Wilford Brimley plays Asst. U.S. Atty. Gen. James A. Wells in the 1980 journalism drama, Absence of Malice.

As a longtime journalist, I’m happy to see so many of my colleagues finding work at brands and agencies as content marketers, brand journalists and all the other new roles and titles beginning to emerge. (Me? I’m a Director of Content!)

At its best, marrying communications and marketing with a journalistic approach can result in quality content that’s of value to the public, as opposed to purely self-interested promotional copy.

One unintended consequence, however, may be that some bad habits of newsrooms will be ported to these new roles.

Here are five things about journalism that a new generation of content creators should be careful not to emulate.

Circling the wagons

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, the New York Post splashed two innocent men on its front page and painted them as possible terrorists.

So what did the Post have to say for itself after the cover went down in infamy?

“We stand by our story,” said New York Post editor Col Allen when he finally offered a statement.

Those five words have been the standard reply from newsrooms when the worst happens within journalistic ranks, such as plagiarism or fabrication.

Circling the wagons means refusing to acknowledge obvious failures or to otherwise engage in a discussion about your journalistic practices.

This destroys public trust. It’s been a habit inside newsrooms for a long time, but fortunately I think it’s starting to fade.

So if you’re a brand that publishes content, you need to engage with critical comments and respond to requests for corrections openly and publicly. You need to be willing to engage in a conversation about your work, even if that seems like a distraction from your ultimate goal.

View this as an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to quality content and accountability, rather than a nuisance.

The echo chamber

Journalists get caught in an echo chamber when we spend too much time with the same colleagues covering the same beat in the same way. Views and perspectives begin to coalesce and we fall victim to groupthink.

The echo chamber is the enemy of fresh ideas. It also leads to blind spots that prevent us from identifying important developments or oncoming trouble.

How do you escape the echo chamber? Make a conscious effort to read and engage outside of your role and industry. Seek out non-traditional sources.

Attend a conference that’s outside of the norm for you. What can you learn from sociology, cognitive psychology, political science?

Echo chambers are dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. Image by Denis Gobo via Flickr.

Skimping on training

Training budgets were one of the first things to be cut at newspapers when classifieds, display ads and reader revenue started cratering.

The decline occurred because of fundamental shifts in media and technology. The internet and its disruptive effects began taking hold and haven’t let go.

Media brands needed to invest in training in order to adapt and thrive in a digital world. But with budgets cut and the pace of technological change accelerating, many newsrooms found themselves with outdated skillsets, workflows and technology.

Budgets will rise and fall and content marketers inside and outside of organizations will feel the effects.

It’s up to you to ensure that you’re always learning and to instill a culture within your organization that’s focused on keeping skills and processes up to date.

Creating silos

One legacy media habit that seems to have been replicated in the content marketing world is the separation of writers and editors from technology, product and business people.

Within newsrooms this created a culture that was hostile to collaboration and prevented people from coming together to solve problems and develop innovative business models. (I’m not saying that journalists and ad sales people should break down ethical boundaries. Those are critical to credibility.)

Tearing down walls internally helps blow up echo chambers and gives life to fresh ideas.

Want to know what’s possible when you tear down walls and put a new mix of people in a room?

Have a look at the tremendous, Pulitzer-winning New York Times Snow Fall interactive that was the result of collaboration between a writer, sports editors, graphics editors, a multimedia producer/designer, a digital designer, a video journalist and a photographer. All within an organization that has a lot of moving parts, people, departments and procedures.

If the Grey Lady can break down walls, you can too.

Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek is New York Times’ multimedia storytelling effort that bridged departments within the brand.

Ignoring the competition

Companies do a lot of competitive intelligence and tracking. Journalists read and watch their competitors, too. But historically they prefer to not acknowledge their existence.

This is a horrible, venal tradition in media that’s thankfully starting to go away. It goes like this: If your competitor gets a scoop, you do everything you can to not credit them for the work.

That’s why you’ll still sometimes read a news story that refers to “a report today” or “media reports,” without naming the source. The standard operating procedure in newsrooms was to re-report the story just so you could run it without having to note that the crosstown rival got there first.

This tradition carried into the online world to the point where some large news outlets only recently began linking to competitors.

Will you link to it?

Now, imagine one of your competitors writes a great blog post. Not something that promotes their product, but a piece about your industry that’s insightful and valuable to your audience. Will you link to it?

I’ll say this: If your relationship with your customers or clients is so tenuous that sending them to a useful link on a competitor’s website will damage your standing, then maybe linking out is the least of your troubles.

Image by Metro Library and Archive via Flickr.

During a crisis, everyone is riveted. We keep watching the news or scrolling through our Twitter feeds, desperate for a new morsel of information.

Has the oil spill been contained? The cause of the crash determined? The source of tainted meat identified?

If we were on a television show, new developments would break every couple of minutes, ensuring a steady stream of thrills. But in real life, it’s murkier; progress comes slowly, and initial information may be unclear or inaccurate.

Innuendo swirls and serious mistakes are made, including (in the wake of the recent Boston Marathon bombings) websites such as Reddit erroneously fingering the wrong suspect.

If you find your brand in the throes of a crisis, how do you “fill the gap” in coverage to ensure reporters and the public are getting enough information to satisfy their insatiable curiosity – while steering clear of risky, unsubstantiated nuggets?

Here are a few strategies that I’ve found useful:

Communicate on a regular schedule

The media thrive on predictability; even though they’re on a 24/7 schedule, it’s important for them to know they’ll receive updates at particular times so they can plan for “live shots” (in the case of TV) or count down to updates (“only four minutes until the company president shares the latest information with us”).

Of course, if relevant new information comes to light, you should share it immediately. But even if you don’t have new information, journalists and the public will appreciate knowing that you’ll be checking in with them every hour or so (whether it’s through updates on your website, a press conference or a tweet).

The BBC’s newsroom in Central London. Image via Graham Holliday, via Flickr.

Be clear on what you know – and what you don’t

Don’t make optimistic guesses or speculate. And never shade the truth. Save yourself a lot of trouble and explain clearly what you know, what you don’t, and your plan for getting to the bottom of the situation.

Go behind the scenes

When there’s no new information to share, you can often fill airtime in a positive way by “going behind the scenes.”

Depending on the nature of the problem, you may be able to provide facility tours to the media to show them how operations are run and the procedures you have in place.

Or you can provide access to people who are working hard on the job (for instance, an interview with a competent worker who is an expert at cleaning up oil spills).

The key is to provide context and show that you’re hard at work on addressing the situation.

In 2012, the headquarters of Spirit AeroSystems, an a aviation manufacturing company, was hit by a tornado. The company posted photos of the cleanup on its Flickr stream. Image by Spirit AeroSystems via Flickr.

Provide your own experts

When political candidates release a new policy initiative, they’ll often provide reporters with a list of experts who can speak knowledgeably about it (often people who have been consulted on the plan beforehand).

This can be an invaluable help for journalists who may struggle to locate an expert on the minutiae of a particular issue. It’s also great for getting your brand’s message out.

Making it easy for the media to talk to a favourable (or at least neutral) expert is far better than rolling the dice and seeing who they come up with from a cursory Google search.

You can prepare for many potential crises by asking “What’s the worst case scenario?” and identifying experts on that subject who are smart and rational.

Prior to a crisis, you can tap them for advice and guidance; during a crisis, they may be voices of reason the media can interview.

Know when to keep quiet

It’s also important to keep in mind that if a media crisis is swirling and you’re not involved, it may be best to say nothing at all. It’s not possible (and may not be desirable) to shut down all social media activity during every single crisis; things happen around the globe all the time.

But if something major occurs and the world is riveted, even a banal and normally innocuous tweet (such as notifying customers about a sale) may seem insensitive. So when news breaks, think through your upcoming mix of social media posts; you may want to hold off on some or all.

Communicating in the midst of a crisis is never easy. But if you recognize the insatiable demand for information, emanating both from the media and the public, and try to fill that void with relevant information, you’re more likely to drown out harmful rumours and speculation.

“Feeding the beast” in the midst of a crisis may not seem like a priority – but if you want to keep the public calm and emerge with your reputation intact once the situation is resolved, it’s essential.

Nyan Cat is one of the most successful cat memes on the internet and has been adopted for marketing purposes by brands like Sprint (see YouTube video below).

With the rise of banner blindness, ad-blocking technology, and streaming services that allow any savvy internet user or television viewer to decide when, where and whether they are served up an ad, it’s more difficult for brands to reach the public than ever before.

For modern marketers, it’s no longer about forcing a promotional message in front of an audience, but rather about finding effective ways to convince consumers to allow them an audience at all.

Achieving this feat requires embracing humour, new platforms, and the evolving logic of “internet culture” to build better, more compelling and more interesting advertising.

That’s where memes come in.

What is memevertising?

At their core, internet memes are the embodiment of everything good advertising should be: clever, memorable, easily communicated and absurdly contagious.

So it’s no wonder that more and more brands have been leaping at the opportunity to incorporate memes into their marketing.

The first thing to note about memevertising (aside from its inherent risks and potential rewards), is that it is not all alike. The most common approach is called memejacking and involves a brand or agency piggybacking on a popular meme in progress.

This can take the form of a commercial, a display ad or an adaptation of an already successful image macro (image superimposed with text).

The key to this approach is identifying an appropriate (and potentially relevant) meme or viral event before it becomes passé or irrelevant. As the recent Harlem Shake phenomenon demonstrated, memes can be fleeting. This requires having employees in your organization (or agency) who have a finger on the pulse of internet culture and social media.

Another form of memevertising is known as “memescaping” and involves a brand creating an entire meme from scratch.

It’s not always intentional (indeed many attempts to create branded memes fail spectacularly), but when it succeeds it can inspire thousands of user-made tributes, adaptations and unique creations that generate brand impressions for years.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at a few successful examples of memevertising:

Four examples of meme marketing

1. Chuck Norris, World of Warcraft

Chuck Norris jokes were as popular offline as online, but game development company Blizzard Entertainment appropriated them to promote an expansion of its smash hit online game World of Warcraft.

The result was a memejacked video commercial that went viral, received extensive media coverage and aligned perfectly with the company’s core demographic of gamers.

2. Most Interesting Man in the World 

One of thousands of user-created image macros of Dos Equis’s “Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign.

In 2006, Euro RSCG Worldwide devised an advertising campaign for the beer brand Dos Equis. The ads featured actor Jonathan Goldsmith as “the most interesting man in the world.”

It was a smash success and a good example of accidental memescaping. By 2013, the ad has inspired tens of thousands of user-created image macros that prominently feature the brand’s dashing spokesman next to a bottle of Dos Equis.

3.  “Let’s Go!” Shell 

In order to protest the multinational gas and oil company’s controversial plan to drill in the arctic, Greenpeace created ArcticReady.com, a satirical website filled with fictional mission statements, damning statistics and scathing image parodies of Shell’s “Let’s Go” campaign.

It also invited visitors to create their own crowdsourced meme submissions. The result was a staggeringly effective hoax (and memescaping example) that generated significant media coverage and no small number of user-generated contributions.

Fortunately for Greenpeace, Shell (wisely) decided not to pursue legal action.

4. Sesame Street’s “Call Me Maybe”

When Carly Rae Jepsen released her hit single “Call Me Maybe” in 2011, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would have predicted how much of a viral phenomenon it would become.

But a Twitter endorsement by teen idol Justin Bieber led to an explosion of covers, parodies and tribute videos à la Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know,” Rebecca Black’s “Friday” and Psy’s “Gagnam Style.”

What was particularly remarkable in the case of “Call Me Maybe” was how quickly some iconic brands (like the Miami Dolphins and Abercrombie & Fitch) were able to leap into the fray with tribute videos of their own in order to make the most of the song’s incredible viral energy.

Sesame Street was one such brand and 13 million views later, the video is a fantastic example of how memejacking done well can work brilliantly.

But those expecting to see Twitter used to its full interactive potential came away disappointed. The “global” conference amounted to 20 tweets and received scant coverage in India’s news.

For journalists at The Hindu, the Chennai-based English-language daily with the third-largest circulation in India, this came as no surprise.

In the West, social media has arrived at a time of crisis for traditional newspapers. In India, newspaper circulation and advertising revenue are growing.

Lacking a sense of urgency and saddled with a variety of cultural, political and organizational challenges, Indian journalists are still searching for a meaningful role for social media.

Social media is “soft”

Reading the morning newspaper is still a common ritual in much of India. Image by Rajesh_India via Flickr.

We spent time recently talking to journalists at The Hindu about their attitudes toward social media.

One of the few people willing to go on the record was assistant editor Karthik Subramanian, who suggested that Indian journalists view social networks like Facebook and Twitter as serious tools for reporting.

Subramanian said that reporters at The Hindu use social media to find stories and identify sources, but only for “soft features” as opposed to “hard news.”

“When it comes to hard news, I don’t think journalists take social media too seriously,” Subramanian said. “We have not yet reached a stage where we get some specific breaking news information – for hard news – that we verify and follow up.”

But Sam Pitroda’s press conference was hard news. So why did The Hindu and other news organizations give it only minor coverage?

Subramanian explained that “in the traditional news houses in India, Twitter is considered as a tool for self-promotion. It is yet to become an important tool for hard news verification and dialogue.”

Part of the reluctance to employ social media tools for “serious” news stories stems from a lack of trust. The internet is a fount of information, but it’s also filled with misinformation.

Subramanian pointed to the example of Vilasrao Deshmukh, a senior government minister who had recently been hospitalized in Chennai, and was mistakenly pronounced dead by one online publication.

“The story started trending in no time,” said Subramanian. “Hard news verification that is done by journalists, who cannot afford to get it wrong, cannot be done by social media at this moment, at least in India.”

When print is thriving, why go digital?

Indian newspapers have a “problem” many media outlets would love to have: In India, the success of print removes much of the incentive for papers to prioritize their digital presence.

It is a curious feature of India that at the same time as its consumers seek the latest mobile phones, they are also opting for the “old” technology of printed newspapers.

While Western newspapers struggle with declining revenues and high fixed costs, these are heady times for India’s press barons. India sells more newspapers than any other country in the world, and print circulation rises each year.

Economics tells part of the story. Indian newspapers are very cheap. The average per-issue cost of a major daily newspaper is less than 10 U.S. cents, only slightly more than the price 15 years ago.

By keeping prices so low, India’s major dailies have created large audiences for print advertising. And unlike in much of the West, where searchable websites have replaced the classified ads newspapers once printed, in India newspaper ads remain popular among advertisers and profitable for papers.

Audience size also affects how much time journalists give to social media. Today, with 1.2 billion people, India has fewer than 15 million Twitter accounts, many of which sit inactive.

This means that even on a good day, India’s Twitter population is less than that of Chennai, the southern city where The Hindu is based.

For these reasons, India’s major news organizations are content to wait before making significant investments in social media, according to Lata Ganapathy, The Hindu’s assistant editor on the internet desk.

“For a newspaper that does so well offline, recognition of social media as a ‘thing of the future’ can be delayed, resulting in playing catch-up later on when it could be too late,” Ganapathy, told us. “This curbs our online potential.”

“India’s major news organizations are content to wait before making significant investments in social media.” Image by Carol Mitchell, via Flickr.

Digital immigrants

A number of cultural and structural challenges also play a role in the reluctance of Indian newspapers to embrace social media, says Karthik Subramanian, The Hindu’s assistant editor.

As with most other newspapers in India, The Hindu’s digital operation remains physically separate from the traditional newsroom, meaning that the paper’s veteran print journalists have little interaction – and little regard for – the digital side of things.

“Siddharth Varadarajan, who took over as editor less than a year back, has been asking all young journalists to actively take to Twitter,” Subramanian said.

“But it is a mindset change, to ask digital immigrants – traditional journalists who are just taking to Twitter – to be very open about the information they possess. It is a professional reflex to be a bit closed.”

From political dissent to dialogue

The journalists we spoke with at The Hindu emphasized their desire to forge a stronger dialogue with readers, but several challenges stand in the way.

Old battles have found a new stage on Twitter. For instance, opponents of the paper’s editorial position on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue have criticized articles, columnists and editors.

One reporter told us that The Hindu is genuine in its desire to discuss the Tamil issue and other controversial editorial positions, but that the paper’s critics see social media as a way to distract and discredit the paper’s editors.

“Since dissent is the biggest motivator on social media,” the reporter told us, “it has been difficult for us to engage in a dialogue online.”

This is not the only politically related deterrent to social media use by journalists.

In recent years, the Indian government has limited social media use in troubled regions, as it did during last summer’s riots in the northeastern state of Assam. It has also blocked individual Twitter accounts.

Going local

“Even on a good day, India’s Twitter population is less than that of Chennai, the southern city where The Hindu is based.”

Ganapathy, for her part, says she hopes to make The Hindu a pioneer in online Indian journalism by “bypassing the ‘catch-up’ phase and moving directly into the next version of the web.”

This means “more planned interaction, richer multimedia content and greater coordination between the print and online editions.”

She also said The Hindu, which considers itself a national paper, plans to focus its social media efforts on local coverage; the paper maintains Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts called “Chennai Central” devoted to “soft news” in the city where the paper is based.

“Any new experiments with social media are being conducted at and through Chennai Central,” she said.

These experiments already include a monthly photography contest, a monthly architectural tour of the city, a daily podcast and a monthly e-newsletter.

The conversation awaits

In recent years, century-old Western papers have faced questions of how to embrace new, more interactive technologies and retain their identities. That conversation still awaits the 130-year old Hindu and many other Indian dailies.

For now, if you want to read about the latest pronouncements from the prime minister’s technology adviser, you’ll need to pick up a newspaper.

A version of this story was first published by Neiman Journalism Lab. 

Image by Alan Levine via Flickr.

“Audio and photography are the redheaded stepchildren [of social media],” well-known marketer C.C. Chapman told me in an interview at the recent New Media Expo. “They get forgotten about, but they’re both powerful.”

Chapman has built his brand by leveraging both, taking photos he uses to spice up the rest of his content  – people are more likely to click on a blog post with a nice thumbnail image – and hosting a popular podcast, Managing the Gray.

It can be hard psychologically to resist the allure of new platforms. Frankly, they can be an easy way to justify your budget or your livelihood. If everyone has to be on Pinterest, that opens up a great market for Pinterest consultants.

Adapted image by Oriol Carbonell via thenounproject.org

You might not make the cover of Fast Company with your groundbreaking e-newsletter, but – depending on your business – it’s quite possible the best way to actually capture your customers’ attention and win sales is through an unsexy but effective medium like email.

“To me, the hottest and sexiest social network right now is your inbox,” popular blogger Chris Brogan wrote last summer. I think he’s absolutely right. It’s all too easy for marketers to jump on the latest trends and abandon the tried-and-true methods.

But there are three powerful reasons to embrace “old school” 2000s style marketing (even if e-newsletters and podcasts were considered pretty high-tech and fancy even five years ago).

You’re evading the competition

If others are chasing the newest fad, they won’t have the bandwidth to truly excel at “older” forms of marketing, whether it’s crafting an amazing e-newsletter or a thoughtful blog.

You’re reducing friction

Image by Stanislav Levin via thenounproject.org.

Video editing can be tricky, but almost anyone can touch up a photo on her smartphone.

“The barriers to entry are lower for photography,” says Chapman. “Anyone can pick up a camera and point and shoot.”

Since a recent HubSpot study showed that photos on Facebook generate 53 percent more “likes” than the average post, that’s a powerful incentive.

You know it works

No, podcasting hasn’t taken over the world. But it’s proven itself for nearly a decade as a reliable way to share ideas and reach a targeted audience.

Thought leaders like Mitch Joel (whom I interviewed for a session at the New Media Expo) have established powerful brands through podcasting; Mitch has done more than 300 episodes of “Six Pixels of Separation.”

Adapted image by Khadijah Roussi via thenounproject.com

Similarly, Jay Baer’s Social Pros Podcast allows him to curate some of the best thinking in the marketing and social media field. Jumping on the latest and greatest social media platform could be a win if it becomes the next Twitter – or you might fail miserably if it’s the next Friendster.

If you want to reduce risk, sticking to the classics (like podcasting) is one way to do it.

What’s your take on the value of blogging, podcasting, digital photos and other “oh-so 2003” platforms? Are they an undervalued opportunity or just old news?

Doritos’ “Crash The Super Bowl” ad campaign. Image via Doritos’ Facebook Page.

More than a hundred million American sports fans will be glued to their TVs this Sunday for Super Bowl XLVII. The rest of the world will be paying attention to the ads. And for good reason: This year could turn out to be the high-water mark for crowdsourced commercials.

The trend of crowdsourcing, or bringing fans into the ad’s creative process, can be traced back to 2007, when Doritos debuted its massively popular “Crash the Super Bowl” contest. Brands haven’t stopped experimenting since.

Here is a taste of crowdsourcing strategies brands are deploying for Super Bowl 2013.

Crowdsource the script

Super Bowl ad rookie Lincoln (the car company, not the U.S. president or Oscar-nominated film) will be airing a commercial based on tweets from its #SteertheScript promotion. The car brand teamed up with comedian Jimmy Fallon, who chose his favourite tweets as inspiration for the ad. The brand has been dropping occasional teasers for months now, building anticipation for the main event.

Crowdsource the ad

While Doritos is the only brand to put the entire creative process in the hands of its contestants, other brands are starting to head in that direction. Coca-Cola and Audi are each running separate ‘choose your own adventure’ style campaigns, where fans get to vote online for which ending will appear on TV.

Be explosive

Sometimes it’s not the crowd that decides the fate of an ad, but the network. That’s what happened to Sodastream, a home carbonation product.

The Israel-based brand had intended to break into the American market with a Super Bowl ad mocking Coca-Cola and Pepsi, but CBS (the network airing the game) disapproved of the spot.

Turns out people love controversy. The original commercial went viral on YouTube before being replaced by a toned down version, which is scheduled to run on Sunday.

Even if this social media tie-in was accidental, Sodastream has made a far bigger splash because of it.

Hashtag it

It’s almost certain that every ad will be accompanied by a hashtag. The only question is how integrated into the campaign that hashtag will be. Toyota encouraged people to upload images of themselves on Instagram and Twitter with the #wishgranted hashtag for a chance to appear in the ad.

In the same vein, users who upload selfies with the #PepsiHalftime might appear on screen during the Pepsi-sponsored Beyonce halftime show.

Send your fans to space

Hashtags and user-generated content are likely to make an impact, but they won’t necessarily send a brand into orbit.

That’s why Axe is using their first-ever Super Bowl spot to promote the Axe Apollo Space Academy contest, in which participants compete for a chance to get flown into space. The sheer boldness of the contest has been enough to generate lots of buzz.

Gaming the crowds

It’s easy to see why brands are so committed to crowdsourcing and social media tie-ins. As Jason Therrien, President of social media marketing agency Thunder Tech explains, “If you have an emotional attachment to a commercial, you’re more likely to sit through it.”

And if brands can nurture that attachment by crafting a contest around the ad, or build anticipation through sharable teasers, then all the better.

Super Bowl ads are expensive. This year brands paid an average of $3.7 million for the privilege. For perspective, the cost of a 30-second spot a decade ago was $1.9 million.

So it’s no wonder that ad agencies and brands are pulling out all the stops to earn as many impressions as possible. Bringing campaigns online is a surefire way to do that. As Mashable reports, those ads shown before the game get 600 percent more YouTube views.

Brands love to rise above the noise, but sometimes it’s better to stick to the crowd.

David Beckham endorses the Samsung Galaxy Note.

Social media success thrives on authenticity. In a social media-powered world, relationships are built on trust and honest insight.

Not to mention that anyone can build a loyal audience of readers, watchers, fans, followers and friends online.

So tell me again why marketers still insist on hiring celebrity spokespeople to endorse their products?

A legacy of success

Marketers have used celebrities to hawk their products for decades. In the 1990s, consumers saw George Foreman pitching the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine and suspended disbelief.

They never questioned the former heavyweight champion’s allegiance to the product he so enthusiastically endorsed on late-night television infomercials.

Even if they did, there was no easy way to validate his relationship with the grill or its manufacturers.

In today’s social media landscape – where celebrities tweet their every move, update their status on Facebook, and upload home movies to YouTube – hiring a spokesperson who doesn’t actually use your products or subscribe to your services is not a good investment.

Just think: If George Foreman went out to dinner every night and checked into every restaurant he visited on Foursquare (but never seemed to cook at home on the grill that bears his name), would the grill manufacturer benefit from the audience Foreman is building on social media? Obviously not.

Image via George Foreman Cooking Facebook Page.

Authentic endorsements are everywhere

In a social media world that thrives on authenticity, it’s better to retain your audience’s trust by forming long-term relationships that are true to both the brand sponsor and the talent (or spokesperson).

Today, anyone can become a digital celebrity. With a smartphone and a YouTube channel, you can start creating video content. With a computer and an internet connection, you can start a blog for free. With a camera, you can start uploading photos to Instagram.

On every one of these channels, quality content creators are building valuable audiences. Those content creators are just as influential (if not more for the audiences they serve) as David Beckham, Gisele Bundchen or James Franco.

These content creators authentically endorse, use, and subscribe to your products and services. No matter what you sell, I guarantee you can find the right content creator who really does love what you make (or what you do.)

The popular blog Small Kitchen College features several recipes that make use of the George Foreman Grill.

You know who actually uses the George Foreman Grill?

College coeds. In fact, CheapScholar.org, a website dedicated to helping make college affordable in the United States, recommended that college students invest in a Foreman Grill and cut back on their university meal plan to save on tuition. But CheapScholar isn’t the only content creator targeting college-age kids with content about the Grill.

Take Big Girls, Small Kitchen, for example. They’ve created an entire website dedicated to college cooking called Small Kitchen College. The blog’s 44 contributors are dorm-room chefs who make the most out of cooking healthy, fun and delicious meals without a full kitchen.

One of their contributors, Sarah Leibach, describes herself as a senior at the George Washington University with a “…somewhat unhealthy crush on her [George Foreman] grill.”

Already, that sounds like a ringing (and incredibly authentic) endorsement for the brand. And at least two other contributors to Big Girls, Small Kitchen seem to have the same affinity for the dorm-room appliance.

What if Russell Hobbs, Inc. (the company that actually manufactures the grill) got behind the idea that college dorm-room cooking can be a reality with only one appliance?

What if their marketing folks offered to create a Big Girls, Small Kitchen version of the grill and leveraged Sarah’s weekly content to inspire college kids to embrace the simple cooking ideas she adores?

Imagine if Sarah and her team managed to convince even five percent of the 20 million new college students every year to purchase a $20 Foreman grill?

What if…

What if you actually invested in the content creators who already authentically embrace your product or service?

Ask yourself…

Who has already authentically embraced your brand?

How do you turn reading into a social experience? Isn’t it one of the last truly solitary things we do?

It has always been social to the extent that book clubs have been around for just as long as people have been reading. A book you read that you don’t talk about is kind of half read, in a way. You need that conversation with friends to bring out what you thought about the book or to amplify it or to consider it from a new perspective.

At some level, there’s still a person with a book, and that can’t change much. I do think there are little things that a company like ours can do that make that experience a little bit richer or that just take it in a slightly different direction.

People are coming to Goodreads and posting updates while they are reading the book because of the popularity of our mobile apps. People are on the go, they’re reading, and especially if they’re reading an e-book they can just switch over to the app and quickly say, “I’m 20 percent done,” or, “I love this part.”

It’s not a deep or long conversation at that point. You’re just posting what you think. But your friends might comment on that. They’ll say, “oh yeah, I like that part, too!” or have a little argument or whatever, and then you save the link to your conversation for when you’re done.

What are some surprising things you’ve learned about the way people read and relate to their books?

It’s the incredible breadth of books out there. It’s what people read. I’ve been kind of amazed that there’s a reader for every book in the sense that all of us are kind of parochial in our tastes. We read what we like, and occasionally we might branch out of that if our book club picks a book that’s not usually the sort of thing we would read or if a friend really recommends us something.

But it’s just seeing the sheer volume of books that are out there. So many books that I’ve never even heard of and that aren’t on my radar at all have thousands of reviews on Goodreads. That’s been an eye-opening experience.

How humanly curated is the Goodreads community and how much of it is sorted by computer algorithms?

I think at our heart we’re a social site. Even something like the book-recommendation algorithm, it’s really our community that brings in the data that makes something like that possible. You really couldn’t do this without the scale that we have.

Most people aren’t signing up specifically because they think we can spit 20 great books at them, even though we could do that if they rate enough books. I think they’re joining because their friends are doing it. That’s how this site has grown, it’s all been word of mouth.

We’re pushing something like 16 million books a month to Facebook, which creates more than half a billion impressions, which is kind of crazy. In the end it has all been person-to-person and that’s really been what’s driving it.

So you have a thriving community of readers, but how active are the authors?

Pretty active. We just passed 50,000 authors in our Authors Program, which is small when you consider there are 11.2 million members on the site, but it’s the biggest author community that I know of.

A lot of authors like to use the site like readers do, so they’ll come onto the site to say what they’re reading. If they do have a new book out, they’ll do something like a giveaway. Some of our authors will buy ads from us, some of our authors participate in author chats.

You just hosted an author chat with Salman Rushdie. How did that come about?

It was pretty amazing. He’s not actually a member of the author program. I just thought his book sounded really interesting. It was a really amazing discussion.

That’s one of the best parts of my job. Seeing comments like, “what an honour to have my question answered by Salman Rushdie,” or something like that. It’s pretty wild for people,

especially if you live somewhere where Salman Rushdie is never going to go on his book tour.

You’re not going to get to shake his hand and thank him for writing his books. So I love being able to put people in contact with their favourite author.

So how does Goodreads make money?

We’re advertising supported, and we do make some money off affiliated sales [Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.]. At this point we work with every major publisher, many smaller publishers and increasingly movie studios – people who are doing a book tie-in to a movie or that sort of thing.

One thing we’ve had a lot of success with is doing a “challenge.” We did this for The Help, for instance. They wanted to do something around the theme of unexpected friendships, so we said, “Let’s create a page where there’s a little challenge and the steps of the challenge are you have to watch the trailer for the movie, you have to add the book to your shelf and you have to write a short thing about an unexpected friendship.”

It was pretty amazing. We got a lot of people to enter that. And it’s just a little sticky thing that people can do with the content from the movie and the content from the book that goes beyond ‘just click and add it to your shelf.’

Do you think the key to Goodreads’ success is that the platform exists independently from where the books are actually sold? Otherwise, couldn’t Amazon just replicate what you’re doing?

I can’t really say whether that’s been the key to our success or not. We’ve never sold books so we don’t know what that would be like.

I know that we are really good at social and that’s what people are coming to the site for. Also, we’re platform agnostic, so whether you’re reading on Kindle, or reading on a Nook or you’re reading a paper book from the library, it doesn’t matter; you can come see what’s going on at Goodreads.

That’s what we’re offering. It gives us a very unique space. We’re not selling books, we’re being the place where people discover books, and we’re finding ways to capitalize on that. That’s where I think the opportunity is in the book business right now. All of this is about discovery in the end.

But I’ve never been more excited about any other social media channel. Why?

Because nearly every C-suite executive knows that social media is important, but they don’t really know why.

According to a study from SHRM, a stunning 79 percent of businesses that use social media do not track social media ROI. I suspect that’s because social media ROI is difficult to track.

It is for this reason that the C-suite has been very reluctant to fully embrace social media: Who cares if our Twitter account has 1300 followers or if 800 people like us on Facebook? What does that mean for our bottom line?

That’s the problem with social media. The benefits are so vague.

This is why Google+ makes me so excited. The benefits are obvious.

The C-suite gets SEO

Senior executives may not get social media, but they get SEO. They understand that better rankings = more traffic = more revenue.

Better rankings = more traffic = more revenue. Image by epSos.de via Flickr.

That’s why they will get Google+.

We all know the folktale about how to boil a frog. If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water the frog will jump out. You have to place the frog in a pot of cool water and then slowly heat the water to a boil.

Google has done that with SEO. Three years ago, if you had told internet marketers that social media would be integral to actual search results, and that the preferences of your friends would actually impact SEO, they would have called you crazy.

But because Google has done this piecemeal, it doesn’t sound so crazy.

First, shortly after launching Google+ last year, Google announced that the preferences of people in your circles would influence your search results. So if someone in your circles “+1s” something or shares something, that impacts what you see when you search.

This development shook the SEO world, but it only applied if you were a Google+ user and were logged in to Google+ at the time of your search.

Then, in the spring, searchers started to notice that Google+ was influencing results regardless of whether or not someone was logged in to Google or was even a Google+ user.

Think about that: organic search results changing because of +1s and shares on a social network – a social network the searcher might not even belong to.

But the biggest coup came this summer. Google announced that Google Places would be slowly phased out and that Google+ Local would take its place.

That means that tens of thousands of local SEO companies were forced to become Google+ experts overnight. In other words, Google+ is now local SEO.

And based on the progression of our little chain of events, I don’t believe Google is done yet.

Here’s the point: Google+ has made SEO and social media the same thing. There is no difference. That’s why I care about Google+. And that’s why your CEO will too.

Google+: the gateway drug

Google+ is the content marketer’s gateway into the CEO’s world. Maybe he or she hasn’t cared about social media in the past. Maybe he or she doesn’t want to hire someone to manage social media.

Maybe he or she has been hesitant to hire someone to churn out content to share via social media. Or, maybe your CEO just refuses to create a Twitter account or Google+ page and actually post stuff on it.

If any of these things sound familiar, listen to what I’m about to say: This is your chance to show him or her, clearly, that social media does count.

Once you’ve got your CEO to see that Google+ = SEO, you can sell him or her on other social media channels.

That’s why I care about Google+ and why you should too.

Spam and commercialism did their share to diminish this spirit of giving, but it didn’t go away altogether – it’s alive and well in social media. And it is one of the most powerful forces in influence.

Marcel Mauss was a sociologist whose 1923 book The Gift presented a wide range of thoughts about gifting and reciprocity. In the context of the primitive cultures Mauss observed, reciprocal gifting is a driving force in how people build relationships with one another.

There is a power in the giving of gifts, and, as Mauss wrote, “The unreciprocated gift still makes the person who has accepted it inferior, particularly when it has been accepted with no thought of returning it.”

The world of nonprofit fundraising has been leveraging reciprocity for some time. Whether it’s a Moonie pressing a flower into your hands at the airport, or Easter Seals sending you a solicitation accompanied by a sheet of gummed address labels, the gift significantly increases the chance that you will make a donation.

The immense power of the impulse to reciprocate was the subject of a 1971 study by Dennis T. Regan. In the experiment, subjects were ostensibly asked to participate in a study on aesthetics.

There were two main test conditions. In the first, a confederate of the experimenter joined the subject in the lab as they waited for the study to begin. The confederate then left the room and returned with two bottles of soda, giving one to the test participant, unsolicited.

In the second test condition, no gift was given. In both conditions, the confederate slipped a note to the subject, asking him to buy some raffle tickets. In cases where a soda was offered, the chance of a subject buying more than a single raffle ticket more than doubled.

We live in a world of reciprocity. As Robert Putnam says in Bowling Alone, this reciprocity is the touchstone of social capital. The notion of social capital is that there is value in social connections and the giving that occurs in those networks. This value permeates the fabric of society all around us.

As marketers, we can practice generosity within the communities we hope to influence. We shouldn’t act generous, though, with the goal of direct reciprocity, but rather to help create an environment of giving.

If people get the feeling that your generosity is tied directly to your need for marketing return, it will backfire. Instead, your generosity must be tied to your underlying principals.

People are constantly giving little gifts to one another. When someone clicks the “like” button or the “+1” Google Plus button, or retweets someone’s tweet, he’s giving a very small gift, as all of those little gestures help to show social proof and have potential additive benefit for search engine optimization.

In his 1979 classic Lewis Hyde explores the connection between creativity and the "gift economy"

Such gift giving isn’t necessarily completely altruistic – there might be a sense of, “Hey, I’m liking what you just said, so notice me back, okay?” – but for many people, this exchange is simply made with a sense of community and sharing.

But the truth is, when someone comments on my company’s blog or shares something we’ve posted with her friends, she is giving us a gift. The content building up on our pages increases our digital footprint with the search engines and, hopefully, helps to create a community in which others will want to participate.

That is our gift to the community. And when a gift has been given, there is a strong compulsion to reciprocate—in our community’s case, in the form of comments and sharing.

As a marketer, you might consider starting a random gift program—pulling up lists of the people who are interacting with your brand, selecting a few, and sending them each a gift. Don’t ask them to tweet about it or share with their friends – you don’t want the random gift to engender any sense of obligation.

Send along a nice handwritten (and friendly!) note. Just imagine being the person who receives a small crystal ornament from Steuben accompanied by a handwritten note from the head of marketing simply saying, “Thank you for your joining us in our online community – just wanted you to know how much it means to us.”

This excerpt, adapted for Sparksheet, is from Social Marketology: Improve Your Social Media Processes and Get Customers to Stay Forever by Ric Dragon. Copyright © 2012 by McGraw-Hill. Used by permission.

British Airways has been a longstanding partner with the Olympic Games in the U.K.

British Airways’ involvement with the Olympic Games goes back a long time. What does this assocation mean to the brand?

We trace our steps back to 1948 when we were involved as a brand in London, and we’ve also been flying Team GB since 1966, so we’ve had a long involvement with Team GB and ParalympicsGB.

We’re a really proud British brand: We’ve got “British” in our name, we’re red, white and blue and we think this is a fantastic time to celebrate London and everything that’s great about the city.

What criteria do you use when deciding whether a sponsorship is a good fit for the British Airways brand?

We look at marketing strategy and where it’s taking the brand. One of the things we’ll use London 2012 for is to engage with a younger audience. Sponsorship is a fantastic way of talking to new audiences that wouldn’t normally register you as a brand or feel engaged with you.

By tapping into something the whole country is really passionate about, you get a chance to talk to new audiences in a way they wouldn’t really expect you to, and as a result, they become far more engaged in British Airways.

British Airways flew the Olympic Flame on flight 2012 to the U.K. on a plane specially named The Firefly.

How much of a role will social media play in your sponsorship compared to previous years? When BA launched the Olympic-themed “To Fly, To Serve” campaign in February, the ads debuted on Facebook and Google+ – even before airing on TV during Coronation Street! 

Social media has been a fundamental part of our strategy over the last five years. We started off with a competition called Great Britons, which is a bursary that still exists, where we asked people to apply to bursaries if they can demonstrate their British talent.

Then we would pay for flights to help them improve that talent. We used Facebook with that campaign. People had to use friends to vote and the ones who got the most votes went on to win flights.

Since then we have involved social media enormously. To launch our Great Britons competition we opened a pop-up restaurant in Shoreditch, London for two and a half weeks and people could come down and have a menu tasting.

We only released the tickets on Facebook and sold out in three and a half hours through word of mouth. It was incredible. We then added two more tasting sessions and they sold out in 20 minutes.

We also have a 60-second TV ad that shows all the key areas of central London and by entering your postal code the plane drives by your house. As a result people have been sharing it and it’s gone viral, with 2 million views in two weeks. My dad even told me about it!

As the official airline of London 2012 you will have a significant presence at the Olympic park. Is it going to be a challenge to replicate the brand’s values and service on the ground as opposed to up in the air?

We have over 300 volunteers who will be helping at the park. For the first time ever, there’s going to be an enormous double-sided screen where people can watch the action, and we’ll have a number of volunteers at the park to make sure people have a fantastic time.

Experiential or on-the-ground events offer a fantastic way of engaging with people who don’t necessarily fly with British Airways – to give them a chance to see who we are as a brand.

You launched an ad campaign recently that focuses on food (“Height Cuisine”) and you’ve also been a sponsor of Taste of London. Is there going to be some sort of foodie tie-in with the Games?

As part of our Great Britons program we found a Michelin-starred chef named Simon Hulstone who has been working with Heston Blumenthal to design a dedicated Olympic-inspired menu on board and which will be served to over 3 million people over the summer. The menu was actually inspired by menus from 1948.

British Airways isn’t just any local brand. As a national airline and flag carrier, you’re also ambassadors for the United Kingdom. How are you planning to welcome the world to London?

We are the flag carriers for Britain. When people set foot in our aircraft they say it’s like being in Britain. We just want to bring a piece of the Olympic Games to all of our flights, so that people’s exciting journey to the Olympic Games starts on the British Airways aircraft.

We have an Olympic-inspired menu, we’ve got a large number of Olympic inspired films and documentaries on board, so there’s a lot that we do to get people excited about the Games before they actually land in London.

The British Airways' Firefly transported the Olympic Flame on its journey across the U.K. Image by markyharky via Flickr.

A 2012 Reddit Meetup. "Redditors" are extremely active online, making Reddit a trend hunting hotspot.

Last month Karen Klein, a 68-year-old bus monitor from New York State, was ruthlessly harassed by a group of students. The incident was recorded, uploaded to YouTube and before long found its way to the social news site Reddit. Almost instantly, the video went viral and – as is often the case when a story pulls at the heartstrings of Redditors – a fundraiser was born.

The story has since been featured on every major news network, has over 2 million shares on YouTube and most staggering of all, the fundraiser has raised over $650,000 – enough to send the beleaguered bus monitor on a much-deserved vacation (and then some).

As impressive as this outcome might seem to most, those familiar with the Reddit community won’t be surprised. And that’s why brands should be paying attention to Reddit.

Reddit is social, responsible and viral

Hardly a week goes by without a sizeable amount of money being raised for charity on Reddit. Back in 2011, Redditors (as Reddit users are known) raised $55,000 for a three-year-old who needed a bone marrow transplant. Just last month they raised $30,000 to send a 23-year-old Vancouver man dying of cancer on a trip of a lifetime.

Then there’s the $80,000 that Reddit users donated in just 24 hours for a man whose face was slashed with a machete while singlehandedly defending a Nairobi orphanage with 35 children inside.

While not all fundraisers gain as much media attention as Karen Klein’s, I’ve always wondered why major brands and agencies have such little presence on Reddit, despite the clear opportunity for positive PR. What could be holding them back from what seems like a no-brainer?

The Reddit community raised over $80,000 for this Nairobi orphanage so that it could buy supplies, gardening tools, security guards and a fence to keep violent intruders out.

Learning to let go of the conversation

At 2 billion page views and over 35 million unique visitors a month, Reddit remains a misunderstood gold mine. The problem for marketers is that Reddit’s massive and highly active community is a little too authentic.

Unlike the messages on a billboard, a display ad or a TV commercial, no one controls or dictates Reddit’s content. Redditors have no obligation to stay on topic. They feel perfectly comfortable discussing whatever they want, whenever they want and however they want.

Arthur C. Clarke once opined that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” For brands peering into online communities like Reddit, the corollary might be: Any sufficiently large community of authentic, unrestricted users is indistinguishable from chaos.

What this means is that marketers hoping to approach Redditors with a campaign had better be prepared for that one-way message to become a two-way conversation.

How good messages can turn bad

Woody Harrelson’s PR team learned this lesson the hard way. The plan was to gain exposure to Reddit’s huge audience through an open-access online meet-up called “Ask Me Anything” in advance of Harrelson’s film, Rampart.

But instead of letting Reddit users engage on their own terms, Harrelson and his PR team hijacked the conversation with thinly veiled attempts to keep their answers “on message” and steer the discussion back to the film.

The result was a PR disaster. It spawned a massively popular meme, thousands of “dislikes” of the movie’s YouTube trailer and millions of dollars worth of negative press.

Failed PR stunts like this represent a colossal missed opportunity on the part of brands, which don’t know how to leverage the site or else ignore Reddit altogether.

Nevertheless, the Reddit audience has an uncanny ability to make good content go viral, making it all the more astonishing why brands have such a limited presence in the community.

Max Sidorov started a fundraiser for Karen Klein using Indiegogo after watching a video that went viral on YouTube and Reddit.

Turning conversations into PR opportunities

Why hasn’t a major hotel chain, for example, offered Karen Klein a free stay at any one of its worldwide locations? Why haven’t Nike, Reebok and Adidas pledged to provide the Nairobi orphanage with top-of-the-line sports equipment, or matched the donations of the Reddit community?

Perhaps the one exception is Southwest Airlines, which gave Klein and 10 friends a free trip to Disney. But even then, the company didn’t jump on board until after the story had blown up.

Instead of drastically over-thinking the approach or trying to move mountains to “engage” their target audience, major brands should be asking themselves what in-progress Reddit stories people are already interested in and how they can become a positive factor in them.

Even if Reddit’s audience isn’t your ideal target demographic, every day the site becomes more prescient in detecting (or creating) viral content: It’s where you discover the Karen Klein stories before they hit CNN.

Reddit offers a solution to PR firms that wish to find unobtrusive, inexpensive and impactful ways to positively influence people’s lives. In short, it’s the best friend brands don’t even know they already have.

A version of this article appeared in the Dx3 Digest.

Olympic medalist Michael Johnson featured on Time magazine's August 12, 1996 cover.

Then, in an epic climax, American sprinter Michael Johnson broke a world record, crossing the finish line with a gleaming pair of golden Nikes strapped to his feet. He was later featured on the cover of Time magazine with those sneakers draped around his neck, along with his two gold medals.

Too bad Reebok spent $20 million to be the Games’ official sportswear sponsor.

Nike’s marketing victory proved an embarrassment for both Reebok and the event’s organizers. The incident prompted the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to clamp down on ambush marketing and ever since then such incidents have been kept to a minimum.

But that’s all about to change. With London 2012 being heralded as the first truly “social” Games, this year’s official Olympic sponsors are more vulnerable than ever.

The business of sponsorships

The London Olympics are expected to be the most regulated Games ever in terms of protecting brand sponsors, and a major reason for that is the proliferation of social media.

Sponsorship is big business. The IOC has already raised $957 million from the Olympic Partner programme (TOP), which is the organization’s second-largest money-maker after broadcasting rights.

A "brand exclusion zone" surrounding Olympic Park in London. The dotted green line represents the zone's border.

TOP includes 11 worldwide brand sponsors on its roster, each of which enjoys exclusive marketing rights for the duration of the four-year Olympic term. Another 14 brands are affiliated as official supporters and partners of the 2012 Olympic Games and are given similar privileges, including product category exclusivity.

The promise of sponsorship rights protection was one of the central reasons London won the bid for the Summer Games. The London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act, passed in the U.K. Parliament in 2006, allows for “brand exclusion zones” to be set up across the city for the duration of the Games.

Extending one kilometre around venues, the zones prevent any brands that aren’t sponsors from displaying ads or logos.

The strong measures have stirred up controversy. McCann Worldgroup attorney Marina Palomba told BusinessWeek, “it’s the most draconian law so far in advance of an Olympic Games ever.”

When sponsorship meets social

Making matters more complicated are the online restrictions. According to ticket purchase terms and conditions, fans could be punished for taking photos or videos at the events and uploading them onto public sites. Access to wireless networks might also be restricted, as well as the size of cameras spectators can use.

The IOC’s social media guidelines [PDF] also stipulate that athletes are not allowed to comment on the performances of their competitors, nor are they “permitted to promote any brand, product or service within a posting, blog or tweet or otherwise any social media platforms or on any websites.” Unless, of course, that brand is a sponsor.

In other words, Michael Phelps will be out of luck if he wants to tweet about the Subway sandwich that propelled him to victory. Too bad he didn’t eat a Big Mac instead.

These rules may have been easy to enforce four years ago (back then the IOC didn’t even bother with a social media policy), but with nearly a billion people on Facebook, 140 million on Twitter and 18 percent of the world owning smartphones (not to mention netbooks and tablets), the IOC’s efforts may be too little too late.

Brand exclusion: Helpful or harmful?

Nevertheless, the IOC remains enthusiastic about the engagement opportunities that social networks offer sponsors and fans.

The committee has created the Olympic Athletes’ Hub where fans can follow the online lives of their favourite sports stars. It funnels content from the various social media feeds of Olympic athletes into one platform, making monitoring easier for everyone – including the IOC, of course.

Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London 2012 organizing committee, told The Guardian that the need for regulation to prevent ambush marketing is more pressing than ever.

Of course, regulating and monitoring virtual spaces will be more of a challenge than at the physical venues. IOC Head of Social Media Alex Huot warns that mechanisms are in place in case of online copyright infringement but acknowledges the impossibility of monitoring every tweet and webpage.

“We don’t police but we’re working closely with all the platforms to make sure the trademark and (internet protocol) rights are respected,” he told The Guardian.

Is sponsorship worth it?

With social media making it easier than ever for unofficial brands to piggyback off the success of international events, it stands to be asked: Are sponsorships even worth it anymore?

London 2012 organizing committee chairman and former athlete, Sebastian Coe. Image by Global Sports Forum, via Flickr.

A 2010 case study published in the Journal of Managing and Marketing Research found that sponsor-event fit and brand equity were the most important factors when measuring the long-term financial success of brand sponsors, and that so long as those factors are in place, sports sponsorship remains lucrative.

That’s especially true for high-profile international events like the Olympics, which have long been considered the Holy Grail for brands. The event tends to have a “halo effect” and brand sponsors bask in those good-vibes associations.

But as Mary Lou Costa argues in a 2011 Marketing Week article, the halo effect can go both ways: People often assume popular brands are affiliated with international events.

And with social media making it easier to spread content, non-affiliated brands have the potential to practise online ambush marketing.

Meanwhile, the Olympics and their sponsors are getting a bad rap for the very regulations meant to protect them.

When tickets went on sale for London, Visa was the only method of payment available, causing a media uproar. Then, the company replaced the 27 existing cash machines at the main Olympic venue with 8 of its own, subsequently facing allegations that Visa is intentionally starving the venue of cash.

So how does one measure the value of building brand equity through sponsorships against the potential bad press that results from strict protections? One way is through dollars.

Local sponsor Adidas hopes to make more than $156 million in U.K. sales from the deal. Those earnings alone might be worth the investment.

But just like in 1996, main rival Nike is hoping to upset Adidas’ strategy with a plan of its own. The brand has opened a giant concept store at a shopping centre near the main venue, which nearly 70 percent of ticket holders are expected to pass through on their way to an event.

Nike has also found a clever way of bypassing the online restrictions with their #MakeItCount campaign, which pulls off the balancing act of referencing the Games without actually mentioning them.

The result? According to a study by BrandWatch, Nike is outpacing Adidas as the apparel brand most associated with London 2012.

Finally, in a recent online poll, The Guardian asked responders to vote whether Olympic sponsors should be protected with strict laws: 91 percent voted “No.”

So let the games begin and may the best brand win.

Google+

Google has made forays into the social space before, but while Google Buzz fizzled out after only 11 months, Google+ has made better headway, gaining 100 million users in under a year. By comparison, 2-year-old Pinterest has only 10.4 million users.

Despite this disparity, Pinterest has been hailed a remarkable success. It won the Breakout Digital Trend award at SXSW 2012, is fawned over by designers, and earns monikers like “digital crack for women” (males make up nearly 70 percent of the Google+ user-base, so perhaps it’s the Pinterest for men?).

Meanwhile, Google+, which grew its user base faster than any other social network – ever – remains haunted by skeptics.

Not Facebook, not LinkedIn… What is it?

Some might say that Google+ is to Facebook what Pepsi is to Coca-Cola: same taste, different logo, less popular. So how does it distinguish itself?

For starters, Google+’s stream is roomier. Since it doesn’t have sidebar ads (yet), there’s much less clutter. Photos are larger and posts and updates are often text heavy.

Another design novelty is the Circles function. Rather than having all of your contacts funneled into the same category, G+ allows users to control who sees what by grouping contacts into different circles. So you can have a “friends” circle, a “colleagues” circle, a “family” circle, and so on.

Yes, Facebook provides a similar option (which it introduced in response to G+), but the follow-through is tedious: Users have to go behind the scenes to adjust settings. By comparison, Google+’s circles feature is seamlessly integrated into the user experience, making it easy and intuitive to organize contacts, and control who sees what.

The network also effectively facilitates content-sharing, since people can follow others without their consent, just like Twitter. But unlike Twitter, followers who you don’t follow back won’t see any of your posts unless they’re categorized as “Public.” Confusing? Yes. More organized and privacy-friendly? Definitely.

Perhaps the biggest departure from Facebook and LinkedIn is Google’s live video feature, Hangouts, which allows up to 10 computers to communicate simultaneously. So far, reviews of hangouts have been positive thanks to its ease of use, quality of streaming and extra features. For instance, users can share their desktop screens as well as Google Docs, making it a great choice for video conferencing.

Brands on Google+

So if Google+ is only slightly different from Facebook, how (or why) should brands use it?

A number of high profile brands are doing well, relatively speaking, on Google+. Clothing brand H&M has over 400,000 followers. Samsung and Pepsi have over 300,000 followers, along with Burberry, Starbucks and Coca-Cola. Even Facebook has its own G+ page (with over 40,000 followers).

Those numbers may pale in comparison to the same brands’ Facebook pages (H&M has over 10 million likes) but one problem with Facebook and Twitter is that brands often treat them like broadcast channels. The platforms just weren’t built for in-depth conversations.

Google+ hangouts, on the other hand, are as close to a one-on-one personal conversation as a social network can get. The Muppets brand used hangouts to great effect before this year’s blockbuster. Dell has hosted hangouts to discuss technical issues, relay news, and discuss new products. Even President Obama has jumped on board.

The downside is that only a limited number of people can join the conversation, so it’s best for brands to target influencers and then find other ways to transmit the content, such as streaming it on YouTube afterwards.

The bottom line: Instead of attempting to build a Facebook doppelgänger community on Google+, brands may be far better off directing people to hangouts or using G+ to begin conversations and showcase content – in effect, like a more social version of Tumblr.

As Cadbury can attest, it’s also a novel place for a product launch. The confectionery company used the platform to launch its Dairy Milk Bubbly chocolate bar with the sweetly social tagline, “The Cadbury bar that’s great for sharing.”

H&M has one of the more successful Google+ pages.

The ghost town problem

Perhaps the biggest blow to Google+ came in February 2012, when comScore reported that people spend an average of 3 minutes a month on the network. That’s a pittance compared to Facebook’s 7 hours.

Another report published in May by RJ Metrics indicates that interest is still waning, with average posts receiving “less than one +1, less than one reply, and less than one re-share,” reports Austin Carr of Fast Company.

But averages don’t tell the whole story. The reality is that Google+ has a much smaller base of active users (those using G+ specifically, rather than G+ “enhanced” services like YouTube) who log in for more than 3 minutes a month, which puts a spin on the stats.

With the addition of Google+ Pages, there has also been a reported uptick in the number of unique visitors to the network each month. But since Google won’t release monthly user reports, most of these stats are speculative.

The trick, then, is for brands to figure out what demographic is using Google+ and whether they’re ripe for engagement. Right now, Google+ is a relatively small pond, making it much easier for brands to become big fish.

So is it worth it?

It’s impossible to discuss Google+ and ignore that for most people, Google’s search engine is their primary point of entry to the web. As Google’s VP for engineering Vic Gundotra has put it, G+ is meant to be a “social layer” on users’ web activities.

If Google has its way, the web will eventually be indistinguishable from a social network, with every page connected in some way back to Google and to its advertising network (which is perhaps why there’s such a disparity between what critics call a lack of stickiness and what Google calls Google 2.0).

So marketers may want to hedge their bets and engage. As the New York Times’ Nick Bilton recently wagered, “Google+ is here to stay, no matter what.”

Editor’s Note: Check out Sparksheet’s first Google+ Hangout with Joe Pulizzi and Arjun Basu. 

Image by Michael 1952, via Flickr.

It’s ironic that we often hear about CEOs’ concerns for the future of their organizations’ talent supply at the same time that we read about the abysmal unemployment rate in the news.

Billions of dollars are spent annually on recruitment, training and education, and yet unemployment rates continue rising in many economies while purchasing power drops. Worst of all, employers are having considerable difficulty finding talent to drive business growth as the skills gap widens.

In the digital age, the market evolves so fast that it has become impossible for professionals to stay relevant in their careers unless they evolve ahead of the changes. As Seth Godin recently wrote, “[n]ow that the industrial economy is over, you should forget about doing things just because it’s assigned to you, or never mind the race to the top, you’ll be racing to the bottom.”

I call those racing to the top “the lifelong learners.” They are the knowledge seekers in every industry who are always searching for new things to learn and new ways to develop.

The problem is that only a very small portion of the population (I once heard someone say “one in six” at a recruitment conference) has the opportunity to find an occupation that will motivate them and the learning conditions that will allow them to become lifelong learners.

That’s not only terrible for 21st-century businesses that desperately need qualified forward-thinking individuals, but it’s really sad from an individual’s point of view. Work can take up to two thirds of our waking hours and the vast majority of people spend that time wasting their potential and counting the minutes until the weekend.

An opportunity for brands

At the same time that there is a shortage of talent, brands are having a tougher time than ever engaging with their customers. Skeptical consumers no longer buy products simply because they’re endorsed by movie stars.

Brands now need to genuinely and indisputably stand for something that matters. But as strange as it may sound, I take these two scenarios to be interconnected – and a great opportunity for brands.

New communication technologies are allowing us to return to our roots; they’re letting people form communities around shared interests and find new ways to collaborate. Tribes, as described by Seth Godin, are back because people have the means to communicate with each other and organize themselves around what they care about, rather than being passive receivers of broadcasted information. The very definition of “organizations” also changes because of it, and now the notion of the tribe represents a brand’s entire ecosystem.

By building a community of employees, prospective employees, contributors, consumers and the general public around their knowledge (read: content), brands will achieve a profound educational influence that goes way beyond a simple “social media strategy.” It’s already happening.

Google Campus in London. Image via www.campuslondon.com

Google, known for its “20-percent-time” policy for employees, is now opening that mindset to the entire tech community by setting up a working Campus in East London – a place where entrepreneurs can collaborate in an open environment.

IBM has been working with open-source software for some time now and O’Reilly has published a number of open-copyright books. In education, TED and Khan Academy use social technologies to distribute education for free while Stanford, University of Michigan and several other universities make many of their lectures available to the public online.

I keep returning to memories of my favourite teachers teaching me useful and interesting things. Imagine how powerful it would be for a brand to have the same impact on people’s lives.

Image by TV Globo/ Zé Paulo Cardeal.

Globo TV has two very big TV draws approaching with the World Cup and the Olympics coming to Brazil in the next few years. How is the network gearing up?

Globo TV has a long history of success covering sporting events. Our partnership with FIFA, for example, began in 1970.

We’re developing special coverage for the 2014 World Cup and for the 2016 Olympics, which will not be limited to sporting competitions. We want Brazilian viewers to understand the importance of being hosts of the two greatest world sporting events and to live out this experience in the fullest possible way.

The network also acquired rights to broadcast the World Cups of 2018 in Russia and 2022 in Qatar.

This is also a big deal in terms of international recognition for the network. Any plans to capitalize on the extra attention? While Portuguese is the network’s primary language, will there be a boost in translated content for these events?

As the leading broadcaster in the country, Globo TV will be a reference for broadcasters from around the world that will also be covering the events from Brazil.

From an international standpoint, we use this know-how to bring to the world, through Globo TV Sports, the best in Brazilian sports.

The distributor broadcasts soccer games to more than 100 countries with play-by-play and commentary in English, specially produced for the international market, reaching millions of sports fans in places like Asia, China, Eastern Europe and the Americas.

Globo TV recently joined the Future of Broadcast Television Initiative. What will this mean for TV audiences?

Globo TV has secured the broadcasting rights to the 2014 World Cup.

Until now, each new generation of broadcast TV has always been deployed through different and non-compatible transmission technologies, region by region.

The Future of Broadcast Television aims to define a common set of tools that will be used worldwide with the next generation of broadcast television.

These tools will address mobility and the convergence of broadcast and broadband for the enjoyment of both linear and non-linear content. That means visitors from different countries will be able to watch TV on devices from their native country.

A lot of international networks mine story ideas from English language shows. For example your network is launching a remake of Britain’s Worst Driver franchise, Ruim de Roda (“Bad at the Wheel”). How do you adapt international programs to Brazilian culture?

Globo TV invests in and gives privilege to national content, made by Brazilians for Brazilians, in its programming. In 2011 alone Globo broadcasted more than two thousand hours of in-house content.

Nevertheless, we are always attentive to the formats created in other countries and aim to tailor similar programs and segments to fit the profile of the Brazilian television viewer. After all, many of those programs have universal appeal.

For example, a Brazilian version of Big Brother from Endemol has been a huge hit. This year we had the 12th Brazilian edition and have already announced the next season.

Globo TV is particularly known for its telenovelas (soap operas). What do you think accounts for their popularity when English-language soap operas are in decline?

Our telenovelas deal with themes like love, fear, sadness and the search for happiness. These themes are common to all television viewers and go beyond the boundaries of regions, countries and cultures. For that reason, they are capable of being transferred to different countries and attract audiences in very different cultures.

Gobo TV is famous for its telenovas.

Brazilians are known for their ravenous appetite for social media. How does this affect the way Globo’s content is delivered and consumed?

We have invested in this sector because we recognize that the web enriches the experience of watching television, adds interaction, helps build social communities around programs, deepens knowledge of new content and allows portability.

The web creates an enormous field of possibilities, strengthening the role of TV as the preferential media for the public. In addition, new technologies and the popularization of mobile devices (cell phones, tablets and notebooks) expand access to digital communication.

Brazil has one of the largest free-to-air television audiences in the Western world, and we see this as a formidable asset. What we have observed and monitored, however, is that we need to be with our television viewers even when they are out of the house.

Thus, we have taken advantage of opportunities that arise on other platforms and outside of the home, transforming us into a multiplatform company.

Roberto Schmidt will be speaking at the UbiQ Digital Entertainment Showcase, which takes place in Paris June 18-19. 

It comes as no surprise that, according to a recent survey, nearly all marketing decision-makers are aware of the importance of social media in their branding efforts. What’s more interesting is that 65 percent say their company’s c-suite is also concerned about how their brand is perceived on the social web.

A better question to have asked these marketers is how they feel the personal brands of their CEOs, CFOs and CMOs are being perceived on social media by fellow employees, customers, investors and the public. If they don’t know, or worse still, if their c-suite executives don’t have a presence online, here’s why it’s imperative that they should.

C-suite branding in motion

Research In Motion (RIM) appointed a new President and CEO, Thorsten Heins, earlier this year after a challenging period for the company, characterized by falling share prices, service outages and the perception of being out of touch with consumer trends.

Thorsten Heins delivering the keynote at Blackberry World 2012. Image by Official Blackberry Images, via Flickr.

RIM’s new leader declared that the company has two immediate priorities: better marketing and better execution. But the former is somewhat ironic when you consider that this CEO’s personal brand is pretty well non-existent online.

When Heins was trumpeted as RIM’s new leader, the public couldn’t find out much about him on his sparsely populated LinkedIn profile, or anywhere else on the web for that matter. This lack of visibility didn’t inspire much confidence among the company’s stakeholders nor did it send the message that he would be a more accessible and transparent leader than his predecessors.

In other words, there seemed to be a disconnect between RIM’s supposedly new brand and its new chief executive’s personal brand.

Great leaders use social media

Another recent survey, by BRANDfog, reveals that c-suite executives who engage in social media are perceived to be better leaders. Their online visibility raises their company’s profile and builds trust, brand loyalty and purchase intent among their customers.

In other words, c-suite executives who participate in social media are better equipped to lead a company, communicate its values and shape a company’s reputation.

Despite the positive benefits of being social, the majority of CEOs and c-suite executives are notably absent from social media channels. Even though 61 percent of Fortune 500 brands were engaging with customers via Twitter, less than 2.5 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs tweet themselves.

But how can a senior executive provide strategic direction or budget approval for social media campaigns if they don’t understand the medium? Indeed, 81 percent of respondents to the BRANDfog survey agreed that CEOs who engage in social media are better equipped than their peers to lead companies in a web 2.0 world.

The tweeting c-suite catches the worm

Senior leaders know how important it is to attract top talent to their company, and according to the BRANDfog survey, 78 percent of respondents prefer to work for a company whose leadership is active on social media.

Tania Craig's LinkedIn profile picture.

During Social Media Week in Toronto this year, Tania Craig, Director of Global Recruitment at Barrick Gold Corporation, the world’s largest gold mining company, emphasized how important it is for senior executives to be on LinkedIn. Job candidates want to know more about a company’s leadership before making employment decisions, and Craig said her company makes sure its senior leaders are appropriately represented online.

In fact, LinkedIn is a great place for a c-suite leader to begin her social media journey. LinkedIn allows you to showcase your employment history and accomplishments, as well as your education and volunteer or board-related work. These are the things that represent your own brand, and by extension, that of your company. See you online!

Attendees ranged from full-time bloggers to seasoned marketers, to artists and like all 140 conferences, the focus was on social media and its many applications.

IAB Director of Industry Initiatives Susan Borst.

Montreal isn’t one of the great startup cities of the world. Chances are when you think tech hub you think of the Bay Area, New York or Tokyo. But with its French-English culture, the cosmopolitan city gave this particular event a unique flavour as the bilinguals in attendance used the #140 hashtag to translate presentations, in real time.

Meanwhile. the conference’s mobile app was created by Jezam Interactive, a Montreal-based startup, while local speakers Stéphanie Baron, Thoma Daneau and Mitch Joel (among others) provided regionally relevant content.

The event’s local and low-key vibe came as a breath of fresh air. It gave everyone room to breathe. Room to be sincere and openly curious.

Just check the tweets:

RT @KellieAtZoocasa: Humble is the new bold. Start by listening. @TedCurtin #140MTL

— The Social CMO (@TheSocialCMO) May 15, 2012

RT @Communic8nHowe: RT @CaronSue: “What unites people is a sense of shared experience” @heathermccuen rt @Milaspage #140Mtl

— Josepf J Haslam (@Josepf) May 15, 2012

I gave @samfiorella a +K in UNICORNS. #140MTL

— Peter McGregor (@peterfromottawa) May 15, 2012

Distribution, distribution, distribution – how to make a million dollars, @gregisenberg #140MTL I’ll focus on Content

— The Animated Woman (@LittleAnimation) May 15, 2012

The social media revolution is akin to the printing press. @Josepf #140MTL

— Amy Vernon (@AmyVernon) May 15, 2012

RT @peterfromottawa: Merci to our French friends for putting up English tweets to help us Anglos understand. #140MTL

— Alan K’necht (@aknecht) May 15, 2012

Mitch Joel, a local marketing guru with an international reputation, kicked off the event with a rousing plea for what he called “brand utility.”

The key, explained Joel, is to find the happy medium between outright ad and helpful content (he used Charmin’s Sit or Squat mobile app as an example of the latter).

Stan Phelps, author of What’s Your Purple Goldfish, emphasized a similar point, offering examples of how social media can benefit both the loyal and the curious, turning them into what Deborah Weinstein, co-founder and president of PR agency Strategic Objectives, described as “brand adorers.”

In a similar vein, life coach and systems analyst Dr. Quentin Newhouse Jr. used the term “social credence” to describe how we use technology to benefit ourselves and each other in very practical ways. Newhouse offered the TaxiFinder app as an example, which protects against scams by generating fare estimates. It also features a “taxi bulletin board” where users can review their rides and fares for the benefit of future passengers.

140 Conference Montreal highlight: A marriage proposal.

As brand strategist Ted Curtin said during his talk, we all know that “a vibrant and interactive community drives the message far deeper.” But it’s up to brands to foster those communities by being willing to adapt to new technologies themselves.

Take news anchor Katie Couric, for example. She wasn’t at 140conf Montreal, but  IAB’s Susan Borst was, and Borst began her presentation with a video from 1994 featuring Couric and her colleagues bumbling the question, “Just what is the internet, anyway?”

Back in 1994 Couric didn’t know what an “@” sign was. Neither did her audience. 18 years later, she’s launched her own web series that Borst said will encourage millions of people to engage online. Couric is “the personification of internet growth,” according to Borst.

That’s what conferences like this are doing all over the world. They’re providing a space for early adopters to show everyone else how it’s done.

And if you are even slightly active on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you have become a number too, at least in the eyes of a new breed of influence marketers.

Our numbers are being compiled, sorted, sliced, diced, priced, dissected, combined, and filleted in ways that help companies sell more of their stuff. If you are fortunate enough to have a number that is high, it might earn you a free gaming system, movie tickets, clothes, sports equipment, a vacation to Las Vegas or Europe.

If your number is low, you will receive nothing. By the way, everybody knows everybody else’s scores. They’re posted for the world to see.

This trend of social scoring is creating new classes of haves and have-nots, social media elites and losers, frenzied attempts to crash the upper class, and deepening resentments.

Social scoring is also the centerpiece of an extraordinary marketing movement. For the first time, companies can – with growing confidence – identify, quantify, and nurture valuable word-of-mouth influencers who can uniquely drive demand for their products.

Influence

The word influence used to be in the same “soft” category as love, hate, and interested. Now we’re beginning to measure it? Don Draper and his Mad Men would have loved that!

Every time I write a blog post on the subject of social scoring, my readers foam at the mouth. “The only thing that stops me from taking this seriously is that I trust my fellow citizens to oppose this as vehemently as I do,” one reader wrote. His passion sounded more like a political speech than the typical daily blog comment.

“Why don’t you take a stand and help STOP this!” another reader demanded. Stop it? Why would we want to, even if we could? What is so personally threatening about a simple ranking?

After all, common internet analytics programs already offer scads of data to determine the success of our online ads, websites, and blogs. It’s no secret that Facebook and Google keep running accounts of our every move, want, and desire with a cold completeness and unnerving efficiency that would shock even George Orwell.

We know it’s happening. We are rated and categorized constantly, and for the most part we resign ourselves to that fact. But there seems to be something dramatically different about this notion of social scoring that makes people spitting mad.

When the number crunchers twist and turn that data to evaluate people, look out! This powerful business trend is tapping into something visceral and emotional that I have not seen before.

From social proof to social scoring

Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ are upending the traditional concept of influence. Classical models of power are being flipped around in an internet environment where nobody really knows who is who.

In our dense world of daily communication tsunamis, people yearn to find shortcuts to truth, quick reads on power, and 140-character directives to make their lives easier. The trappings of social proof implied by the number of Twitter followers or Facebook “likes” may be more important signs of accomplishment to many people than a lifetime of real achievements.

The consequences for those who seek online power and influence are vast. If you have a social media account, you are already being judged. Companies with names like Klout, PeerIndex, and Twitter Grader are in the process of scoring millions, eventually billions, of people on their level of influence.

And they’re not simply looking at the number of followers or friends you’ve amassed. They are beginning to measure online influence through extraordinarily complex algorithms tweaked daily by teams of PhD-level researchers and scientists.

They’re declaring their judgments online, too, for the entire world to see. Although being publicly rated and compared has a significant icky factor, we can’t ignore the breathtaking business opportunities.

A healthy Klout score

The new influence class

When companies such as Disney, Nike, and Microsoft are creating successful marketing efforts centered on people’s social influence scores, as a business professional, you’d better take that seriously.

In essence, these companies are leveraging an entirely new marketing channel based on widespread access to personal influence. The more success these brands have, the more swag they’ll lavish on the new influence class and the hotter the fires of indignation will rage within those left behind.

We are at the dawn of the creation of a new social media caste system determined by how and when you tweet, connect, share, and comment. The haves may score better jobs, higher social status, even better luck on the dating scene.

The rules of personal power in our world have been changed forever. And there’s no turning back. How are you going to fare?

The good news is that in this new world of social influence, even the obscure, the shy, and the overlooked can become celebrities in their slice of the online world. You no longer have to win an election, be an elite athlete, or possess movie star looks to have power.

We are entering the age of the Citizen Influencer, in which every person has a chance to get behind the velvet rope and be treated like a rock star.

This is our time. This is your time.

You too can be an Internet celebrity. You too can earn your way into the influence class.

You too can discover the power of your own return on influence. And in fact, many companies already have.

This excerpt, adapted for Sparksheet, is from Return on Influence: The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing by Mark W. Schaefer. Copyright © 2012 by McGraw-Hill. Used by permission.

A Starbucks in Lao Ximen, Shanghai. Image by bitslice cipher, via Flickr.

History suggests that foreign brands lack the local understanding to effectively target Chinese consumers online.

Companies like Google, eBay and Groupon all entered the Chinese market hoping to translate their success from the U.S., only to ultimately meet with failure in the Middle Kingdom.

Rather than try to introduce Chinese citizens to online services from the West, successful multinationals like Starbucks, Diageo and IKEA have all worked within the existing frameworks of China’s online space to engage potential customers.

By making use of local microblogging platforms, popular online video sites, and lifestyle social networks, these brands demonstrate that the real winners of online in China are not internet companies themselves.

Instead, they are brand marketers who understand where their customers spend time online, and come up with creative ways to engage them in an environment they are already comfortable with.

Starbucks: Microblogging the Chinese Way

A poster from Starbucks' 2011 Christmas campaign. Image by dcmaster, via Flickr.

In October 2011, Starbucks opened its 500th store in mainland China, with plans to reach 1500 stores in the country by 2015. To fuel its ambitious growth plans, Starbucks partnered with China’s leading mobile advertiser Guohe Ad, tapping into its local expertise for a Christmas 2011 campaign.

Guohe created a social app on the Chinese version of Twitter, called Sina Weibo, that allowed users to “check in” when they visited select Starbucks locations in China. Starbucks customers who used the app received a free drink size upgrade.

The campaign was so successful that Starbucks received 40,000 daily click-throughs to the microsite and achieved the number one ranking on the popular Chinese application platform Weico.

By partnering with a local firm that understands the marketplace for mobile and microblogging, Starbucks built up a tremendous amount of buzz among its Chinese customers.

Diageo: Chinese branded entertainment

Spirit brand Diageo is another international company that tapped into local expertise to target Chinese consumers online.

Diageo faced tough competition from Pernod Ricard, which had already established itself in China by appealing to the Chinese preference for Chivas and green tea, a popular drink at Chinese bars and karaoke clubs.

Diageo partnered with acclaimed Chinese director Jia Zhangke to produce a series of brief documentaries entitled the Yulu Project.

The documentaries feature 12 individuals from different backgrounds who all share one thing in common: a willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve their dream.

One example is Zhou Yunpeng, a blind folk singer and poet who recounts the challenges he faces on his path to performing professionally. Xiao Peng has a different dream. He seeks to create a successful company after returning to China from his studies overseas.

The campaign tapped into the fact that, according to the 2011 Chinese Market and Media Survey (CMMS), Chinese netizens between the ages of 15 and 34 spend an average of over two hours per day watching online video.

Diageo chose not to make the video segments advertisements, but rather inspirational branded entertainment, only flashing the Johnnie Walker logo briefly at the end of each segment.

According to Diageo, the campaign generated 20 million video views over the course of eight weeks. Given the success of its first campaign, Diageo plans to run a second Yulu campaign later in 2012.

IKEA: Engaging customers on their turf

In China, marketers understand they need to have a presence on social media, but the problem is that they do not always know the best sites to invest in (the Chinese social media landscape is more fragmented than in the West, where only a few sites dominate).

Inside an Ikea in Nanshan, Shenzhen. Image by dcmaster, via Flickr.

Like Starbucks and Diageo, Sweden’s IKEA did an excellent job leveraging a Chinese social media site to engage customers. IKEA created a profile on Douban, a popular Chinese social networking site that allows users to recommend, comment on and compare their favourite books, films and music.

In September 2011 IKEA launched an event on its profile page called “The Dream Home in Films.” Users were encouraged to upload screenshots of their favourite home furnishing styles from famous films and write a description of the scenes. The most thoughtful entrants won IKEA products.

IKEA’s online campaign provided potential Chinese customers with an outlet for self-expression, giving them a positive impression of the IKEA brand in an online environment they were already familiar with.

Go local

The examples of Starbucks, Diageo and IKEA demonstrate that the true Western champions in China’s online space are not those who simply transplant and translate their existing model, but those who play within the existing frameworks of China’s internet.

Companies need to build internal local expertise or partner with domestic firms and social media sites to win the hearts and wallets of China’s 500+ million netizens.

Revelers enjoying the party, Epa Rei. Image by Renata Acioli

“Quem não chora não mama! Segura, meu bem, a chupeta. Lugar quente é na cama. Ou então no Bola Preta” (If the baby doesn’t cry, he doesn’t get his pacifier).

The chorus of the classic samba song, written by Nelson Barbosa and Vicente Paiva, belongs to Rio’s most popular Carnival parade, Cordão do Bola Preta.

Originating in 1918, Bola Preta is an important part of Rio’s heritage and remains steeped in the region’s folk culture. The event also draws huge crowds. This year alone 2.3 million people attended, making it an enticing event for brands and marketers.

Besides Bola Preta, most of the city’s biggest parades, such as Monobloco, Empolga às 9 and Simpatia é quase amor, receive sponsorship from brands.

This year, beer brand Antarctica, in partnership with the bank Itaú and the marketing agency Dream Factory, sponsored all 485 of Rio’s Carnival parades. The Rio Times estimates that Carnival generates revenues of R$1.45 billion in Rio alone.

Carnival unbranded

Renata Correa dancing at the Bola Preta. Image by Raphael Crespo.

But branding and revenue only tell part of the story. Several smaller parades organized by young people across the country have emerged in response to the commercialization of Carnival. The focus of these parades isn’t brand appeal, but Carnival-inspired spontaneity and creativity.

Filmmaker Roberto Souza Leão is one of the organizers, though he doesn’t work alone. One of the essences of Carnival is its artistic collaboration, which means that Leão’s group, which he formed with his friends, collaborates on everything, from costumes to band rehearsals.

“We don’t have any pretension of transforming the parades into a business. This is the place and moment where we can have fun with our friends,” says Leão. “One of the requirements to join the group is to love the Carnival party.”

Carnival lovers

From 2005 to 2008, the group organized a boat parade called Se melhorar, afunda (Literally, “If it improves, it sinks”). The parade was held on a barge, which floated revelers from the nearby city of Niterói to Rio.

The event was a huge success but soon after it became famous, the organizers decided to jump ship.

Leão explained that with popularity comes commercialization, resulting in a loss of the sense of play and spontaneity that made it popular in the first place. By repeating the same parade year after year, it becomes a brand “and we don’t want it to,” says Leão.

Like many other Brazilians, Leão’s group opposes the commercialization of Carnival. “In Rio, it’s increasingly difficult to play in a parade. We need to register, to schedule a start and end time, and we’re given a designated place to perform,” he says. “It’s losing what we consider the most beautiful part of the party – the sense of spontaneity and the free celebration.”

The “O Centrão vai virar mar” party. Image by Pedro Esteban.

To maintain this sense of spontaneity and freedom, Leão’s group decided to adopt different themes for each year. After Se melhorar, afunda they organized Exalta Rei (“Glorify the King”), in honour of singer Roberto Carlos (known in Brazil as the King of Jovem Guarda music).

Given the group’s stance on brand endorsements, it should come as no surprise that they have also organized a protest against the commercialization of Rio’s Carnival in the form of another carnival party, aptly named “Êpa Rei” (“Oops, King”).

“Our generation discovered that we can ‘Carnavalizar’ (literally, “transform into Carnival”) different rhythms. The gist is this: leave home in costume, meet your friends, and play,” says Leão. “Each parade needs to be a unique experience.”

Saying no to social

Although Brazilian brands are increasingly looking to the web to spread their content, the focus of these non-commercial parades isn’t to engage people through social media – everything is still word of mouth.

“We don’t have to spread the word too much,” says Leão. We never divulge the date and time. And even when only using word of mouth, we begin with 15 people and end up with thousands.”

This year, the group adopted the theme Baianada, an expression used to honour the state of Bahia’s unique musical culture. During the parade, more than 100 participants entered Santos Dumont Airport – the second largest in Rio – where they danced and sang different Carnival songs.

Baianada playing in the Santos Dumont Airport. Image by Pedro Esteban

“We did it in a very spontaneous, funny and cheerful way, playing in a public space but respecting people and the airport infrastructure,” said Leão. “In fact, I would like to congratulate people from the airport because they understood the joke.”

Carnival is a unique celebration that brings people from all backgrounds together to revel in music and fantasy. It can be organized through social networks, take place at big venues or on the streets.

It can be funded by brands using digital and traditional ad campaigns or it can be organized independently, by people who want to wear funny costumes, meet friends, and follow the sound of the tambourines around the corner and be free.

This surpasses both The Twilight Saga: New Moon as well as Spider-Man 3, making this the third-highest grossing premier weekend of all time. This shattered any predictions made by experts, and it left many wondering: How did they do it?

The answer, of course, lies in the marketing strategy.

The Hunger Games was made to be marketed

The mockingjay pin logo

The Hunger Games’ success can teach marketers about the importance of having a solid product. This is the reason that the book had such a large following in the first place. First, the story had an amazing logo. The mockingjay pin was used on the cover of the novel and become key to the branding of the film. In the novel, the pin stood for courage and spirit. Lionsgate knew what the logo meant to fans of the novel, and put it in every trailer, poster and ad.

Second, the novel puts a heavy emphasis on partnerships. Spoiler Alert: Although only one person was supposed to win the games, two came out victorious. The novel is full of instances where one person could not have survived without the other, and this is something that can transfer over into the marketing world.

Having partnerships with other companies can strengthen your brand. Although you may not want to sync up with your competition, working with a complementary brand could help bring you a new audience.

Actors Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth

Marketing the movie

Aside from what the novel brought to the table, the film’s producers were able to create a few little marketing tricks of their own. Word-of-mouth became very important for those charged with marketing the film.
The film had different social media accounts for the different “districts,” or groups of people, that were described in the novel. If you wanted to see what one district thought about something in the news, all you had to do was head over to that district’s Twitter account.

Tributes: We welcome you. We salute your courage – and your sacrifice…

— The Capitol (@TheCapitolPN) March 28, 2012

PANEM ALERT: The Hunger Games Adventures are now open for all of Panem. Visit bit.ly/PlayTHGAdventu… & start exploring Panem today.

— The Capitol (@TheCapitolPN) March 30, 2012

Marketers also created social media quizzes that let fans find out which district he or she would live in if they were in The Hunger Games’ story world. Once again, bringing the story to life really worked. There was an element of interaction to this marketing tactic, and teens everywhere couldn’t seem to get enough (In case you were wondering, I would have lived in District 8).

Most importantly, the social accounts never gave away any scenes from the film. The integrity (and suspense) of the story was preserved.

If you were to read the novel, you would likely find many more marketing lessons that relate directly to your business. Unfortunately, you will likely be too wrapped up in the story to really
pay attention.

With that kind of growth, it’s no surprise that an increasing number of brands are tapping into Tumblr’s uniquely engaged community.

Described as a content network by its 25-year-old founder, David Karp, Tumblr has settled comfortably at the intersection of design, content and social media.

Tumblr founder David Karp. Image by Scott Beale, via Flickr.

Tumbleloggers (as they’re known) can display and share 140 character posts, lengthy blog entries, high-resolution pictures, personal charts and lists, quotes, songs and videos, in one customizable space.

While continuing to foster a unique and dedicated user base of over 13 million visitors, Tumblr has avoided being lumped in with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter by maintaining its focus on visually rich content.

Meanwhile, Tumblr’s strong social component and easy sharing have made it a more popular blogging platform than WordPress, which it now surpasses in numbers of blogs.

The community

Tumblr’s community is considerably younger than many of its competitors. Where recent statistics have pegged the average Facebook and Twitter users as being 38 and 39 years old, respectively, 50 percent of Tumblr’s users are under the age of 25.

To reach this young, international community, Tumblr has begun sponsoring local meetups around the world. On a monthly basis, tumbleloggers are receiving up to 9,000 nametags and 3,000 Tumblr stickers from the platform’s community organizers in order to facilitate these Tumblr-centric events.

In June, the Tumblr team even received a happy birthday YouTube serenade from a few hundred Brazilian fans meeting up for the platform’s biggest get-together yet. Tumblr’s community was also a driving force behind this winter’s mass online protest against a pair of proposed anti-piracy bills in the U.S.

What’s in it for brands (and what brands should be on it)

What all this means is that Tumblr provides brands with an opportunity to engage a young, media-savvy community with smart, relevant content.

But it’s not a perfect match for everyone. The demographics, for one thing, indicate that marketers should focus on brands that already resonate with the Tumblr community. So life insurance companies, stay away.

It’s also worth bearing in mind the site’s layout. Like upstart Pinterest, it’s all about the visuals and snappy content: Think Twitter plus pictures. This makes the platform perfect for companies that regularly roll out new products or content, namely: broadcast media outlets, magazines, record labels and fashion brands.

J.Crew's tumblog

Take J.Crew, for example. Marketers found a way to make the retail brand’s photogenic merch feel right at home on Tumblr. The brand’s tumblelog has secured a faithful following by inviting followers to tag along with their favourite designers on “inspiration trips” to Paris and Italy while listening to the Brit-pop playlists that fuel their creative genius.

Unlike Facebook, Tumblr is not a one-size-fits-all social network. But as J.Crew can attest, if you’re targeting the cool kids, it’s a shoe-in for success.

Image via blog.spoongraphics.co.uk

Something that has stuck with me is an idea from one of Amber Naslund’s webinars that I attended last year. Why are many big brands so uncomfortable with letting their employees represent their brand on social media? This is not a social media problem, in Naslund’s view. This is a hiring problem. You need talent you can trust.

The way I see it, social media is a tool. A tool that will either emphasize parts of your business that are great, or bring the not-so-great to the public eye, painfully.

Sometimes the problem is that big brands want to jump on the social media bandwagon so quickly that they never implement a social structure within the organization. But if it doesn’t work from the inside, then what you put out on the outside won’t work either.

Brands need to be social in every department, not just marketing or communications. Making social media a skill for each and every employee instead of a full-time job for one, will make your business social in operation.

Instead of looking at social media as your silver bullet to virality or some spaceship into relevancy, brands need to look at social media as a tool to make all aspects of your operation work better, and be better in the eyes of your consumer.

Social on the inside

The keys to building a truly social business are training, guidelines and empowerment. The transition will be slow, which is why some big brands spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on third-party agencies to take it off their plates.

Using a platform like GetSatisfaction, for instance, can make your customer service social by nature. It can be implemented on your Facebook page and all incoming support inquiries will be indexed so that if someone has an inquiry that’s already been answered, they will be prompted to look at that answer instead of creating a new case. This will save your customer support agent’s time, and the department money.

Public relations have embraced social media faster than most departments. No longer do you have to push your pitches via email and pray that media will pick them up. You can create and maintain relationships with press through Twitter, having short conversations daily rather than only talking to them when you need something.

Brands can also use tools like PitchEngine, which makes news releases social media friendly and turns PR professionals into media outlets in their own right. In the social business age, many PR pros have reputable blogs and Twitter accounts with thousands of followers which allow them to connect with mass influencers without using the mainstream media as intermediaries.

Creating social leadership

Image by ChrisL_AK, via Flickr

While social should permeate all aspects of your brand, it’s still important to have the right leadership to define overall strategy and look over individual elements of your social media presence.

This can either be one person or a panel of people, each responsible for a different area of social (PR, Marketing & Sales, Customer Service, Product Development, etc).

Collaboration has never been more important to bridge the silos that traditional business has created, and which are the enemy of social.

Big brands are the slowest to adapt, when people may expect (with all the money that they have) that they would be the quickest. Redesigning your business to be social by nature trumps having 100,000 Facebook Fans, because doing it right is more important than getting it done.

When Jon McGinley stopped by the Sparksheet booth at DX3 Canada this winter, he echoed a comment made by a more than a few speakers at the event: Social isn’t just a PR tool anymore.

And he should know. He’s the director of marketing for Radian6, a small town Canadian startup that made it big – to the tune of $326 million – when it was snapped up by cloud computing company Salesforce in 2011. Its client roster includes half the Fortune 100 companies and the White House.

Essentially, the company creates tools that allow brands to analyze content on social media sites like Twitter. So when Obama hosted a town hall meeting in the summer of 2011, Radian6 was there to track the conversations, “listen” to the questions posed on Twitter, and then provide the White House with the resulting data.

Radian6 also measures social data from its application across different sectors of a business, from R&D to investor relations to customer support.

Here’s McGinley’s take on why social media metrics are more relevant than ever, and how content marketing has helped grow Radian6’s business.

As someone who used to work at a sports bar, I understand the chaos that occurs during the Super Bowl. I had the pleasure of working at Buffalo Wild Wings as a waitress in Chicago in 2007 when the Bears made it all the way to that last game. This was the first time in 21 years that our team made it, and boy did I underestimate the amount of excitement that was in store for me when I walked through those doors.

I was being high-fived and hugged by complete strangers as I tried to deliver mozzarella sticks, our usually-quiet phone systems were ringing off the hook, the wings were taken out of my hands before I even set down the plate, and I was hit several times with blowup footballs that my managers so kindly gave away to one of my tables. Needless to say, the sport has a following in North America.

Literally. The sport has a huge following on Twitter. Not only do the majority of the players and announcers have their own personal Twitter accounts, but the National Football League (NFL) has its own account with roughly 2,799,121 followers. In other words, social media has a big impact when it comes to the reputation of the game. Twitter works like a domino effect: The NFL could tweet something, and then one of their followers tweets it to their followers, and so on and so forth.

Fan and player interaction

Defensive Justin Tuck of the New York Giants. Image via nfl.com

As with any other big TV event these days, social media gives fans an opportunity to interact with others watching the game. This makes it more fun. When I think about my uncle who lives in a house with four football-hating women (even the dog is a girl), I think about how much he enjoys being able to trash-talk on Twitter. It’s a way for fans to connect (and compete) with others who are watching the game in a different place.

The interaction between fan and player has also changed, as players now have the ability to talk directly with fans via their personal accounts. For example, New England Patriots’ superstar quarterback Tom Brady can explain to fans (after the game) that the reason he fell at a pivotal moment is that an opponent grabbed his facemask. So social media is also an opportunity for athletes to maintain their own personal brands.

Watching it for the ads

Finally, we have those advertisements to discuss. Brands have been leveraging the Super Bowl, America’s biggest TV event, for years with blockbuster commercials and special Super Bowl deals. But brands have also begun to increase their social media efforts before, during, and after the game.

A scene from one of the five competing Doritos Super Bowl ads

Budweiser ran a campaign on Facebook that asks fans to guess Super Bowl scores and answer Super Bowl trivia in order to win special deals.

Pizza Hut bought a “promoted tweet” for #ReadySetHut so that Twitter followers would consider buying their product for the big game. Meanwhile, both Doritos and Pepsi let fans vote via Facebook on which commercial would air during the game.

In other words, whether or not you’re a fan, there are plenty of good reasons to watch the Super Bowl.

Check out our roundup of this year’s best Super Bowl ad campaigns.

Image courtesy of Daily Pic, via Flickr

Broadly speaking, there are three kinds of brands marketers should be aware of: personal brands, corporate brands and professional brands. And ­– to make things even more confusing – these three things are beginning to converge.

Brands brands brands

First, a summary of those three types of brands. A personal brand is simply a culmination of factors that make up an individual’s public image. This can include content on social networks (pictures, posts, interests, etc.), as well as anything in the media about that person.

Personal brands are not created; they just are. That is, most people don’t write something on a Facebook wall because they want others to think of them in a certain way; they do it because they want to, because it’s a reflection of who they really are.

A corporate brand is a culmination of factors that make up an organization’s public image, whether it’s an airline, a media company or a not-for-profit. While personal brands aren’t usually created on purpose, corporations spend lots of time and money cultivating their brands through ads, logos, mascots (ever seen the GEICO gecko?) and, of course, content.

A professional brand is a brand that’s created intentionally by an individual. For example, if a person wants the public to see them as an expert in their field, they can foster this perception through social media, blogging, guest posting or speaking gigs.

When the professional gets personal

Consider the following example, which was pretty common a few years ago. You’re launching a new product and decide to hire a PR firm to promote it. If you see that Joe Shmo will be in charge of the account, you’ll probably google Joe Shmo.

Once you find his Facebook profile you might see that he clearly stays out all night and spends all day complaining about work. This will give you a negative opinion of the company, and you’ll probably go in another direction.

Once people realized that their personal brands were affecting their corporate brands, they began to create a professional brand. They changed their names on Facebook and maintained two Twitter accounts. But it has become apparent that it’s pretty hard to keep these two brands separate. After all, it doesn’t take much for a prospective client or employer to connect the dots.

So where do we go from here?

From the organizational perspective, corporate brands need to be aware of the personal and professional brands of their employees because clients can (and do) look them up online. You should be including social network and Google searches in your employee background checks to see what kind of footprint your employees have online.

Although most people aren’t comfortable with a prospective employer snooping through their personal lives, any content they have put out for the world to see is fair game. That said, companies should be reasonable and not expect someone to be devoid of a personal life. If the candidate’s professional footprint is more prevalent than their personal one, then that person has done a good job maintaining his or her brand and will likely represent your company well.

From the individual perspective, it’s crucial that you create and cultivate a professional brand online. If you have some things out there you’d rather were hidden, there are a few things you can do to help cover them up: guest post on websites so that those articles come up first on search engine pages, change your name on your old social accounts, or set your social accounts to private.

Or better yet, don’t put anything out there that you wouldn’t want your clients or employer to see. Because they will.

Image courtesy of Matti Mattila, via Flickr

Whether you’re a rookie or a veteran in the digital content space, you’re probably aware that linking is important. But knowing that linking is important and learning how to use links correctly are two different things.

Although linking has been around since the dawn of the Internet age, the world of media and marketing is changing, and the nature and importance of the link is changing with it. Here’s what digital marketers and content creators need to know about linking in 2012.

Panda updates and social media

Google recently launched Google Panda, an overhaul of its secret sauce search-ranking algorithm. And because Google Panda constantly changes what it considers a “high quality site,” brands can now no longer spend time factoring in black hat linking tactics like plugging in unrelated keywords or creating a website specifically for a keyword to improve their rankings.

Social media has also changed the game for brands because consumers are now getting their information from many different sources. Although linking is still extremely important, companies have to worry about getting their brand noticed in more places than just a search engine.

Internal vs. external linking

Digital content, whether in the form of a corporate website or blog post, should have a balance of internal links (links to other pages in the same site) and external links (links to other websites).

Once content goes live on the web it’s “crawled” by search engine bots or “spiders.” If you can use internal linking effectively then these bots will be able to easily move from one webpage to the next, boosting your SEO in the process.

Internal linking will also improve “time on site”, a measure of how compelling or “sticky” your content is. Easy navigation won’t just help bots get around; it will keep human beings on your site too.

External linking includes links on your site to other locations on the web as well as links back to your site. The best way to generate incoming links is to create quality content that others want to reference – simple as that. Another way is to write guest posts for relevant sites, demonstrating your thought leadership in a given industry (and getting a link-back in the process).

Your content will look good in the eyes of Google if other reputable websites reference your page through linking. This will then increase your PageRank and help your website slowly make its way to the top of the Google search engine.

Incoming links also have an important promotional value. If another website links to your content, you’ve engaged that site’s community – introducing your content and brand to a whole new audience.

Linking responsibly

If used correctly, the combination of internal and external linking will provide your brand’s website or blog with increased SEO success as well as increased traffic and overall interest in your site.

Don’t forget that the words you choose to link to are important. Many brands spend lots of time on keyword research. Although all linking is worthwhile, linking to specific keywords like HR software (see what we did there?) can up the benefits of linking even more.

In the end, linking is the key to getting your website ranked in organic search – in other words, that number one Google spot you’ve had your eye on. And in turn, linking will help connect your brand to communities and customers you never expected to reach.

It’s the Muppets.

The Jim Henson-created franchise has been in a slump for decades. Their biggest hit was the The Muppet Movie back in 1979. But that was before social media.

The Muppets, released last week in North America, has garnered critical acclaim and fans are pouring into theatres. But perhaps their biggest success has been online: This old-school franchise is the new kung-fu master of branded entertainment.

As Alex Rowland wrote in Sparksheet , branded entertainment works best when users forget they’re watching an ad and when they’re given opportunities to interact with the brand.

Disney chose die-hard Muppet fans Jason Segal and James Bobbin to write and direct the film, and brought in Flight of the Conchords’ Bret McKenzie for the soundtrack, ensuring an authentic Muppet experience while delivering quality content that works on multiple channels.

For two years Disney used – you guessed it – YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and even Google+ to generate buzz online.

They kicked-off the campaign with a decidedly unorthodox but wholly Muppetesque cover of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, which went viral, winning two Webbies along the way.

Next, Kermit appeared in *cough* person at the world premier of the latest Pirates of the Carribean installment for the release of The Muppets’ first trailer.

Arguably the campaign’s biggest hit, the series of trailer parodies poked fun at this year’s most anticipated blockbusters. The lighthearted videos capture what so many fans love about the Muppets – their infectious silliness.

As one of the first official brands to join Google+, the Muppets filled the user engagement quota by hosting a Google+ hangout.

As opening weekend approached, the Muppets took a tongue-in-cheek spin on cause marketing with their “Muppets Fan-A-Thon.”

Riffing on the film’s central plot point, Muppet characters urged viewers to “pledge a like” on Facebook. If the page reached the modest goal of a “bazillion” likes, Disney would release advanced screening locations. No, they didn’t reach the bazillion mark, but with 2 million likes, Disney’s not complaining.

Finally, taking aim at haters on Digg and YouTube, the franchise released another viral hit. This time, ill-fated Beaker burns down the set with his rendition of “Dust in the Wind.”

Yes, The Muppets’ aesthetic is 1970s oddball. Yes, their jokes are goofy. But that’s why we love them, and it took a flawlessly executed social media campaign to remind us.

And in case you haven’t had your fill of Muppet-driven branded content, check out our Q&A with Sesame Street’s new media director, Dan Lewis.

Fat Tire’s success is rooted in community. In the old, basement-brewing days, Lebesch would offer samples of his homebrew to everyone – from friends and fellow brewers to cowboys and microbiologists.

Two decades later the brewery’s “high involvement culture,” as it puts it, has carried into the digital realm through a variety of Facebook pages, apps and other social platforms that harness the passion, conversation and sense of community that go along with a good beer.

From Barstool to Facebook Wall

Craft brewers are bold. Shunning the ways of big, watered-down commercial breweries, they are known for their innovation and non-traditional ingredients. Good brewers also know their customers personally, be it through philanthropy, volunteerism, sponsorship of local events or by sharing – or even creating – a beer with them.

Dean Browell, Executive Vice President of Feedback Agency, a social media consultancy based in Richmond, Virginia and London, England, has been a longtime friend to the beer community and counts a growing number of impressive keynotes under his belt at the annual Craft Brewers Conference.

“Craft beer is a source of experimentation and taste that lends itself to discussion, exploration and more,” says Browell, whose PhD thesis focused on generational differences and online technologies. “It’s one of those drinks that sparks conversation and practically requires you to drink with others, daring interaction.”

Online these qualities are reflected in the communities that have sprung up in and around specific breweries and beers, and between craft brewers themselves.

While they might not always have deep pockets like commercial brands, craft brewers have repeatedly launched social media campaigns that yield results.

An app on New Belgium’s Facebook page, “Share Your Joy Ride,” asks brew fans to create and share their own Fat Tire labels by uploading photos. During the summer months, winning beer label creators were awarded with a special 20th-anniversary edition Fat Tire cruiser bike.

Not content to settle for just one app, New Belgium offers a variety of branded Facebook apps, such as FoodBuzz (for sharing New Belgium-inspired recipes), Beer Ranger (for connecting local brew pages that are geographically relevant), and Mighty Arrow, a partnership with Outside magazine that sees one dollar of every download donated to local animal protection agencies (at the time of writing, the app had been downloaded more than 10,000 times).

The brewery’s Facebook page boasts almost 200,000 “Likers” who routinely share their hobbies and passions with the brand, and most importantly, buy their beer; New Belgium is now the third-largest craft brewery, and seventh-largest overall brewery, in the United States.

QR at the Bar

Brewing was once but a hobby for Colorado homebrewers Jeff and Stephanie Crabtree. Today the husband-and-wife duo crank out more than 900 barrels a year, along with a hefty dose of digital media.

Like many craft brewers, Jeff Crabtree thrives on direct interaction with customers. While he can’t sit at the bar with everyone who tips back Crabtree’s tasty creations, since September he has slapped QR codes on his beer bottles that allow him to engage with customers the new-fashioned way.

Anyone who orders a Berliner Weisse Ale – an old-style German wheat ale – can scan the QR code on the bottle’s label with their mobile device and view a video message from Jeff Crabtree himself who delivers the lowdown on the brew they’re about to imbibe.

Crabtree drinkers have an opportunity to hatch the next installment in the Digital Age series, by subscribing to an exclusive email list that allows them to keep the relationship going and ultimately decide on the next QR-inspired brew.

By adding a digital signpost to a real-world object, craft brewers have created an ideal inbound marketing tool. While beer lovers tip one back, brewers can collect data on their customers and measure the results of their campaign in real time.

Check-in to Your Beer

With location-based services all the rage, it comes as no surprise that there’s already a crowded market of mobile apps that allow users to “check in” to their favorite pint. One of the most popular is Untappd (think Foursquare for beer geeks), which provides an interactive beer rating and recommendation system.

Untappd users can literally place smaller, independent beers on the map by sharing what they’re drinking and where. Touting over one million check-ins, Untappd is available free on Android and iOs and can be synched with Foursquare, Facebook or Twitter.

Back to the Real World

Proving that the craft brew community is just as strong in the non-digital world, the East Atlanta Beer Festival recently

launched Re:Brew, a free iPhone app that helped concert-goers find – and rate – the best craft beers at this summer’s festival.

As people rated and chatted about their favourite microbrews at the festival, the event’s beer list was adjusted to highlight the most popular offerings.

Beer festivals aside, Twitter is flush with hashtags that paint a picture of the growing American passion for craft beer. Brewers & Union, based in South Africa, provides an ongoing chance to win a case of craft beer each week by simply tagging tweets with #idrinkcraft.

Whether it’s through Facebook pages, check-in apps or hashtags, craft brewers are giving macro-produced beers – and their marketing whiz kids – a run for their money. Most craft brewers live by a simple motto: No crap on tap. And now they’re bringing that philosophy to the digital marketing space.

These TVs aren’t tuned in to your favourite soap opera or hockey team. They’re showcasing catered in-store entertainment. McDonald’s recently announced the creation of McTV, a customized digital network that will feature content from the likes of Mark Burnett and BBC America.

The channel, which will be making its debut in 800 Southern and Central California restaurants, will screen programs and ads on a one-hour cycle.

As Time’s Allison Berry points out, this is a smart move for the fast food giant. “The channel should be an effective way to present a positive, controlled brand image, particularly after McDonald’s has taken hits by its portrayal in Fast Food Nation and Super Size Me,” she wrote.

But McDonald’s isn’t the first company to commission in-store content. Here’s a look at other brands that have embraced the screen in a theatre, fast-food restaurant or megastore near you.

Pizza Pizza

Pizza Pizza is ahead of McDonald’s when it comes to in-store content. The Canadian pizza chain teamed up with Rogers Digital Network Solutions back in 2008 to create Pizza Pizza-TV.

The narrowcast network – available in hundreds of the pizza chain’s stores across southern Ontario – features local sports highlights, entertainment news and music videos.

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart’s in-store entertainment system dates back to 1997. According to USA Today, Wal-Mart had installed almost 130,000 TVs in approximately 3,000 stores in the United States by 2007.

Which means that Wal-Mart TV had the potential to reach about 127 million shoppers a week. What’s unique about Wal-Mart’s system is that each store can fine-tune the message that best suits clients at a given time.

Cineplex Entertainment

Gone are the days when trailers were the first thing you saw at the local cineplex. Movie theatres often showcase trivia questions, exclusive interviews with stars and entertainment news before the lights dim and the feature presentation begins.

Cineplex Entertainment (which operates theatres in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia) has expanded its content beyond the theatre; the company distributes 700,000 copies of Cineplex Magazine in theatre lobbies.

The magazine, which is published 12 times a year, features original content and celebrity interviews. Similarly, Cineplex.com features tons of original content as well, including video interviews and daily blog posts.

Sparksheet Editor Dan Levy, Creative Director Charles Lim and Community Manager Joey Tanny

Maybe it’s our creative director’s near-obsessive attention to detail. Maybe it’s the tsunami of tweets our community manager cranks out on a daily basis. Or maybe it all just boils down to Content. Whatever it is, it’s working. And we couldn’t be more proud.

On Monday the third-annual Canadian Online Publishing Awards (COPA) ceremony took place at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, with hundreds of digital publishers, editors, and designers in attendance.

This year Sparksheet was nominated for seven awards in the blue division (B2B), and despite the slew of quality competitors, Sparksheet did what few expected, taking the top prize in every category:

• Best Online-Only Site GOLD
• Best Web Design GOLD
• Best Blog GOLD
• Best Use of Social Media GOLD
• Best E-Newsletter GOLD
• Best Mobile-Optimized Site GOLD
• Best Article or Series (for Brand New Havana) GOLD

As the winners were announced, the Twittersphere lit up: some at the ceremony had never heard of us, others were simply baffled by our success. Here are some of our favourites from the evening:

@CraigSilverman: Hey look at the Sparksheet editor eating his too many awards! #COPAwards pic.twitter.com/9MP7GWFF

@Mastheadmag: We lost track of how many awards Sparksheet won. #COPAwards

@PoppedCulture: One last award for @nationalpost - a silver for best companion website. #COPAwards @sparksheet won everything else.

@mattlundy33: At the #copawards. Wtf is sparksheet?

@thismason: In the end, we snatched victory from the jaws of Sparksheet #copawards

@VickiJane13: Sparksheet is cleaning up in here! Anyone have any idea what that is? #copawards

@mattlundy33: Sparksheet is like when the Lord of the Rings ran the table at the Oscars. #copawards

@ALeeGreenberg: Who IS Sparksheet, you ask? Big time #copawards winner, for starters.

@ssawchuk: Sparksheet. Win all the things. #COPAwards

@spafax_arjun: With all their mega COPA awards, pretty sure the @Sparksheet guys are going to be insufferable #spafax

Congratulations to all the other nominees and winners (other multiple-award winners included the CBC, Globe and Mail, National Post, OpenFile and Torontoist). And a huge thanks to the COPA judges and crowd for your support!

The name “Social Media Examiner” sounds like a nod to newspapers, but you’re not really a news site. Do you consider yourselves a blog, an online magazine, an aggregator or something else entirely?

The reason we call ourselves an online magazine and not a blog is because we knew that when we launched, the business world was not completely familiar with the word “blog.”

In addition, our site features deeper and richer articles than a typical blog. All of our articles are at least 1000 words. We publish once a day, 24 articles a month, which is essentially the same amount of articles that are in a print magazine.

You’re the first person ever to tell me that we have a newspaper type of name. The name “Social Media Examiner” sounds like it’s socially important, it sounds like it’s established and that it’s been around forever.

The site has a particularly memorable look, with its jungle-themed design and cartoon illustrations. Where did that come from?

The site definitely has a unique visual display. Our mascot is this little guy named Scout, named by our user community in a contest during our one-year birthday celebration.

I wanted to have a site that was visually stunning, looked very professional, and that when people came to it they just assumed it had existed forever. In reality, even though we have more than 100,000 e-mail subscribers, we’re only 22 months old.

Many of your headlines include a question, a number (“4 Tips,” “5 Steps”), or a “How to,” making them very SEO-friendly. How much do search engines factor into your editorial process? Do you create content based on what people are searching for?

No, we do not. We only get 15 percent of our 900,000 page-views per month from search. We do not try to make things that appeal to search engines. We don’t ignore search engines, but it’s not our primary focus. Our primary focus is to appeal to people.

I have a background in copywriting so I know what a good headline is. We write headlines that people want to share, that people want to click through on Twitter or Facebook to read.

SME went from 0 to 100,000 subscribers in 20 months, and it’s all from social media. Our articles have titles that are designed to really draw people to the content. We’re about people optimization, not search engine optimization. We’re trying to optimize for the human mind.

In your latest book, Launch, you discuss the “elevation principle,” which goes something like this: Great content + other people – marketing messages = business growth. Why are “marketing messages” subtracted from this equation?

Edelman did a study and found that only a third of people trust businesses, meaning that 66 percent don’t. In the book, I postulate that part of the reason is that people think businesses are just out to take their money.

Everywhere we go, all we see are marketing messages. It’s permeating our culture and people are tuning out.

If you want your content to be received as a gift instead of a lure designed to convert someone into a prospect, then you need to put away those marketing messages. I don’t say “don’t do marketing,” but what I do say is not to embed those marketing messages into your content.

If your content has ads all around it then what you’re doing is sending people away from it, or you’re telling the people that all you really care about is getting conversions, not providing great content.

You practice what you preach because Social Media Examiner is an ad-free space. Of course, that brings up an obvious question: How does Social Media Examiner make money?

You’ll only see one ad on our site, which is for our own events. Once people receive our content and decide to sign up for more via our e-mail list, then they’ve opted into a secondary channel, which I call the backchannel. Through that channel I can embed some marketing messages. That’s how we grow our business.

We send out a daily e-mail blast to 100,000 people, 6 days a week. Inside that e-mail we have a 70-word description of the day’s article with a link. Underneath it we’ll have ads; some are from sponsors, others are for our own events.

Our sponsors are mostly social media-related agencies. Anyone who wants to be in front of social media marketers is the ideal sponsor.

How do you get people to sign up for your mailing list?

There’s a sidebar on the homepage where you can input your information. We also have a cookie mechanism whereby first-time visitors are prompted to subscribe with a one-time pop-up.

Chris Brogan says that “e-mail is the golden ticket,” and that’s true because a large e-mail list is more important than followers on Twitter or fans on Facebook. People have given us permission to communicate with them. E-mail is still the secret magic bullet.

Many other media brands have made the leap from print to web. You guys have made the leap from web to events. Any plans to extend the Social Media Examiner brand from web to print?

No plans. We’re new media in every way. Even our events are completely online. We don’t do anything in the old media kind of way. For me it makes no sense to go backwards. There’s a place for print, but not in my company.

Pam Didner at Content Marketing World 2011/Photo courtesy of Content Marketing World

You were a speaker at last week’s Content Marketing World conference in Cleveland. Tell me, what does a company that makes computer hardware have to do with content?

It’s funny you asked. We did in-depth research on how consumers and IT managers view Intel. Words such as “innovation,” “quality,” “performance,” “trust,” “reliability” are used to describe our brand.

Once we start talking about “technology” and “innovation,” there are a lot of stories that we can tell. Imagine the content we can create or stories we can tell through the experiences that technology enables in people’s lives. We have more to do with content than ever before.

Computer chips don’t necessarily lend themselves to great storytelling. How do you weave the many, complicated things Intel does into a compelling story?

It can be very challenging to find the right story to tell. We look to our R&D department, which we call Intel Labs. Not sure if you remember the Intel Rock Star Commercial. We showcased Ajay Bhatt, who is the co-inventor of the USB drive. There are some amazing things our engineers are doing at Intel Labs. The stories are there, we just need to find them.

Intel is a multiplatform company, and it’s also an international one. How do you create content that works across geographical and cultural boundaries? Which platforms work best for which audiences?

I’d like to address that at the B2C and B2B levels. B2B is much easier to scale, especially since our target audience is IT managers, whose challenges tend to be similar across regions. Most IT managers battle similar issues such as security threats, Windows upgrades, downtime, etc.

In addition, IT managers tend to be the no-nonsense type of guys. B2B content and creative are easy to scale.

Cultural differences play a much bigger role in B2C, especially on creative development. During the creative development and storytelling stage, we engage with geographies. From time to time, we customize multiple versions of the same content to meet different geographic needs. For example, for the Intel Rock Star commercial we have a Chinese version featuring a prominent Chinese engineer from Intel China.

Can you talk about how you’ve leveraged social media to promote Intel products around the world?

Social media is part of the overall integrated campaign, especially in North America. We leverage Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – wherever it makes sense.

Outside North America, our various regional offices need to make the call on how to leverage local social media. Social media does require subject matter expertise and some regions just do not have the resources to do that.

You were involved in creating Intel’s online IT Manager Game, a simulation of an IT professional’s average day in the office. With social games going mainstream, is it only IT professionals who are getting in on the fun or have you seen other, more surprising demographics participating as well?

IT Manager Game was first launched in May, 2006. We are currently designing IT Manager Game 4.0. The game has more than 120,000 registrants in 16 countries. There is no paid media promoting the game, so it’s been a purely viral success.

We specifically target IT professionals. The player profile: men under 40 working as IT managers or in IT support/Help desk for big, small or medium-sized companies.

You’ve said that marketing and innovation are “BFF”, but that current corporate practices of putting marketing at the end of the process often put them in more of an “it’s complicated” situation. Can you unpack this analogy for us?

All marketers can relate to this situation: A product group hands over an almost-finished product and expects last-minute marketing magic. At Intel, we follow a process called the “Marketing Life Cycle.” We move marketing upstream.

Marketing is engaged with the product group 24-36 months prior to the product release. Our marketing research and branding teams work in tandem with the product groups to provide input on product features, research and brand strategy during the product definition stage. This gives us enough time to create a comprehensive marketing strategy.

How can marketers be more like magazine editors, as you’ve suggested?

Social and search are rewriting the rules of engagement. Our audience is out there constantly searching for information and evaluating new technologies, even when they are not purchasing.

We need to engage with them on a timely basis. Most importantly, we need to engage with them on the topics they care about, yet in an authentic way. This requires some level of planning, especially when multiple marketing functions are involved.

The first step is to have an editorial calendar which rallies the different teams. Once you know what topic you would like to use to engage with your audience, the next step is to build a story that’s both relevant to your audience and your company.

In a way, it’s very similar to publishing a magazine. You have the theme for that edition, then you build stories around it.

But a mobile plan that ignores ethnicity is equally as incomplete, according to statistics revealed recently by Nielsen in The New Digital American Family, a study of family dynamics, media and purchasing habits.

Just as visible minorities are adopting social media in higher numbers than their Caucasian counterparts, their adoption of smartphones outstrips the national average.

As of December 2010, 31 percent of all mobile users in the U.S. had smartphones. Among white mobile users, however, only 27 percent reported owning a smartphone, such as an Android, BlackBerry or iPhone.

By comparison, 45 percent of Asians, Pacific Islanders and Hispanics owned smartphones. Likewise, 33 per cent of African-Americans choose app-based smartphones with web-enabled operating systems over traditional feature devices.

With 95 million smartphones expected to sell in the U.S. during 2011, a mobile marketer who overlooks the high levels of ethnic diversity among users is effectively leaving money on the table.

Smartphone adoption among US mobile users by ethnicity (Source: The Nielsen Company)

Smartphone OS (operating system) use by ethnicity (Source: The Nielsen Company)

Get granular

As multicultural marketing company Translation says on its website, “The difference between ethnic stereotyping and cultural accuracy is all in the details.”

In mobile marketing, that means tailoring your campaign to each user group’s preferences because Hispanics, African-Americans and Asians use their phones differently.

For example, Hispanics are more likely than the average U.S. household to have cell phones with Internet and video capabilities. Plus, Hispanics write more texts than any other race or ethnicity, sending 943 texts per month, versus the national average of 740.

African-Americans run up more mobile voice minutes per month (1,261) than any other group. And at 36 percent, Asians and Pacific Islanders prefer Apple’s iPhone to all other operating systems – more than anyone else. –

Marketers ought to get granular and design a mobile marketing plan that reflects the nuances of how different ethnic groups are adopting and adapting to smartphones.

Pepsi vs. Coke

Successful examples of well-crafted multicultural mobile campaigns exist in both the commercial and nonprofit arenas.

During the lead up to Super Bowl XLV in February, Pepsi launched its Familia de Campeones campaign, targeting the Hispanic community.

Over the course of the eight-week campaign, Pepsi generated 123,000 opt-ins through a mobile microsite, SMS, and QR codes on point-of-sale materials in Hispanic-targeted locations across the country. Once on the site, users were able to upload a family photo and create a free customized poster mailed to them within 4-6 weeks.

Similarly, Coca-Cola created a mobile campaign in June for attendees of the Essence Music Festival, the U.S.’s largest music and empowerment event for African-American women.

During a performance on the main stage, the audience was asked to text “celebrate” followed by their first and last name to a designated number. The first 500 people to do so were rewarded with tickets to a barbecue event, as well as four VIP passes to the festival. Within 30 seconds, 3,145 people had responded, according to Coke.

Mobile activism

Community advocacy groups like Reform Immigration For America (RI4A) are also tapping mobile phones to engage support for immigration reform legislation. By texting “justice” to 69866, citizens can join the Immigration Cell Phone Action Network. As of June 2010, RI4A has built the largest bilingual mobile advocacy list in American history with 150,000 subscribers and more than 340,000 calls made for reform.

Likewise, the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) recently launched OurChinatown, a hyperlocal news and culture blog driven primarily by mobile journalism. Reporters covering Manhattan’s Chinatown use smartphones to gather news and file stories, video and photos in real time. The mobile-optimized website features stories in English, the best of which are also translated into Chinese.

When marketers – and community advocates – take the time to craft multicultural mobile campaigns, the results are clear. It’s not enough to just integrate mobile into your marketing plans, as Coca-Cola’s Wendy Clark suggests. You should also ensure that your plan reflects how the smartphone’s most enthusiastic American adopters – Hispanics, African-Americans and Asians – prefer to use their mobile devices.

How do you maintain Playboy’s unique voice, outlook and culture across so many disparate media, from print and video, to Facebook and Twitter?

It’s a challenge to ensure that all of our mouthpieces are aligned in terms of voice, tone and messaging. Back in the day, the magazine was it.

Now we have constant external communications on TV, radio, Playboy.com, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Ustream, TheSmokingJacket.com and other communications vehicles.

Each of these platforms must stick to the brand’s identity and [they] are constantly monitored to make sure they’re on-brand and in line with Hef’s vision and our editorial director’s ideas.

That said, each platform communicates and publishes differently and may also have separate audiences, so the way they represent/interpret the brand may differ slightly.

What’s the goal of Playboy’s social media activity, and how do you measure success?

We have a number of goals in social media. First, building celebrity for our Playmates and models. Years ago TV was the only way for a Playmate to make the major step from centrefold to household name. Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy are prime examples, but since we know that every Playmate with some charisma and a story to tell isn’t going to end up on TV, social media is the way to grow their audience.

Each new Playmate goes through our social media training and is introduced to our fan base (5 million+ on Facebook, 250,000 on Twitter) when her issue comes out. Within days she’ll have a thriving fan base of her own and we’ll work with her to create content and identify digital influencers to interact with. There are over 90 Playmates actively using Facebook and Twitter with a combined following of over 2 million, giving Playboy the sexiest army of digital brand advocates in the world.

Second, increasing engagement with our fan base beyond the pages of the magazine. We create specific content franchises for each platform in order to properly use each channel and not just post content for the sake of having a presence on a certain site.

Third, generating revenue. A few years ago, managing social media for a brand was mainly focused on growth, engagement, listening or some other buzz term. Monetizing was a nice-to-have but certainly not a primary objective.

Now once we reach a certain scale, revenue is a must in order to justify the existence of jobs like mine, right? True success in this space is quantifiable.

How would you describe the quintessential Playboy reader, and have your perceptions of him or her changed as you’ve engaged with readers online?

In terms of our social media audience, it spans beyond just the obvious, which is the guy who appreciates beautiful women.

Some of the other types we see include people that love the brand and its history, women that became fans after watching The Girls Next Door on E!, women who are aspiring Playmates, and people in search of men’s entertainment and lifestyle content.

We all know that Top 10 lists and sexy photo galleries are good for traffic, but Playboy has made its reputation on long-form articles and in-depth interviews. How do you attract eyeballs without sacrificing the quality of your content?

It’s important for us to recognize that there are many different types of people that come to Playboy.com via many different entry points. For example, if someone gets to the site to check out the latest Playmate, how can we make them aware that there’s a great interview or gaming feature they’d be interested in?

Or if they got to Playboy.com from a site that linked to an interview, how can we keep them on site to enjoy the eye candy? The “link-bait” may bring in more visitors, but the “long form” is what will build a true audience for a site.

With the Playboy mansion, you guys were pioneers in extending the “magazine experience” into the real world. Do you think being involved with things like events and nightclubs is an increasingly important part of what it means to be a magazine in the 21^st century?

Absolutely. Playboy allows consumers to interact with the brand and experience the Playboy lifestyle through parties and experiences at the Playboy Clubs. In 2006, we opened a multi-faceted entertainment venue in Las Vegas. More recently, we’ve opened Playboy Clubs in London, Cancun and Macau and look forward to continuing the expansion.

The Playboy brand has always been representative of “the good life” and we have always offered exclusive opportunities to enjoy that good life via nightclubs, parties and special events.

Playboy.com features a mix of free content and premium stuff. Do you think you’ve struck the right balance between the “open web” and “walled garden” approaches to online content?

Playboy has a number of web properties that aim to reach different audiences. Playboy.com includes a mix of girl features, entertainment stories and longer articles.

The Smoking Jacket, Playboy’s safe-for-work site, includes shorter posts, lists, “quick hits” that you’d want to pass along to your friends, and non-nude girl features. Playboy’s subscription sites offer extended girl content.

Our sites aim to attract different readers and viewers; we work to give fans a variety of content, both free and paid.

When people think of Playboy, they obviously think of your founder, Hugh Hefner. How have you brought Hef’s considerable legacy and personality into the online space?

Hef is extremely active on Twitter and it has become a part of his daily routine. People always ask if it’s really him, and it is Hef on his iPad from the Playboy Mansion. A lot of his tweets are answering fan questions, good or bad, so Twitter truly is an engagement platform for him.

Photos courtesy of Playboy

Note: If these apply to any person, real or fictional, it’s purely coincidental.

Content marketing is approaching a bubble

First, every software technology company is launching a “content” product. It’s amazing the number and velocity of startup launches in and around content marketing. Second, the term “content marketing” is being bantered around like social media was just a few years ago.

What does this mean? Well, I’m not complaining. I first started using the term in 2001 and people still thought I was crazy in 2008. That said, people are more confused about the true power of content marketing than ever before. Lots of education is needed.

So, will this bubble pop? Honestly, I’m not sure. Content marketing is here to stay, but with it being “the flavour of the month” it’s hard to get a true feel for where it’s going (and how fast).

Integration will make divorce look like child’s play

This is going to hurt. Content owners exist throughout most organizations. (Frankly, all employees “own” content to a certain extent.) Currently, the problem is that content owners in multiple departments aren’t talking to each other. Email doesn’t necessarily talk to social media. Social media doesn’t talk to PR. PR doesn’t talk to internal publications.

Integrating workflow throughout an organization is going to hurt. Positioning a Chief Content Officer to take control of the brand story is going to take a while. I’ve recently talked to two Fortune 50 CMOs that are trying to find a solution for this.

They know this is important. It’s important in order to communicate effectively with our customers and prospects. It’s important because if we want to talk to customers like human beings we have to all get on the same page. But, yes, it’s going to hurt. Why? One word: politics.

Where is the content marketing career path?

The more I talk to journalism and business professors at universities across North America, the more I realize that they are not talking about content marketing as a career path.

That’s one of the reasons we are holding a seminar for students called Futures in Content Marketing.

Especially for journalism and writing major, universities need to start talking about the real opportunities for young storytellers… with brands. The job market for journalism majors has never looked better, but we have to look at the market in a new way.

There is no silver bullet

Marketers always look for the silver bullet solution when it comes to content marketing. Well, there isn’t one. Your story is different than every other story on the planet. That means the strategy and execution of that story is different as well.

What does this mean? You have to plan; tactics alone won’t do anything. It hurts me when billion-dollar companies want to do a blog or get active on Twitter without having any idea of what they want it to do for the business and what they actually want to say to their customers.

Your story is meaningful, but you have to plan out how that story should be told and why anyone should really care in the first place. There is no roadmap you can steal from someone else. You have to go through it for yourself.

Getting out of the dugout

When people ask me where we are at in the lifecycle that is content marketing, I tell them this: “If content marketing was a baseball game, we are just getting out of the dugout.”

Many of us think that the true revolution is social media. Not true. The revolution we are seeing is that we can now share our story and engage directly with our customers without any barriers.

Yes, that means social media. But it also means print, in-person, mobile and the 10 new tools being developed right now.

But the good news is that you haven’t missed it. There is still plenty of time to see this evolution (or revolution) within the walls of your company. It can start with you. Frankly, it has to.

Content Marketing World takes place September 6-8 in Cleveland. As an official media partner, Sparksheet brings you original conference-related content before and after the event.

Last December, Groupon reportedly rebuffed Google’s $6-billion buyout offer, earning headlines and some headshakes around the world. In June, the company filed its long awaited S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, signaling its desire to become a publicly-traded company. Its IPO is being valued at $20 billion.

With promises of new repeat customers and increased sales, businesses have flocked to Groupon in droves. But in the aftermath of cars washed, teeth whitened, and yoga classes taught, some merchants have questioned whether they’re getting the raw end of the daily deal.

Back in February, online marketing consultant John Kurien wrote a think piece for Sparksheet predicting that Groupon and its host of competitors were a game-changing opportunity for online retailers. In the piece, Kurien outlines three ways that marketers could leverage these social commerce sites.

In light of all that’s happened since, we decided it was time to check back in and see how Groupon’s partner merchants are faring in these three areas.

Acquiring new customers

Image via noclipmode.com

In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Groupon CEO Andrew Mason stressed that it is not the deal itself that benefits merchants; rather, it’s the customer acquisitions from the deal that make it lucrative. In other words, the onus lies on the merchant to engage its new customers, whether it’s through Facebook, Twitter, or plain old email address acquisition.

As part of his ‘anti-Groupon’ series for TechCrunch, guest contributor Rocky Agrawal spotlights Posies Café owner Jessie from Portland, Ore., who nearly bankrupted her business by running a Groupon deal.

In an interview with Agrawal, Jessie acknowledged that aside from running a bad deal (her $13 deal was more than twice her average sale of $5), she also did little to convert her new patrons into regulars.

Agrawal argues that Jessie’s story exemplifies the flaws inherent in Groupon’s merchant information pipeline.

On the flipside, American Apparel praised Groupon’s ability to court new customers. After selling more than 130,000 discounted gift cards via Groupon, the retail giant reportedly signed up roughly 25 percent of new customers to its email list, generating nearly $1 million in surplus revenue.

Selling up

Image by Intersection Consulting via Flickr

Once a business has courted a new customer with a discount, Kurien suggests, chances are they will spend more than the amount of the coupon

According to a Groupon survey, diners who cash in restaurant deals are highly likely to spend more than the coupon value – roughly 98 percent of patrons, says Groupon.

Restaurant owner Carey Friedman of Grandpa Eddie’s BBQ in Richmond, Virginia, supports this claim. Friedman even went so far as to write a post for TechCrunch on just how positive his Groupon experience was.

Not only did Grandpa Eddie’s Groupon customers spend an average of $12 more than the coupon, but 70 percent of them were new customers. Even better is that 800 of these new customers returned to the restaurant after they had already claimed the coupon.

While this experience was overwhelmingly positive, this New York Times article suggests that running a restaurant deal is still a crapshoot.

Aside from restaurants, businesses of all types have experienced the highs and lows of running a deal. Whatever the business, merchants must have enough sense to navigate Groupon’s terms and methodically calibrate a deal so that it is difficult for customers to spend just the value of the coupon.

To that end, Groupon champion Bob McKeon credits a strong understanding of Groupon’s terms to the success of his photo printing business. If a merchant is unwilling or unable to discount his or her product by 75 percent, he says, running a deal is not the right move.

Free publicity

Image by Narisa via Flickr

One of the most enticing aspects of social commerce is the social aspect. After scoring a deal, many people’s first inclination is to share it with friends, either through email or social media. This brings a viral aspect to the deal, and means that no matter how many people sign up, businesses will earn a good deal of exposure.

Harvard professor Benjamin G. Edelman, one of the authors of To Groupon or Not to Groupon: The Profitability of Deep Discounts, names the free publicity factor as one of Groupon’s greatest strengths.

In his TechCrunch post, restaurateur Friedman also points out that his barbecue joint gained new customers from the exposure alone. These were people who didn’t necessarily buy the deal, but who saw the brand name – either on Groupon itself or through social networks – and figured they’d give it a try.

Café owner Michele Casadei Massari also acknowledges the promotional benefits of a Groupon deal, pointing out perhaps its biggest attribute – it’s free.

“Groupon gave us a massive marketing campaign that a small business like ours would never be able to afford,” Massari mentioned in the New York Times piece.

So what does the future hold for Groupon, its subscribers, its merchants and its eventual shareholders?

Considering its ever-mounting number of competitors, it remains to be seen whether people will tire of being constantly bombarded with deal-mails or, conversely, whether Groupon and the like will breed a society of ultra-dealmongers. That is, those consumers who wait only for deals to buy, consequently eroding prices.

One thing’s for sure is that the cacophony of nay-sayers is growing louder and more difficult to ignore in light of the IPO, leaving many critics wondering whether Groupon will regret spurning Google’s billions when it had the chance.

Every brand wants its content to go viral, but in the end it comes down to what Alex calls “the perfect combination of creative genius, market timing an emotionally engaged audience.”

While most people would consider the duel between the Old Spice hunks as the epitome of viral branded content, what truly makes a video (branded or not) go viral is the emotional response it evokes from an audience, whether it’s laughs, tears or anything in between.

Helping brands find this much sought-after sweet spot is the aptly-named Lucky Branded Entertainment, a New York-based creative agency and film production company that creates entertaining web content for brands.

As a reference tool, Lucky created The Viral Collection – a curated compilation of the web’s most popular viral branded videos. According to the site, TVC is a free resource “for marketers, creative directors and social media experts,” featuring more than 700 videos and counting.

Below are some of our favorites from the collection:

To promote the 2012 Focus, Ford tapped spokespuppet Doug to star alongside “Ford Marketing Specialist” John (comedic actor John Ross Bowie) in a series of YouTube adverts highlighting the newly redesigned Focus. 

Every time I see Starburst candies, and by see I mean forage through a pack for the yellows and pinks, I think of this commercial. Five years later, this spot still strikes a chord. 

Produced by the David Cornfield Melanoma Fund, “Dear 16 Year Old Me” is a heart-wrenching cautionary PSA about the dangers of melanoma. (I highly suggest watching with tissues handy.)

A look at how Google Chrome can help capture and preserve life’s most precious moments. (I’d keep the tissues around for this one, too.) 

What happened when tea giant Tetley took to the supermarket with a band of butlers to promote its “Infusions” line of beverages. Note to self: change supermarkets.

Evian’s grown-up rendition of one of the web’s earliest viral hits, the dancing Oogachaka baby. 

This has resulted in the creation of useful quality content, which has resulted in more empowered customers, leading to better, more relevant products.

Two recent examples of this come from Whole Foods Market and Procter & Gamble.

Branded lifestyles

Whole Foods recently launched several new branded content initiatives through its highly successful YouTube channel called Thrive. Thrive features fascinating, insightful stories from people who share their personal accounts of sustainable urban farming, organic cooking and family legacies built around good eating.

The utility in these content experiences is clear: what you see inspires you to do things that can better your life, empowered by people you can relate to – Whole Foods shoppers and the food growers themselves.

This isn’t just a means for Whole Foods to get its brand name out there. The grocery retailer is tapping into communities that are already a part of its success as a business, and is creating a platform of transparency and goodwill that drives its brand value in innovative ways. You might think of this as a new “Do-It-Yourself” network of brand advocates.

Life Goes Strong, a joint venture of P&G and NBC Universal, is a network of websites that provides lifestyle content for the 40-plus crowd. For example, couples who are seeking guidance on relationships, parenting, or even matters of divorce, can get firsthand advice from people who are actually going through these experiences and detailing them as they happen.

Similar experiences are shared around a whole host of relevant themes, from health to technology to fashion and career management.

While the idea behind this isn’t new, it does prove a point about the value of consumer demand: products are only as relevant as the things people care about. As this platform evolves (the site is in BETA), it will be interesting to see how P&G and its portfolio of brands use the site’s content and conversations to create better products, and to allow those same people to tell stories about how those products have affected their lives in positive ways.

Citizen storytelling and branded journalism

These are just two examples that signal a change in how the consumer landscape is driving new market opportunities for brands based on profound shifts in online publishing and digital media.

And while online publishers such as AOL (which now owns The Huffington Post), and Yahoo! position their business models around the development and syndication of original content, there is a huge opportunity for brands to be part of this equation, along with their customers.

Google, through YouTube, has allowed independent content producers of all types to build their own “micro networks” with original content, and actively engaged audiences.These citizen-created networks have produced everything from new types of music to new types of exercise.

Where brands have entered the picture here is even more interesting.

Pepsi’s live social media events in Brazil, for example, have renewed interest in its products and its push for cultural empowerment through live product demonstrations and guest talks ranging from environmental advocacy groups to concerts, art shows and photography exhibits. (Full disclosure: I am employed by the agency that does much of this work with Pepsi).

PepsiCo's Director of Digital and Social Media Bonin Bough speaks at Social Media Week in São Paulo, Brazil. Image by PepsiCo Brazil via Flickr.

Pepsi effectively turns these events into platforms where attendees help build stories for and on behalf of the brand. Pepsi deploys teams of journalists, genre experts, anthropologists – and in some cases, scientists, product engineers and musicians – to go to these live events and curate conversations with people in real-time.

The relationship is mutually beneficial: What people get is a shared voice that reflects the impact they have on their own local culture, while the brand gets valuable insight into what culturally drives its business.

The future of branded storytelling

Brands and agencies have traditionally relied upon creative teams or bloggers to drive these social conversations forward. But brands have begun tapping into vocational skills not commonly found in the marketing and advertising worlds – skills resident in disciplines like investigative journalism, data science, applied mathematics and cultural anthropology.

So what does this look like?

Source (where content comes from), voice (a brand, consumer or expert position), intent (where audiences are being cultivated) and format (method of delivery - the combination of platform and experience) are the key components of storytelling.

Brands can no longer afford to just aggregate or curate content and expect people to advocate their products and services; much of the value of branded content is predicated on who is telling these stories, why they matter, and how those stories are distributed.

In the case of Whole Foods, stories around sustainability and urban farming are relevant because they’re being told by real subject matter experts who are also a part of the company’s supply chain.

Pepsi’s efforts in Brazil resonate because the journalists and experts on the ground are immersed in the communities they write about.

For P&G, the way the brand will continue to build credibility with consumer advocates is by empowering real people to develop the skills to become the subject matter experts.

In all cases, we can see how these values are co-created: there is a clear, definable collaboration between brand and consumer.

If brands can get this formula right within a variety of business contexts they will win in areas where many studios, TV and online networks have continued to stumble.

Plenty of techies are praising Google+’s clean design and privacy features, but others are decidedly less impressed.

Of course, with any new social network there’s always room for improvement ­­­­– and Google is sure to take these critiques to heart as it continues to tweak the platform.

Here’s what a sampling of tech writers are saying about Google’s latest project:

Mule Design’s Mike Monteiro:

Putting screenshots of Google+ and Twitter next to each other you’ll notice two things. One, there’s a lot more density on the Twitter side. That means more stuff, and stuff is good, as long as stuff is ordered, which [Twitter] generally seems to be.

Mashable’s Ben Parr:
The core of Google+ is the Stream, which doesn’t bring anything new to the table. It’s a lot like Google Buzz or the Facebook News Feed.

Wired’s Shimrit Ben-Yair:
On Facebook I overshare. On Twitter, I undershare. If Google hits that spot in the middle, we can revolutionize social interaction.

The Guardian’s Charles Arthur:
Google+, with its complicated desktop interface, strikes me as something which looks wonderful on a 21in screen, but once you shift onto a smartphone (which is where more and more people are going to experience the web) then it’s going to struggle to be useful.

TechCrunch’s MG Siegler:

Whether they’ll admit it or not, Google is making a bold and perhaps risky move by attempting to attack social from scratch. What if they flop again?

Ann Curry @140conf - Image by bjmccray via Flickr

Ann Curry takes her role as anchor to heart. Curry believes that television news anchors are responsible for holding down the journalistic principles of truth and accuracy in a world where the real-time news cycle often leads to error and misinformation.

Opening with a tongue-in-cheek impression of her Japanese mother, Curry charmed the crowd into a tweeting frenzy at last month’s 140conf.

During her 10-minute talk, entitled “Journalism in the State of Now,” Curry boldly declared that today’s journalists find themselves “where no generation has gone before.”

In particular, Curry addressed social media’s role in igniting social activism and spreading knowledge. She said that Facebook and Twitter offer people a platform to express their hopes and frustrations, or what she calls their “beautiful outrage.”

We caught up with Ann Curry backstage to chat about the changing state of news journalism and how she approaches her role as anchor across multiple platforms.

Known as the digital middle class, these Brazilians made up 42 percent of the country’s Internet population in 2010, and are highly coveted by digital marketers, despite their average monthly income being only US$581.

This historic shift has forced Brazilian brands and marketers to figure out how to engage 101 million people to whom they never really had to pay attention before.

It’s clear that the “social pyramid” traditionally used to describe Brazil’s social structure no longer works. Today, a diamond is more accurate. In 2010 alone, 19 million Brazilians "graduated" from classes D and E to Class C.

Social media nation

An impressive 45 percent of class C Brazilians are active on social media. Brands, therefore, have focused their marketing efforts on channels such as YouTube, MSN Messenger, Twitter and Orkut, the Google-owned social network that still trumps Facebook in Brazil.

Popular chocolate brand Lacta, for example, partnered with Orkut on Fazendinha, Brazil’s answer to Facebook’s Farmville game (the name literally translates as “little farm”). When players plant a cacao seed on their virtual farm, the seed grows into a tree that produces MiniBis, Lacta’s new chocolate snack.

These social networks have also given brands access to a previously elusive demographic: middle class women. According to research, 83 percent of class C women access the Internet on a daily basis, and 40 percent of them spend more than two hours a day on social networks.

In order to engage this underserved market, popular Brazilian clothing chain Marisa launched a flashy new website that includes a virtual changing room where shoppers can “try on” clothes on a variety of body types.

Almost half of the Brazilians who use social media belong to Class C, and the vast majority of this "digital middle class" are female.

Different market, different rules

Brazilian brands have learned that the products and strategies they’ve used to reach class A and B consumers can’t simply be “pushed down” to class C.

This new middle class is, after all, making the transition from a very different economic reality in which a can of condensed milk was considered a luxury item to be offered as a gift on special occasions.

Brazil’s emerging consumers will be loyal to brands and products that cater to their unique needs and norms. Sales at the Casas Bahia retail chain skyrocketed after the brand figured out that class C customers loved furniture with mirrored doors because it made their small homes appear bigger.

And since many class C customers live in isolated areas where electronic products such as mobile phones are essential, Casas Bahia added a video series to its shopping website to explain in plain language how to use these unfamiliar items.

Class C-targeted ads also tend to be more didactic and direct. Most middle class Brazilians access the Internet from pay-by-the-hour Internet cafés (LAN houses) and don’t have time to ponder the pros and cons of buying a product while surfing on the clock.

With this reality in mind, department store chain Ponto Frio, one of the largest in the country, has added video and 3-D presentations on its website to reel in customers.

Class warfare goes digital

If wider access to credit lines over the past decade is largely responsible for allowing class C to participate in the economy, Orkut gets credit for putting class C on an even social footing, at least online.

About half of Orkut’s Brazilian users come from the digital middle class. Meanwhile, the upper classes are quietly fleeing to rival Facebook to escape Orkut’s rapid “favelization,” a term commonly used to describe the influx of lower income users.

Some things change more quickly than others.

Ann Curry @140Conf - Image via Flickr: bjmccray

You’d think these things would be obsolete by now. But, as I theorized on the 140conf stage in front of 800-plus people (not to mention the thousands who tuned into the webcast), face-to-face events like 140conf have only become more meaningful in a connected age.

As humans, we like to get together to share stories and ideas and conversations with people from around the world. The problem is that as soon as the curtain goes down, all of these stories and ideas and conversations fade into the ether – save for a photo or two. That’s why we partnered with 140conf curator Jeff Pulver to keep the conversation going before, during and after the event.

Before the conference, for example, we caught up with Funny or Die marketing director and conference speaker Patrick Starzan to chat about the online video website’s viral success. We also ran a short think piece by 140conf opera singer Ja-Naé Duane.

Then, while the conference was going on, our “ground team” at Sparksheet HQ was glued to the “backchannel” in order to curate a stream of the most interesting audience tweets in real time. Meanwhile, I shot some exclusive backstage videos with the likes of AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley and Today Show anchor Ann Curry. Stay tuned for those in the coming weeks.

For now, here are some key takeaways from two eclectic, content-filled days:

Cory Booker @140conf - Image via Flickr: bjmccray

The web is a big tent

Have I used the word “eclectic” yet? Because there really is no better word to describe Jeff Pulver’s events. In keeping with the micro nature of Twitter, 140conf consisted of about 90 10-minute talks spread out over two dizzying days.

The lineup included everyone from tech-savvy farmer Steve Tucker and spiritual guru Deepak Chopra, to radiation oncologist Krupali Tejura and Newark mayor Cory Booker.

It was an important reminder that when we use terms like “users” and “audience” and “readers” and “consumers,” what we’re really talking about is people. All different kinds of people. Everywhere.

Jeff Jarvis @140conf - Image via Flickr: bjmccray

Slow down

It’s funny. According to the 140conf tagline, this event was all about “exploring the state of now” and taking stock of what’s happening on “the real-time web.” But one of the main lessons of the conference was that we all need to slow down. Fast.

The problem with the web’s hurried pace is that it doesn’t leave much space for verification. That’s why media scholar Dan Gillmor is trying to launch a “slow news” movement, where citizens join journalists as “active consumers” of the news who approach so-called facts with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Case in point, NPR news curator Andy Carvin recounted how he helped unmask an American activist who spent months posing as a Syrian blogger called “Gay Girl in Damascus.”

The hoax fooled mainstream media outlets for months, but media critic Jeff Jarvis suggested, in a separate talk, that the onus of verification rests on readers as well as journalists. “I’m not asking you to question the article,” Jarvis said, “I’m asking you to question your assumptions.”

Cathy Brooks @140conf - Image via Flickr: bjmccray

Listen up

While media pundits like Carvin, Gillmor and Jarvis talked about slowing down, several other 140conf speakers encouraged us to put away our smartphones, tablets and laptops  ­­– and listen up. Storytelling consultant Cathy Brooks, for example, began her talk with a tongue-in-cheek spoken-word piece that implored the audience to “shut up and breathe.”

In an informative talk on how to interview famous people, film journalist Warren Etheredge explained that “the first step in having a conversation is preparing yourself to listen.” Etheredge said the only interview question he prepares is the first one – the rest flow from listening to the person’s answers.

Social marketing expert Ted Rubin even coined a new buzzword for the value of listening to our customers and peers: Return on Relationship.

Ian Spector @140conf - Image via Flickr: bjmccray

You can’t plan everything

Another term bandied around quite a bit at 140conf was “serendipity.” Indeed, many of the presenters had stumbled upon online success (or at least celebrity) accidentally.

Ian Spector, for example, launched a website in 2005 filled with funny “facts” about actor Chuck Norris. To date, the site has received more than 250 million views, and spawned a bestselling book series.

In a different vein, Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley spoke of the many unexpected ways merchants and brands use the location-based platform. But the theme of serendipity was summed up best by former news anchor Anita Cochran in the title of her ten-minute talk: “What, I’m a brand?”

The Lupus Ladies of Twitter @140Conf - Image via Flickr: bjmccray

All good things

Finally, I would be remiss not to mention the many speakers who took the 140conf stage to talk about how they are using the web to help people.

From the “Lupus Ladies of Twitter,” who used social media to raise awareness and build support for a groundbreaking new Lupus drug, to Hollaback’s Emily May and her crusade against street harassment, these inspiring people reminded us that the web is about more than ROI or ROE or ROR or any other catchy acronym.

It’s about people from all over the world getting together to do good things. Sort of like 140conf.

Funny or Die features a mix of original videos and user-generated stuff. How do you strike a balance between content creation and curation, and does one type of content inform the other?

Our goal is to always get our best content out there. When we started we were only producing exclusive content, about one video a week. Now we’re doing about 25 videos a month.

Obviously it’s important for us as a brand to be creating content, but the curation is also vital; whether it comes from friends of Funny or Die or our homepage editors scouring the Net on a daily basis to find the funniest stuff out there.

At the end of the day it’s about making our audience laugh and want to come back. That’s not something that can be done solely by pushing our own content.

In the last couple of years you guys have established yourselves as specialists in branded entertainment. Is it a challenge to create content that has to reflect both the Funny or Die brand and someone else’s?

The branded content is a big part of our business and revenue stream. These campaigns are developed by the same team that creates our original content. Depending on the deal with the brand, it’s then featured on our homepage.

In terms of the challenge, it really depends on the brand. Some brands are great and have a genuine understanding of the Internet and its capabilities. Even with guidelines in place, the objective is always to make a funny and effective video.

Other brands are more conservative and put a lot of restraints on the creative process, sometimes resulting in a less-funny video. There is always the challenge of making a suitable video for the brand while maintaining the integrity of what they’ve come to Funny or Die for in the first place.

You’ve said that you’ll work for any brand as long as it’s done transparently and the Funny or Die writers have total creative control. But have you ever been approached by a brand that’s just unspoofable?

For us, there’s no brand that’s unspoofable. In fact, the ones that might fall into that category actually end up being the most spoofable.

When Mini Cooper approaches us to do a collaboration, it’s a lot easier than if, for example, Intuit comes to us. It’s hard to make tax software funny. But there’s never been a case where we’ve had issues coming up with ideas or have questioned whether or not we were the right fit for a brand.

We’ve done a lot of thinking about what makes a video go viral online. Have you come close to identifying the secret sauce?

My caveat would be that if anyone says that they know the components of a viral video then they’re lying. I do, however, think that there are some underlying elements.

A viral video has to have a universal theme, something that everyone gets. The content must affect the viewer at an emotional level. Take Susan Boyle, for example. Otherwise, it has to have a laugh-out-loud or shock element. Ultimately, viral videos are things that people want to discover and share with their friends. People want to be the ones discovering that video. Influencers and people who share videos a lot are those who get the videos quicker, and that adds to the virality of a video.

We have a promotional strategy for all of our bigger videos. Obviously we spend a lot of time developing our social media accounts – Twitter (2 million+ followers), Facebook (900K+ followers), Tumblr, etc. - but we also have an outreach program to bloggers. That helps expose the content to those outside of our community.

A lot of your user-generated content consists of spoofs of advertising campaigns like the much-imitated Old Spice spots. Do you have a sense of how these spoofs affect the brands themselves?

With any successful campaign the next logical step is spoof-making. The people who make these spoofs are looking for attention. There is already a focus on these campaigns, so the best way of drawing attention over to you is by making a quality spoof. I think it’s a smart strategy, especially for young productions teams, and hopefully they have something to follow up with.

I can’t speak for the brands, and I guess it depends on the spoof, but I think that’s something that would continue to draw attention to the campaign. I would think most brands would be excited about that. Imitation is a form of flattery. Brands need to understand that they don’t have control of the online world. Online, the users control the brand.

Funny or Die has a presence on pretty much every digital and social platform. How do you maintain a consistent brand voice across each one?

I have a team of three people and we control all of the social media channels. Our approach to each of the platforms is different because each community is different. We do maintain a consistent voice, but we have different content calendars and strategies for each platform.

The overarching theme is that we always want to be communicating with our followers, having a two-way conversation. We want to make sure that they feel part of the community and that they own a little bit of the brand.

The latest episode of Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis features embedded hashtags that link the video to Twitter. Do you think this sort of cross-platform storytelling is where things are headed online?

I’m really glad you noticed that! We’ve developed a large presence on each of the platforms, but now we’re trying to figure out how to integrate that more with the Funny or Die experience. The embeddable hashtag is one of our attempts to drive engagement.

I actually got the idea from watching TV that displayed a hashtag in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. I would follow the hashtag and see what engagement it drove, which made me think, “why wouldn’t we do that for our own videos when our viewers are actually online?”

It’s a way for us to cross-promote our content on different platforms, integrating the social experience with the content and shaping the conversation.

Funny or Die seems to have become a platform for certain celebrities to relaunch their brands or rescue their reputations. I’m thinking of people like Lindsay Lohan and Chris Klein. What do you think it is about the site that makes it a “safe space” for celebrities to make fun of themselves?

You can look at Funny or Die as an online SNL model. We have access to incredible writers and directors who make the whole process super easy and quick. It’s also a very safe environment. We always operate in the best interest of the talent. None of our videos are ever mean-spirited in tone.

For example, in 2009, Lindsay Lohan was facing a media firestorm. She called us on a Tuesday, we had scripts to her by Thursday, we shot on Sunday, and the video was up on Monday. All of a sudden it seemed to reframe her in the public mind – for that week, at least.

Funny or Die wasn’t always this type of space. We really had to build up our reputation as a place for celebrities to change public perception.

Finally, we can’t talk about Funny or Die without talking about Will Ferrell. How much of a role does he have in the site these days and how much do you think his unique brand is intertwined with that of the site?

Will definitely checks in from time to time. We’ve hired the right people to ensure that his and co-founder Adam McKay’s voices are maintained. They actually brought in our head of creative, Andrew Steele, who was a head writer at SNL for 17 years.

Will’s involvement was super important coming out of the gate, especially when the Internet was still foreign to most people. Will was already an Internet celebrity, so it helped us leverage collaborators. We didn’t start out with people knocking down our doors to make a video with us.

I think that Funny or Die is something that Will is proud of because it has built itself into its own brand. We can make deals now without playing the Will Ferrell card. But the brand itself is still representative of Will and Adam’s original vision.

They started the site as a creative sandbox for all of their friends to play in, and that’s sort of what it’s become and what the attraction is.

Patrick Starzan will be speaking at 140conf, which takes place on June 15 and 16 in New York City. As the event’s official content partner, we will bring you original 140conf-related content before, during and after the conference. Sparksheet readers are entitled to a 25% discount on registration with promo code “sparksheet” - http://nyc2011.140conf.com/

On the other hand, the face of a social media site like Facebook or Twitter would probably look more like a laid back, twenty-something dude (ala Justin Long in those Apple commercials).

But in the last month or so, LinkedIn has made a huge effort to catch up with its hipper rivals – and gotten a much-needed facelift in the public eye.

GigaOm reports that LinkedIn is launching a new button this month called “Apply with LinkedIn.” The function essentially lets job candidates use their LinkedIn profiles as resumes, to apply directly for jobs.

As Mashable’s Sarah Kessler points out, this is a smart move for LinkedIn because employers are a vital demographic for the now public company; hiring solutions generate a whopping 43 percent of the company’s revenue, according to GigaOm. Forbes’ Dan Schawbel predicts that more companies will use LinkedIn’s button as job boards become less popular.

This news comes on the heels of LinkedIn’s new share button which, much like Facebook’s ubiquitous “like” button, allows readers to share articles with their social networks.

And earlier this spring, the company launched LinkedIn Today, a daily online “newspaper” that curates stories shared by LinkedIn users around the world.

Shares rose to an impressive high of USD $122.70 soon after LinkedIn went public a few weeks ago, causing Slate and other publications to speculate whether social media represents a new tech bubble.

However, shares have since dropped to approximately $77 on Wednesday, suggesting that this bubble may burst before it’s fully inflated.

Whatever the case may be, we’re not going to underestimate LinkedIn anytime soon.

That’s how Wayne Sutton, cofounder of TriOut, summed up social media’s diversity problem in a tweet during last year’s BlogWorld conference.

On first blush, you might dismiss calls for greater diversity as growing pains for a young, expanding business sector. Certainly, social media is not the only area of business in which minorities and women are under-represented. But as educator Kyra Gaunt noted here on Sparksheet, “The structure of these conferences often replicates white privilege. And we should be concerned about this.”

The lack of diversity in social media circles is particularly alarming when you look at the fact that minorities are using social media at higher rates than whites. For example, 36 percent of Latinos and 33 percent of African Americans access social media tools like Facebook on their mobile phones in comparison to just 19 percent of Caucasians.

As marketers, we have a vested interest in the issue of representation because the more minorities find a voice, the more we learn about how these groups want to be reached and marketed to via social media.

Uncovering diversity

After attending South by Southwest in Austin this March, Jay Baer – co-author of The NOW Revolution – posted a piece on his blog entitled “Blinded by the White: Social Media and Diversity.” Baer observed that most SXSW attendees “appeared to be 25-39 years old… and the vast majority were White.”

In response, Danny Brown, co-founder of Bonsai Interactive Marketing, wrote “Social Media – It’s Not Just for White Folks”, adding the weight of data and statistics to argue that social media is, in fact, highly diverse if you’re willing to do the research.

In fact, it turns out that in the United States, a higher percentage of visible minorities are visiting social networking sites on a weekly basis than their non-ethnic counterparts:

The percentage of Americans of different ethnic backgrounds who visit popular social media sites at least weekly. Source: Merkle, View from the Social Inbox: 2010

Likewise, a new annual social media study of more than 23,000 Canadians reveals the relatively high percentage of immigrants and ethnic community members who are not simply following people but producing their own content online.

The numbers show that immigrants and visible minorities in Canada are creating content across 10 social media platforms in significantly higher proportions than the national average:

Canadian minority groups are creating content online in significantly higher proportions than the national average of 20 percent. Source: Delvinia and Environics Analytics

Where are the leaders?

Common sense would indicate that the social media industry’s thought leaders would closely reflect the ethnicity of its most prolific users and that conference organizers wouldn’t be at a loss to find speakers of colour.

But that’s clearly not the case. Peter Chow-White, co-author of Race After the Internet, an anthology to be released in the fall, sees this as part of a larger racial picture. “As long as you have structural inequalities in society,” Chow-White told AP Online, “you cannot expect to have anything less than that on the Internet.”

The structural argument is especially compelling when you compare the high number of minorities using social media with the depressingly low number of Internet start-ups founded by African Americans (1 percent), American Indians (1 percent) and Other Races (7 percent). By comparison, whites account for 87 percent of venture-capital-funded Internet start-ups. Only Asian Americans come anywhere close to competing at 12 percent.

But others, like Lewis Lalanne – also known as Nerd #2 on My Note Taking Nerd Blog – are not persuaded. Lalanne contends that “when more minorities, specifically Hispanics and blacks, get out of their own way, that’s when I believe you’ll see them rocking the mic with the white boys and girls at SXSW, making the big bucks online and blessing the world with their potential.”

Or as Blogworld tweeter Wayne Sutton suggests, perhaps we need to “stop complaining about the lack of diversity in the tech and Web space and just do something about it.”

Photo by Julien Perron-Gagné via Infopresse

One thing about the digital age is that it’s made lying much more complicated. I learned my lesson recently when I told a friend I wasn’t feeling well, forgetting I had just checked into a bar on Facebook. Financier Marcus Schrenker learned this after he was caught faking his death because he forgot to erase his Google search history.

What’s clear is that the Web is so smeared with our digital fingerprints that we can’t hide anymore. That was the lesson delivered by Wired magazine reporter Evan Ratliff at Infopresse’s RDV Web conference in Montreal earlier this month.

Fascinated by Schrenker’s epic Web fail, Ratliff decided to see for himself if it was possible to “vanish” in the social media age. He disappeared from the real world while tech-savvy amateur investigators attempted to track him online. The experiment lasted less than a month before Ratliff was found in New Orleans, and forced to pay a $3000 reward to the person who caught him.

The folks at Dell can tell you that the lesson applies to brands as well. Until a few years ago, the computer company had no official presence on the social web. But when customers googled Dell, they’d be led to a complaint site called Dell Hell, set up by a disgruntled customer.

Dell learned the hard way that there’s no such thing as not being online. There’s already a conversation going on around your brand, so you might as well join it. The first step is finding the people who are talking about your brand. The next step is turning skeptics into fans, and fans into brand advocates.

That’s exactly what Dell did to get itself out of PR hell. Dell hired a dedicated corporate blogger who owned up to the brand’s poor service and worked to address individual customer complaints.

Now Dell had a human face and voice that people wanted to engaged with. And here’s the good news: Everyone knows that humans aren’t perfect so as brands become more human, they don’t need to be perfect either.

Nestlé learned this lesson last summer in the wake of a Greenpeace campaign accusing the brand of contributing to rainforest destruction. Initially, Nestlé’s social media team responded by snapping back at critics on Facebook.

By failing to use a basic social skill (being nice to your customer), Nestlé managed to alienate even more people. How did it resolve this social media crisis? By apologizing, like humans do when they make mistakes.

As Ratliff, Dell and Nestlé all discovered, hiding out on the Web is no longer an option. This can be challenging and scary for brands and individuals used to being in control of their identity. But it’s also an opportunity. Because when you think about it, there are worse things for a brand than having a whole bunch of people trying to find you.

The Groupon phenomenon and other social buying sites like LivingSocial have drastically changed the way we think about e-commerce and online marketing. The integration of purchasing capabilities into social platforms like Facebook allows businesses to establish relationships with customers and then translate them directly into sales. In other words, Return on Engagement is now easier to measure than ever.

This week GameStop Corp. embraced the social shopping trend, opening its own Facebook store. Instead of merely browsing the video game company’s products, customers can now purchase items directly through the Facebook application much in the same way as on their website.

Sally Beauty Supply also launched a Facebook store this week, providing the brand’s 48,000 fans with the ability to buy everything from hair dryers to lipstick directly through the social network.

Beyond Facebook, social commerce is making its mark on the mobile world. Swap.com released an iPhone app that facilitates transactions between individual buyers and sellers. Shoppers use their smartphones to scan a barcode somewhere in the real world and are instantly connected to other users through the application.

These developments will inevitably change not only the way consumers purchase products, but how companies promote them. Smart brands will have to figure out how to leverage consumer relationships and turn forums for conversations into measurable forms of commerce.

Top stories

‘Bring it on, Groupon’: LivingSocial gets $400 million infusion from investors

Watch out Netflix, here comes YouTube: The online video leader is shifting its focus to original content.

The least social social network finally opens up: LinkedIn’s answer to Facebook’s Open Graph.

Google introduces plus-one, its answer to Facebook’s “like” in a move towards social searching.

Apple curates a mobile advertising gallery in its new iAd Gallery app.

Facebook tests real-time ads generated based on your posts and status updates.

In another example of moving from “click to brick,” the world’s first “Skype booth” opens at Estonia’s Tallinn airport.

Views from around the Web

Mashable takes a look at how Facebook’s latest iPhone app, complete with event check-ins, better accommodates its users.

Business oracle Warren Buffett cautions investors against over-valuing social networks.

Why the Mad Men-Netflix content distribution deal is a game changer.

The New York Times paywall: A flexible monetization strategy or just plain confusing?

Slate breaks down the algorithm behind content farms.

Speaking of Slate, editor David Plotz spoke to Sparksheet this week about the challenges facing online journalism.

This week in social media

New Mac & Cheese contest turns Tweets into ads:

Tweet mirrors in London share real-time images on Facebook and Twitter:

Photo via thealttab.com

Skittles: Touch the Rainbow?

Hipmunk introduces a Facebook campaign that turns you into a chipmunk:

It’s easy to see why some companies avoid the blogosphere. Blogs are a pain to maintain. Readership grows slowly and not always steadily. And it’s hard to communicate your company’s values without sounding like a worn-out press release.

But a survey of the blogosphere reveals a slightly more optimistic picture. In spite of the challenges, smart companies are maintaining successful blogs by telling relevant stories to well-defined and engaged communities.

Finding the right voice

Corporate blogging works well for brands that create a distinctive voice people trust. Many technology-related businesses find success by providing expert opinions about developments in their industry. Tech companies also benefit from a sophisticated understanding of the Web; they just ‘get it’ when it comes to capitalizing on a blog’s strengths, giving them an advantage over, say, a scuba gear company.

Google’s continued success in the blogosphere is directly related to its expert content. The Official Google Blog consistently ranks as a top technology blog, according to Technorati. It’s no surprise that people trust Google when it comes to finding strategies for maximizing search results or managing digital content. With separate blogs for its various applications, such as Google Docs and Gmail, Google keeps users informed by highlighting the most effective ways to use its services.

Engaging loyal customers in your business

Some of the most successful corporate blogs are collaborations between brands and their customers. Of the larger companies in the blogosphere, none invites users to participate in its business practices like Starbucks. My Starbucks Idea is devoted to aggregating comments and suggestions.

Starbucks’ loyal customers have generated more than 24,000 product ideas for new coffee or espresso drinks, including fan-favourites like “skinny” holiday beverages. This process has also produced the Starbucks Card Mobile, which allows customers to pay on their phones. To top it off, Starbucks keeps people updated throughout the development process by indicating whether an idea is in the review or launch phase.

Identifying, understanding and catering to a community

Once a company finds its voice and establishes the best way to engage customers, a corporate blog can focus on building communities around its brand.

In a sense, Lululemon can be credited for fostering an entire lifestyle community built around yoga. The clothing and accessory company’s blog extends this community online, offering expert opinions from yogis and runners alike.

From demystifying its product lingo to sharing yoga techniques and retreat dates, the company proves that understanding and catering to the values of a particular community is what any great blog – and indeed, brand – is all about.

Whole Foods Market uses a similar strategy to cater to its own community of health food lovers. The Whole Story provides healthy recipes, shares shopping tips, and offers tangible rewards in the form of in-store promotions. It even follows produce on its journey from farm to market, taking readers behind the scenes of the local food business.

Telling the right story

Lululemon and Whole Foods Market build stories around their customers’ lifestyles, which reflect the brands’ values. General Electric, on the other hand, uses its blog to mine the company’s own impressive story.

Edison’s Desk lends a human voice to GE’s technologies while reinforcing the company’s history. The blog integrates Thomas Edison’s story into even its most recent posts on the correlation between science and music. This innovative approach to branded storytelling differentiates GE from its competitors.

Corporate blogs and social media

Corporate blogs may garner less attention than in previous years, but companies that use them successfully understand that blogs are an effective tool for telling stories and building communities around those stories.

Of course, the corporate blog is best used as part of a larger new media strategy. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube et al give brands the ability to reach a tremendous number of people simultaneously.

But harnessing the strengths of the corporate blog, companies can use them in combination with social networks to turn fragmented conversations into fully engaged communities.