So, I sat on a digital marketing panel for the Utah Chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF Utah) last night. With some illustrious local advertising experts:

Jason Bangerter, Founder StruckAxiom

Dave Nibley, Creative Director Rain

Craig Aramaki, Chief Digital Officer Richter7

Ian Barkley, Business Development Rastar

And Me, Shawn Butler, Digital Strategy Saxton|Horne

Here is a photo of the panel:

 


Here is a photo from the panel:

 


(Notice the conspicuously empty front row)

One of my favorite moments of the night was a discussion on social media marketing. We identified that sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and even MySpace are vehicles for tactical execution of an overall strategy. Craig mentioned that social networking is not new, that it was a part of human nature to give word-of-mouth referrals to our peer groups. And I shared my illustration that we are simply using technology and the facility of social media platforms to augment a behavior that has been occurring since the days of the cave men: A Twitter post that says “I love the burritos at Cafe Rio” is our modern equivalent to “Hey, Og, eat there! That bush has good berries.”

I though it was a clever analogy, and it apparently struck a chord with some audience members!

It was a great conversation in a room full of smart people. And says GREAT things about the future of digital and creative advertising in Salt Lake and the Mountain West area. For more fun quotes, you can search Twitter or go to the Utah Ad Fed’s FB Page.

Billboard Proclaims The Death Of Old Media Through Old Media

In 2007, when I first started using social media as a marketing tool, it was just called “new media.” In the years since, digital marketers have made large strides, like dropping the vague term “new” and replacing it with phrases like “social network marketing” and, most significantly, adjusting the way that brands and businesses interact with their customers. We have learned a lot from our early experiences with social media. Here are some of the lessons social media taught us that are being applied across all forms of media, new and old.

Targeting the individual. One-to-one marketing is not just for social media anymore. With the recognition of the long tail has come permission to “waste” impressions. I am seeing more instances of marketers using traditionally mass media vehicles to microtarget niche audience.

Previously, to hit a highly specific audience like “Investment Bankers for Web-based IPOs” meant taking out a full page in a highly specific targeted medium like The Kiplinger Letter. This is changing.

Recently, Tim Ferriss wrote about an unusual billboard purchased by Zynga in Silicon Valley. He says, “There was no tagline, and I joked to my passenger, who was in the financing and IPO business, ‘I’m not sure who that’s intended to sell.’

The Tag-less Zynga Billboard

[His passenger] laughed and responded with ‘Dude, that’s not for end users. That’s to get the attention of the bankers driving from SFO to downtown.’

Leveraging Pass-Along and Word-of-Mouth. In that same article, Ferriss cites an example of not targeting your audience at all, but targeting the people who influence that audience. “At American Apparel, many of its best-known ads ran in obscure publications or in short bursts on niche websites. Millions of people know about them, however, because blogs thought they were so interesting that they wrote articles about them.”

The brilliance there is that the brand actually got more mileage out of their ad purchases by getting the pass-along value of what is essentially “free” advertising by highly influential bloggers. However, this type of editorial coverage and the buzz it creates is the type of advertising that big businesses have learned they cannot buy through a media broker.

Everything is Clickable. If someone is on a company’s Facebook page, the marketer knows that posting a clickable link will send many customers to get more information. With the increase of tablet PCs and mobile devices, marketers can now make this assumption with every medium. The QR code is an early integration of print with web. At the Smithsonian museums, visitors will see codes on the displays that are scannable with their web-enabled devices that will bring up apps, information and interactive learning.

Visual recognition programs for mobile devices, like Google Goggles, are being used by companies to deliver more information to their potential customers who take a picture of their products or even their logos.

As brands continue to understand the value of engaging with fans and seek metrics beyond impressions, we will see more integration of social, interactive, and location-based media with traditional media. Already, we see more restaurants posting the “Check In to Foursquare” window clings and counter cards to remind visitors to pair their physical visit with an internet visit.

A few years from now, when social media is no longer a “hot trend” but an additional, accepted marketing tool, I would like us to all look back and see that 2011 was the year that all media became “social.”

I am restating some ideas already expressed by Seth Godin, David Kirkpatrick and Mark Zuckerburg, but I believe the current greatest enemy to online privacy, copyrighting, legal, libel, and simple self-governance, is the issue of user anonymity.

The motion of many organizations, including the social media leader, Facebook, is towards an internet that requires identification and validation of the user.

The method currently used is very primitive: validation through registered email, placing verification code onto a personal website or blog, and early steps into universal profile connections such as Google’s Friend Connect, OpenSocial, and Facebook Connect.

The leaders in this are obviously Google and Facebook, both racing to become “The Internet,” essentially being everywhere and touching everything, the most recent play by Facebook of putting the “Like” button everywhere. But here is where the move toward a user-identified web is affecting the world of online gaming:

Bye-bye trolls? Blizzard forums to use real names

July 7th, 2010 @ 12:49pm

By BARBARA ORTUTAY
AP Technology Writer

NEW YORK (AP) – Activision Blizzard Inc.’s move to require people to use their real names if they want to post messages in online forums for games is the latest sign that online anonymity is falling out of favor with many companies.

The upcoming change has upset many gamers who prize anonymity and don’t necessarily want their gamer personas associated with their real identities.

Blizzard, the maker of “World of Warcraft,” said Tuesday that the new rule will go into effect later this month. It will apply first to forums about the highly anticipated “StarCraft II,” out July 27; other games are to follow.

Blizzard hopes that making people use their real names will cut down on nasty behavior in the forums and create a more positive environment. Players will have the option _ but not a requirement _ to display the name of their main game character alongside their real name.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said Blizzard is the latest company to require real identities. But he added businesses have “a lot of freedom” in doing so.

Facebook, the world’s most popular online social network, asks users to sign up with their real names. The company tries to delete fake profiles it comes across. A growing number of blogs and news sites are also abandoning anonymity. The Buffalo News said last month it will start requiring commenters on its website to give their real names and the towns they live in, just as they would do in a printed letter to the editor…

Article continued here: http://bit.ly/beMaK4

This morning, Seth Godin posted this:

You rock

This is deceptive.

You don’t rock all the time. No one does. No one is a rock star, superstar, world-changing artist all the time. In fact, it’s a self-defeating goal. You can’t do it.

No, but you might rock five minutes a day.

Five minutes to write a blog post that changes everything, or five minutes to deliver an act of generosity that changes someone. Five minutes to invent a great new feature, or five minutes to teach a groundbreaking skill in a way that no one ever thought of before. Five minutes to tell the truth (or hear the truth).

Five minutes a day you might do exceptional work, remarkable work, work that matters. Five minutes a day you might defeat the lizard brain long enough to stand up and make a difference.

And five minutes of rocking would be enough, because it would be five minutes more than just about anyone else.

It is a great example of the quick shots of inspirational adrenaline that Seth scribbles out nearly every day (sometimes multiple times a day) on his blog. But I would amend his wise words just in the slightest and add emphasis to one line in particular.

First, the amendment. I don’t think five minutes is enough. I also believe that we are capable of much more than that. I appreciate that Seth is letting us off easy, but I personally feel that I can work in flow for between 30 minutes to 2 hours almost every day. For more on Flow, a brilliant practice that you should be bringing into your business life, you can go here.

Now for the emphasis. He says that a potential great work is “to deliver an act of generosity that changes someone.” I say that the greatest work you can do is lift another person with your generosity. I would emphasize Seth’s point that the work you do in a day is measured by the people you can effect.

If you are in business, your output of a product or service is only as good as the positive change it creates in the lives of your customers. But you, as a human, are also only as good as the positive change you are directly making in the lives of your people. Your employees, your co-workers, your family and friends should all end each day feeling appreciated and fulfilled, bettered for having passed through another day of trials, growth and human interaction.

And that typically takes you just a little longer than five minutes.

With Web 2.0, where every individual can be both producer and consumer, it seems that the talent should rise to the top. In it’s purest form, what self-regulated social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are creating is a talent-based meritocracy where your peers are your harshest critics.  The good are lauded, the bad ostracized and the inauthentic are ousted before the masses. It is truly dog-eat-dog.

I set before you the rawest example of peer moderation in a laissez faire environment where every man (or woman!) considers himself Simon Cowell:  the YouTube collection of results for “Female Guitarist Acoustic Covers.” I’m pretty sure this is where Simon got the idea in the first place.

If Kelly Clarkson were “starting out” today (and she could play guitar this well!) she would probably be one of the girls below. Check out each video, read the comments beneath, rate your favorites and let the virtual cat fight begin!

The YouTube Results for Top Female Acoustic Guitar Covers.

1) Ash Soular soularashs

2) Kelly Rosenthal KellyIsMusical

3) Lilian Bui lilianbui

4) Elizabeth Laural elizlaural

5) Leesha Harvey LeeshaHarvey

Please vote for your favorite. And feel free to let loose and tell these girls what you think of their skills. After all, it’s Web 2.0. Doesn’t that mean we’re all experts?

Are you lonely? Unpopular? Looking for a world-famous, professional athlete to hang out with? Do you have a couple of extra grand you’re willing to spend for a friend? Then Keep Reading!

For $2,000, professional skateboarder and videogame character Tony Hawk will call you, answer any question you have or change the outgoing message on your voicemail. For a little more, he will go Go-Kart racing with you, play mini golf, escort you to Disneyland, or even show up at your school.

From his website
“For the first time ever, you can spend the day with Tony Hawk and his friends in some of the most unique places. The Tony Hawk Experience is your exclusive opportunity to have a personal experience with you and your friends with the world’s most famous action sports figure and to benefit the Tony Hawk Foundation while you do it.”

This is Genius! Professional athletes and celebrities have been doing things like this for years. It is typically labeled under something foggy like “Guest Appearance,” includes a hefty appearance fee, and is trafficked through their agent. But most people don’t know about it or think of it. The brilliance behind what Tony Hawk is doing is that it is posted as a prominent link on his website. He is putting it right out in front of his audience! Hawk recognizes that fame is directly tied to having fans, and he is offering himself up to those fans in the places they spend the most time – the internet.

Tony Hawk’s online popularity, augmented by the release of his 11th video game title, is evidenced by his more than 1.4 million Twitter followers, ranking him 24th most popular on the site. It is the old maxim of “Go Where Your Fans Are” and he is using his fame to augment his fame. The more kids that can afford his phone calls and Go Kart races, the more people will be buzzing about him online, the more video games he will sell, and the more kids will pay for his phone calls and Go Kart races. It’s a vicious circle.

My favorite is this for $75,000 – “I will pick you up at LAX in my 620hp Jeep SRT and we will visit cliché tourist spots” around L.A. That’s a bargain, folks. I would charge you at least twice that and I’d pick you up in a Honda Accord.

I joined Twitter on 27 June 2007. When I first got there, it was a fairly empty place and I left after just a few minutes. My first tweet, like so many other noobs’ before me, was something like:

Since that fateful day, I have watched as many others jumped on board the Twitter Train and made it “mainstream.” People like Robert Scoble and Guy Kawasaki and Oprah. Here I made a chart:

So with all this new press, the internet is becoming full of articles touting “why Twitter is a great new social media site.” But I want to draw attention to what Twitter REALLY is.

“Social Media Site” is the term invented for MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Orkut and others to describe online networks where you create a profile and fill it with pictures and quotes and articles and friends. Social Media Sites were built on the idea of mutual friendship and willingness to exchange information. They are the most recent step away from the long-held traditional media pattern of broadcast communication of the few to the many. Now, with Social Media Sites, people, including bands, brands, and companies, are communicating one-to-one.

Well, Twitter is not a Social Media Site. It is not a static page consisting of a user-defined profile stocked with photos, quotes, links, and lists of friends. The very protocol defies the Social Media standard. You do not “Friend” or “Add” on Twitter. You “Follow.” There is no implied reciprocation. The list of people that you follow on Twitter is much more akin to the traditional media measurement of viewers or “eyeballs.” And we are again using a broadcast medium, the few to the many. If this were MySpace or Facebook, the numbers for “Following” and “Followers” would all be equal. (i.e. – “Friends follow each other”). Instead they look like this:

Those ratios defy the one-to-one idea of Social Media and are akin to the one-to-many target numbers of several forms of traditional media. So what is Twitter?

Twitter is the fastest form of user-generated broadcast media.

I found this last week by Stan Schroeder on Mashable: “Yes, we all know that Twitter is great for tracking conversations. [However, there’s also] been a lot of talk that its biggest strength is precisely its search. But sometimes it’s hard to fathom just how important this is. Google is the biggest entity on the Internet. It is synonymous with “search”. It feels like it’s been around forever. It is also not able to compete with Twitter.”

He does not say that Google can’t compete with MySpace or Facebook. Google owns a Social Media Site. What Schroeder says is that people are using Twitter as an ALTERNATIVE to Google. A peer-to-peer, unmonetized, predominantly unarbitrated search alternative in order to quickly gather information. This is not a new Social Media Site. This is a passing-of-power in the broadcast media field.

I am looking for 6 to 8 Social Media Interns to work at our Sports Marketing Firm

Do You Love Sports and are you already spending hours of your life on blog sites (your own or others) posting comments and responses? Then you should be able to put your passion to work, be compensated for your skills, and be able to write about your ability on your resume.

If you would like a chance to prove yourself in the world of Online Sports Marketing, please send me an email or DM me on Twitter.

Please know that to be considered for this position, you must have a knack for online promotion, creating groups and collecting friends using MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. We can help you turn those skills into a resume-building asset, but you have to bring some know-how and a lot of passion. We are promoting an exclusive sporting event that will be broadcast on national television this fall. Let me know you’re interested by sending your resume along with links to your social networking profiles to my email: sbutler@sportslegendschallenge.com.

Location: Sandy Springs, North Atlanta
Compensation: $8 per hour/ 40 hours per week

Yesterday a co-worker asked me how I became so passionate about marketing.

The answer to the “How” question was rather boring: 4 years in undergrad, 2 masters programs, 5 years in corporate marketing with brands like Home Depot, Rubbermaid and Georgia-Pacific…

But the interesting answer is to the question he didn’t ask: “Why am I so passionate about marketing?”

Here is my answer to the unasked question:

• Because I love the psychology of buying; answering “Why do we purchase the things we do?” and “What makes this non-necessity item more desirable than another?”
• Because the symbols of the products and services we buy become more important than the Prod/Svcs themselves.
• Because “Consuming” is today’s Socio-political Religion. Like the Ancient Greek, who identified a fellow worshipper of Athena by the image of an owl or an olive branch, today’s Versace-wearer or Porsche-driver can quickly identify others of similar lifestyle and belief system.
• Because we are living in the era of the shift from Professional Advertising to Authentic Promoting. This excites me to no end. I have blogged before that consumers are no longer waiting around for Madison Avenue to identify the next must-have product, as they did four decades ago. Today, we each turn to our peers, to other people that we know and like–that we identify with–to gather opinions on the products that we choose to purchase.

Seth Godin said yesterday: “It’s quite possible that the era of the professional reviewer is over. No longer can a single individual (except maybe Oprah) make a movie, a restaurant or a book into a hit or a dud. Not only can an influential blogger sell thousands of books, she can spread an idea that reaches others, influencing not just the reader, but the people who read that person’s blog or tweets.”

No Bastilles are being stormed and no shots will be fired, but there is a revolution occuring in the way and reason that we purchase and consume. Rather we are informed or not, rather we are proactive or not, we will all be a part of this. That is exciting. For me, that is something I can get passionate about.