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What makes “Random Acts of Kindness” a viable social media strategy?  For starters, consumers are currently disclosing a vast amount of personal information on public forums: about their daily lives, their moods or their whereabouts (whether on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, GetGlue or any other number of social apps).  Secondly, consumers are interacting with brands more and more and they are expecting brands to interact with them in a way that’s rewarding to them.   Last, but not least, brands are increasing the amount of time and resources on monitoring the social web.  Put it all together and you have the makings of a win-win program.

What I won’t be doing is following anything social media, anything online or even checking my Blackberry for that matter – from early evening, until I have watched Jack & Chloe’s final scene. This holds true for the Olympics, awards shows and any other TV program that I am obsessed with that doesn’t air live or that I TiVo to watch after I get home.

Sorry social media and my Backberry, I love you, I really really do, but I learned way early on that people love to talk, text, chat and tweet the millisecond something happens – be it on TV or in real life. And I have been mad at myself for checking too many times to know that I should know better.

So with all of the chatter out there, I will be on a personal social media and Blackberry hiatus while we say goodbye to the TV version of Jack Bower.

Damn it Chloe!

• Join the Earth Day Network on Facebook and record your Acts of Green. This green advocacy and action organization is generating year-long engagement and participation through its use of Social Media, starting with Earth Day.

• Save Your Water Calculator. Underwriters Laboratories created this online interactive calculator to help us better understand our water usage and how a few easy tweaks to our daily habits can save water. Living in California we all know that every drop counts, especially during fire season.

• Join Coca-Cola and Ocean Conservancy for Earth Month. Coca-Cola will donate $1 for every person who uses the Facebook app, up to a total of $200,000. It will also contribute up to $50,000 through the MyCokeRewards points program.

• Join Causeworld and donate your karma points to environmental charities. Have an iPhone or iTouch? Download this app and start checking into places you normally visit (ala Foursquare), build your karma points, then donate to the charity or your choice.  Environmental charities include Carbonfund.org and   AmericanForrests.org to name a few.

• Check out Care2.com. Visit this 13+ Million member community and find your own way to make a difference.

About Irene Shin

As Fanscape’s Coordinator, Digital Communications, Shin fully supports the company’s marketing efforts by assisting on the campaigns, developing materials and keeping the department organized.

Shin earned her degree in Psychology & Social Behavior from University of California, Irvine.

If you are just dabbling in social media, you may still not be sure what exactly it will do for you or where it fits in to your company structure. You’ve probably created a Twitter account, built a simple Facebook page, and maybe even added a company blog to your website. Good. That’s a great start. Now step back for a minute and think about what this is all for.

There are four reasons to use social media for your business. In no particular order, they are:

• Marketing
• PR
• Market research
• Customer service

All four of these are geared to do the same thing — connect with your customers and interact with them. But don’t hide behind trendy words like “engagement;” ultimately you want to do one thing: sell more products or services. Let’s take a look at how each of these four components of your social media strategy can help you sell more.

CLICK HERE to read the full  story.

The value of turning a consumer into a “brand ambassador” has grown significantly since the explosion of social media and Coca Cola’s newest fan outreach campaign adds a new dimension to how companies can benefit from handing power over to their most loyal consumers.

Mashable reported last week that Coca-Cola has embarked on a mission to find happiness in the 206 different countries that sell Coca-Cola products across the world.  Coca-Cola is empowering a few chosen “Happiness Ambassadors” to travel the world for 365 days beginning on January 1, 2010 and use social media to document their findings.

This brilliant global initiative is using top-tier brand ambassadors to dive deeper into Coca-Cola’s “Open Happiness” brand philosophy and what it means to various cultures.  In today’s expanding global marketplace and social media influence, Coca-Cola’s “Expedition 206” campaign will most likely become the poster child for brands using the benefits of social media, globalization and fan ambassadors to strengthen the brand’s image.

“Expedition 206” will send a 3-person team, decided by online voting, to various global events like the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, and the World Expo in Shanghai.  This team will utilize blog posts, tweets, YouTube videos, TwitPics ands other social media platforms to document their “Happiness” findings.

Coca-Cola’s campaign represents the opportunities that social media has opened up to global companies.  This highly integrated and buzz worthy campaign will raise Coca-Cola to a new level that competitors must, and should, aspire to reach.  “Expedition 206” will provide Coca-Cola with valuable global consumer insights about its brand and products while creating a network of dedicated “Happiness Ambassadors.” A brand’s ability to embrace social media and the value of fan ambassadors will better prepare them for the ever-changing digital marketplace, especially in developing quality buzz-worthy content.

Fanscape recently celebrated its 11th year in business. The fact that we’ve survived this long is indeed reason to celebrate; but honestly we’re more excited that most, if not all, of the brands that we’ve been explaining social media to for all these years have finally come around to understanding that it’s something they need.

I won’t lie; we didn’t call ourselves a social media marketing agency 11 years ago. We were an online music marketing company. Record companies hired us to market their bands on the internet. We ran online street teams that acted as conduits between fans and the musicians they worshiped. We empowered fans to help promote their favorite bands by giving them buddy icons, wallpapers, and links to stream music. They built fan sites on Geocities and Angelfire, and gossiped with others in message boards and chat rooms. It was social media via Web 1.0, pre-MySpace and Facebook.

The connection between fans and musicians had long been overlooked. A band was someone you saw on stage or on MTV, not someone who would actually respond to your letters. Fanscape closed that gap. At first it was relatively unknown bands like Simple Plan and The Calling, which gladly engaged their fans on message boards and recorded voice “thank you” email messages. But when those bands proved that engaging your fans can help you sell CDs and rise up the MTV TRL charts, then others joined in and soon megastars like Mariah Carey and Bon Jovi were filming web-based videos thanking their street teams for all their hard work.

Music campaigns led to movie and television campaigns, which led to brand and product campaigns. Nearly a thousand campaigns later, we’ve honed our craft and stayed ahead of the curve as the landscape continually evolves. But while the tools today are better, faster, and infinitely less expensive, the basic premise of social media remains the same:  Listen. Respond. Empower. Reward.

What is social media and digital word of mouth marketing?
The number one reason people buy something or try something is because someone they trust told them to. That’s word of mouth. The goal of a brand is to create a product that is so well received by its customer that they tell someone else about it, leading to increased sales. Meanwhile, the internet has evolved into a social environment where people share their thoughts openly with others who are eager to listen. Word-of-mouth companies help brands by facilitating digital conversations about their products through social networks, blogs, and online communities.

Click HERE to read the full article.

I found myself Sunday night with no television or adequate wireless connection to catch the MTV Video Music Awards.  It was a sad state of affairs, especially when I received a text message from my sister back east (consequently three hours ahead of me on Pacific Time).  The text read: “Omg, did you just see what Kanye did to Taylor Swift?!”  Although the VMA’s weren’t airing locally for a few more hours, I scampered to my laptop eager for a video clip.

I frantically logged into Facebook and Twitter to see if any of my friends had posted Kanye’s recent cringe worthy, PR nightmare moment.  There it was, on the Twitter trending topics and status updates: Kanye West had hijacked Taylor Swift’s acceptance of the Best Female Pop Video award and after taking her microphone, preached to the crowd that Beyoncé had in fact made the best video of all time with her “Single Ladies” nomination in the same category.  The backlash was instant.

Team Kanye never had a chance. Taylor Swift is a majorly successful country-pop singer with a passionate fan base.  Beyoncé, quick to adapt to this potential PR crisis, forfeited her stage time when she won Pop Video of the Year for “Single Ladies” and allowed Taylor her moment to shine.  Kanye was removed from the event and the night went on as planned.  All of this information was gathered strictly from Twitter and Facebook updates, and as I write this a few days after the original airing, Kanye West is still the second highest trending topic on Twitter.

After digesting one of the best moments in VMA history, I realized how much has changed since social media allowed viewers to create a universal conversation with friends and internet acquaintances.  Those of us on Pacific Time eagerly awaited our chance to see the VMAs, if only for the need to tweet about it ourselves.  There were many winners in this scenario: Taylor Swift, Beyoncé  and MTV.  Even Pink and Kelly Clarkson received excellent press for casting their Twitter and blog ballot for Team Taylor, instantly making them appeal as big sister types who look out for their own.

Kanye is clearly the loser in this situation, and since Sunday night he has released many apologies to Taylor, one of which she accepted on Tuesday’s The View.  Social media is still buzzing with Kanye, Taylor and Beyoncé comments and feedback.  To think there was a time when Kanye’s outburst would have been limited to the VMA viewers who happened not to walk into the kitchen for a snack during Taylor’s acceptance speech.  It’s a tribute to how quickly Taylor Swift’s fans defended her honor and will continue to do so with rabid purchasing of concert tickets and albums.

And who does Taylor Swift thank for her success?  Once Beyoncé gave her the chance to speak, she thanked “all of the fans on Twitter and MySpace.”  Looks like Taylor could show Kanye a thing or two about good PR.

As most of you already know, Governor Palin delivered her resignation speech on July 13th. Many were not impressed with the speech she delivered. They felt that it was both written and delivered poorly.  So Vanity Fair asked their executive literary editor, Wayne Lawson, along with help from the research and copy departments to “whip into publishable shape.” Here is the result of their work.

In all honesty, I can probably write a better opening to that speech than she did, and where are her speech writers? Don’t governors or people who are high up in the ranking have those resources? I have a feeling she asked her daughter to look over this.  Click here to see the full speech and editing.

-Christina

Communicating via social media is something to be taken very seriously which is why my company, Fanscape, belongs to two organizations that are creating ethical guidelines for companies and working in tandem with the Federal Trade Commission as DWOM marketing grows. Our President Terry Dry is on the Standards Board for the Social Media Advertising Consortium (SMAC) in which he is helping to create standardized measurement and analytics for marketing in the social media space. We are also active members of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), in which we follow the Code of Conduct in our campaigns.

1. Consumer protection and respect are paramount
2. The Honesty ROI: Honesty of Relationship, Opinion, and Identity
3. We respect the rules of the venue
4. We manage relationships with minors responsibly
5. We promote honest downstream communications
6. We protect privacy and permission in a campaign when asked by consumers or the media. We will provide contact information upon request.

It is important to be cognizant of the consumer and transparent and honest in the marketing approach. Not only does this give companies credibility, but it also helps build and maintain an ongoing presence in the online space.

I recently read a blog post about the Domino’s Pizza mishap that resulted in 11,000 free pizzas given away to customers over a twelve-hour period. What interests me most about this promotion gone wrong isn’t the fact that a computer error resulted in pizzas inadvertently being given away for free, but that someone actually figured out the error based on sheer ingenuity (or boredom), which then spread so wide, so fast, that Domino’s was forced to take an 11,000 pizza hit.

Let’s backtrack a bit. This whole mistake came to light when someone – most likely bored, hungry and low on funds – had the idea to type “bailout” into the coupon code box when ordering a medium pizza on Dominos.com. The “bailout” code rewarded the customer with a free medium pizza. The catch – Domino’s never advertised nor publicly released a “bailout” coupon code, though they had set the promotion up in their system but abandoned it a couple of months ago. Though Domino’s had been using a bailout theme in their advertising, the code was discovered by complete mistake. No one knows how it happened, though Domino’s has come up with a theory: a college student in Cincinnati discovered the code and told a friend in Salt Lake City, or the other way around. They drew this conclusion based on the fact that restaurants near college campuses in those cities had the most orders with the “bailout” free pizza code. Regardless of how it started, word spread to nearly 11,000 people who got their free orders in before Domino’s realized their mistake and fixed it.

The Big Fat Marketing Blog makes an excellent point about the inadvertent promotion – thousands of people were drawn to Dominos.com that may have never thought to use the site to order Domino’s online before. They were drawn there from word-of-mouth spread from friend to friend and across the Internet at lightning speed. Had this promotion been planned, Domino’s could have acquired a great deal of valuable customer data as well as stats on how wide and how fast such a promotion could spread. They could test different variables – does releasing the code in a certain part of the country, or certain time of day result in more orders or a faster spread? Just what kinds of people are redeeming the code – college students, families, single people? There is a deep well of information and data that could be tapped with this type of promotion executed in a well-thought out manner.

The moral of this story? A great offer – intended or not – will attract new customers and expose them to your products and services, especially with the power of word-of-mouth and the Internet behind it. The other moral of this story? Um, people who are bored and hungry spend time on pizza chain websites trying to come up with coupon codes that will give them free pizza? I actually don’t know if there is much to learn from that point…