Working on social + digital campaigns for clients- every so often you get lucky enough to lead a special project. One that you know is right- smart- and just plain cool. This latest project I’ve helped lead and launch is something I’m really proud to share. A true team effort that had multiple agencies, numerous collaboration meetings, and extensive research on the Involver social media markup (SML) platform. Oh yeah- and this project had an impossible timeline (but doesn’t every project? )

I could attempt to try to describe this Hallmark “Tell Them” campaign. But all you need to do is watch this commercial. Come on, it’s only 30-seconds. Watch it-

And here’s the Facebook App we helped develop and launch this week:

The most notable innovation about this project?

50% of the 845+ million active monthly Facebook users browse the social network via an “App”. Meaning- they use a smartphone to do it. Not a desktop computer. Until recently, the Facebook App did not let users view “Page Tabs” or FBML/iFramed pages. Most Pages today, when you click links from Pages on your News Feed you’re redirected to the Wall. However, in Dec/January 2012 Facebook released capabilities to select preferred developers to allow for mobile optimization. Very few brands and businesses have taken advantage of this feature since it’s so new.

…our DEG CSS ninjas pulled it off!

http://inv.lv/z3WkU7 <<– click on this with your iPhone or Android phone. You’ll notice the same desktop, full browser experience- on mobile, using iOS or Android!

Please make your vow- and take it for a test-drive …and be sure to watch for the national TV campaign (now through Valentines Day) that exclusively has a TV end-frame driving traffic to our Facebook App!
–

I’m excited to share with you the launch of one of my team‘s latest projects- the official H&R Block “Block Talk” blog! I know you might be asking yourself, what would one of the world’s largest tax service companies have to say on a corporate blog (that people will actually read)? Many things. And it’s not just about (boring) tax information. For example, the post on”Tech Entrepreneur Millionaires Under 30“ is damn interesting <– and it’s an infographic to boot

Working closely with the client- we determined that one strategic objective for this project was understanding that the blog can be a channel- that (with the right content and outreach/distribution) can demonstrate enduring relevance (past and present) as helpful experts around the topics and services regarding taxes.

The graphics used, copy & text, and functional features we built into the blog were all strategic- in order to best communicate with design elements of “trust”, “innovation”, and “relevance” regarding the brand.

…so go ahead and take the blog for a test-drive. Feel free to look around and ask me questions if you’d like in the comments  http://blogs.hrblock.com

KCTV5 News posted video of the interview i did RE: older gens + “the Twitter” here: http://kctv.m0bl.net/r/rsh3x

Have you heard of Title Boxing? Some would say it’s a fairly new trend in fitness (they even claim if you workout there for one hour just three times a week and you will lose at least one pound a week without dieting).

We just launched a new Facebook giveaway app for Title Boxing (a client). Here are 3 learnings I wanted to share given the many clients we work with for these types of promotions. 3 tips to keep in mind when developing a giveway or contest:

1.) The “5-second rule” applies.
When deciding on a contest or giveaway, it should take less than 5-seconds to understand what it is and how to enter. “Clever” isn’t always the most effective. And far too often in the boardrooms and those posh marketing conference rooms people get caught up in complicated promotions. The attention span of a user on Facebook is much lower than the average user. Facebook is inherently designed for media snacking, so a contest that takes time and work is typically less successful. Rule of thumb: make it simple and tell them in words how “easy it is to enter”.

2.) Ask for their email address.
Giveaways and contests are highly effective email acquisition tactics. We believe you have to “give to get”. And customers are ok with this. So make the [email address] field required. Also, the information you require on the form should be dependent upon the minimum amount of data you need to segment and take action on from an email and CRM perspective. Don’t get greedy and ask for more. Remember my advice from Rule #1.

Also, in compliance with Facebook Promotions Guidelines, you cannot use Facebook to notify winners, such as by sending them a message, chat, or wall post alerting them to their win. So having their email address is vital.

3.) When you build it, they won’t enter.
Just because you build an amazing contest or giveaway app, it doesn’t mean hundreds or thousands of people will flock to enter. Cascade and flex your digital channels (email, website, twitter, facebook) with a drip roll-out to drive traffic, stimulate buzz, and attention about contest. Bonus Tip: one of the best promotional strategies for a giveaway or contest is to work with influential bloggers or existing communities to push and support the promotion <– coorindate this prior to the launch

It’s incredible to see the speed of conversation(s) and mention(s) on Twitter about this Virginia earthquake today. Pat and I pulled up TweetDeck and saw this!

**update** Twitter reported officially that within a minute of the reported earthquake, there were over 40,000 #earthquake related tweets. And there were about 5,500 Tweets per second (TPS). For context, this TPS is more than Osama Bin Laden’s death & on par w/ the Japanese quake.

It’s been a while since I’ve shared what I’ve been up to at work. So, it’s time for show and tell
I lead the Social Media practice at @digitalev and we just launched a Facebook Contest that is a case study in the making! (i wish i could share all the stats and analytics) We worked together with the marketing team at Hallmark to develop and launch a contest that supports the focus of “Life is a Special Occasion” (a branding campaign). We have a team of ninja developers that are trained and certified on the Involver Social Media Marketing Platform. This Hallmark contest is built and powered using the Involver social markup language.

Over 11,000+ people entered the contest, their brand page has received a huge spike in LIKES, and it’s resulted in hundreds of thousands+ of Facebook Tab views on their page.

The idea behind the contest was simple. Give away a really awesome prize ($5,000 bucks and record a video of the winner) to the best “any day” special occasion. Hallmark believes that life is made up of small little moments that are special occasions. And we wanted to encourage people to share with everyone what they are!

There were some really creative contest entries received:

Much of the success for this campaign is attributed to the Hallmark marketing team’s drip roll-out across all digital channels, as well as a targeted outreach to mommy bloggers.

…an email was pushed to customers:

A Facebook status update to our 200,000+ FB fans:

Tweets were sent:

…engagement with key “mommy blog” influencers:

This contest campaign resulted in a huge acquisition spike in “New Likes” to the page:

Someone gave me a heads-up to kudos on the Twitterverse from a stranger that was browsing and using a website developed by the company I work for (@digitalev). Any time someone says “your website is sexy” = #win! Check it out with your phone: http://m.flykci.com

I’ve always hated buying glasses. It’s hard. I never know what shapes or styles I should be looking for. And on top of all that, they are expensive. Buy glasses is a two-’fer; it’s difficult and expensive.

A few weeks ago, I shattered my glasses while traveling (bummer, i know). I started shopping the marketing for options for my new pair of glasses. Then I remembered hearing about an online designer glasses startup company called Warby Parker. These guys got a ton of tech-blog press earlier in the year- and their business model is impressive. I even heard one of their founders Neil Blumenthal speak at “Big Omaha”. They even carry a Toms Shoes-like promise: “Buy A Pair, Give A Pair” <– which I think is really cool. The unique part of their business that will grab your attention, is every pair of glasses cost $95. Yeah, you read that right. This includes the frames -and- lenses. Now that’s cool huh? Oh and they have free shipping and returns for all orders.

It all sounded too good to be true at first...
…so I decided to look-them-up and test drive if they really were the real-deal.

Before you commit to dropping cash for glasses that you haven’t tried on (b/c you order them online), Warby Parker let’s you pick 5 frames that they ship to you (for free, and they all have clear lenses).

Here’s what it looked like when the box came in the mail:

Then, I decided …why not crowdsource my purchase? I figured- my friends likely know better than I do which glasses look best on me, so why not ask them? This is the part I struggle with a lot. Why not let my friends decide for me? So I took some photos- and posted them to Facebook. I asked people to vote by leaving a comment or a “Like”. And almost immediately, the feedback rolled in…

Option #1: (clearly was the favorite of the 5)

Style: “Thompson“

Option #2: (this one was the “super geek” pair …)

Style: “Huxley“

Option #3:

Style: “Wiloughby“

Option #4: (i like these, i called these the “hipster” pair)

Style: “Zagg“

Option #5: (these were good- i couldn’t tell if the brown is/was my style)

Style: “Langston“

…my profile page had nothing but Warby Parker “glasses try-on” photos across the top

Overall, I was really happy with my purchase. The ordering process was super easy- they called my doctor and took care of everything with my prescription verification. Check ‘em out- these guys are doing a lot of things right. www.warbyparker.com
–

PR pro Justin Goldsborough interviewed me on #52CommsMixup. I’m honored to be considered apart of his series. You can watch the interview and what I had to say over on Justin’s blog.

Do you use Gmail? There are some hidden features in Gmail that you can turn-on that will save you hours of your life (if not days). I put together this instructional video blog to share with you my 5 favorite Gmail hacks and tips (click here if you can’t see the video below).

BTW, if you ever want to see all the keyboard shortcuts in Gmail, press: SHIFT + ?

Last week the tech blogs were buzzing about a recent Columbia University study that concluded the Internet are changing the way our brains remember information. Essentially the study concluded that people are less likely to remember details/things, *if* they know they can look it up later, when they need it. So does this mean computers are flattening our intelligence?

Is Google is replacing our memory?

One could quickly conclude that the Internet is making us stupid because no one has to remember anything. Google is our professor. Even the Lord Chief Justice has gone on record saying web-savvy people make bad jurors because they can’t listen. I believe Google and the Internet aren’t replacing our memory or our intelligence; it just shifted us to think differently. And this is best explained by a concept explained by Harvard researchers (1985), called transactive memory. This is the notion that we rely on our family, friends and co-workers as well as reference material (like Google and the Internet) to store information for us. And when you think about it, the advent of the internet and the mobile web “free our minds” from having to store information.

Smartphones have changed your memory

The “always-online” Internet in our hands (smartphones), is the catalyst to the change for how we remember things. But it is not making us stupid. Because you are able to access the Internet almost anywhere, everywhere, at any time- the information itself (what you know in your head) may be less valuable then remembering how to access information or data in the future.

Now, more than ever- there is value and equity to knowing how to use tools to retrieve data. Understanding how to “search” when you need information. How do you “Google” things properly? It’s like the days of your elementary school librarian, who was invaluable because of their knowledge of the card catalog system. Librarians didn’t actually know the information- or answers to your questions, they just knew how to get you books that had what you need.

The advent of the Internet, Google, and smartphones have impacted human memory. Should we be teaching kids in school how to use Google? I think we should. I can remember taking tests and classes on the card catalog system. Isn’t that the modern day equivalent?

What do you think? Do you think the Internet has made us stupid?

–

There’s something to be said about the trend over the recent years about the usage of infographics. Recently, I was doing research for one of my a big brand/ corporate clients on infographics …and stumbled upon this “Twitterize Yourself!” infographic tool. I plugged in my girlfriend’s Twitter handle vs. my own (@rm) and found out some interesting data. I also compared it to our Klout scores. The results were interesting…

As you can see, my girlfriend is way better at using Twitter than I am!

KCTV5 asked me to come on to their afternoon show with Carol Long to talk about the Facebook Video Calling and Group Chat announcements. During the interview, I shared my thoughts on how people can use the new features and a couple things to consider.

When I’m training clients and friends on the differences between Twitter and Facebook, there is 1 important difference between the two tools that I underscore: the feeds: real-time (twitter) vs. delayed + filtered (facebook).

Understand how the feed works.

Facebook and Twitter’s feeds may look similar- but they’re very different. If you want to best leverage the “how” and “when” to use the channel(s), you must first understand how each are presented and read/consumed by its users (the context). When you look “under the hood”, you’ll see the data is organized very differently between Facebook vs. Twitter.

Delayed + Filtered (Facebook)

You may not realize it, but there’s logic behind your Facebook News Feed. What you see on your Facebook homepage is based on an algorithm (referred to as “Edge Rank“) that determines what you see from your friends and pages. This is a smart filter- so you only see relevent, valuable content from your friends based interactions (# views, likes, comments, shared). Furthermore, your News Feed has a “freshness” delay to what content to show you. Meaning, you are not seeing every up-to-the-minute updates from friends and pages. Instead, you’re viewing the results of a highly complex equation- that’s delayed and filtered just for you. It’s a custom experience. And you can bet Zucky designed (and continues to refine it) Facebook’s algorithms to best help users weed through the mess of seeing every action users are taking.

Real-Time (Twitter)

Your Twitter feed is like a never stopping, flowing river, with snippets of 140 characters of text and links. It’s unfiltered and raw. Meaning, the moment any of whom you’re following updates on Twitter, you see it in your Timeline. It’s as simple as that.

So what should you do?

Twitter is a channel in which content moves fast. Minutes, not hours (and it moves fast in everyone’s feed, no matter the device they’re using). The speed and velocity is so quick- a study found the average lifespan of a Tweet is only 1 hour. The content and updates you post in this channel are very disposable. And I’m a firm believer that no one reads all your tweets. (so get over yourself).   But it also means Twitter is a great communication channels for live events and commentary about things happening right now. For example, you could ask your friends and followers what was the song just sung on American Idol? Or complain about the bad foul in the NBA Finals on the basketball game you’re watching. Tools like Facebook and Google aren’t best designed to help you with answers to these types of real-time questions.

Facebook is different. There is a much longer expiration date for content on Facebook. It’s more likely to “stick” to friends’ News Feeds longer (hours). Look at your own News Feed. When you scan it top to bottom, what do you see? If you look closely, there are time stamps ranging from “15 minutes ago” all the way to “18 hours ago”. This means, when you create and share content- understand the Facebook channel has a longer shelf-life.

It’s important to understand that users consume and view Twitter in real-time vs. Facebook, which is delayed and filtered. This context provides important considerations for [what] you should share and [how] you do it. Knowing this information, informs how you craft relevant, valuable content, and message it appropriately in each channel.
–