that the Internet is not going away, that more and more people use it to do everything from shopping to getting medical advice. It’s time to realize that smart mobile phone use is not going to decrease. That within the next couple of years it won’t be enough to have a good-looking website — you’ll need a mobile-enabled, good-looking website. It’s time to think about how your company is going to tell those special people why they should want your company.

Cue up Lloyd Dobler with his boombox playing “In Your Eyes.”

I still miss those tapes  — the awkward “flip” after side A was done, the feeling of writing a title on the label — but I would miss my iPod even more.

Learning the do's and don'ts of Twitter

I’m not going to lie. When I was asked to attend the 2010 TWTRCON Twitter for Business conference in NYC, I thought, “Seriously? A conference for Twitter?” I mean, how hard is it to string together 140 characters as an update? Why on earth is there a full conference on this stuff? What’s the big deal?

The answer is actually fairly simple: Twitter is a way to connect with people with whom you normally wouldn’t be able to connect. It’s a simultaneous content feed that allows tweeters to get new information and updates and read about what’s going on within their industry or social network. @MrShri says “Facebook is people you went to school with, Twitter is people you wished you went to school with.” It’s why so many people follow famous brands — because they can! And those brands better be on board.

If I wasn’t sure before this conference how big of a deal Twitter is, especially for businesses, I am now. Especially after Martha Stewart (@marthastewart) appeared as the keynote speaker. That’s right. Martha Stewart of the Martha Stewart empire. Who knew she was a tweeting expert? She has almost 2 million followers on Twitter and saw that the conference was packed with eager tweeters waiting to hear the media mogul talk about her social media experience and how it has affected her brand.

As Martha pointed out, your brand needs to share its own voice and personality through tweets. And that’s important: Twitter can be a machine pumping out information, or it can be a means to connect on a human level. Read more of Martha’s insights here.

Twitter is still new and businesses are still trying to figure out how to use it effectively for their own purposes. TWTRCON provided guidelines for just that. And, whether or not you ever become an expert, Twitter is here to stay — that is, until the next social medium arrives. So make sure your business is a part of the conversation and make sure that its personality shows through.

Become involved (and strategic) with social media.

Fear is a terrible thing. Especially when it causes healthcare systems to back away from using a potentially powerful communications tool. When it comes to using social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, healthcare systems tend to fall into two categories. The first suffers from significant fear regarding negative feedback that may come from using such tools. This group also struggles with how much time it will take to make this a successful venture. The second group is “gung-ho” and jump into the pool before they check to make sure it’s been filled with water.  This group tends to throw every possible press release, article and “approved” message they can find onto their social media channels, only to realize  they’ve created a one-way conversation.

There is a better way.

You wouldn’t run a cardiology advertising campaign without putting together a strategy. You wouldn’t invest in a web banner advertising campaign without determining key messages. Why is social networking any different? Everyone knows how large Facebook has become. We know that Ashton Kutcher has millions of Twitter followers. We know that healthcare executives are hearing the buzz and don’t want to miss out.

Items to consider before you get started.
1. Define goals. Be specific and make them related to interactions, not followers
2. Establish channels. Certain sites will work better for different messages.
3. Define internal and external resources. Who can help provide good content for your channels?
4. Integrate existing materials. Chances are you are already doing community-based events. Why not promote them?
5. Prepare for the worst, even though you probably won’t need it. Commit to a customer service model for any negative comments that are made. Resolve to help make situations better, not to censor.
6. Dedicate time. Social networking is just like live networking. If you’re not in the room you can’t have a conversation. But that doesn’t mean it should fall on only one person’s shoulders.

So, before you get started, get strategic. Get creative in how you use and measure your successes. Most important—end the silence.

Finding the right social media tool.

My husband is a carpenter, so he’s into tools. As a social media guru, so am I. Whenever we come up with a project, we immediately start thinking about what tools we have and what we may need to buy. We’ll scour yard sales, flea markets and the Internet to find just the right compound miter saw or three-phase plasma cutter — often to the detriment of the job itself.

Though perhaps not as exotic as a four-foot finger brake or Pittsburgh lock-seam hammer, the most exciting social media tool is video. Healthcare professionals are learning to take advantage of video along with everything else in their toolbox, as this online marketing blog explains. Surgeons have used Twitter, for example, to tweet out live procedures from the O.R. — the first being a surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from someone’s kidney. Universities such as Stanford are using video on Facebook for question-and-answer sessions between professors and students. Mainstream media is now plugging into social media for obvious reasons — mainly because they know their audiences are plugged in.

Roughly nine out of ten patients who get information online learn from watching videos, which enable them to ask their doctors more insightful questions about procedures. And while you can find a video on Twitter, clicking on it redirects you to a new page. TwitVid is a new service created by Twitter for just this purpose. As with YouTube, TwitVid allows you to create and post your own videos, but this service is so new that you may end up watching hours of footage showcasing little Billy’s puppy and the new tricks he learned this morning.

While videos are used on Facebook to teach medical professionals and students, they also reach consumers. Of course, you may be redirected from Facebook to YouTube, which is riding a huge wave of credibility. Facebook enables you to network with just a click and little effort. You can truly be a people-watcher, and still gain a massive amount of information in a passive manner.

So now when I sit down at my computer every morning, I can share with all my healthcare clients all the new tools available to them — the most important being video. The transparency that video offers can deliver an enlightened, interactive and highly engaged audience. And while it’s no Pittsburgh lock-seam hammer, video can carry us into the future of social media.

Is Twitter dead?

Every once in a while you’ll see an article asking “Is Twitter Dead?” even suggesting that if you’ve been avoiding Twitter as part of a “non-strategy,” it may be paying off!

The problem with that perspective is that Twitter is not a strategy. It’s not even a tactic. It’s a channel!

The strategy (and ultimately your goal) is usually specific to your organization so it’s hard to discuss. But we can identify a general growing audience: people who create and consume information, wherever and whenever, with increased frequency, increased brevity and often with groups of people (as opposed to one other person).

Think about how different that is from something that predates even e-mail: writing letters.

Letters were typically infrequent, long, tied to a physical location and timetable, and were exchanged between two individuals. We’re at the exact opposite of that now with text messages, status updates and micro-blogging in general.

As marketers, we need to be comfortable in these mediums so we can reach these consumers. Strategies to accomplish this include:
* Increase the frequency of communication with your brand consumers
* Drastically decrease the length of each communication
* Use more conversational language
* Enable consumers to respond or participate in the conversation
* Enable consumers to do this wherever they choose (e-mail, web, mobile phone, etc.)

Now, three questions: how much of your audience wants to communicate this way, what channel do they want it on and what information are they interested in?

Answer those questions and you’re on your way to some solid tactics.

One of those tactics may involve Twitter — a good channel to address the strategies above. But if Twitter dies, it doesn’t mean you were wrong, it just means people are moving to a different micro-blogging channel, and you should find out what that is and get involved.

Watch out for marketers who don’t have a firm grasp on the difference between goals, strategies, tactics and channels. Misunderstanding these components of a marketing plan can lead you down the wrong path.

Do you care to watch them...24/7?

Remember the premise of what was arguably the grandaddy of all reality TV shows? “This is the true story... of seven strangers... picked to live in a house...work together and have their lives taped... to find out what happens... when people stop being polite... and start getting real...The Real World.”

New web reality series If I Can Dream (from American Idol creator Simon Fuller), which launched on Tuesday, March 2, takes that premise even further. It follows five aspiring artists live 24/7 on ificandream.com and in a weekly recap on Hulu.

The five hopefuls live together in a spacious Los Angeles home outfitted with 60 cameras following their every move. Viewers can engage with the cast members and the show in real time via Twitter, MySpace and blogs, and can select which camera feed they’d like to view. The contestants can even log on to their own computers and spy on their roommates down the hall.

As part of the series, celebrity mentors will come in to help the hopefuls in their quest for the Hollywood dream. Once they land a job and exit the house, a new aspiring artist will be chosen by viewers via MySpace auditions. What do you think? Worth checking out or a waste of time?

Even Barbie uses social media.

The 50-plus doll was once limited to traditionally “feminine” career choices such as ballerina, model, teacher or nurse. As times changed and women threw off their shackles (did Barbie ever even have a bra to burn?), her options expanded: paratrooper, paleontologist, pilot and even President of the United States.

Now, for the first time ever, loyal Barbie fans were asked to help her choose her 125th career for the “I Can Be” doll series by voting on the following: architect, computer engineer, environmentalist, news anchor or surgeon. Twitter followers and fans on Facebook voted for News Anchor Barbie — she’ll be available this fall. The social media campaign was such a success that fans insisted on choosing Barbie’s 126th career, computer engineer, coming in winter.

Barbie used her Twitter account (@BarbieStyle) to keep the conversation going with her followers.

Barbie: Secret agent? Publicist? Electrical engineer? Heartin’ your suggestions, dolls! @marielcisneros @sticktomyguns @rocquel74

This helped validate the suggestions people offered and kept the hype up about her next career. Barbie also sent out announcements through Facebook:

Barbie: I can’t believe it’s only one more week ’til I get my new dream job! Gosh, I better hit the beach and soak up the fun while I can…

Even with her new careers determined, The Barbster is still engaging with consumers and fans:

Barbie: This just in: I’m still deciding on a perfectly doll-tastic nightly news sign off…Suggestions?

Looks like Barbie is going to have a busy year. But not to worry — she’ll make time to keep in touch with her fans through Twitter and Facebook between reporting the news and developing the next big technology for computers.

My goal: be a better blogger.

So I am beginning to get it—this whole social media thing. I threatened to quit Facebook earlier this year…but didn’t. It’s still too intriguing to me. And yes, it is fun to connect with old friends and business associates…even some distant relatives have touched base.

So here is my commitment to myself and my company and many acquaintances—I will become a better (meaning simply a more involved and more active) blogger in 2010. Alright, this is my promise to all of you…I’ll start thinking about why you read blogs and what’s important to you. Why did you stop here? Curious about the agency? Our work? Our clients? Our staff? Or are you really that interested in me? I doubt that it’s all about me. My posts will be about what would interest you…not just what interests me. And hopefully that keeps you coming back to read new content.

Domino's - an example of social media success

If you missed the first part, check it out here.

Now for the good: a coworker in our PR department had an experience in which FedEx missed a next-day delivery. She decided to voice her frustration by tweeting, “FedEx really expletive deleted on me today.” Within 30 minutes, she got a retweet from FedexAl asking if he could help. This small effort from FedEx customer service immediately turned her from disgruntled to impressed.

An even better example would be Domino’s Pizza.

After the black eye Domino’s received earlier this year when a YouTube video of two employees defiling the food got national media attention, the company could have easily cowered in fear of social networks. A Facebook ad for Domino’s caught my attention. Partly because they pulled user content into the ad to point out that my friend Les had participated in their survey.

I clicked the video in the ad and, wow, what a bold move in spin control and using the social networks to listen and react. Domino’s took the general negative sentiment about the quality and taste of their pizza and used it as the focus of their new Pizza Turnaround campaign.  The site even has a live Twitter feed flowing in all comments positive and negative. Now, thoroughly intrigued, I decided to try the new pizza instead of just blogging about it. The whole process is so well done, I may just have to make my next post about everything Domino’s is doing online, and what I thought of the new pie (it should be here any minute).

As for the bad, there are too many examples to cite, and I don’t want to point fingers unnecessarily. I’ll just call them the people standing on chairs shouting over the conversation at the party. Anyone who is doing social network promotions without a predetermined strategy because somehow they heard that they should would fall into this category.

So, if you are considering getting into social network marketing, make sure you have a plan. Here is a helpful chart that lays out the types of things that can be achieved on the social networks. Once you have decided which ones fit your plan, then assess which networks will best help you accomplish your goals. And, as always, if you need some guidance, we’re here to help.

Sears - an example of social media failure.

Everyone seems to be buzzing about Social Networks and how to take advantage of them for marketing purposes. It is a great opportunity for companies to join a conversation that’s already taking place rather than trying to start a new one. As with any conversation, you have to listen. Imagine walking into a crowded party and just starting to talk about things that interest you without bothering to figure out the current topic of the conversation. How would people react?

Here is my step-by-step guide to getting into the social networking fray.

1. Plan: Before getting involved, ask yourself, “What are my business goals and how do I plan on measuring them?” Only then can you develop a plan to make social media a part of that success.
2. Listen: Begin monitoring the current conversations to find out if people are talking about you and what they’re saying.
3. Evaluate: Is there a prevailing positive or negative tone to the existing conversations?
4. Engage: Social networks can be a great opportunity for customer service, as you’ll see in the examples below.
5. Promote: The final—I repeat, final—step of playing in the social network sandbox is promotion of your goods or services. Once you are a part of the conversation, then you can start changing its direction.

Now for some examples, I’ll start with the ugly: a recent encounter with the Sears service department regarding my washing machine. I won’t bore you with the gory details of the electronic problems that are still ongoing. What I found to be interesting was a Google search I did when looking for their phone number.

To begin my search, I typed “sears service” into the search field. The first result, as you would expect, was Sears.com. It was the second result, right before service.sears.com, that really caught my eye: a YouTube video entitled “Sears Service Sucks”. Since this summed up my mood at the time, I clicked it first. A video of a very disgruntled fella in the same boat as myself then went on a rant about his experience.

“So what? What difference does one guy ranting make?” you might ask. Well, this video has been online for more than two years and continues to gather steam. It has over 44,000 views and most traffic is coming from searches for “Sears,” “Sears service” and “Sears repairs,” with another significant chunk of action coming virally. Sears has missed a gigantic opportunity to make things right with one consumer and change the conversation that’s happening online.

So, our interactive department did a little social network survey to see how Sears is doing now. We found the current conversation dominated by people looking for do-it-yourself advice or seeking reliable local repair people with occasional complaints about the products. Daily opportunities for customer service and sales of Sears’ repair program continue to go by unnoticed.

Read more in part 2 (coming tomorrow).

Applying strategy is critical to social media success.

99 ways to use Twitter?

There are plenty of articles on the Internet that outline the 17 ways to use Twitter or the 32 ways to use Facebook. If your approach to social media has been to start with these types of articles, you may be focusing too quickly on tactics without an appropriate social media strategy. Tactics without a strategy are particularly bad because they often end up being ineffective, hard to measure and mask real opportunities a more strategic version of the tactic may provide.

Because social media tools are so accessible and seemingly easy to use, a planning/strategy phase is often skipped, perhaps also in part because the realm of social media seems so complex. Because there is no clear place to begin, there is a tendency to start with tactics, a fatal mistake.

How to approach the problem

One technique for approaching a problem that seems complex is to break it down into a series of simpler problems. This is a great approach when it comes to the social media landscape. Instead of looking at a list of 50 ways to use Twitter, it makes more sense to look at a smaller list of ways to use social media in general.

Such a list might look like this.

In fact, you’ll find that any social media strategy probably consists of several of the leaf nodes in this diagram being used in various channels. (For the purposes of this discussion, a social media “channel” is Facebook or a blog or Twitter).

Your challenge then is to identify:

1. the kind of information your organization has or can generate, ideally something conversational
2. the types of people you’re trying to reach through social media
3. the items from the diagram above that can be used to put that information from step (1) in front of those audiences in step (2)
4. the appropriate channel for each item in step (3)

Now, just because we have a plan of attack doesn’t mean this is necessarily an easy or straightforward task. The best social media strategies look easy in hindsight but have usually been cooked up with some outside-the-box thinking. The above map is not a magic wand, but it is a starting point.

Examples, please!

Let’s look at a real-world example. Imagine your real estate agent. There may be a temptation for him to jump straight to tactics and use Twitter to post listings. After all, he has listing information (this is his product) and Twitter is easy to sign up for. Plus, this is on the map under Sales/Marketing --> Product announcement. We’re in good shape, right?

Well, Sales/Marketing on the diagram has a red flag on it. That red flag means if you’re only using something from that category, you may be on the wrong track. In this case, our real estate agent’s listings probably aren’t that useful to most people (who only wants to see the listings from a single real estate agent?), it’s not very conversational (what would people say back to him about a listing?) and he’ll probably find he won’t get a lot of followers.

Even worse would be to have a Facebook page where he is re-posting the exact same listings. Now he has a situation where even if a person were to be interested in those listings, it’s not in their interest to follow him on Twitter and be a fan on Facebook because then they’ll just get the same information twice. As silly as that sounds, we see this all the time.

Lesson learned: Directly promoting your product or service on as many social media channels as possible is not a good strategy because it abuses your potential followers and misses the whole “social” part of social media. You’re not listening, you’re just talking. And you’re saying the same thing in multiple places. And nobody cares.

This can take many forms including using Twitter to post links to your press releases or using Facebook to post links to your blog posts. I’m not suggesting never doing that but only doing that puts you in the PR category on the diagram and it, too, has a red flag. Oops.

Okay, give me a better idea.

This real estate agent has a problem, however… Aren’t the listings the only content he has? Possibly, but remember the first step is to identify the kind of information your organization has or can create. The listings may be the only content he has at hand. Grabbing whatever information you already have and using social media as a one-way channel (outward) is a missed opportunity.

This is where the strategizing comes in. What about creating a tips/tricks list for homeowners? (See the map above under Educational --> Tips/Tricks). This could include reminders to disconnect your plastic hose fittings in the winter so they don’t crack or money-saving tips for efficient energy use. Maybe it’s one tip a week and every once in a while he throws in a property listing (Sales/Marketing --> Product announcement) or an open house announcement (Notifications --> Events/Reminders).

Now this real estate agent has something useful he is providing to his clients. All of his existing clients would potentially be interested and he’d stay top of mind when they’re looking to sell or buy or even just make a referral to somebody else: “You should use my real estate agent. I follow him on twitter and he’s got great homeowner tips.” This takes the form of branding (Topics/Issues --> Brand related) and on top of that, he gets his listings and open houses in the mix. He’s now using five concepts from the diagram!

Plus, followers who have tips of their own can reply to him which means (a) the rest of his followers benefit from the tip (“Comments” from the Social category on the diagram) and (b) he can file it away later to use next year (a form of Research on the diagram). Wow – we’ve got seven nodes covered on the diagram, only a couple are red-flagged and a real social media strategy is taking form!

Hopefully you can see the difference this approach can make. Obviously there are issues like staffing and creative elements and ongoing maintenance and monitoring but try this process with your organization or give us a call and we can walk you through it.

Soon, you can search within your circle of friends.

We can get overwhelmed sifting through blogs and online discussions. That’s why we turn to our social circle for recommendations. But our friends also have several social network accounts and each one has a lot of information. So how do we keep track of it all?

Don’t fret, fellow social butterflies: Google is developing Social Search. It enables users to add their networking profiles to a Google account and see search results filtered and prioritized based on their circle of friends. This means that we can turn to our social circle first when filtering results on the web. For instance, if I wanted to research restaurants in my area, results from my trusted social circle would appear more prominently in my search.

Click here for an overview of Google Social Search.

Putting social networking to work...literally.

Yammer is a simple way for employees to connect and share by posting messages. As more employees participate, it becomes a corporate social network, discussion board and knowledge base. Yammer is like a combination of Facebook and Twitter. Your company can create a profile that mimics the look of Facebook: picture, wall posts/messages, an information page, etc. Your company also has a “network.” And the Yammer is protected, permitting only people from your company to join by requiring your company’s domain (@yourcompany.com). The homepage resembles Twitter — members of your company can post messages about what they’re working on or post questions to coworkers.

But what happens when employees start spending more and more time chatting on Yammer? Will it be a time-waster? Or a morale-booster? Only time will tell.

Creating a new way to Twitter for your business.

The “Contributors” feature from your friends at Twitter, currently in beta testing, will enable your company to have multiple contributors to its Twitter feed. Each Tweet will include the writer’s byline. In addition, “Contributors” promises two different levels of access: Enhanced and Partial.

Enhanced Access will allow contributors to view the account dashboard and it may include data and analytics about your Twitter feed, followers, etc. Partial Access allows them to write Tweets but not see the entire dashboard. Other business-specific features are in development as Twitter makes a concerted effort to address business needs. How will this change the Twitter game? Watch and see for yourself.

Social Media Strategy and Success Stories

About to plan your social media marketing strategy? Wondering about the return you’ll get on your investment? Check out Socialnomics: Social Media ROI. This short video showcases success stories, plus some interesting facts. For example:

• More than 300,000 businesses have a presence on Facebook; about a third of these are small businesses.

• A Wetpaint/Altimeter Study found that companies that are heavily into social media blow away their peers in both revenues and profits. The study also found that companies using social media the most increased sales by 18%, while companies with the least social activity saw sales decline 6%.

• Dell sold $3,000,000 worth of computers on Twitter.

• eBay found that participants in online communities spend 54% more money.

What’s your social media strategy?

Twitter updates...brought to you by Saks Fifth Avenue and Microsoft.

As part of its legendary holiday display, Saks Fifth Avenue has partnered with Microsoft to put video screens, hooked up to computers, in its windows. The screens will display real-time tweets. When people use the #holidaywindows hash-tag on Twitter, their beaming tweets about Windows 7 (and their holiday wishes) will pop up in the Saks display. Hard-core Apple fans reportedly have tried to hijack the Twitter feed by writing anti-Microsoft tweets. But they aren’t getting through to the public. According to Microsoft, most negative tweets are being filtered out automatically. Plus, the company says, there’s a human backup.

Tweet now and see if you can reach New York’s holiday shoppers!

Welcome to Recruitment 2.0

Physician recruiters have fallen on hard times. Once viewed as heroes who deliver agents of change to organizations in need, they now find themselves constrained by ever-growing demands on their time and budgetary resources. As a result, recruiters are finding it harder to compete — they can only do so much with their list of contacts; they can expect only so much in return on their marketing efforts.

What’s a recruiter to do? Social networking on the web.

A research company, Aberdeen Group, recently published a report titled, “Employer Branding: How to Grow, Measure and Manage Your Company’s Perception.” The report recommends that recruiters more than double their adoption of Web 2.0 tools — mainly networking platforms such as Facebook, Linked-In and Twitter. Such sites are enabling recruiters with fewer resources and tighter budgets to reach more passive and active candidates. Not only do these media provide ample opportunity to connect directly with potential hires, the interconnected nature of a user network allows for greater reach of message — something the lone recruiter, with his or her contacts, phone and email could only dream of just a few years ago.

Another compelling reason to adopt social networking is the changing face of the workforce. Baby boomers, advancing in years and commanding big salaries, are becoming less viable candidates. Gen X’ers, while heading toward the twilight of their career lifecycles, are still in their prime. Entering the workforce are the Gen Y candidates — at an estimated 70 million strong. In short, the prime targets for most recruiters are Gen X’ers and Gen Y’ers, both of whom are major users of social networking channels.

Lots of physician recruiters want to beef up their marketing mix, but their funds have dried up. And, while they may be familiar with social networking sites and salivating at the potential for recruitment, they don’t know how to get started. Here’s how: First, develop a plan — spell out what you want to accomplish. Then assess your resources — know what you have to work with so you can use it as efficiently as possible. Build some time into your plan for monitoring progress and managing the activity. Time may be your least expendable resource — obviously a recruiter’s time is best spent recruiting — but you have to think of marketing tactics as an integral part of your job, especially when it comes to social networking.

Several of our recruiter clients have come to us for agency assistance — a minor investment to extend their marketing mix and include social networking, plus the minor investment in time needed to monitor and manage these activities. Their employer brand gets regular exposure, their messaging is kept up to date, the media allows for instant interaction and — best of all — they’re seeing results.

What happened to old-fashioned communication?

Remember “The Telephone Hour” from the early 1960s Broadway show and movie Bye Bye Birdie? The song depicted a teenager talking to a friend on the phone, then that friend talking to another, and so on. This was — and may still be for many Boomers — the quintessential method of communicating. One friend tells another a story, and then a third friend hears it from the second.

These days, many Boomers communicate via Facebook — its fastest-growing demographic is people over 45. I have embraced Facebook myself. I enjoy catching up with friends and family, seeing photos, learning what’s going on.

On the other hand, “embrace” is not the word I would use with Twitter. But because I am in the marketing/advertising industry and always try to keep up with the times, I recently made a commitment to engage in the conversation. So I went to my local library and checked out The Twitter Book, which promised to deliver “a bunch of sensible, down-to-earth material on using and enjoying Twitter.” The book has me trying to wrap my brain around “hashtags” and “tools for tracking trends” while generating click-throughs and sharing photos with “TwicPic.”

So, even as I am unavoidably assimilated into the social networking generation, I ask: if Mad Men can devote 10 minutes to Bye Bye Birdie, why can’t we all just pick up the phone when we want to engage in “ambient intimacy?”

Cast your vote for the AB&C blog.

Fuel Lines is a blog for ad agency new business, and every month it features the best ad agency blog. Each month’s winner is featured on Fuel Lines throughout the following month and is included in the voting for ad agency blog of the year. So click here and vote for AB&C’s blog as the best for October — and spread the word!

Creating demand for Paranormal Activity.

Have you heard about Paranormal Activity, the low-budget horror movie that has been terrifying audiences over the past few weeks? It was reportedly produced for $15,000! But the very strategic marketing paid off as well as a multimillion-dollar campaign.

First came very scary trailers, followed by updated trailers with footage of terrified moviegoers at a sneak preview of the film. This was followed by a limited release in a handful of college towns around the country.

Then came the really clever part: what appeared to be a grassroots campaign to get the movie distributed nationwide. By teasing us, the filmmakers created a public demand for the movie. They drove us — both in commercials and online — to eventful.com, where we could demand that the movie open in our hometown theaters. The site had a real-time running tally of votes and bragged that Paranormal Activity is the first movie to ever be “demanded” by “we the people.” We could also show friends and associates that we supported the “movement” by spreading the word via Twitter, Facebook, a MySpace widget or links in emails.

The best part? It worked — whether or not they ever needed the votes to obtain a national release. How’s that for creating artificial demand? I wonder how future marketing campaigns will incorporate Paranormal Activity’s grassroots web marketing.

Social media is here to stay.

It’s all the buzz. Social media has exploded. It's everywhere. Some might say there is a revolution going on. Have you seen the YouTube video about this very topic? It has some very interesting statistics, such as:

• By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers.
• 96% of them have joined a social network.
• Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web.
• 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media.
• Facebook added 200 million users in less than 9 months.
• 80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees.

Check it out for yourself.

Don't mix texting and driving!

Of all the new media, texting has exploded in the last year and, together with its sibling, twittering, it may now come with a caution label attached. While many of us are accustomed to listening to the radio in the car, very few of us watch television in the driver’s seat. The logic is obvious, and yet many of us engage in texting behavior that defies that same logic.

According to The New York Times (7-18-09; 7-28-09), two studies have shown that this new media and driving don’t mix. A study conducted by Virginia Tech showed texting truckers (on actual runs) were 23 times more likely to have a crash, and a University of Utah study showed that college students (in simulators) were eight times more likely to crash.

About the same as cell phones, you say? The Times notes that drivers using cell phones are about four times more likely to cause a crash than other drivers — about the same impairment as drivers with a .08 percent blood alcohol level, the legal limit in many states.

So texting is anywhere from two to six times more dangerous than drunk driving. Why do we do it? As with most things, “I’m good at this — the other guy is the problem.” The 2009 Traffic Safety Culture Index study released last week by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety showed that nearly 90% of those surveyed said texting or emailing while driving was a very serious threat to safety, yet 18% of those same people admitted texting in the past month.

BTW: Both studies found that drivers really do get absorbed. The Times reported, “In the moments before a crash or near crash, drivers typically spent nearly five seconds looking at their devices — enough time at typical highway speeds to cover more than the length of a football field.”

So please, when you’re driving, put down your phone — and your makeup and your coffee!

A new look for Twitter.

In a need to monetize, Twitter has redesigned its homepage to make search front and center. The simple search box lets you search (duh), and below it is a ticker featuring three rows of popular topics, broken down by minute, day and week. “Popular topics by the minute” take precedence, and appear in a larger point size, indicating the general of-the-moment nature of tweets. Real pulse-of-the-marketplace info, especially if your market has a presence in the Twitterverse.

Paid search is next, folks. Give Twitter a few days (or weeks) to serve up this feature.

Give yourself a Mad Men makeover!

Didn’t work at a Madison Ave agency in the early ’60s? Tired of dirty looks for drinking in the office at 11 a.m.? Now at least your Facebook icon can live the life, thanks to AMC’s MadMenYourself.

Suit or skirt? Martini or whiskey on the rocks? Cigar or cigarette?

Too much fun. Unlike ElfYourself, SimpsonizeMe and FaceYourManga, you don’t actually upload an image — one less hurdle, which is good. Oh, and (somewhat) easily Facebooked, Tweeted, Dugged and StumbleUponed.

PS - We couldn't help but get in on the action. Try it for yourself.

Get ready for the new "Alice in Wonderland."

Johnny Depp is the Mad Hatter. Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter are the White and Red Queens, respectively. It’s Tim Burton’s take on "Alice in Wonderland," and it promises to be over the top. Set for release in March of next year, the movie is already being very cleverly promoted using social media.

On Facebook, you can sign up to be a “loyal subject” of the Red Queen or the White Queen or a “disloyal subject” of the Mad Hatter. And the benefit for becoming a fan? The group that is the largest by 7 p.m. on July 24 will win the chance to see an exclusive new trailer from the movie before anyone else.Check out the Facebook character profiles:

Loyal Subjects of the Red Queen
Over 1,200 fans
Personal Information: How dare you ask! Off with your head!
Personal Interests: Playing croquet; eating tarts, tadpoles on toast points, and caviar; and studying Dominion Over Living Things

Loyal Subjects of the White Queen
Over 1,300 fans so far
Personal Information: I enjoy spending time with members of my court — White Rabbit, March Hare, and Cheshire Cat.
Personal Interests: Perfecting medicinal cures and transformational potions and overthrowing my sister, the Red Queen

Disloyal Subjects of the Mad Hatter
Over 6,000 fans so far
Personal Information: Some may think I’m mad.
Personal Interests: Throwing tea parties; celebrating un-birthdays

This is a smart use of social media. Consumers can connect with the movie months before its release. This builds momentum — which translates into building audiences. Fans may also go a step further and spread the word about the Facebook fan pages — and the movie — to friends and family.

Ready to go down the rabbit hole?

New app from Dunkin Donuts

Dunkin Donuts has just launched a new app called DunkinRun for computers and mobile devices (including an iPhone application). Using DunkinRun.com, you can make a run to Dunkin for your friends and yourself, using the site.

1. Invite friends by providing their email addresses or mobile phone numbers.
2. Order from the online menu.
3. Dunkin will compile the order for you, and you can print it out or have it sent to your mobile device.
4. Pick up the order and enjoy!

This is a great example of a company that is combining useful technology with marketing/branding for Dunkin. And they have infused the tone of voice and messaging that is a major part of their brand throughout the application — e.g., you’ll enjoy hero worship from friends and coworkers once you have made a DunkinRun. Check it out for yourself!

Finding new ways to use Facebook

Target recently ran a two-week campaign on Facebook called “Bullseye Gives.” The premise? The mammoth retailer offered a choice of ten charities, from breast cancer research to the Red Cross. People voted for their favorites.

The prize? Target will split $3 million among the charities based on the percentage of votes they received.

It’s a great example of viral marketing for both Target and the charities. People posted their votes on their Facebook profiles, encouraging others to participate — and getting more people to join Target’s fan base. Some of the charities posted links on their website homepages, too. In addition, Target will help to connect voters with volunteer opportunities in their local communities. After two weeks, more than 290,000 people had voted!

So Target not only looks hip and philanthropic, but through a creative use of social media, it is strengthening its online community while building its brand.

Social networking vs. Social marketing

People, please. You are breaking my heart.

I spend hours on Facebook. Hours. I do it so I can reconnect with people I purposely lost touch with years ago. I do it so I can poke Scott Bille and not get sued. I do it so I can see pictures of people from my past.

Facebook is social networking. It’s networking on social sites.
When I am chatting with colleagues on Jabber, or posting a hot topic to a marketing listserv, that’s social media. It’s interacting with people via boards and communication devices. It’s using media to socialize.
Now let’s say I was addicted to all of this social media use and social networking. Let’s say I could not stop. I was less productive at work, not paying enough attention to my family and completely unaware of where the hours of the day go because of this addiction.

People would want to help me, right? They would want to help change my behavior. Admit my addiction. Link me to resources that will help me decrease my time spent online. They will want to find ways to educate me on other things I could be doing that are less harmful. They will want to create messages I will feel are relevant to my situation and will make me seek help. That would be social marketing.