I love this one minute spot…it has everything I think a viral advertisement needs.  First, it isn’t overbranded.  I think in order for a video to be successful (at least from a commercial perspective) it must only include product and brand mentions, not shove it in our face. Second, it’s not too long; one minute is just about the max that I would go these days in order to capture the most attention.  Third, and perhaps most importantly: it has a dog fish in it.

Disclosure: I am professionally associated with Volkswagen.  That said, I had absolutely nothing to do with this ad, I found it on YouTube randomly.  I wish I did though, it cracks me up! It also will probably give me nightmares.  Enjoy.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter for any length of time you’ve recently seen some funny updates like, “I’m at LAX Terminal 3″ or “I just became the mayor of Finnegan’s Wake on @foursquare”.  Some people know what this is, most do not.  These updates are being pushed over to Twitter from the new social network Foursquare, a service that I signed up with a couple of months ago.  I believe it is the next service to watch, and I want to tell you why.

First of all…I referred to Foursquare as a social network, but inside the business walls I’ve been calling it a “location aware ad platform”.  There are implications and advantages for both the average user as well as business, and I’ll break it down for both after a brief introduction.

What Is Foursquare?

It looks like a social network that you use from your phone.  The premise is simple: when you are out on the town you can “check in” to different locations in selected cities (although soon to be available everywhere) and it will push an update out to your friends.  ”Friends” can be represented by several groups, the most intimate of which are those that you have friended on Foursquare itself.  You can also link your Foursquare account to Twitter and Facebook to send updates to your friends/fans/follower and associates there.  Once linked, you don’t necessarily need to ping these networks, I opt to keep about 2/3 of my Foursquare check-ins within the Foursquare network.

After you have checked in at a venue several things happen.  First, it will allow you to click through to some more information about the venue…showing tips that are added from other users, people that have been there recently (or are there currently) and a link to a map on Google.  It also shows nearby tweets, which is kind of cool for finding people in your neighborhood.  The crowning glory of Foursquare (pun intended) is in the form of mayorship…if you check in to a venue more than anybody else you become “mayor” of that location.  It will automatically ping Twitter that you have become mayor, and if you are stealing the mayorship from somebody it names them as well.

There are currently apps for iPhone and Android and “other devices” but really these are the two biggies.  If you have one of those phones, download the app now, add me as a friend, then read on. You can also find answers to most of your questions directly from the fine folks at Foursquare here.

For Users

If you want a fun, active social network to be a part of, Foursquare will fit the bill for you.  It’s really easy to add friends, and the home screen will show you updates about where your friends are and what they are doing (if they are putting up tips).  The best part? The competition.  By nature I think most people like to compete, and becoming the mayor of a venue, especially a favorite neighborhood haunt, gives you some cred.  It’s a lot of fun to constantly be fighting for mayorship (I’m trying to stay on top of M80 but am currently ousted….dang….) and a good way to keep tabs on your friends.  A bit stalker-ish? Perhaps, but it’s fine if you keep your friends list restricted to people that you really are friends with.

For Businesses

The possibilities for a tie-in with businesses are restricted only by your imagination.  There is a pretty cool program that you can opt in to for special offers to users of Foursquare, and honestly I think it’s effective. I was in San Francisco recently eating at a local Thai restaurant.  I checked in on Foursquare and was greeted with a small message that let me know there was an offer nearby.  I ended up going across the street to Froots and checked in for the first time…and received a free bowl of frozen yogurt as a reward.  Another example…I checked in to the a small restaurant and was told about an offer “just around the corner” from a theater that was going to give me a drink for free, just for showing the screen.

If you are  a business, big or small, think about what this means to you…you now have the ability to not only know who your customer is, but where they are.  Wouldn’t it be nice to know about a potential customer in your neighborhood? Wait for them to check in, then give them an offer they can’t refuse.

Why You Should Join Foursquare

I have no association with Foursquare, but I can recognize a good thing when I see it.  They have created a service that combines some key ingredients to be a viral-like social network (it’s easy to use, and it allows you to share information with your friends) and have built it upon a platform that can be beneficial to regular users and businesses.  Honestly, that is rare.  Banner ads are dead.  Sponsored tweets are treated like the plague.  Location aware ads that are recommended by your friends…now that is something that can really get some traction.

Give it a shot and let me know what you think.  Add me as a friend, and if I’m in your city, let’s try to connect! After all, social networks are just an extension of our real lives, and I look forward to meeting you face to face…

I always get a lot of interesting looks from people when I wear a particular t-shirt.  It was made years ago by my friend Brad Abare who runs Church Marketing Sucks, a site dedicated to helping churches suck less in their messaging.  Brilliant stuff.  Brad’s take over the years is that The Church has a good message to share, but generally falls on their face when they try to deliver it.  They are overbearing and off mark, and tend to alienate those that they are trying to talk to. Does that sound like any company you know? I’m sure it does, just that statement “overbearing and off mark” makes me think of a half dozen organizations; I’ll let your imagination fill in the names, I won’t do so here.

As it relates to social media, I think a very common mistake that many companies make is doing things the same old way.   Especially with large brands, once PR, HR and a few corporate attorneys get their hands on the social media marketing plan it starts to look like…well, what they’ve always done.  Carefully crafted letters and press releases are posted in new mediums and are then called “social media”.  Let me make something perfectly clear: the use of a social media channel does not mean that you are in fact engaged in social media.

For social media to be effective, old ways must be shed.  No longer can you preach (pardon the pun, given the opening paragraph) to your audience about your product from a podium.  Filling your Twitter stream with an RSS feed that is only pushing content out isn’t enough, because the podium doesn’t exist anymore.  Instead you are in a social circle, with people all around, talking, questioning and interacting with your brand.  If you don’t engage in a personal and likable way, your brand is doomed to fade into obscurity on that channel.

“But that’s the way we’ve always done it”.  I know, I understand.  It’s hard to move into a new arena without HR, PR and William from legal looking over everything that goes out…but it’s going to be okay.  In fact, it’s going to be more than okay, it’s going to be liberating.  You will find that once you break the bonds of “that’s the way we’ve always done it” you will find new freedom with your brand and your messaging, and ultimately that will turn into a nice bump in revenue.

Of course there are guidelines for everything that is done publicly, but that is another post for another time.

Those of you that have been following my adventures for a while know that I put my heart, soul and mind into social media.  Since writing my own blogging platform a decade ago (the billion dollar idea that I never capitalized on…) to my almost-obsessive fascination with brand interaction on channels like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, I am constantly observing and strategizing ways to make the interaction and engagement between companies and customers better through social media. I have spent quite a bit of time over the last couple of years consulting businesses of all types and sizes regarding their engagement (or lack thereof) within these online communities.  From Fortune 100 companies that distribute hardware all around the world to non-profit agencies that are doing their best to make a difference in the world, I have worked with groups to lend insight, support, ideas and action to social media programs. Given all of that, I’m quite pleased to announce that I have taken a new role within the industry.

I have recently signed on as the Senior Director of Social Media Strategy with M80, the Los Angeles based leading provider of social media marketing and digital publicity services to Fortune 500 brands.  That’s a mouthful, isn’t it?  Simply put, I work with some of the most amazing companies from around the globe, helping them to reach out, listen to and engage their current and future customers.

I’m humbled and excited to be in this role.  The staff of M80 consists of some of the brightest and most forward-thinking men and women that I have had the privilege to work with, and what we have been able to accomplish together in just the last few weeks in amazing to me.  Although I probably won’t get into granular detail with what we are doing (need to keep some of the wizard behind the curtain stuff behind the curtain still…) I will continue to write about how social media and technology impacts both brands and consumers.  I actually hope to be writing more now, as I’m spending so much time on airplanes.

Me and my Zune HD

I am working with some amazing global brands like Microsoft, LG, Dr Pepper, and Volkswagon.  All of our projects are incredibly interesting and exciting, and if you have been following me for some time you know that I am really passionate about one in particular: Zune.  In the interest of full disclosure, I do advise the truly delightful people at Zune, but my enthusiasm should come as no surprise to anybody that has been reading this blog for any amount of time.  I wrote my first Zune post in July 2006, and did the math about why Zune is superior in this June 2008 article (boy did I get blasted by the fanboys in the comments!) I’ll keep blogging, tweeting and Facebooking about them and our other clients, but now I can do it as a loyal consumer and an industry insider!

As usual, I will continue to use social media to make personal connections with people, both digitally and in the real world.  Twitter is my daily hotbed of activity, but I would also love to connect with you on LinkedIn and Facebook. If you want to subscribe to this blog, the feed is here.

I would love it if you would also start tracking M80 in the usual places like Twitter and our blog.  We’ll be striving to provide value to you, information that you can use (like this article) within your company or just for your own personal satisfaction.

Thank you so much for being a part of this community!

Another day, another phishing or malware scam on Twitter. It seems like these are happening entirely too often, and the reason is that people continue to ignore common sense. Very, very rarely will a site hijack an account of some type without getting input from the account holder. The scam du jour is a Twitter hijack attempt that asks for a username and password, and once received will not only DM your followers with a message, but will also post it publicly on your account. The message will appear as one of the following, or a close variant:

• hah, i think i seen u on here http://videos.dskjkiuw.com/
• this you? http://videos.dskjkiuw.com/
• lol this vid is funny. http://videos.dskjkiuw.com/
• haha check out this vid http://videos.dskjkiuw.com/

DO NOT FOLLOW THESE LINKS AND GIVE YOUR LOGIN INFORMATION!!! This page will take your Twitter login credentials and hijack your account.  As of right now it appears to only try to propagate itself by getting others to log in, but it could use your account for other reasons.  If you did receive this and you did “log in”, you must CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD IMMEDIATELY!!!

An interesting note about this phishing scam…the graphics are not even up to date.  It prompts you to go to a site that looks like the OLD Twitter login page, not the new one.  The images are below for comparison.

The Real Twitter Login Page

The FAKE Twitter Login Page

GroupM Search and comScore, Inc., (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, announced today the results of the first study ever conducted by comScore looking at the relationship between social media exposure and search behaviors. Conducted in tandem with social media agency M80, the study, “The Influenced: Social Media, Search and the Interplay of Consideration and Consumption,” reveals the dramatic correlation influenced discovery of brands through social media has with search behavior, including more lower-funnel searches and increased paid search click-through-rates (CTR). A white paper exploring the results and implications of the study is available on the GroupM Search blog, SearchFuel.

“Every day consumers express their intent via search. Now, we better understand how that intent is established via social media and the interplay between the channels,” said Chris Copeland, chief executive officer of GroupM Search – The Americas. “There is a valuable audience for advertisers to focus on who are engaged with brands through social media and search. The study further validates our view that media discovery, specifically a brand’s owned and earned media, is as important to success as the paid media we handle every day.  Generating upper-funnel awareness and influencing consideration through social media can produce better down-the-funnel performance with paid media, such as paid search.”

The research explored the correlation between social media exposure and search behavior over a three month period across different verticals, including automotive, consumer packaged goods and telecommunications. In addition to looking at total internet users, consumers were divided into three segments:

• Consumers exposed only to a brand’s paid search
• Consumers exposed to social media relevant to a brand’s category
  • A blog, message board/forum, user review, social networking site (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn), Twitter/micro-blogging, or video-sharing site (e.g., YouTube, Google Video), as well as a brand’s social marketing program’s “target” sites, or sites which have the most natural potential to hold content about a brand
• Consumers exposed to influenced social media specific to a brand
  • Identified sites containing distributed social marketing content of a brand’s social media program

Search behavior was broken into segments based on where queries fell among stages of the purchase funnel. This included upper-funnel terms expressing awareness and consideration (industry relevant terms, general product attributes) to lower-funnel terms expressing action and loyalty (campaign brand terms, brand product terms).

The study showed searchers who engage with social media, especially those exposed to a brand’s influenced social media, are far more likely to search for lower-funnel terms compared to consumers who do not engage with social media. Further, consumers exposed to a brand’s influenced social media and paid search programs are 2.8x more likely to search for that brand’s products compared to users who only saw paid search.

The study also showed a 50 percent CTR increase in paid search when consumers were exposed to influenced social media and paid search. This revealed consumers exposed to social media are more likely to click on a brand’s paid search ad compared to those exposed to the brand’s paid search alone.  Among searchers using a brand’s product name in the query, the CTR increased from 4.5 percent to 11.8 percent when users were exposed to both influenced social media and paid search around a brand.

In organic search, consumers searching on brand product terms who have been exposed to a brand’s social marketing campaign are 2.4x more likely to click on organic links leading to the advertiser’s site than the average user seeing a brand’s paid search ad alone.

“Social media-exposed consumers are far more likely to search for brand and product-related terms, and click on a brand’s paid search ad,” said Graham Mudd, vice president of comScore, Inc. “This finding provides strong evidence that investing in social media marketing can both increase initial brand consideration and drive higher conversion rates once the consumer has decided to purchase.”

“Advertisers need to explore their social media initiatives and how they impact user engagement and performance in other channels. This data suggest that social media marketing does positively affect consumer purchase consideration, specifically through the search channel,” said Todd Steinman, chief operating offer at M80.

The findings introduce several implications for the search marketing and social marketing industries. “As advertisers consider the allocation of paid media and the greatest opportunity for return, the topics of media discovery and influenced social discovery must be a part of the conversation,” said Copeland. “Blending paid, earned and owned media, and putting your brand in places where it can be discovered

and part of the natural conversation, will enable advertisers to influence the outcome of intention expressed by consumers, and capture this heavily engaged audience.

About GroupM Search

GroupM Search is the search marketing specialist division of GroupM, the media buying and planning arm of WPP responsible for more than 1/3 of the world’s media buying. Honored by OMMA Magazine and MediaPost as the 2008 Search Marketing Agency of the Year, GroupM Search employs 600 search marketing strategists globally and has the largest global footprint of any other search organization with 40 offices serving more than 40 countries. GroupM Search provides industry-leading search marketing strategies technology development, research, staffing and training to GroupM communications planning agencies through its search divisions including Maxus Search, MediaCom Search, MEC Interaction and MindShare Search, as well as the direct-to-client brands, Outrider, Catalyst Online and Quisma. Our search divisions provide clients with the right balance of human intelligence and search technology in order to deliver award-winning paid, organic and advanced search marketing strategies (mobile, social media, video, local and more) that help our clients become a part of the online conversation. Global search marketing perspective from talent across GroupM Search can be found on the industry blog, SearchFuel (www.searchfuel.com).  URL: www.groupmsearch.com

About M80

M80 is a leading provider of social media marketing and digital publicity services to Fortune 500 brands. Programs drive brand engagement and consumer activation through online word of mouth, conversation marketing, social network management, influencer outreach, digital asset syndication, online publicity and promotions. They empower consumer evangelists, create affinity and build community. Since 1998, the company has worked with hundreds of clients on thousands of programs, offering innovative solutions, producing quantifiable ROI. M80 is a founding member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) and was acquired by WPP’s GroupM in 2006 (LSE: WPP and NASDAQ: WPPGY). The company is headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in New York. URL: http://m80im.com/

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo

I think social media is amazing for many reasons, at the top of the list is the ability to turn online connections into real life relationships. I’ve experienced this many times, from tweetups to business meetings, and I marvel at how far we have come with technology over the last decade. Recently I wrote a post asking if there was a photographer in the San Francisco area that would be available to join me for an afternoon at Alcatraz Island with my kids, and advertised it only via my blog, Facebook and Twitter. I wasn’t sure what kind of a response I would get, and was surprised that I actually received over a dozen serious inquiries! Photographers from the very new to the very experienced got in touch with me, and all of them sounded great. I ended up picking Matthias Giezendanner from Matthias Photography, he sounded like he would really fit in well with me and the four kids, the pictures on his site looked great, and his bio really made the decision for me.

As he writes, “…relationships are what make great and unique pictures. That’s why I love documenting people, their families, and their celebrations and sincerely enjoy developing a working friendship with my clients.” That was exactly the attitude I was hoping to find, and I wasn’t disappointed when we met Matthias a few Saturdays ago.  In fact, he greatly exceeded my expectations.

Part of the deal that I advertised was that I would write a post about the photographer, pointing to their site, and then put up several tweets about it.  What I didn’t expect is that the experience would be so incredible and perfect that I would want to write more than just an obligatory “go visit this person’s site”.  Spending that day with my children was such a personal experience and one that I wanted to remember with pictures, and Matthias didn’t just take a lot of pictures that will help with that (although honestly I would have been happy with that level of service), he truly captured the mood and the feel of our adventure together, and so perfectly caught the kids’ personalities in his images.

When he sent me a link to the photos I was excited, but when I started looking through them I was just blown away.  He caught the playfulness and bond of my two youngest, the beauty and joy of my oldest daughter and the pensive introspection and kindness of my oldest son.  I was mesmerized by the images, and they brought back the joy and excitement of that day immediately.  As I write this and look back over those pictures again, I’m just stricken by how well they turned out.

Beyond the amazing photography, our day with Matthias was a true joy.  He was with us during very personal times, and also exploring and heading in every direction in a sea of people at a popular tourist destination.  My kids felt comfortable with him right away and in a very short time they seemed to forget that he was taking pictures of us.  He laughed with us, he saw the world through the eyes of a child at times and as such was able to anticipate and capture the moments that he saw coming.  We had such an amazing time with him, and Matthias made everything comfortable, easy and memorable.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and are in need of a photographer for your personal moments, like a wedding, an engagement or something unique like a day at Alcatraz Island, I can honestly and enthusiastically recommend Matthias Giezendanner.  He is professional, attentive, unassuming, gentle and artistic.  Please go visit his site, look at his work, then get in touch with him.  I have no doubt that, like me, you will look forward to another time that you will be able to work with him.  Thank you Matthias for all that you did, you perfectly captured a very special day to me.

I love the show Mad Men, the character development is incredible and the behind-the-scenes voyeurism of a fictitious 1960s ad agency is riveting. For those of us in the marketing space, Mad Men is almost required viewing.

Sesame Street, a show that has been popular with kids since before I was born, recently did a fantastic take on Mad Men.  I love how they captured the feel of the show, with the exception of the mid-day boozing, smoking and womanizing. Take 2:15 out of your day to watch this great video, I think it will make you smile.

UPDATE: It seems that the artist in question, Lily Allen, has deleted her anti-piracy blog after getting too much heat about areas she had infringed upon copyright laws.  For a complete update, check out this article on TorrentFreak.

Two interesting items came to my attention today, both related to copyright issues on blogs and/or websites.   One relates to a new company formation using the acronym of a larger (but unrelated) organization in their name and website, the other is the seemingly hypocritical case of a musician that steals blog material to make a point about musical piracy.  After exploring both of these at great length, it became clear to me that most people (myself included) don’t fully understand copyright usage as it pertains to online publications.  I’m going to post some thoughts here, but please understand that I am not an attorney, so this is not legal advice.  Consider this your daily dose of common sense in social media.

People are finding the ability to communicate ideas and media quickly through blogs, Twitter and other social media streams wonderful…it’s hard not to.  In just a few seconds, the thoughts rattling around your head can be transmitted to any number of people, sometimes to a very large audience.  Given the ease of publication, and also the ease of copying information from other people’s sites, I think it’s often tempting to put up a quick post, tweet or picture that doesn’t belong to you without given proper credit.  Sometimes “borrowing” material from another source isn’t done intentionally, sometimes it is.

I was shocked to find out that well known musician Lily Allen violated copyright rules on a recent blog post of hers.  What makes this common practice a story worth noting is that she took material from another site word for word without giving credit or linking over for the sole purpose of complaining about theft of services in the music industry! What irony…to complain about stealing material by stealing material!  The site that had their post blatantly ripped off was very gracious about it, giving Ms. Allen written permission to use their work, even though she never asked. I love the tongue in cheek question posed by the site in question,TechDirt, “By the way, does this mean we can post her music to our site without crediting her now, too?”

I certainly hope that Ms. Allen has a good PR team behind her, monitoring the social media space so that she can do the right thing and correct her post.  In case they are reading this post, I offer these tips in knowing when and how to give attribution when necessary.

1. If you didn’t write, record, photograph or design it, it’s not yours.  Sometimes the most difficult truths to adhere to are those that are the most obvious.  I don’t think there is much more that I need to say on this point…if you didn’t create it, then you need to give proper recognition.
2. If you’re going to quote a source, use small pieces. The Copyright Act says that “fair use…for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.”  Although most of what I write on my blog is original, I do sometimes pull from other sources.  When I do, I try to pull as little as possible and still be able to make my point.
3. Get to know Creative Commons. I have a disclaimer on the right side of my blog that says “Some Rights Reserved” with a brief explanation and links to what it all means.  In other words, I am giving blanket permission to anybody and everybody to use material that I write, with some restriction.  I ask that they do not alter what I write, and I ask that they give credit to me.  Other than that, have at it…with my site. If you want to easily create similar HTML code for your site, go here.  If you come across a site that you would like to pull material from, ask them.  Most people are surprisingly gracious with this, and I would imagine that if a celebrity like Ms. Allen were to ask somebody for permission to reprint them, they would be happy to allow it.
4. Link, link, link! It’s pretty rare that I will write a post without a link.  I do this for two reasons: first, to add value to my readers so they can explore an article or subject more if they chose, and second to make sure that I am giving credit where credit is due.  Do us all a favor, when you quote or reference a person or site, try to add a link.
5. Educate yourself if you’re going to be snarky. I announced earlier today that I let two domains lapse, one called atandtblows.com, the other attiscrappy.com.  Under trademark laws, people are allowed to own and operate sites like that as long as it is a non-misleading site.  In other words, nobody is going to think that AT&T actually owns, operates or condones anything at those URLs.  Using a company name or even referencing another person or organization in a not-so-flattering manner can get you in trouble quickly. I found this page to be lengthy but well written; it will teach you a lot.  Did you know that there is a legal difference between a parody, a satire and a joke?
6. When in doubt, skip it. Honestly, this is the best advice I can give.  If you want to use some material but aren’t sure if it’s okay for whatever reason (the site’s terms are unclear, you can’t contact the owner, etc.) then it’s just not worth it.  Posting someone’s photo or thought may seem innocent enough, and the reality is you probably won’t get caught unless you have a really popular site, but in this day and age of sue-first-ask-questions-later (really interesting story by the way, click thru if you have time) only one thing is certain: people are lawsuit happy, and in the end only the attorneys are going to win.

I’m no saint, and I’m sure that I’ve violated these rules many times without meaning to…you probably have as well.  With just the smallest bit of education however, I think most copyright and trademark lawsuits can be avoided; so take the time to consider what you are writing before you hit the “publish” button.  For a really comprehensive write-up about these issues and a few more check out this page, it’s a great resource that answers a lot of questions for bloggers and others in social media.

Photo credit: Neil365 , used under Creative Commons license