A letter to Super Bowl ad agencies

Dear Super Bowl advertising agencies,

You really missed the mark this year.

Not only were your ad campaigns offensive (GoDaddy) and sexist (Dodge Charger and FloTV “Spine Removal” to name a few), but did you really do your market research? Were there focus groups prior to ad development? Did you review the age and gender of Super Bowl television viewers?

The only company that seemed to get the memo regarding good advertising practice was Pepsi.

To Pepsi, and to companies around the world, the days when mass-market media is the sole vehicle to reach an audience are officially over. Instead of pouring millions of dollars into a Super Bowl commercial, Pepsi has started a social-media campaign to promote its “Pepsi Refresh” initiative. Pepsi plans to give away $20 million in grant money to fund projects in six categories: health, arts and culture, food and shelter, the planet, neighborhoods and education. People can go to the Pepsi website refresheverything.com — which can also be accessed through Facebook and Twitter — to both submit ideas and vote on others they find appealing. (Excerpt from Time Magazine, by Sean Gregory Feb. 3, 2010.)

I’m not implying that everyone should ban television advertising and jump onto the social media bandwidth wagon, but I was shocked … no, stunned … no, floored that advertisements in the 2010 Super Bowl didn’t incorporate new media methods into it’s advertising. Some may say the Barney Stinson CBS advertisement was invoking social media practices, but I’m not convinced.

This year over 106 million people watched the Super Bowl, beating all television viewing records. And that’s an engaged audience of viewers, all waiting for the next commercial to make comment. So I ask:

1. Why were there no call to action ads during the game asking viewers to vote for their favorite advertisements?
2. Why were there no “text to win” incentive advertisements?
3. Why were there no Twitter or Facebook engagement advertisements?

During the Super Bowl, viewers on Twitter could follow the hashtag  #brandbowl. The rants and raves flowed. Winners were proclaimed, and losers were branded by a spit of hate in 140 characters. If you want to learn what people really thought of your ads, start here, not CNN.

While I’m highly disappointed in your work this year, I hope you at least learn from your lessons. Follow-up on tweets and Facebook comments. Think about engaging your audience in 2011. Advertising ROI starts there, in the social media community, not at the cash register.

Sincerely,

Colleen

There is a community literally in your backyard!

My guest blog today is an inspiration. Keith Privette challenges us to take the knowledge we have about social media to the next level by doing good with the information. By educating small businesses about social media, we can help create not only stronger businesses, but stronger communities.

Do you have community education programming, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, church, local government offices, local businesses, and people within five miles of your house? Do you have an online specialty to offer these organizations at a low cost? If you are reading this blog post I have a feeling you have one or two things to offer your community. I see a lot of frustration with trying to convince major corporations, mid-size corporations, non-profits and state governments to start using online strategies to inform, educate, and engage their communities. Getting anywhere? There are small incremental wins but nothing significant and meaningful, right?

Maybe we are looking in the wrong direction. Take a second and think side-to-side, and I believe you may find many, many, many opportunities to make huge economic and people impact. Most economists, politicians, and civic leaders say that small businesses are the backbone of our economic success. Why not put together some real strategies for making your community go social online. With some simple strategies for engagement and education you can connect your whole community in positive and beneficial ways. I think this strategy will work in cities of any size.  I live in Watertown, Minn., and we have 4,500 residents with a handful of small businesses and civic organizations. I started looking around and thinking out loud “what could I do or what could people with specialties do to make this town or any town learn, strategize and execute social?”

Start by figuring out what strategy you want to embark on. Will this be humanitarian, economic or a hybrid? Each one of these models will take the right mindset. If you set out wanting to do this as pure humanitarian effort you will be putting time in and no money back.  This is different than wanting to get paid for time and effort, and when I say “paid” I don’t mean you can apply for a Black Card based on the money you are going to make (or maybe you can).  This is going to be a personal preference. The strategies I have been thinking about are a hybrid approach which donate some time, and in return, get financial reward for some services.

Here are things we all can be doing in our communities to make what I think can make a huge economic difference to the ecosystem of our capitalistic system.

Community Education Programming

• Offer reoccurring classes about social media within their programming guidelines.
• Teach the community education programmers how to use all the tools and processes the Internet has to offer for their programming promotion.
• Offer classes on different topics, discussion generators, or hands-on set up and management of social media accounts.
• Offer a set of 101, 201, 301 level classes so small business owners can progress with their understanding.

Small Business UnSummit Sessions

Introduction and set up of location. Location based tools help small business owners set up their business on these new location based technologies. Some of the classes could center around getting their physical location set up on these location based technologies.

1. Foursquare.com
2. Brightkite.com
3. Gowalla.com
4. Yelp.com

Introduction to Twitter (depending on participants you could structure based on experience level)

1. Good techniques, suggestions, finding conversations and engagements to have with customers
2. Twitter handle creation
3. Review conversations your community is having to show content and relevancy
4. Following and follow back
5. Retweeting (RT)
6. Direct messaging (DM)
7. Create lists based on engagements you have with customers, vendors and suppliers
8. Using API
9. Using Twitter tools – Tweetdeck, mobile Twitter clients, Hootsuite, Cotweet, Tweetstats, Squawq

Facebook Fan Page

1. Creating and finding Fans
2. Events
3. Videos
4. Pictures
5. Conversations

YouTube

1. How-to videos
2. Company functions and special events
3. Making commercials. Seriously you can do it!
4. Subscribing to customers and promoting their videos

Twitpic’ing

1. Taking pictures everyday in your business shares the experiences with your customers when they are not there
2. Connect other customers by taking their pictures, show people your customers
3. Flip video and editing

Google Alerts

1. Business on the Internet
2. Industry
3. Community following

Google Reader

1. Follow the content that customers are publishing. (Bet they can give businesses ideas and suggestions.)
2. Follow people in your industry, follow your competitors!
3. Company blog
4. Owners
5. Employees
6. Vendors
7. Customers

Offer reoccurring classes or at least open lab time at a local establishment and rotate to expose each business to each other’s business

Rotating topics to really engage and lead and guide these business owners how this is a form of marketing their own business

Ad\PR\Marketing Agencies| Freelancers |Independent Consulting |Social Business Consulting Firms

• Small business division
• Host seminars and workshops
• Account managers and team dedicated to full service marketing campaigns for the small businesses, with more of the strategy being on the web.
• High volume-low cost business model to make it cost affective for the small business clients as well as for the people and companies providing the services.  This model will also provide practical working knowledge for new graduates or people transitioning careers.
• Mentoring new firm employees as well as mentoring small business owners on effective public relations, advertising and marketing their small business with a mix of tradition techniques as well as social media.
• Teach and show small businesses how to use social tools and techniques internally to make their businesses more productive and efficient.
• Show small businesses how to use cloud computing applications and social business platforms.

These are just a start to strategies that the whole social media, social business, and social technology community can do to help the communities in and around us. These are the businesses that are truly the backbone of our economic explosion. Plus, this investment of time, money and resources will create great economic return on investment! So, if we call ourselves a community and community managers, we need to start looking side-to-side and right outside our patio windows to make a difference. I bet you know more of what is going on in a big city in another state than what goes on down on your main street. We need to help educate on how to strategize, do and continued to stay engaged within social media.  If we don’t, then who will?  We need to help our small businesses NOW!

I will be exploring the Small Business UnSummit and community education strategies for Watertown, Minn. Yes, I eat my own dog food. Will you?

Twitter whisperer

Since September 2009, I’ve been doing something for the first time in my life. I have watched every single Minnesota Vikings football game this season. I have never been a big football fan, but the Brett Favre fever that spread across the state even caught my attention.

What has really heightened the experience for this fair weather football fan was watching the #Vikings hashtag stream on Twitter during the games. Yes, I sit on the couch with my laptop and watch the Twitter stream and the game simultaneously. Like following a conference hashtag, the #Vikings Twitter stream gave me information on plays and provided fairly hilarious commentary from Minnesota fans. A co-worker once said that hashtags are like “whispering” to others on Twitter. I couldn’t agree more. You get a chance to read others thoughts about a subject, no matter where they are located. And since the Vikings lost the NFC championship game, there was a lot of strong whispering going on from Minnesota to China, based on my stream tracking.

Try it sometime. Find a subject that interests you and follow the stream. On any given day I follow hashtag conversations about the Twin Cities, upcoming tweetups, the Minnesota Wild, news topics – anything you can imagine. Hashtags are a terrific resource.

With a shiny new ballpark nearly complete, I plan to follow the whisperings of thousands on the open day of Minnesota Twins baseball, come April.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the Twitter

The following post is the first in what I’m hoping will become a series of guest journal entries. I asked my friend Kay Roseland to describe her experience with social media, and found her insight and discovery a sheer delight.

When I graduated from the University of St. Thomas in May 2008 with an MBA in marketing (finally!), there was a certain inclination to say,  ‘Well, now that’s done!’ No more studying. Uh uh…. I was officially done learning. And that lasted about as long as it took for social media to enter my world.

As soon as I heard the words “social media,” I began yet another round of intense learning. I had been on LinkedIn for about three years and had managed to only accumulate 11 connections and no recommendations. Obviously there was work to be done.

About a year ago, I signed up for Twitter.  Wheeee!!! I was a cool twithead! Or maybe not. I was following a few people but mostly I was thinking, ‘Where are the fun, smart people?’ I would read about amazing exchanges on Twitter but hadn’t a clue why I wasn’t reading them on Twitter myself.

Slowly, I discovered hashtags: #SMBMSP –  #MIMA ! But what finally turned the corner for me was Blogwell. I knew amazing social media types were meeting at General Mills headquarters and I thought I had signed up for it.

About two days before the event, I found out:

• There was an event fee
• I had not paid the event fee
• The event was sold out

On the afternoon of Blogwell, I was poised over my laptop, smoke coming out of my ears. ‘It’s so unfair. I wanna be there!’

Wanting to vent my frustration somewhere, I started following the hashtag for Blogwell ( #blogwell). Low and behold, miracles occurred.

Many, many, many tweets were coming from General Mills as the afternoon’s presenters began. Many, many, many, many tweets started summarizing the main points of the speakers.    As I tried to read the tweets, every 30 seconds or so, a message came through from Twitter: Another 195 tweets are now available.

After this happened at least another five times, I had a sudden blast of creativity and tweeted:

At the rate tweeple are tweeting at #blogwell, the Twitter whale can’t be far off…

Two things happened shortly thereafter:

• The Twitter whale appeared and Twitter shut down
• I got retweeted by someone at Blogwell

If I couldn’t physically be there, at least I could get retweeted!

Slowly the power of hashtags dawned on me.   Plus this power was fluid in time.  People at conferences tweeted:

• before events          (find people to meet at the event)
• during the event     (virtually whispering to each other during each seminar)
• after the event         (superb place to mine new people to follow and meet)

Want three more ways to find people to follow in your interest area?

1. Read about a smart person on SmartBrief or on the Web?  Do a name search on Twitter. If they are listed, you now can follow and have insight into their thought processes, as though you were their best buddy.  Imagine if this had been available throughout history? (Although I am not sure Winston Churchill could have limited himself to 140 characters.)   User hint: search for a name with and without spaces; twitter folks typically drop the space.  Search for Jane Doe and JaneDoe.

1. Another way to garner smart folks to follow? Scan the list of followers of someone you admire on twitter; follow the folks they are following.

1. Another way: go to the lists of people you admire and follow the people on those lists. It’s really easy – click, click, click.

One final point about Twitter; for the most part, it’s like the best cocktail party you’ve ever been at. Folks are casual, informal and willing to meet you. I recommend using the skills mom and the Girl Scouts taught you:  politeness, interest in others, the ability to listen. But the really good news is a sense of humor and joie de vivre will open doors to learning you may never have imagined.

And that’s how I stopped worrying and learned to love the Twitter.

Kay Roseland is author of “Shareology,” a marketing blog with insight into retail, communications, marketing and networking. You can find Kay networking on Twitter at @kayloire and LinkedIn.

Guests coming to stay

I’m excited to have a few guest bloggers in the works, and hope to post their social media stories shortly. I love lights-on-in-the-attic stories. We probably all remember when the heavens opened, angels sang, and we suddenly understood how Twitter actually worked! My future guest blog posts will touch on these stories, and give creative insight as to what can be learned from each experience.

Stay tuned~

What to do when you have to cancel Christmas

The biggest winter storm of 2009 couldn’t have hit the Midwest at a worse time – Christmas week. With the plan to drive from Minnesota to Kansas for the holiday, all hopes were dashed as the storm progressed. A foot of snow in Minnesota is one thing. Driving on a quarter inch of ice through three states is another. Christmas with family as we knew it, was cancelled.

Suddenly with no plan, no food and no decorations to make it feel like a holiday, my husband and I had to get creative. Where was the tree? In storage. Ornaments? One “our first Christmas” and nothing more. Elegant dinner morsels in the fridge? More like a yogurt and half a jar of pickles. The overall picture was bleak.

However, a recession year has taught me one thing. You have to improvise because something is always going to hold you back.

Was your budget cut this year? Staff let go? Marketing projects canceled? If so, what did you do about it? I’m guessing you didn’t sit on your thumbs.

Social media takes time, but oh, the reward when you have limited resources! So what one simple social media tactic can potentially sub-in for your long-gone marketing budget? A Twitter account? Facebook fan page? Wiki entry?

Nope.

Networking.

Networking is one of the best advertising and marketing tactics to get yourself, your company or just your ideas out to the masses. It’s remarkable how far good networking can take you. In 2009 I found a new volunteer opportunity, put a college graduate in touch with an agency looking for an intern, was able to participate in a workshop panel through people I met on Twitter, and even scored free tickets to business seminars, concerts and comedy shows. There were also the meet-ups and new friends found who spread my message of good social media will to THEIR masses.

What will 2010 hold? On a smaller recession-friendly budget we will have to turn to social media more than ever.

I hope your 2010 social media plans turn out like this past holiday did for us. Down, but not out, we pulled out the tree on Christmas Eve, found the one ornament we owned and cut ribbon to make bows for the rest of the branches, and went out for Chinese for Christmas dinner. Sometimes when the world is slightly tipped on its ear, improvising gives you the perspective to see resources in a new light.

Happy holidays

The last quarter of this year has been chaotic, leaving either no time or no brain power to write for this blog. I have stored up my lessons, observations and the like, and plan to kick out new material in 2010.

Until then, my best wishes to you and yours during this holiday season.

What New York City teaches you

There are a lot of things I love about New York. I love the chaotic noise and bustle of 5th Ave. – and the ability to walk just one block from the avenue into Central Park to peaceful serenity. I also love hearing the different languages, sampling foods from around the world and admiring fashion I cannot afford. New York is truly one of those places with something for everyone.

All of the things I love about New York also scream “coexistence.” Every race, walk of life, profession and creed live in a very small space together. It’s not perfect. There are social and economical issues at hand, but my very elementary observance is that people can work and function together. And the city has thrived for centuries despite depression, gangs, attacks and political unrest. Is it possible that our natural human instinct is to thrive, survive and work together? It would seem so.

While my simple analysis is in the neighborhood of trite, turn the analogy on your own work world. How can you coexist in your work environment with someone who doesn’t speak your language or eats fragrant (maybe stinky) food? What can you dialogue and learn from each other? If anything, lunch could be tastier than you would have imagined.

Cheers~

Why the health industry needs marriage counseling

Have you ever wondered why people in the health industry don’t talk with each other very often? I’m not referring to doctors and nurses. My question is why don’t doctors, hospital administrators, health insurance companies, PPO networks, medical device companies, third-party administrators and most importantly, patients, talk to each other on a regular basis?

I won’t bore you with the history of health insurance, but “This American Life” from Chicago Public Radio did a very interesting historical segment on it in mid-October on “Someone Else’s Money.” There are also interesting segments on the confusion of medical coding and brand name versus generic prescription drugs.

When I hear these stories they sound very familiar, and I wonder what would happen if each segment of the industry talked about its struggles. In a nutshell, I think the entire health industry needs marriage counseling.

1. We are withdrawn from one another.
2. We typically have nothing nice to say about each other.
3. We can’t agree on goals.
4. We don’t trust each other.
5. We don’t fight fair.

Right now health reform is in the hands of Washington. Not just health “care” but the entire industry, which in turn affects every person who goes to the doctor or hospital. My guess is that’s pretty much 100 percent of the population at one time or another.

This is the time for leaders in the health industry to introduce themselves to their industry neighbor. Think of the possibilities. What would happen if an online forum of doctors, nurses, administrators, insurance companies, hospitals, consultants and the like talked to each other, and invited patients to join the conversation?

Take the example learned from 9/11. Firefighters went into the buildings. Police went into the buildings. The mission was the same – to help people. But they were not on the same radio system and couldn’t hear what the other was doing. With more communication, the number of lives saved might have slightly increased.

Where would you like to begin?

Give me a capital “C!”

I’ve worked in the marketing communications field for 15 years. In that time I’ve realized that I have less answers now than I did as s a wet-behind-the-ears college graduate. However, the one thing I’ve gained from my experience is the realization that “collaboration” is not just a fancy word. It is the core foundation of a good team. Collaboration with a capital “C!”

I don’t believe in specialists or gurus anymore. I used to. I thought being a “specialist” gave you advantage over anyone else who lumped along day after day. However, I’ve found that having one specialist and lots of other people on one team creates another “C” word – co-dependence. This type of structure doesn’t encourage team building. It doesn’t cultivate creativity. All it does is pigeon hole people into specific functions. How can a team develop, grow, mature in that type of environment?

Ponder your professional surroundings. Do you bring your department together as a team regularly? Is there an open ended exchange of ideas or a central place where individuals can post words, project concepts or even doodle to keep the exchange going? Collaboration isn’t just a one-hour a week activity. It’s constant. Think of the impressionists. Monet, Manet and Renoir would spend days and weeks together just painting. And you can see their collaboration in their artwork. They may not have been discussing the process every moment, but by working together collectively they produced beautiful paintings that were far different scenes and techniques than when they painted alone.

How will you establish a canvas of collaboration today?