Have you heard of a conference called BlogWorld? You should have because its primary topical focus is on the growing importance of social media. Now, unless you've been hiding under a rock or still believe the ad industry's product du jour in the :30 commercial, you know that social media is all the rage. Just like word of mouth was a few years ago. Just like buzz marketing some years before that and just like viral marketing did even earlier.
Yes, social media encompasses many of the aforementioned trends/fads/whatever but much like mobile which has finally earned it's "year of" status, social media is going mainstream and that what this conference is all about.
Taking place in Las Vegas October 14-16 and with panels on content creation and sharing, analytics for listening to customers, enterprise-level adoption of social media, the SEO of social media, crisis management in social media, social CRM, PR in social media, the conference will inform and educate those who need to know what's coming down the marketing freeway.
Check it all out here.
This week, Jack in the Box restaurants, with help from Secret Weapon Marketing, unveiled a new campaign aimed at maintaining and building mutual adoration between Jack and his fans. Well, that's a polite way of saying Jack is buying his way into people's social media hearts. The campaign, Be a Rich Fan, will thank fans by making a donation to a charity; you.
For every person who 'likes' Jack on Facebook, he'll make a nickel donation into a money jar, displayed and updated in real time on his fan page. At the conclusion of the month-long campaign, Jack will reward one lucky fan with the total amount in the jar. The grand prize will be determined by how loyal Jack's supporters really are and the number of people they help turn into new Jack fans. Since the more users who sign up means more money in the jar, Be a Rich Fan encourages word of mouth to friends and family, though everyone will likely want to win the big prize for themselves.
As Chicago's Mayoral craziness continues, Proximity has come to the rescue with Foursquarian Candidate, which aims to "even the playing field between concerned citizens and well-funded candidates by providing social media savvy Chicagoans the chance to win a campaign marketing team to support a Mayoral bid." Yes, people. Foursquare might serve up Chicago's next Mayor.
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In an examination of how social media is dramatically changing the way people consume media and how marketers use (or should) use it, iCrossing Social Media Director Alisa Leonard writes, "the rise of social media is more than simply the rise of a new 'channel' opportunity. It has signaled the rise of a new, complex consumer modality, generating altogether new behaviors and communicative norms in general.
Continuing, she writes, "We, as consumers, seem to be on the brink of a kind of techno-cognitive nomadism, a world in which communication output is evermore ubiquitous, ambient and continuous --where conversation and activity, from tweets to Likes and Shares, are not only visible pieces of meta-data, but forms of content in their own right. The link between content, identity and activity is tightening, fast. We continue to witness the evolution of content and its consumption as a direct corollary to the evolution of the social web itself."
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 This contributed article comes to us from Philippe Guegan, VP Strategy & Engagement at Big Fuel Communications, a full-service marketing and communications company based in New York. Philippe discusses how social media is moving from a cool, new idea to a practice that requires mainstream integration and implementation.
This season, social is the new black. Fashion victim, fashionista: these are words not easily applied to me. However, I have learned one valuable lesson over the years by observing an industry that's always on the lookout for the next big thing: if you wait long enough, past trends and patterns will make a comeback.
This is exactly to the case with social media right now. As all things social start to mature, the same evolution that took place in the digital marketing industry only a few years ago is emerging: social is fast becoming less about experimentation, and more about regular production. In fact, production is the key word in many ways, which I'll come back to a bit later.
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- Samsung memory cards are strong. Very very strong. Shock proof. Water proof. Magnet proof. And idiot proof.
- Texting and Driving Don't MiRobin Landa, Professor at Robert Busch School of Design and her publisher John Wiley & Sons are asking students throughout the country to create a 30 second video or ad to dissuade people from texting while driving.
- Here's a commercial for Anna Sui cosmetics. There's nothing all that special about it but there's nothing all that wrong with it either.
- A silent auction and cash bar will be held this Wednesday evening, September 29, at Highbar in New York City to benefit Samantha Tuttlebee, an independent sales rep and former staff rep at 89 Editorial and BlueRock who is in dire need of a heart transplant.
- Two new commercials (one, two) for Windows 7 Phone. Yawn.
Brands seeking to gain Twitter followers can now buy their way towards a higher follow count. A new product, Promoted Accounts, will be announced tomorrow by Twitter COO Dick Costello at the IAB MIXX Conference according to All Things Digital.
The offering will allow brands to buy placement in the Who to Follow section of Twitter.com. With brands beginning the recognize the benefits of a Twitter presence, the offering should be attractive to marketers and bring some much needed revenue to Twitter.
Promoted Accounts will be targeted to specific Twitter users based on the same algorithm that determines the placement of Promoted Tweets. Reports are circulation Promoted Accounts will sell for upwards of $100,000. More details will surely follow after tomorrow's announcement. The session is scheduled for 10:10 AM.
One might assume a woman who decides to play full on football while dressed only in football pads and lingerie would, by default, be a very social creature. After all, running around in front of thousands of people with one's boobs spilling out of a top and one's ass getting a wedgie might, by some, be considered very social.
But just is case you feel that behavior isn't very social, Adage Technologies, creator of the Lingerie Football League Fanzone, would like you to know the ladies are very social. Well, at least LFL fans are social with over 15,000 lingerie loving football fans having signed up since the site launched this summer.
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We've all seen those gut-wrenching PSAs that urge us not to drink and drive. The ones that show the emotionally intense ramifications of that poor decision. From the simple to full-on death and dismemberment. We're late to this but this new PSA from Sherry Matthews Advocacy Marketing for the Texas Department of Transportation takes a decidedly different approach.
We see a tweet about meeting for a drink at a local bar. The entire scenario then unfolds online on social media platforms such as Twitter, SMS, Facebook, Gowalla(?), online banking, Google, Gmail and LinkedIn. From start to finish, the story is told using today's methods of communication.
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A billboard for Summit Brewing ponders which is the better social medium; Twitter of beer. The billboard is part of an ongoing campaign which sought creative submissions from people. Winners would receive a $50 gift certificate and have their creative featured on a billboard.
This particular board was created by Fast Horse designer Hilary Heinz.
So which is it? Real world socialization lubricated by alcohol? Or online socialization lubricated by the ability to portray yourself anyway you choose?
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