Simply put, start selling the Three Cs: Clarity, Certainty and Control.

Clarity: While Transparency has come to represent the narrow themes of open reporting and site lists, Clarity is about how you the media seller are going to help the buyer see the whole picture, understand the landscape, find meaning through their relationship with you. With every customer, in every exchange: simplify, synthesize, explain, make sense of the world for your client. Hold this up as your standard, and you'll quickly stop bludgeoning them with three letter acronyms. Bringing excessive detail and technical complexity to today's marketer is like tossing an anchor to a drowning man.

Certainty: Certainty is a concept that can envelop not only the technical expertise and data quality of your offering, but also your organization's commitment to extraordinary service. In a world dominated by unpredictability, unintended consequences, missed deadlines, broken code and unfulfilled campaigns, Certainty is a transformational concept. If you do business with us, you can count on us delivering and knowing what's happening every step of the way. Here's why…

Control: What do the entry level media planner, the agency account director on a major brand, the CEO of the agency and the brand manager and CMO at the client all have in common? They all fear losing control of their own destinies during these asymmetrical, confusing and often contradictory times. Focus on how your products, audiences, services and capabilities can help the customer reassert control over her environment. The planning team fears losing influence and control to the trading desks; the trading desk people fear losing control because of gaps in their technical bench strength; the brand fears losing control of its relationship with the consumer; and so it goes. Control is central, primal, urgent. How many of your current agenda items can you say that about?

Surely there's an aspirational quality to these ideas: they challenge the ambition and commitment of the sales organization. But if you're a seller in the field, my advice to you is immediate and actionable. Start building your sales strategy and your conversations around the Three Cs today. Every day you wait is another day you dwell in the land of comfortable irrelevance.
Read more from Doug at The Drift.

The numbers are steadily increasing but a white paper issued in August 2011 by the Society of Marketing Professional Services (SMPS), entitled, ‘The Client’s Use of Social Media and Social Networking’ demonstrated it’s still an uphill climb. More than 1,600 surveys were distributed; 160 responses received. The breakdown of firms using some form of social media was 36% engineering; 24% architecture; and 17% for construction, landscape design and facility owners.

“For many construction firms, all their work is about getting a project off the ground,” said Daryl Andrews, vice president of marketing and business development at 360 Construct, a building management firm. He added that it’s still a slow-go for the construction industry to use social media as part of their business strategy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Most architectural firms currently using social media tend to be larger, primarily due to the investment in time/labor and having the requisite skills to navigate/communicate effectively on key social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

The engineering community, on the other hand, has been quicker to adapt social media. Way back in Fall 2009 (probably equates to about 50 years in tech time), CE News conducted a survey on social media and mobile devices that was sent to about 750 civil engineering firms. Slightly more than half- 51% - said they use regularly use professional networking sites like LinkedIn; 30% said they use social networking mediums like Facebook to promote their business; 20% use Twitter or blogs. Those percentages have undoubtedly increased.

“Engineering firms can take advantage of social computing tools for knowledge management, expertise sharing and information retention, which is especially critical with the pending retirement of baby boomers and incoming millennial generation,” said Brian Zeve, managing director, Microsoft Professional Services Industry. “Web-based collaboration through wikis, blogs, tagging, and other content management tools can provide firms with a whole new way of architecting knowledge and enabling input and expertise to bubble-up within the firm.”

The current social media flavor of the month, Pinterest, has exploded onto the scene in recent months and quite a few A/E/C firms are now sharing their ‘pins’ in the form of visual portfolios of previous jobs, ideas, and designs conducive to their respective business. Most A/E/C firms usually have a welter of images for key projects so Pinterest is fast becoming an attractive forum to showcase work.

So with the aforementioned in mind, here are a few examples of how a handful of A/E/C firms in the U.S. and abroad are effectively using social media:

Burns & McDonnell

Established in 1898, the venerable Kansas City, MO-based firm has more than 3,400 employee-owners including engineers, architects, construction experts, planners, estimators, economists, technicians and scientists. Burns & McDonnell plans, designs, permits, constructs and manages facilities worldwide. The company also ranks 26th in Fortune’s 2012 list of ‘100 Best Companies to Work For.’

While the 113-year-old firm has roots dating back to the 19th Century, Burns & McDonnell hasn’t rested on its laurels and has readily embraced 21st Century social media avenues.

For starters, the company maintains a comprehensive Careers Blog; recent posts have included ‘How to Establish Your Online Presence’ (see YouTube video in this post; the company also maintains a dedicated YouTube page containing numerous videos); ‘LinkedIn: 4 Things You Need to Know About This Powerful Tool;’ ‘7 Tips for Stress-Free Business Travel;’ and ‘What Recruiters See When They Read Your Resume.’ Posts are cross-linked to the company’s LinkedIn site and tweeted.

Burns & McDonnell also uses LinkedIn for recruiting - two recent posts, for instance, advertise openings for a telecommunications coordinator in the Kansas City headquarters, and a project manager-substation design, in Wallingford, CT.

The Facebook home page currently has 915 Likes; it also features numerous shared links to stories in the news that are of interest to employees, project photos, even volunteer opportunities – a recent one was for Jazzoo, the Kansas City Zoo’s largest annual fundraising event.

As of today, the company had 3,271 followers on Twitter (@BurnsMcDonnell). In addition to company-related tweets and retweets, Burns & McDonnell also uses Twitter for recruiting. Here’s one example from yesterday: #Engineering student looking for the coolest jobs? Check out @BurnsMcDCareers.

Snow Architects

Located in Liverpool, United Kingdom, Snow Architects is a RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Chartered Practice; projects range across the board – residential properties, apartments, restaurants, hotels, mixed-use city center developments.

The firm utilizes a wide variety of the most popular social media tools – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter; posts photos/videos on Flickr, Vimeo and YouTube. The company’s director, Dave Cornett, is also using QR codes and Augmented Reality (AR) to help with practice development.

“We’ve been using QR codes in our printed brochure to link to additional information on the website, such as videos or additional photographs of the project,” said Cornett.

Cornett’s enthusiastic about how AR can be applied to architecture.

“We’ve done some image based AR and 3D models to show clients; they’ve been impressed when I pull out my iPhone and guide them through their building,” said Cornett.

He added that the company has also been looking at geo located models – these are superimposed over a phone’s camera as you look at the site.

“We’ve had a lot of Twitter interest in this worldwide, which is something I didn’t expect. The main disadvantage right now is that there isn’t a single app which can do all the things I would want to so it’s a case of switching from app to app,” said Cornett.

Cornett said that social media has helped increase brand awareness for his practice.

“Most people have actually now heard of us when we go to industry events in Liverpool and Manchester; we have also had job enquiries via Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook on the back of a tweet or status update which jogs someone’s memory,” said Cornett.

Martell Home Builders

The Moncton, New Brunswick construction firm is one of Canada’s largest home builders.

The company made the plunge into social media because of a key problem – customers didn’t know where to find them when they needed them. So Martell resolved this by adding a ‘Where’s My Contractor’ feature on the web site which lists Twitter accounts of the firm’s managers – this way clients could see what they were doing and know how to find them. The web page is also connected to a Google Map API (application programming interface), which puts a stickpin on a map, making it even easier for customers to find their contractor.

Martell’s Twitter page is popular – to date, @martellhomes has 12,495 followers and the company tweets about a half-dozen times each day on a wide variety of topics – some recent tweets (with links) have included: ‘21 ways of turning pallets into unique pieces of furniture;’ ‘Top 10 ways to add value to your home;’ and ‘What tool can you not live without? 14 must-have tools for new homeowners.’

The company has an extensive YouTube archive – there are currently 79 videos for viewing covering a wide expanse of helpful homeowner-related topics. Some of these include:

• How to fix a door latch
• How to adjust or replace a shower
• Maritime energy solutions

While the jury is still out on whether social media is generating billable projects, it’s definitely helping the A/E/C industry connect with the public and ultimately may lead to new collaborations and clients.

Jing Liu, principal of Brooklyn, NY-based Solid Objectives-Idenburg Liu, an architectural design firm, believes social media will gain momentum across the A/E/C divide over time but with a caveat:

“Younger people who are in their 20s are very much in touch with the technology,” said Liu. “Online there is so much information, however, that I don’t think people completely trust what they read. They need to get know you personally before they give you a project.”

Stay tuned.

Ode to SoLoMo
Users' love for their phones isn't funny
And the forecast for social is sunny
So let's talk SoLoMo
(LoMoSo? MoSoLo?)
Whatever the name, it means money.

Across the board, the most common comment we're hearing from attendees is, "Users are ready for all the SoLoMo apps and tools we can give them. But from the agency and the tech side, we're moving too slowly." Check out the summit coverage for ideas, tactics, and encouragement to be in the game. You'll never be fully ready to start, better to learn as you go.

Here are my favorite pics from the past day (including shots from the Interview Studio):

The after-party in the haunted ballroom

Chandelier in the main ballroom

Keeping with the spooky theme, attendees were treated to psychic readings in the very red foyer.

Psychics at work

Yet another fancy lounge

Possibly the best breakfast ever

Every new Twitter user eventually figures out that that it's better to have more followers. However, upon first joining Twitter, you probably followed as many influencers as you could. Eventually, this tactic backfires. Following too many accounts is a red flag for potential subscribers. Instead, optimize how many people you're following and how many are following you by unfollowing accounts. Unfollowing to get more followers is a counterintuitive, but effective, tactic no one talks about.

Evaluate Your Follow Score

To demonstrate how the concept works, we can reduce the follow relationship to a simple, numerical Follow Score. It's calculated this way:

For example, if you were following 200 accounts and had 2,000  followers, your Follow Score would be 10. A Follow Score of 2 or higher is acceptable.

@NylonMag, a fashion magazine, is following 219 accounts  and has 460,649 followers. Nylon's Follow Score is an exceptional 2103. Judging from the follow relationship, the average Twitter user likely concludes @NylonMag's tweets are compelling, since almost half a million people are willing to subscribe to the content without being followed in return.

In contrast, @cspenn has a low Follow Score of 0.99. He follows 53,186 people, and 52,651 people follow him. If you were deciding whether to follow @cspenn, would you trust that all his 50k followers subscribe to him for the quality of his content? Would this affect your opinion of him before you even read his tweets?

The ideal Follow Score varies with follower count. Start with a goal of 2 and work up from there. To get there, brands may need to unfollow “inactive” fans — people who were followed as a reward for an old Retweet or Reply. This works for individuals too — they may have to unfollow strangers, idle accounts, and distant acquaintances.

Skew Your Follow Score in Your Favor

Because it’s common knowledge that users often try  to win followers by following each other, almost everyone (including average users) will have extra followers. Users, therefore, expect your Follow Score to be higher than 1 — you shouldn't be following more people than your number of followers.

The higher your Follow Score, the greater impression you give of being worth following. A high Score can indicate that people are willing to follow you even if you don't follow them back, implying that your tweets are  high quality. Exception: when using the Twitter channel as part of your CRM system (like @ComcastCares and @BofA_Help), you may need to follow people to allow them to send direct messages. Consider designating a separate channel for broader company news, product updates, and other tweets.

Follow a Realistic Number of People

Twitter users expect each other to read the tweets of people you follow. Users also expect brands (and brands' social teams) to use Twitter similarly. And from experience, Twitter users know it's impossible to keep up with too many accounts.

A brand with 400 followers can get away with a Follow Score of 2 by following 200 accounts. But a brand with 30,000 followers shouldn't be following 15,000 accounts. Not even the most dedicated social media team can keep up with a stream of 15,000 accounts.

Following everyone you meet isn't plausible. I recommend following no more than 200 accounts. Few would expect @cspenn to keep up with the tweets of 53,186 people. By our guidelines, Mr. Penn should unfollow at least 52,986 people to strengthen his brand perception.

Polish Your Profile in 2 Easy Steps

1. Calculate your brand's Follow Score, and unfollow until the score is above 2.
2. Don't follow more than 200 people.

If you've tried this and found success, I'd love to hear your story in the comments.

PS My use of @cspenn as an example is no criticism of what he tweets — I only think his Follow Score could be improved to his advantage!

“Enter thee to my house and know great intimacy, share your thoughts and your hearts with openness,” said Mark as he expanded his house to accommodate people of all nations and creeds.

The Devil then came to Mark. “For while they dwelleth in thy house, suggest to them that they buy something and the value of your house will rise.”

“No, Eduardo,” said Mark. “My house will be pure.”

Eventually, though, the house needed reinforcement and expansion greater than he could accomplish by the work of his own hand and he had to give ear to the money lenders. “Tho if I shall have commerce,” he said, “I shall have it in a way that bothers no one.” And it may or may not have been good, but no one could tell and it was hotly debated in the trades. Yet Mark refused to be more assertive as it was the tradition of his people to honor all guests as family; a place of comfort cannot be also a bazaar.

But Mark did tell his servants to note everything his guests requested, everything they expressed, to better serve them by knowing them intimately, so that their souls may be delighted.

The Devil came to Mark again, this time in a different form. “You have refused to do what is necessary. You have raised ‘user experience’ as an idol but that idol will be your undoing.”

“No, shareholders,” said Mark. “I will keep my house pure. Turn your shares into plows so they may be more useful to you.”

Then Mark had a dawn of understanding: “Though I may be the Lord of Hosting, it is true that I am not responsible for my guests once they leave my hospitality.” And Mark called the angels together and made them know everything that his guests liked and thought and wanted so that the angels could more readily serve his guests when they were at home or away from home.

He sought many carpenters and provided them tools to make their dwellings in likeness to his. Thus was begotten the Omniscient Advertising Network, which kept Mark’s house pure but which lined the road to Damascus with ads for Frappuccino and myrrh. This path allowed also for his friends and their friends and the friends of their friends to encounter the angels when literally on the road to Damascus or anywhere else, connected by wisps of lightening. And the shareholders saw that whether it was good or not good, at the end of the day it was quite good.

I'll just come out and say it: Last week's Mobile Marketing Roundtable was nothing short of awesome.

Three of my favorite people in mobile marketing teamed up to answer questions on the quickly evolving world of mobile + social + local + retailing + pop culture and more.

On hand: Julie Fajgenbaum, vice president of brand and social media for American Express; Rachel Pasqua, director of mobile for New York  City-based digital marketing powerhouse Organic; and Dorrian Porter, CEO of mobile marketing phenom Mozes, a longtime sponsor of this blog.

All this week, I'll post excerpts from this wide-ranging new roundtable, which spans mobile apps vs. mobile web; Facebook's prospects for monetizing the mobile channel post IPO; the future of social television and much, much more. 

Up first: Fajgenbaum, who gives us the scoop on AMEX Sync, which offers card members discounts for tweeting advertised hashtags; strategies for fighting "showrooming" - the dynamic where consumers go to stores to see products but then order via mobile phone - and how mobile + Jay-Z = astonishing success.

MOBILE MARKETING ROUNDTABLE (PT 1): JULIE FAJGENBAUM: HOW AMEX BANKS OF MOBILE MARKETING

Click here to listen to MOBILE ROUNDTABLE PT 1: JULIE FAJGENBAUM - HOW AMEX BANKS ON MOBILE MARKETING

(11:09)

It's still the wild west when it comes to mobile ad tracking and ad serving. Although some agencies have started to test out various third party ad serving solutions, the delivery of many campaigns are still reported on by publisher, ad network, and rich media company ad servers. Many of these ad servers are proprietary ad servers with a range of capabilities.

There are also companies that are in the process of developing their own "mobile cookie" or proprietary tracking solutions. Some of these solutions require the implementation of third party tracking tags that are Javascript tags. Javascript tags are not yet widely accepted by mobile publishers and ad networks for various reasons from concerns over security to lack of ability to implement it in the ad server. It is much like the early days of online advertising (think circa 1999) when online ads were still primarily gif and jpgs, only pixel tracking was common, and publisher ad server reporting was the norm. We are in a very similar stage right now in mobile and we need to come together as an industry to be open to new methods so we can start to provide better measurement solutions for our clients.

Naturally as more Smartphones come into the market, we will see more rich media advertising in mobile which will help drive ad serving improvements just as we saw online. Until then, let's push for testing new tracking options in the market so we aren't stuck partying like it's 1999.

Among the points he made at the iMedia Agency Summit in Colorado Springs on SoLoMo's role in reinventing advertising and retail, Hendrix pointed to the radical shift in how geo-tagging and social media are forever changing the way consumers search and find information. Marketers can garner critical learnings from what location and time reveal about the consumer's context -- and how we target and individualize these location experiences are becoming important new channels for advertisers.

As brands and marketers trial test the ways in which they can capitalize on SoLoMo opportunities, how is your brand using SoLoMo to personalize, engage, enable, and reward the consumer?

By definition, SoLoMo represents situated experiences enabled by mobile and shared with others. With an estimated 74 percent of cellphone users using their device to get location-based information, and the staggering fact that 90 percent of us have our mobile device within reach at all times, the possibilities are infinite as the world becomes ever more reliant on staying connected and social.

According to Hendrix, there are six functional dimensions to each component of the SoLoMo mix that provide a palate of strategic approaches for creative innovation:

Social: Close friends, content, sentiment, networks, platforms, sharing

Local: Position, context, things, place, vicinity, proximity

Mobile: Devices, broadband, apps, sensors, internet, the cloud

It's important for marketers to know as many specifics as possible. What's around the consumer? What are they near? What are they approaching? What are they moving away from?
SoLoMo is creating a lot of digital signals that help us better understand these powerful tools and reveal -- at virtually no cost -- a great deal of information about consumer behavior.

The Broadmoor, built by Philadelphia entrepreneur and mining mogul Spencer Penrose in 1918, has served as a home-away-from-home for many of America's elite -- from John. D Rockefeller, to Bing Crosby, to President Obama.

The hotel's architecture reflects a time in U.S. history when the American aesthetic leaned toward ornate wood molding, floral wallpaper, and crystal chandeliers.

Last night, the Broadmoor provided the perfect milieu for leaders in the digital marketing world to converge and discuss the hot topic of this Agency Summit: SoLoMo.

However, the Broadmoor's appeal isn't as narrow as you'd think.

Last evening we were treated to a bagpipe performance by the lake:

Followed by an 80's style Flash Mob during dinner:

Flash Mob!

And a "wedding cake ceremony" themed after-party fit for Marie Antoinette:

Please visit our photo gallery for more pictures of the iMedia Agency Summit.

The Olympic games start on July 27, 2012, but the race to game the social ad strategy has already begun.

For the Beijing Summer Olympics, NBC alone sold over $1 billion worth of advertising, and online publishers took an estimated $100 million in revenue. Social advertisers take note: the 2008 games happened before social advertising really got going. Even in early 2010, social advertising was just gaining a foothold, and the 2010 Winter Olympics saw advertisers foray into social efforts.

This year, they're going all-in. The role of social in promotion of the 2012 Games will be huge.

Earned Social Campaigns in Full Swing

Earned media campaigns on the Olympics began earlier this spring, at the 100-day mark, with names like Proctor & Gamble and Coca-Cola taking up the social torch for their promotions.

On Facebook, Samsung is encouraging people to follow more Olympic athletes with an owned social play: an interest graph app called "How Olympic Are You?" As part of the self-titled “US Olympic Genome Project,” the app analyzes how well connected people are to athletes for this year's Games. (How is it interest graph-related? It analyzes people’s connections to Olympics influencers, similar to how some social ad companies analyze people's interests based on who they follow.)

Of most interest to advertisers using the interest graph, the Games have set up an Olympic Athletes' Hub to help people follow all their favorite competitors on social platforms like Twitter and Facebook, extending the earned reach of Olympic messaging to as many people as possible and strengthening interest graph links between influencers and fans.

Brands Seek to Maximize Social Sharing

The main focus in the paid media approach as reported by several outlets is on generating a maximum number of shares.

Alex Craddock, head of North America marketing for Visa (always a major Olympics sponsor), says (emphasis ours):

The biggest challenge, I’ll call it an exciting opportunity, is with social and the importance of social in orchestrating your content across those multiple platforms. We have a lot of experience on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and are harnessing those experiences to make sure “Go World” delivers a great user experience.

The goals are around engagement and sharing. We have a multitude of different metrics we track. It’s hard to find one metric that we’ll be able to track on a day-to-day basis. It’s the level of sharing and engagement that will drive the level of success across “Go World.” We focus on three key metrics, views of the multitude of videos, the “likes” that we garnish for our Facebook page and the variety of consumer content and the cheers themselves.

But how best to encourage engagement and sharing? Since London 2012 organizers seem to be discouraging homegrown shareable media, brands and organizers must reinforce opportunities for fans to share officially sanctioned media. The best way to do that is with paid social media: make it easy for fans to share your content in social by presenting it in a social context.

Paid Social Campaigns Ramp Up

And paid campaigns for #London2012 all things Olympic have already begun, with brands like Visa and Sega stepping up first.

Visa launched its huge "Go World" campaign, which includes a Facebook wall dedicated to fans’ cheers for athletes (similar to Gillette’s Facebook greeting card for Derek Jeter on 140 Proof in 2011) and paid promotion of the Twitter hashtag #VisaGoWorld.

Earlier this year, Twitter promised Olympics organizers that they wouldn't allow non-sponsors to squat the #London2012 hashtag for Twitter’s promoted products. That promise appears fulfilled so far: Only Sega, a London 2012 sponsor, is currently tagging along to Olympics momentum on Twitter to promote their latest game releases. Search Twitter for “#London2012” today, and you'll see Sega is promoted at the top of the results.

However, it's likely that we'll see paid social campaigns around the Olympics by non-sponsors too. What are your thoughts on the strength of buzz around the Olympics? Is now a good time for brand advertisers to make a push?

Vanessa Naylon (@vnaylon) is a Creative Strategist at 140 Proof.

Nominations are now open! Submit yours here by July 6.

Next Wave offers an opportunity for early stage start-ups across media and marketing categories to garner the attention and consideration of the world's leading brands and agencies. This year, our focus is on all things mobile, with the nomination categories spanning mobile entertainment, mobile shopping and commerce, and mobile campaign management and analysis.

Nominated companies will be vetted by an iMedia mobile advisory board, and 30 companies will move on to vie for votes on iMedia Connection this summer. Through the voting process, 12 companies (four in each category) will get the chance to pitch more than 300 digital marketing, venture capital, and agency elite during the iMedia Breakthrough Summit Showcase held at the iMedia Breakthrough Summit in October. An onsite vote will determine the Next Wave winner.

Think this is just another startup contest? Think again. Last year's winner, Viddy, recently scored $30 million in funding and has been called "the Instagram of video." As evidenced by Viddy and other finalists from last year, Next Wave companies represent the best and brightest in a variety of emerging marketing platforms.

What company do you think represents the "next wave" in marketing technology? Nominate (or encourage your favorite startups to submit a nomination) today!

From cool to creepy, we have the capabilities to target and advertise to audiences in potent new ways. And SoLoMo technologies have been in active use just long enough that we're starting to see best practices and value-based measurements emerge.

You'll want to click through the video presentations as they're posted to imediaconnection.com. We'll be hearing, over the next two days, about cutting edge practices at Twitter, Facebook, Xbox, Virgin America, Intuit, American Express, Rockfish, Levi Strauss & Co., AT&T adWorks, and many other companies. Their stories are candid, timely, and very insightful.

In the meantime, here are a few of our favorite pics from the past day, at the beautiful Colorado Springs Broadmoor Hotel.

And, my favorite discovery of the day: I sat next to a psychologist on the plane from LA, and she introduced me to the "txtRing." It's a set of two plastic rings you can wear (or tether to your iPhone), that can quickly be shifted to the thumbs to help with texting and gaming. It's currently being marketed to people who have trouble with small digital keys, but I could see this take off with kids if the design were cooler.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yesterday, Facebook sold 421 million shares at $38 apiece, valuing the company at $104 billion, four times larger than Google's 2004 valuation. According to The New York Times, technology companies experience a bump on the first day of trading, raising the average stock price 32 percent above its offer price. If Facebook follows the "first-day pop" trend, the company will be worth $137 billion at the market's close today. Even before this predicted increase, the $104 billion valuation makes Facebook the highest valued American company at the time of its offering and "the second-largest U.S. IPO ever behind Visa," according to CBS News. To monitor the latest share prices and public reactions to the IPO, check out The New York Times' live blog of "Facebook's Market Debut."

On 3.7 billion in sales in 2011, Facebook earned $1 billion, which calculates to some notable margins: For every dollar the company brings in, Facebook keeps $0.27. The company has also accrued 900 million users, and, according to Facebook, the company reports a $5.11 per user revenue. With millions of users, Facebook's public offering has created a public mania. But, will individual investors be able to grasp shares at $38? The answer, according to CBS News is "Not, likely." "Generally, large institutional investors get first dibs on the offering price while private investors may end up paying a higher, market order price. The Wall Street Journal reported that trading firm Knight Capital Group had a client willing to pay $4,000 a share."

For a more detailed looked into Facebook's IPO, check out Bloomeberg Businessweek's "Nine Things You Should Know About Facebook's IPO."

This week’s Drift is proudly underwritten by Shiny Ads,  the premiere white-label solution for self-serve advertising for digital publishers.  Our award-winning self-serve advertising platform generates net-new revenue from smaller ad buys while maintaining a high profit margin.  Our new Self-Serve for Direct Sales super-charges your direct sales and unburdens your ad-operations team by integrating directly into Salesforce.com and the top publisher ad servers directly via APIs. http://shinyads.com

Transparency. A term so ridiculously overused that it should be euthanized and buried immediately.  You can almost feel the eyes rolling as soon as it’s uttered.  Substitutes: Clarity, Certainty.

Brand-Safe. As I’ve said before in this space, “brand safety” is a haven for scoundrels.  The idea that we can make undifferentiated network and exchange inventory “safe” by applying some monitoring software is pretty questionable.  But above all else, “safe” is far too low a bar.  Substitutes: Brand Growth Environment, Brand Enhancing Environment.

DSP. Forget the fact that people use this term interchangeably when referring to everything from the agency trading desk to the hard core technology provider.  Find me a company today that will stand up and proudly say, “Yeah…DSP! That’s us!”  How fast the journey from being an “It” acronym to being a pariah.  Substitutes: I have no idea.

Optimization. At best it’s a promise to vanish behind the curtain, apply some unseen magic, and emerge somehow with an improved result or process.  But really it means making the click-rate incrementally better or the price somehow cheaper.  Substitutes: Cutting Your Price, Bonusing Inventory to Goose the Response Rate.

Attribution. Hey, didn’t we just get this one?  Yeah, but it’s going to be the Jeremy Lin of digital metrics.  Besides, with so little desire for genuine attribution metrics on the buy side, what’s the point?  Substitute: Short-Term DR Goalpost of the Moment.

Partner. Please.  This is something sellers say when they want to pretend they’re not really selling anything, and that buyers say when they want to get rate concessions and not make any commitments. Substitutes. Vendor, Seller.

Disagree?  Have a term or two of your own to add?  Have at it.

In advertising, they say your message is competing with not only every other ad, but all the messages your audience encounters.  In a world of 140 million Twitter users and 300 million tweets a day, that’s a lot of competition, so what you say and do counts.

Big brands such as @Chevrolet, @ESPN, and @NakedJuice have done a great job building a Twitter following, but it doesn’t take a big team and millions of dollars to get attention on Twitter.  Start small, focus on quality, and execute a solid strategy based on what the most successful brands are doing.

Here are ten big brand strategies that anyone can employ to build their following:

1. Polish your image.  Big brands pay attention to the visual impact of their pages.  Use a high quality photo or illustration for your icon. Imagine it in the context of other users' feeds. Will it stand out — in a good way? Customize your background with something that fits you. Use a large image or a tasteful pattern. Check out Themeleon or Pixelgirl Presents for ideas.
2. Follow fewer people than follow you.  Successful brands don’t join Team Follow Back. If you're following more people than follow you, unfollow a few people. And optimizing your Follow Score by unfollowing will put your content in its best light and help you attract more followers. We recommend following no more than 200 people on Twitter at any time — keeping up with more is virtually impossible and makes you appear disingenuous.
3. Tweet regularly but not too often.  Big brands don’t deluge followers with hundreds of tweets or too many posts about extraneous topics.  Use an app like Buffer to space out your tweets, and when you have a lot to say, blog it and tweet the link.  Post links during the week and keep tweets mellow on the weekends.
4. Keep tweets neat and tidy.  This is something many companies get wrong – the idea is to provide useful content, not search bait.  Don't use too many "social media marketer" tricks, like hashtags, jargon, or trite polls. Tweet conversationally. @TheRock uses hashtags, but he does so with self-conscious humor.
5. Tweet more than you retweet. Choose your retweets carefully, and don’t excessively retweet praise of yourself. If you’re excited about all the great feedback you’re getting for something you’ve done, simply say that to thank your fans.
6. Stay positive.  Big brands typically emphasize positive things and never go on a stream of consciousness rant.  When necessary, present thoughtful criticism but keep it professional. 
7. Stay real-time.  People can tell when your account is on auto-pilot or you’re just tweeting the news of the day. Live-tweet occasionally, comment on what’s happening now, and share photos, to remind people a real person is tweeting! Yes, sometimes that includes tweeting about what you had for breakfast, no matter what some people say. 
8. Return replies.  Thank and acknowledge people who give you positive feedback. Follow up respectfully with people who give you negative feedback. Take a look at @Starbucks for examples of how a brand deals with feedback, good or bad.
9. Promote your content. Advertise your Twitter accounts and content on LinkedIn or Google. Promote specific content or create a custom "follow me" message with a why-buy, and drive to a follow intents page to make following easy. And of course put your Twitter link in your email signature, business card, and on your blog or personal website. For some people, the Twitter link is more important than the web address or phone number!
10. Make your account public. Have you noticed that no brands go huge on Twitter with private accounts? Making a private Twitter account is like setting up a mailbox and putting a padlock on it. Let’s get through some hard truths. Twitter is not a private journal. There’s no reasonable expectation of privacy on the Internet anymore (so 1996). Your employer and your family can and WILL find you eventually. But if your account is private, fewer interesting people (read: potential friends, co-conspirators, and employers) will find you. Go public. The weather’s fine.

Finally, make sure to evaluate your profile occasionally — if a stranger were looking at it right now deciding whether to follow you, what would they think? Would they think you're too aloof (you don't respond to people)?

Things people look for:

• GOOD TWEETS (funny, interesting, or helpful)
• Regular, but not too frequent, tweeting
• A few replies every so often
• Whether you actually read other people's tweets (if you follow 2,000 people, no one will believe you have time to read all the tweets)

In a SoHo Lab, HuffPo Mafia rekindles the old magic

A story not only about how corporate dysfunction is killing the creative spirit, but also about how easy it is for the creative thinkers to find a different path. Like water running downhill.

Via @Britopian

GM Cuts Facebook Ad Spending, But Ford Steps on the Gas

Clearly GMs move wasn’t the last word on this issue. But what’s hidden in many of the articles I’ve read is that GM is still pouring a lot of money into Facebook content creation. They may have come in with a bad direct response mindset thinking they could spin Facebook ads into gold, but the fact that they’re still spending considerable sums on their Facebook pages content shows they aren’t anywhere near giving up on Facebook.

Via @Aerocles

Facebook’s Purchases May Hint at Its Future

This really demonstrates the challenges so many large companies are having keeping up. Companies like Facebook are foregoing much of the typical legwork around acquisitions, playing things more from the gut. Of course, the story isn’t over yet, but in the meanwhile, with Facebook able to make large acquisitions like Instagram quickly, it’s making things difficult for their less-nimble competitors.

How Users Are App-ifying The Web, With or Without Publishers

This app vs web story has been an interesting one, and as the article points out, it’s not shaking out the way either side thought. Another example of how lowering production and startup costs add constant forks in the pathway of technology.

Via @bradberens

What the Web Could Learn From Dawn of TV

Despite the relative recency of mass communications, it’s remarkable how cyclical they are. Mobile is following so many of the same routes Web 1.0 took. This article draws the parallels between online video content, and the early days of TV.

Via @learmonth

Facebook giveth, Facebook taketh: A curious case of video apps

Whether or not you saw the NY Times article about Facebook’s ability to predict the future of apps, this is a good alternate view.

Via @mcarney7

Twitter Campaign Donates Your Unused Characters

Another example of advertising seeping into every nook and cranny it can find.

Via @mashable

Cross-platform ad networks today are struggling to find a single, unified way to understand their audiences. For example, mobile networks’ panic over what to do about UDIDs has been going on for months. But on a broader level, how does a post-PC world deal with an audience that is everywhere, on every device, all at once?

The answer is social.

Social identity is fast becoming the great unifier of online activity. While UDID and other device identifiers can help direct marketers confirm that an app store purchase has completed, little else is available. Public social profiles include basic demographic and location information along with valuable context: who a person follows and what a person likes. This aspect of social is known as the interest graph.

The Quick Guide to Interest Graph Targeting

Social advertising networks have many ways of reaching a brand’s desired audience, but one of the most effective methods of targeting is through the interest graph. Targeting people based on their interests, keywords they say and see, and who they follow is a simple way to achieve social relevance in advertising. When a user logs into a social app, the public data about who they follow is used to analyze their interests. Almost everyone follows someone influential — and influential people tend to be influential on particular topics. For example, @Forbes is influential among financial products consumers, @nytimesbooks is influential among book lovers, and @ESPN is influential among sports fans.

Targeting Consumers in Social: 3 Examples

Advertisers can effectively build audiences in social advertising by aggregating the followers of influencers on particular topics. Let’s take three big events in May: Mothers Day, the Indianapolis 500, and the Grammys.

Mothers Day

Many kinds of retailers capitalize on Mothers Day as an occasion to drive sales. Imagine that a consumer electronics retailer wanted to reach people shopping for gifts for Mothers Day. For this campaign, the brand could use a conquest strategy to reach people who favor consumer electronics brands and news. Brands such as @BestBuy, @Amazon, @Pinterest, @wired, @engadget, @gizmodo, @gadgetlab, @ForbesTech, and @mashable combines a large group of followers into a single group. And people who follow more than one targeted brand will be prioritized to receive the retailer’s message.

The Grammys

Now let’s make it a little more complex. What if you need to target two audiences at once? Let’s say a retail brand is sponsoring the Grammys and wants to make a continuity play in social to reinforce the other media in the plan. In this case, we would target both fans of retail influencers as well as music lovers. So the brand would create a custom audience of the followers of brands like: @hm, @TeenVogue, @TOMS, @Burberry, @americanapparel, @zappos, @Etsy, @JCPenney, @Target, @TheGRAMMYs, @Rihanna, @Eminem, @katyperry, @Shakira, @kanyewest. By an extremely broad definition, up to 50 million people can be targeted with this combination of personas.

Indy 500

Interest graph targeting works for every vertical or type of event. Let’s say a CPG brand wants to make a big push around the Indy 500 for a promotional tie-in with a specific driver it sponsors. The principle is the same as for the Grammys: target the followers of sports and racing influencers (including the sponsored driver!) as well as CPG shoppers. The CPG brand promoting around the Indy 500 would aggregate the followers of accounts like the CPG brands @kraftmacncheese, @Skittles, @Oreo, and @miraclewhip; the sports brands @NASCAR, @ESPN, @SportsCenter; and popular drivers @dariofranchitti, @danicapatrick, and @h3lio.

Now you should have a better understanding of how interest graph targeting can be used to aggregate followers into audiences. Do you know of a brand facing a unique targeting challenge, or do you have any questions about interest graph targeting? Let us know in the comments.

YouTube video series generating high levels of sharing on Facebook

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About Zuum

Zuum is a tool that helps brands increase their engagement level with their Facebook fans by knowing what works on Facebook. For their brand and their competitors.
www.ZuumSocial.com