iMediaRants

This post may wander a bit so I’ll apologise for that now. As I sit in my living room I can watch TV on my LCD TV or I could watch it on my laptop or I could use my LCD as my computer monitor… Or I could use my iPhone as a phone (how old school of me) or I could use it to watch a movie, TV, listen to music, play games, send an email take pictures and more. Media really has become truly ubiquitous. Once upon a time we waited (impatiantly) for technology to catch up to our whims and desires, now it seems like technology is waiting for us.

Here is the PDF of my recent presentation at the Annual AMA Career Day. Thanks again for both your time and attention.
Enjoy!

AMA Career Day Presentation

Enjoy.

1. DigiMarketing: The Essential Guide to New Media and Digital Marketing by Kent Wertime and Ian Fenwick
2. Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. By Seth Godin
3. Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. By Charlene Li:
4. Creative Company: How St. Luke’s Became “the Ad Agency to End All Ad Agencies”. By Andy Law:
5. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
6. The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam
7. The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media. By Paul Gillen
8. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds (Author)
9. Now is Gone: A Primer on New media for Executives and Entrepreneurs by Geoff Livingston with Brian Solis
10. Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business by Larry Weber

WAIT THERE’S MORE!
Here’s a link to 20 FREE online eBooks related to Social Media.
20 Free eBooks About Social Media | chrisbrogan.com

Enjoy!

As we all continue with the concept of sharing ourselves with the world I thought I’d share a few things that might make things just a bit easier for you. Remember, don’t limit yourself to connecting with your friends. Think about reaching the (until now for most) the unreachable like Shaq, Barack, Hillary, MC Hammer, Dave Matthews, Britney Spears and more…

Contact Management

1. TweetBeep – Google Alerts meets Twitter. Great service that notifies you whenever your name (or any other word you specify) is mentioned. Use it to catch @replies that might have been missed, for reputation management, or customer support (you’d be surprised how many people vent their frustrations on Twitter).
2. GroupTweet – Great tool to use if you want to send public tweets simultaneously but only to a select group of people. For instance: sending notifications to your web development team or special updates to members of your family.
3. DoesFollow? – Find out if who if the person you’re following is following you back.
4. FriendOrFollow – Gives you breakdown of a) those you follow who do the same, and b) a list of those you don’t follow but follow you.
5. Twubble – Want to find more Twitter peeps to follow? Twubble is a sweet site that searches through your “friend graph” to get an idea of your current social network. It then returns a visual list of those who you might consider following based on that information.
6. Tweet2Tweet – Allows you to view a conversation in a much easier fashion.
   

   Twitter for Bloggers

7. Twitter Tools – This plugin allows you to “pull in” your tweets to your blog. It can also updates Twitter whenever you make a new blog post. (note: you might have to scroll below the fold to find the plugin on the site)
8. Twitter for WordPress – Simple plugin that also “pulls in” your tweets using a sidebar widget. Very easy to use; in fact, this is what I’m currently using on www.deontee.com.
   

   Search and Directories

9. Twitter Search (formerly Summize) – Hands down, one of the best tool for finding Twitter conversations and conducting niche/keyword research.
10. Twitscoop – Real-time current events for Twitter. Use it to research the latest trends and to find out what’s the hottest buzz… Also has a nifty tag cloud feature that’s quite useful.
11. Twellow – A great Twitter directory… Fantastic way to connect with others in you niche and industry. Also links to other social networking profiles such as Facebook and LinkedIn. P.S. Don’t forget to add your profile as well.
12. Just Tweet It – Another cool directory. This one allows you to be notified of new additions to your particular niche/industry category. Great for connecting with like-minded individuals.
13. Twitterholic – Showcases the top 100 Twitter users. Test out your reverse engineering skills by following with these Twitter rockstars and find out what they’re doing to gain followers and increase their visibility.
    

    Time Savers, To-Do’s, and Productivity

14. Tweet Later – An essential service for many Twitter users. This site is all about automation. With Tweet Later, you can automatically 1) send ‘thank you’ and welcome messages to new followers, 2) “return-follow” your new followers and 3) schedule tweets to be delivered at a specified time in the future.
15. Remember the Milk – The popular task management service now has Twitter integration to let you manage and create tasks right from Twitter. Notification and task reminders can also be setup to be delivered.
16. TwitterCal – If Google is your calendar of choice, take a look at this site which lets you add entries just by sending tweets.
17. iTwitter – An application that integrates with your iGoogle homepage.
    

    Desktop Software/Clients

18. Tweetdeck – An absolutely fantastic Twitter client. This Adobe Air application integrates with your desktop and gives you a enormously wide range of features and controls to extend and enhance your Twitter experience. You can sort your tweets into replies, groups, keywords, topic, etc. Other features include multiple columns, overnight updates while you sleep (or bar hop), and tweet filters.
19. Twhirl – Another great Twitter client. Features include the ability to cross post (to sites like Jaiku and Pownce), a built-in URL shortener, and the ability to connect to other services such as Seesmic and Friend Feed.
    

    Status Updaters

20. Ping.fm – Update Twitter and a plethora of social networking sites such as Myspace, Facebook, and Pownce at the same time… Wonderful time saver!
21. Hellotxt – Another good status updater for your social networking.
    

    Creative Uses, Interactivity

22. TwitPic – Easily post your photos and share them on Twitter.
23. TwitSay – Record a 10 second voice message and share it with your Twitter peeps. Use it as a quick and creative way to engage your followers, especially when you can’t text or don’t have access to a computer.
24. Twitter Keys – Have you ever seen icons and shapes in someone’s tweets? You might’ve even sent some yourself. Well, this cool site provides you with a bookmarklet that you can drag to your bookmarks toolbar. Click it to reveal a nifty, little popup with plenty of characters and icons you can use to spice up your tweets and make them stand out.
25. TwittyTunes – If you’re using the FoxyTunes plugin for Firefox, you can use TwittyTunes to easily tweet about the song you’re jamming to online. You can also share the sites you’re viewing, and videos you’re watching.
26. TwitHire – A free job listing board. Employers can promote their employment opportunities to social savvy job seekers… One of the most unique uses of Twitter I’ve seen.
27. Straw Poll – Need to get feedback? Create a poll and solicit responses just by tweeting… Cool interface, too!
    

    URL Shorteners

28. Snip URL – As I’m sure you know, Twitter doesn’t lend itself well to the long-winded. With only 140 characters at your disposal, shortening long website addresses is a must. Snip URL is one of the best in the game, in my opinion. You can create an account, easily share your links, and even view unique clicks (something many similar sites don’t offer).
29. TinyURL – One of the most popular URL shorteners around. Also has a bookmarklet you can drag to your bookmarks toolbar… Allows you to create shortened URLs with a single click.
30. is.gd – With only four letters (and a dot), is.gd is great for URL shortening.
    

    Account Management and Notifiers

31. TweetTake – Backup your followers, favorites, or just your entire Twitter account. Why? Remember the Twitter crash of Black Thursday (back in July 2008 when scores of users lost followers overnight)? I rest my case.
32. Twitterless – Service that sends you a DM (direct message) when you lose a follower.
33. Qwitter – Another services that sends you a notification when someone stops following you. This one sends you an email instead of a DM. Caveat: I think the jury is still out on these services. There might be legitimate reasons someone stops following you (e.g. they’re “following” you more on Pownce or Facebook). Or, there might not be a reason at all. However, this service might be good to use if you’ve been losing followers and want to find out why. Perhaps, you’re adding more noise than value. Maybe you tweet entirely too much. Regardless, use at your own discretion. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend confronting the person who un-followed you. Use this tool for research, not battle. (Make love, not war.)
    

    Stats, Metrics, and Tracking

34. TweetBurner – Another essential service to add to your Twitter toolbox. This service lets you track the links that you share on Twitter… Also acts as a URL shortener.
35. Grader for Twitter – A tool that grades your relative reach and influence on Twitter. It also suggests a few people you should follow based on your profile.
36. Twitter Counter – Simple to use site (just plug in your Twitter name) and get stats that span a week. Use it to chart your progress in acquiring followers. Also offer a chicklet counter that can be added to your website or blog.
37. TweetStats – Add this stats tool to the essentials pile. This site offers detailed stats of your tweets, who you sent them to the most and when you usually sent them… Very nice breakdown of data.
38. twInfluence – Great tool for measuring the reach of your account and your entire network… Measures metrics like your “velocity” and “social capital.”
39. Hashtags – A service that lets you tag your posts as a way to group and organize them with others.
40. TwitterTise – Brand advertising meets Twitter… Track your links and measure their effectiveness.
    

    Mobile

41. Twittelator – Twitter for your iPhone… Comes with a massive and very impressive feature list.
42. TwitterBerry – Crackberry users rejoice! The latest version boasts new features and a larger cache.
    

    Honorable Mentions

43. Twitter Digest – A site that helps you read your Twitter updates in a more manageable fashion. You can view the tweets in a “digest” format in either a Web page or RSS feed.
44. Twittad – Monetize your Twitter account by selling your background space. The idea is interesting, but I’m not sure how much it’ll catch on (or even if it should). Regardless, it’s definitely something worth checking out.
45. TwitterIM – IM junkies can send tweets using their Windows Live chat client.
46. CurseBird – A hilarious site that culls the profanity laced tweets together and displays them in a real-time feed. Great for a quick laugh — especially when a sports team is playing. Ah, the things that piss people off.
47. Twitturly – Think Digg meets Twitter. Twitturly is a site that acts as a real-time link tracker. A great way to find out what’s the latest buzz on Twitter. As of now, a lot of the entries appear to be links pointing to the same few topics, but as Twitter grows, I believe the usefulness of Twitturly will too. Regardless, there are still some gems to be found. A site worth checking out, in my opinion.

First I’d like to state a couple “digital housekeeping” nots.

1. No, Twitter is not the new blog…HOWEVER, it may be one of the best ways to socialize your blog or personal brand.
2. No, Twitter is not the new Facebook or for that matter LinkedIn. Personally I use Twitter for for a few reasons, immediacy, brevity and peer-2-peer networking to name a few – much more work related. (Note: Seldom used for personal or photo sharing…that’s facebook.)

Here’s a short list of some of my favorite bloggers/Tweeters:
David Armano: http://darmano.typepad.com
Peter Kim: http://www.beingpeterkim.com
DrivePM: http://www.ovrdrv.com
Matt Dickman: http://technomarketer.typepad.com
Steve Rubel: http://www.micropersuasion.com
Kevin Rose: http://kevinrose.com

And lastly…you guessed it, 22squareds blog: http://blog.22squared.com/

When it comes to engagement planning I guess you could say (for most companies) that “Elvis has left the building”. Take a look at the below engagement methodology (outline) and let me know the next time you see ELVIS.

E - Engage, L – Listen + Learn, V – Visualize, I – Innovate, S – Socialize

Brandon Murphy @ 22squared related this (ELVIS) methodology in the following way…

Just as Elvis reinvented rock music with his swaying hips and rockin beats, the world of marketing is being reinvented too.  Let’s take Elvis’ lead…

Effort and Experimentation
Elvis didn’t reinvent music by accident.  Like many artists, he poured his heart and soul into it, perfecting his style and music along the way.  To better engage customers, we have to do the same thing.  It’s much more effort, because there are so many ways to engage customers.  Conducting measured experiments constantly is the only ways marketers can keep up.

Live and Learn
We should learn from everything we do, and we should live everything we learn.  That not only means acting on our successes and failures, but seeking to provide things to consumers that enable the life they want to live, learn what they want to learn, be who they want to be. Engagement isn’t communicating, it’s providing people with value through communication.

Vet and Vent
Invite customers into the development process.  The more they feel involved in designing something (product, communication, content…) the more they’ll propagate it with others.  Let them vent, add, adjust and carry on among each other.  Enlist your most loyal customers into your marketing R&D efforts.

Invent Interactions
Sometimes taking advantage of an existing medium or channel isn’t enough.  Sometimes we have to invent new ways to create meaningful interactions with and among people.  That could mean using a combination of channels in a new way, or inventing a new channel all on its own.

Socialize and Serve
After experimenting, living, learning, vetting and inventing, it’s time to let customers propagate your product, message or content. Giving people some type of social currency, valued content or helpful utility can be the best way to encourage them to share with others. Every launch should be socialized before it’s broadcasted.

Sure the family and turkey are the two highlights to any holiday celebration however my favorite part is talking tech with my father-in-law…seriously! Not only does he have great insight into this space but he always recommends a site or three that I’ve somehow missed. Last years big one was www.cooliris.com. Being a visual strategist (x-creative director) this Firefox plug-in made my year. Can’t wait to see what I come back with this year… stay tuned.

I get a lot of questions like…”what’s new in interactive” and “what should we look for next year”. Since it is account planning season I thought I would post 5 things that should be on everyones mind as we move into 2009. That said I will be posting my Top 10 Digital Trends by the end of the month… enjoy!

1. Paid search (SEM) or organic search (SEO) remains very important. Paid search is the lowest cost (direct response) media out there and in a down economy clients will flock to it. SEO is not a sprint it’s more of a marathon. Look for companies to finally start to understand that this year and invest accordingly.

2. Display (banners) ads aren’t dead. When buying banner placements through ad networks they are more valued/useful than ever. The core reason is that ad networks allow you to buy ads on a Cost-Per-Click (CPC) basis thus mitigating media ($$$) waste from your campaign.

3. Social Media it becoming more important than ever. In todays world the most trusted form of advertising comes from you and I (word of mouth). I like to say that consumers are the new brand managers.

- Social media covers a lot of areas like networks (i.e. facebook), blogs, mobile, and user generated content (UGC) and more. Brands need to focus less on “advertising” in this space and work harder to add value and become part of the conversation.

- Mobile… don’t believe the hype! Yes, it will be the bad-ass its touted to be in the near future. This year look for agencies/companies to test, measure, learn in this space more than they ever have before. Look for SMS Text campaigns, widgets (mini-applications) and mobile couponing to be at the forefront of those tests.

- Video… don’t believe the hype! (part 2). OK, we all love YouTube, Hulu, Heavy, TVVideo.net, Streamick, Tevootv and more. Hey some of my friends have given up cable because they can and do watch more TV online than they ever have before. Still agencies/clients continue to struggle with how best to monetize this viewing trend. Regarding straight up video ads (rich media, pre, mid or post roll) it is currently just too expensive ($40-$60CPMs). Since this year was both an Olympic and Political year I would expect inventory to open up thus resulting in (much) lower rates.

4. Websites, I want to say that they (enlarge) fall into two categories, engage or inform. However the real answer is that they are all over the place still being driven more by the creative idea rather than the consumer need. Regardless look for agencies/companies to be much more focused on defining (goals + objectives) the role of their online presence… let’s face it in todays world online is responsible for one of the most coveted consumer interactions, the first impression.

5. Analytics, remember these two things. 1. Data doesn’t lie. 2. Unless you want it too. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about digital media or site side “user experience” it has become a numbers game. On the media side of things data helps to communicate the value of one tactic over another taking opinion out of the equation (most of the time). Example: If you primary goal is drive (increase) site traffic would you choose display advertising with a $25CPM or would you choose to run a >$1CPC paid search campaign?

ANSWER: Trick question… you may choose to run both and value your campaign by looking at your best performing CPA (cost per action or acquisition). Either way you need data to make any and all of those type of (well informed) decisions. – Don’t forget this…clients love data.

At the end of the day companies will become more analytically focused on validating both drivers and experiences in the year to come.

The better question is what can’t you use it for. Sure people and even machines use twitter to communicate (update) everything from what they are doing at that very moment to pushing out the latest bus schedules and flight arrival and departure info. It also has the power to take the average person “Joe Twitter” (see what I did there… sorry, making myself laugh) and giving them the power of influence. Its on the shoulders of brands, products and services to ensure that that influence is delivered in the form of praise or advocacy and that it doesn’t turn Joe Twitter into a brand assassin. You’ve heard me say it before (and I’m not the only one)… today’s consumer is the new brand manager. Check out this blog post from one of the developers at Twitter as he discusses what all Twitter is and can be used for.  Click to Read.

The short answer is no. No media is recession proof. However in the current economic environment digital media becomes increasingly important for advertisers who are seeking measurable return on investment. Experts are predicting that our economic woes will continue over the next 18-24months. As a result brands (clients) will be looking to promote their business (product or service), engage existing customers and attract new ones for MUCH smaller budgets. It should come as no surprise that paid search is still the king when it comes to pay-for-performance media. It’s trackable, measurable and extremely cost effective. Look for ad networks to benefit from this down turn economy as well. They offer buying models that your traditional placement sites don’t such as cost-per-click (CPC). Other areas (tactics) that advertisers and agencies will have trouble staying away from in the coming year will include mobile, social, widgets (mini apps) and tighter targeting tactics such as contextual, behavioral and hyper targeting.

I touched on the topic of “Widgets“ during one of my morning sessions, even though the concept of downloadable applications is nothing new the ease in which you can build and socialize them seem to be the real magic advertisers are in love with today. I found this article on iMediaconnection.com this morning and thought I would share as it goes more in-depth on this topic.

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