What results often times is either: 1) shoving traditional campaign structures into social networks, or 2) a big bowl of tactics that are stand alone gimmicks, giving neither the creators or brand managers a fair way to evaluate whether integrated campaign tactics actually do integrate. And when they do integrate, how do you create consistency without droning sameness?

To make sense of it all, to give teams a structure by which they can create ideas that build on each other, I made a bit of a simple, strategic mashup: First, take the 3-act storytelling structure that humans have been using for a few thousand years to relate and process information. Then, blend with Nielsen's Participation Inequality Law, the rule of thumb that describes digital participation behaviors at scale.

What comes out is a way to look at campaigns where the launch / event / purchase isn't the end of the story, or the beginning. It should be where it belongs: at the climax of the story. That allows the ending of your arc to be the resolution of your audience members succeeding: the behavioral outcome that could not have occurred without the brand having facilitated it.

But that only gets us as far as campaign content, and campaigns in social aren't enough.

To truly model out and encourage positive behaviors, you need to be actively facilitating the community. The Participation Framework makes sure that your brand's declarative statements are balanced as part of a mix that balances content and conversation.

Because people engaging with the brand is a means to an end: people using the brand as a setting to strengthen relationships with each other. Again, positive community behaviors are what you're shooting for. It's these behaviors that will ultimately determine the social success of a brand.

Here's the whole deck with much more step-by-step detail on how Behavioral Storytelling works.

If you're wondering how you can use structures like this to make the difference for your brand, join me at General Assembly in NYC for a class on June 4, or I can work with a number of different teams in your organization: as a speaker or consultant.

What's your take on social content strategy? Drop a note below in the comments or on twitter @mleis.

Want to be the go-to guy or gal on your team with the flashiest new apps? The one dressing Instagram photos with never-before-seen filters and stamps, using emoticons our Japanese counterparts only released yesterday?

It can be time-consuming to stay current in social and digital media, so here are some effective ways to quickly surface and assess the hottest toys.

1. Assign yourself playtime. My playtime is Sunday evening after “Mad Men.” I pull out my iPad and iPhone and I furiously start downloading new apps. I jump over to the Featured and Top Charts sections of iTunes to see if there are any new additions. I download them, bring them to the forefront, launch them, create a new account, follow the top accounts (if applicable), invite a few friends and make time to revisit them later in the week. If it’s a photo app, I try out some photos and push them out to Facebook to see how they look. If it’s a news app, I load it up with my interested topics and see how it populates.

Interaction with apps is important. You need to understand the functionality before you make a recommendation. And don’t just bury your new downloads in the graveyard, i.e., the last page of apps.

2. Subscribe to folks who do the research for you. Having been part of the tech PR community, I am (somewhat) responsible for having jammed reporters’ inboxes with pitches about startups. The good folks at TechCrunch, Mashable, The Next Web, ReadWrite and countless other online publications filter through all that noise to help uncover the next big thing. So listen to them, they’ve done their homework.

A few worth noting: I closely follow my buddy Ryan Lawler, who is responsible for introducing Uber and BlackJet to my vocabulary. And Mashable’s Emily Price posts a weekly app roundup of top mobile apps.

Determine what you like to follow on the medium that’s easiest for you to use, and stay on top of it.

3. Identify a network to discuss and share your latest finds. New York Tech Meetup holds monthly events where tech companies demo their products to a large group of tech enthusiasts. Digital LA holds events for “Silicon Beach” startups to showcase their products. These are two examples of larger organizations, but you can replicate the experience with a close group of friends or coworkers. Identify networks both online and offline where you can share exciting discoveries with others. Pass around your phone or pull up the site on your desktop. Don’t just chat about it – do it together.

Yuna Park is Associate Director of Social & Digital Innovation at 22squared. Follow her @yunapark, and follow the agency @22squared.

What other media channel can compare with this?

Consumers are rapidly adopting mobile devices and behaviors and spending an average of 2 hours per day on smartphone devices. We are rarely separated from them, and we check our phones every 6.5 minutes (or 150 times daily). 

MOBILE advertising grew by 88% in 2012

While MOBILE ad/media spending is only 1% of total media (vs. 10% share of consumer media time), MOBILE advertising grew by 88% in 2012 (from $2.4B to $4.5B). MOBILE ad spending growth to-date has been limited by marketers/agencies challenges in creating MOBILE ads designed specifically to take advantage of MOBILE devices. Chia Chen, SVP Mobile Practice Leader at Digitas indicated their client's mobile ad spending grew by 400% (4X more rapidly) because their ads for Amex, Taco Bell, M&Ms and other clients treated smart phones as "small TVs" and incorporated richer media, and more native creative palettes.

Global Tablet Advertising Study - Results Presented

Beth Doyle, Innovation Director at Vivaki, revealed the results of a 14-month global industry study of 20 million global tablet users (sponsored by 12 advertisers including P&G and Coke and 12 media companies) titled The Pool: The Tablet Lane - TABLETS RISING. This study tested 35-40 tablet advertising formats and yielded 3 STD Tablet ad formats being proven as meeting consumers' needs: (1) let me drive; (2) more for me; (3) "tablet-ize" the user experience; (4) no guessing games - keep it intuitive and simple. Clearly, with MOBILE (smartphone and tablet) ad standards emerging, marketers are well on their way to utilizing this new medium in unique ways not available through other previous media channels.

MOBILE's Big Differentiators

MOBILE is a one-to-one media channel and LOCATION is MOBILE's big differentiator. These devices give consumers the ability to find anything they need in real-time and for marketers (with opt-in permission) to find their best customers and prospects when they are in active shopping/buying mode. 40% of consumers already utilize MOBILE devices as their primary (exclusive) online research channel and 60% of mobile shopping converts to purchase (with 75% of sales take place in-store).

Todd Morris, EVP of Mobile & Marketing at Catalina indicated mobile-assisted grocery shoppers buy 8%+ more and over 1M+ consumers are already spending over $1B+ in mobile grocery shopping where items are scanned, store discounts/coupons are applied, and orders are delivered or picked up without waiting in checkout lines.

Trish Mueller, CMO at Home Depot indicated mCommerce grew 129% in 2012 and sales from MOBILE are projected to exceed $650M by 2016. Home Depot has developed a MOBILE web and apps which make it one of the top 10 retail sites creating "an endless aisle" where consumers can access 400,000 SKUs as well as product information and peer reviews at the point of purchase. One of the most innovative apps is "Find A Pro" where consumers can take a video of a problem, send it to Home Depot, and they will connect consumers with "Pros" who can bid the job.

Winston Wang, Global Director - Strategic Innovation at AB Bev, demonstrated "beer and MOBILE go hand-in-hand" indicating beer is the original social network and MOBILE is helping Sales & Marketing along the entire purchase funnel as well as in the loyalty/advocacy areas after purchase. Winston shared MOBILE apps for Stella Artois (9 step pouring ritual, LeBar finder), Beck's and Bud Light.

Announcement: A New MMA Initiative To Address The Mobile Talent Gap

MMA-NA has launched a NEW Mobile Talent Task Force (Jeff Gundersen - Co-Chair) and the first open Committee meeting was held at the MMA-NY 2013 Forum. All parties (marketers, agencies, media companies, technology providers, educators, training & development companies, and other interested parties) are invited to reach out to Jeff Gundersen for a copy of the "Strategic Framework" and related mobile talent research studies pertaining to this new Committee.

Using Social Media to Market Just About Anything

Some products and businesses, big or small, are harder to market than others. Some products are a bigger part of the public psyche (example: iPads) than others, which almost never come up around the dinner table or on a Christmas list (example: specialty bean bag chairs). But obscure products have a place on the internet, too - anything can be sold and everything can go viral. Here are three tips for finding an audience for almost any product or message:

So how can someone be engaging online? Start conversations, respond to tweets and comments, promote other people's content as well as your own, and always stay positive. Rather than only posting news about the business, get excited about other relevant content-- news or other people's creations. This makes for a more interesting feed as well as brings in new followers and expands the business' reach.

For example, Tumblr users have created businesses for themselves selling everything from art to fandom teas-- tea blends based on various TV shows and movies. Etsy users sell jewelry, crafts, and other homemade items and can promote their stores on relevant social media sites. Pinterest is a great place for household products and fashion, everything from beanbag chairs to indie makeup products.

Finding an audience for an obscure product or a small business online can take some time, but the rewards of that hard work will be well worth it. Sometimes the most popular social media sites aren't the best places for specialty items, while more focused sharing sites and forums could have an interested audience just waiting to be found. Tagging posts on a website and social media sites will help interested customers find the business, and being engaging on social media sites can catch the eye of new followers.

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ernest Hemmingway
The concept of buyer personas, as a means for understanding buyers, has been around now for over a decade.  It is an understatement to say many things have changed in the world of buying and selling since their beginning.

We have witnessed the changing dynamics of the buyer-seller relationship. The dynamics I refer to are buying behaviors and buyer goals.  On the other side of the coin, we see marketing and sales making attempts to adapt.  The concepts of content marketing, lead nurturing, insight-based selling, customer experience, and brand management emphasized.  These practices have been introduced as gateways to connecting with buyers in the new digital age.

Adapting to New Realities

Personas, at their core, were introduced as a tool to communicate the goals and behaviors of users and buyers.  Specifically for informing strategies related to product design and marketing to buyers.  For B2B Marketing and Sales, a clearer picture has begun to emerge around the goals and behaviors of buyers.  Yet, there are many more miles to go.  My endeavor and work with organizations over the past decade lead me to this conclusion:

Personas, specifically in B2B, need to be adaptive to new goals and behaviors of buyers throughout their buyer’s journey.  In addition, personas need to be designed for the new practices, which are developing in marketing and sales.

The term buyer persona has been used universally to an extreme level. The term worked well when buyers relied on sales for their buying cycle for upwards to eighty percent.  We are seeing the inverse today.  Here is where I believe buyer trends as well as qualitative evidence is telling us to go:

B2B personas need to be researched, understood, and designed to meet robust goals and behaviors of buyers throughout the end-to-end buying cycle and brand experience.  In addition, personas need to be designed to enable as well as make more effective new practices, functions, and roles.

Persona Buying Cycle™

As new operational models for marketing and sales develop, there are 5 buying behavior phases of the buying cycle personas must now address:

1. Audience Behavior: the concept of content marketing reaching audiences is more prevalent.  Audience goals and behaviors are distinctly different when not in the market for products or services.  Yet, awareness, insight, and intelligence are an important component of connecting with existing customers and future buyers today.  Content marketing effectiveness is enabled when it can reach many different types of audiences.  Audience personas must now include the likes of industry influences and more.
2. Lead Behavior: one of the fastest growing areas, in terms of emerging practices, is the rise in lead nurturing and lead development.  Buyers have distinct goals and behaviors when they convert from being a part of a wider audience to an interested party.   New forms of lead research and lead personas can create more effective conversions from an interested party to an active buyer.
3. Buyer Behavior: the core persona when buyers have become actually engaged in the process of buying.  Buying behaviors, and buying goals, operate on a different level when buyers are actively engaged in the buying process.  Buyer personas, true their original intent, are designed to enable the buying process between buyer and seller.
4. Customer Behavior: when a buyer becomes a customer, there is a trial period underway.  This trial period consists of a different set of goals and behaviors meaningful to confirmation and customer experience.  Specific customer personas can enable understanding and capabilities to meet customer goals post-sale.  Implementation and customer support teams can benefit immensely from personas designed specifically for their roles.
5. Brand Behavior: brand management is emerging out of the shadows, as a competency B2B companies have to get right today.  Fulfilling the brand promise consistently is one of the hardest jobs of marketing and an organization as a whole.  Customers and buyers have different goals, behaviors, and beliefs, which surround brands.  The goal here is to convert customer personas into brand persona advocates.

A recommendation for forward-thinking marketing and sales leaders is to begin thinking in terms of the Persona Buying Cycle™ versus a singular focus on a buyer persona.  One certainty is the buyer’s journey not only begins before buyers think of themselves as a buyer, but also extends beyond the purchase.  Having a common visual and story of how buyer’s goals and behaviors change throughout the buying cycle is compelling.   We are also seeing activities, functions, and roles widen in marketing and sales in response to changing buying behaviors.  The Persona Buying Cycle™ is a natural extension to address both of these developments.

Positive Outcomes

Creating B2B personas through the lenses of a Persona Buying Cycle™ help bring these positive outcomes:

• • Make personas relevant throughout the major touchpoints of the end-to-end buyer’s journey
  • Make personas more practical to each functional team interacting with audiences, buyers, and customers
  • Make demand generation, lead generation, opportunity management, and customer experience more effective
  • Provide a common communications platform for understanding buyers
  • Foster alignment between marketing and sales by mapping to specific buyer goals and behaviors

In a dozen years, we have seen the then straightforward buyer-seller dynamics become more complex.  How B2B views the use of personas, from a pragmatic standpoint, now must adapt.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to the Buyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Related articles

• Marketing is in the Throes of a Buyer Revolution
• The Art of Buying

• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle (tonyzambito.com)

Ever since my start in the world of digital and social media marketing, I’ve noticed that our kind is separated into two groups: those who go home after the workday and swear to lay off Facebook and the like, and those who cannot stop browsing those same platforms until their eyes shut for the night.

As someone who belongs to the latter camp, I’ve found that my personal social media activity has helped me throughout my career. Boiled down into three brief bullets below are what I believe to be easily adoptable best practices for getting the most out of your social media habits – and a way to never feel guilty about scrolling through a feed!

1. Follow competitors and industry-leading brands

This is an obvious one, but many in the field simply hit the “Like” button and never end up seeing content from these brands. You may also be tracking them in a dashboard during the workday or see them in an end-of-week report, but you may likely lose the context in which the content shined (or failed). Use a Twitter List or Facebook Interest List to aggregate brand content. Hit “Like” or take a screenshot when you see something compelling. Competitive research has never been this easy, so take advantage! Feel free to peruse my list on Facebook for ideas/reference.

2. Be the target

Studies and surveys provide us with comprehensive data on the social media consumption habits of our brands’ targets, but our learning doesn’t have to stop there. Surround yourself in the media that surrounds your target. Are you a brand speaking to teenage girls? Then follow Kendall Jenner on Keek and Nasty Gal on Instagram, take the #FollowATeen challenge to the next level. Are you an automobile brand talking to 20-something males? Then follow George Takei on Facebook and Rob Delaney on Twitter. Get used to the form factor, voice, tone, timing and frequency, and the next time you and your team are concepting, use that information as a helpful filter.

3. Experiment – now!

This is another obvious but frequently ignored practice. Know when the newest products and features are rolling out and get on those beta lists. Do you have Twitter Music downloaded to your phone? When Facebook Timeline rolled out, did you experiment with your cover photo? Play with new technology first for yourself and then set up dummy brand accounts (on platforms that permit this) to test out brand-only features. That way, you can make early, sound recommendations to brands.

Yuna Park is Associate Director of Social & Digital Innovation at 22squared. Follow her @yunapark, and follow the agency @22squared.

The quest to uncover how and why people and businesses engage in the act of buying is becoming an endurance race.  Spurred on by increasing social technologies advances.  The result is many organizations, whether academia or business, have focused on the science of buying.  What we may be losing is critical understanding of the art of buying.

What we are witnessing in the new digital age is the old rules of near total dependency on understanding processes and rules associated with buying is no longer the sole winning ticket.  Buying processes and rules have been dissected and analyzed many times over throughout the past few decades.  We clung to the belief of knowing the how will lead us to systematic knowledge of how to close more business with buyers.   The problem marketing and selling organizations face today is the how – processes and rules – are not as easily defined or structured as in the past.  Social technologies have made it possible for new networks and collaboration amongst buyers – causing plenty of flex in processes and rules.

The Why of Buying

If the science of buying has focused on the how of buying, the art of buying is a heightened quest for understanding the Why of Buying™.  The focus on how businesses buy in B2B marketing and sales has led to many different spin offs of stages, processes, cycles, and funnel shapes.  These exercises do have value.  However, here is a way of looking at what is missing:

A pure focus on process and stages, for example, creates a focus on what buyers are doing rather than what they are thinking and why it is important.

My point of view goes something like this:

Despite all the hype and efforts made in demand generation and content marketing, organizations are still struggling in these areas.  This is due to campaigns and programs designed to fit into established ideas of how businesses buy.  We have even believed automating processes to fit into our view of how we believe buyers buy will speed up purchase cycles.  This is happening at the expense of innovating marketing and sales to get at the core why of buying.

In the recent B2B Demand Generation Benchmark Survey 2012 sponsored by Eloqua, CMO, and Software Advice, I was struck by how 45 to 60% of the 155 marketer respondents believed demand generation performance were below expectations.  Those using marketing automation believing performances were better than those not using marketing automation.   In recent CMI as well as eConsultancy surveys, 40 to 50% of marketers surveyed believed their content marketing efforts were not effective.

Effectiveness a Continuing Struggle

Effectiveness and performance continue to be ongoing issues when it comes to demand generation and content marketing.  While organizations may be getting more productive and efficient at automating processes related to demand generation and content marketing, the missing link is an understanding of why buyers behave, think, and decide as they do.  How buyers behave, think, and decide do not always fit squarely into boxes we have defined to go with processes, rules, or stages.

To become more effective at helping buyers, marketing and sales organizations will need to do this:

Put more investment and energy into understanding the why of buying as opposed to an over abundance on the science of marketing and sales.  We cannot understand how to help buyers unless we are grounded in knowing the why.

Competitive advantage will be determined by knowledge of the motivations, beliefs, thinking, perceptions, goals, behaviors, and responses on the part of buyers.  Marketing today must fulfill the role of understanding how buyers behave and think.   Sales must become the enablers of buyers helping themselves.

The Stories of Buyers

The art of buying is represented through the stories of buyers.  For every industry, there are compelling stories about buyers, which can be told.  It is through these stories we can learn the motivations and goals of buyers, which open the door to understand the why of buying.  For marketing and sales, the key to future success will be in understanding what stories are unfolding, why these stories are important, and how to become part of stories. To mold this key, it will take more art than science to achieve.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to the Buyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Follow @tonyzambito

Related articles

• Marketing is in the Throes of a Buyer Revolution
• 4 Buyer Trends That Will Shake Marketing in 2013

• The Art of Buying (tonyzambito.com)

Now, it looks like LinkedIn is trying to change this perception with LinkedIn Contacts and the recently released visual profile.

LinkedIn Contacts

The new LinkedIn Contacts app creates interesting new options for its users, with a more integrated and richly developed version of the original LinkedIn. As I mentioned previously, over the past few years, the average users’ account has gotten muddled with acquaintances and people they barely know. This add-on app allows the ‘power’ user to focus more on the real details of the people they know well and/or want to focus on. I liken it in many ways to the dashboard function of a CRM. The integration of the app with Outlook, Google, Yahoo and others means that people have access to a cross reference of information, can create calendar reminders and focus more on making quality contact. Also, because this is a separate application, LinkedIn Contacts offers additional functionality without further cluttering the site.

An alternate, but parallel storyline to LinkedIn Contacts is the idea of getting people to live in the app. Similar to Facebook Home, the motivation behind LinkedIn Contacts is to have users rely on the service and use it as their gateway. The high level of integration and the slimming down or hiding of superfluous features again speaks directly to usability and function. These are traits that will help make the app a ‘go-to’ tool for the power users that LinkedIn wants to cater to with LinkedIn Contacts.

LinkedIn Visual Profile

While LinkedIn certainly doesn’t need to add another visual component to the site, the introduction of the visual profile is a step in the right direction to give LinkedIn more credibility. Users can now add photos and videos to substantiate claims that the endorsements function was supposed to offer. For example, those in creative professions like photographers, advertisers or even webcasting providers,  can upload their portfolio or samples of work that provide more depth than someone clicking the endorsement button for “online advertising,” “digital media” or “webcasting.” Instead, clients or colleagues can “like” or comment on the media uploaded. In this case, like with endorsements, hopefully friends or family members are not the people “liking” or commenting on professional work.

I may have been harsh in likening LinkedIn to MySpace, but the site has been moving away from acting like the professional social network and business tool I always relied on it to be. Adding the Contacts app and visual profile element allows the site to be more social without sacrificing its authority in business networking. You’re welcome, LinkedIn.

Be Real

Your online profile for your business should be true. Fill in with all information you ought to regarding your business. This adds to the credibility of your business. Disclose all public details of your business. Even if, it is a small business, your address, contact details can be shared. You can create an impression that is decent through these networking sites. Only, when your online presence is real, your business will be acknowledged as authentic.

Initiate Interaction

A profile that is good and authentic is excellent, but the mere existence of such a profile is no good. You should encourage interactions with your followers or friends. Let them ask questions, and use suggestions. You need to pay heed to what your network connections say about your business. Make sure you stay connected often and interact frequently.

Manage a Site or a Blog

A blog or a website for your business is a crucial tool. A profile or page on the social networking sites is not enough to boost the business. Social networking sites can get you connected to thousands of people, but what makes your business professional is the website of your own. Owning a website becomes more important if you run an online business. The site should be easy for navigation, designed to reach users and should appear good. There are many service providers, who provide website building services catering to your needs and also fit into your budget. Also, maintain a blog that helps you share the relevant information to your customers and the public, and help you keep your business in the news.

Create a List of email Contacts

You need to design your own mailing list and people should be invited to opt in for this. Make sure you get their consent before sending emails as many will directly send them to trash even without opening it. Your mailing list should be the contact list of the people or group who look forward to hearing from you. This makes it obvious that what you post them on a periodic basis should be interesting. You can avail such services for various budget ranges and even free charges are available online. This is the best option for long lasting business relationships.

Consistency of Connection

Even after you employ various strategies mentioned here you have to make sure that you need to be consistent. The results cannot be immediate and bound to take time. You should stay connected and keep interacting, even if the desired results are not yet started to pour in. When you feel that modifications are needed to be done in the strategies, keep making changes that will ensure progress.

So when something like Twitter’s Vine comes along, every business should sit up and pay attention.

What is Vine?

If you haven’t heard of it yet, Vine is a brand-new app for the iPhone that Twitter just released. It enables you to record short videos (up to six seconds) that loop over and over, and share them with your followers.

It’s very easy to use. You simply hold down the button and it records. When you release the button, it stops. So essentially, you can create a straight six-second video or you can record, pause, record, pause to create a sort of stop-motion video.

Sure, six seconds isn’t very long. But that just means you have to be creative. It also lets you get your point across very fast and keeps users coming back for more. The doors are wide open for you to sweep in and make this a fun, yet potentially serious money-making marketing tool. Video content is highly engaging; and since it’s on the phone, that makes it even more appealing.

Though it’s been live for only a short time, Vine has already attracted lots of attention. News outlets and some pretty big brands are already putting it to use and talking about it. More than 100,000 videos were posted over a single weekend.

There is already a steady flow of sites popping up merely to air, share, and display Vine videos, for example:

• Just Vined
• Vines Map (this one could get interesting for local businesses!)
• Vine Roulette

How can small businesses use Vine?

Like all forms of social media marketing, the more creative you get, the better your campaign and ROI will be.

Think your business isn’t right for Vine, or social media in general? Get creative and you’ll see there’s a world of opportunity here. One particular example of social media marketing success from a business with a mundane product (portable storage containers) was this infographic drawing a comparison between modern moving and the Oregon Trail. Clever, right? Not only is this an excellent way to engage with your followers, but it can be good for attracting new ones.

And not just on Twitter, either. The videos you post through the Vine can also show up in search results. Since they support hashtags, they can gain traffic from them the same way that tweets and other social posts do.

Add to all this the fact that the app has already been updated to give viewers the ability to embed or share videos on Facebook or Twitter. Then take note that Facebook’s app is the most widely viewed on-the-go on smartphones. Do you see the potential here?

To get you started, here are just a couple of ways you could use Vine:

Contests

Contests have been and continue to be a big hit among social media users. Who doesn’t like to be a winner or get free stuff?

The Vine gives you a fun, interactive way of hosting a contest by letting users submit their own Vine videos as entries. They could submit creative videos, videos of themselves using your product, videos of them opening their brand new “insert your product here,” and so on. Here’s an excellent example.

Transform current content

Do you have any YouTube videos already online? If so, you could chop them into shorter segments that are fun or helpful, and release them in a series as Vines.

New product showcase or teaser

You could easily shoot sweet little videos of upcoming products to generate user interest. Here’s a newly coined term you’re likely to see more often: “Tweaser.” This is what the director did for the new Wolverine movie. Instead of a traditional movie trailer, he released a “Tweaser” with the first footage of the film to be exposed to the public.

• Here’s the Wolverine Teaser.
• Here’s an example that showcases products from Lucky Magazine (summer fashion).
• And here’s an amazing Vine created to generate interest and excitement in the new issue of People magazine:

Have a plan, but have fun!

Don't just start uploading videos with no purpose, plan, or goal. Make it a point to be able to define what your video should do in one short sentence.

Should it get the viewer excited about a product? Should it get people to click through to another page? Should it make them anticipate and want to see the next video in the series?

Get personal and show your customers that you’re more than just a business name. You could do a series that shows your team doing what they do on a daily basis. (Are your people at their desk? Are they out taking photos?)

Vine for business is marketing, just like any other social platform you may be using. But it’s designed to be lighthearted, so have fun with it!

Marketing is supposed to influence consumer behavior, but what happens when marketing becomes a two way conversation and the people who are in direct contact with consumers are not thinking like salespeople? The conversation keeps going and nobody buys anything. That’s really fun, but it won’t keep the business in business, which is an important part of business.

There are a million things we do every day that make us feel like we’ve worked hard and accomplished something. Social media is one of them. Today your social media team connected with lots of people, and you drove conversation and awareness. People commented and you commented back and all this activity can be measured, even.

What about those sales? Did anything get sold? That's when the excuses start to fly.

1. BUT... SOCIAL MEDIA IS ONLY ABOUT RAISING AWARENESS, YOU KNOW... LIKE BILLBOARDS

The difference between a billboard and social media marketing is that if you talk to a billboard it can’t talk back. Billboards can’t have conversations, answer questions or talk you into doing stuff. They can make you aware of something, but then you have to go somewhere else to learn more... like a website, call a number, or Google it if its one of those movie billboards that’s supposed to make you make you curious about what it is when all you see is a date.

2. BUT... THE PRODUCT IS CRAP

So what? Lots are. Even turds get swarmed by flies. Your job is to sexy up that turd and gather up some flies. If it’s really that bad you shouldn’t have taken the job. Find the right audience and connect with them. Do your job

3. BUT... IT’S HARD TO CONNECT SOCIAL MEDIA DATA TO SALES FIGURES

Then stop trying to do that. Just look at your numbers before you start a social media campaign, promo, launch a video, run a contest, and look at them after. Are you selling more? If not, stop doing it or do it differently. If so, double down on it.

I run a digital creative agency and my two biggest responsibilities include making sure new business is coming in and great work is going out. We rely 100% on social media for our new business development, so each day when I ask myself and our team what we accomplished today, I don’t mean the details, I mean the results. What did we do to move the needle forward for ourselves and for our clients?

4. BUT... SOCIAL MEDIA IS JUST ABOUT BUILDING INTEREST AND DEMAND

Yup. Then what? Is some other team supposed to swoop in and take care of the sales part? Are you going to wait for consumers to call or email for more info or ask where they can get what you’re selling? You have a captive audience. They just need to know what to do next. Make them not only aware of your product or service but aware of what they can do to get it and reasons why they should.

5. BUT... IT’S WHAT THE CLIENT WANTS

Maybe the client is wrong. Listen to what the client wants to achieve more than how the client wants you to do it. If their ideas aren’t working show them the pie charts. People love pie charts. They clearly tell the story while simultaneously reminding them of pie, and everyone loves pie.

A few years back, my agency was pitching a viral video marketing project for IBM. The marketing director asked me “do you have the balls to tell us what you really think, no matter what we say?” You’re the expert in the room. Start acting like it.

By the way... I said yes and we got the job. Now get back to work.

As I detail below, here are the top five reasons for private proactive engagement:

• Message Targets - With private messaging, you can target your fans based on your particular campaign objectives. A number of services allow you to target based on geography and interests as well as allowing for personalizing the engagements. With public messages, target your top prospects and/or influencers. With the limited number of tweets that are reasonable to push out per day, it’s crucial for your brand to get the most out of your directed outreach.

• Message Varieties - With private messaging, all you have to do is perfect the one message that resonates best with your target audience. With public messaging, it’s important to add a variety of messages as many of your targets will click-through to your feed and you don’t want them noticing the same message repeated.

• Message Types - With private messaging, an initial communication can be a question or even a call to action that includes a link because you have already developed trust with your fans. With public messaging, be very careful when sharing links as users are often skeptical of random mentions that contain shortened links.

• Message Timing - With private messaging, all the messages can go out at the same time. With public messaging, you’ll likely want to stagger your directed messages and fill your stream with ‘filler content’ that can break up the similar messages.

• Message Frequency - With private messaging, you should ideally put your targets on a drip strategy to optimize your desired action. With public messaging, be ready to stop communication if the targets are not responsive.

Strive to build a meaningful audience as quickly as possible, and turn your social followers into the second coming of your email list. Good luck activating your audience!

You are reaching the wrong people.

Ok, that’s not a fair statement. You are reaching some of the right people, but they are only sporadically interspersed within a larger group of the wrong people that you are also reaching. If you were always reaching the right people, your marketing efforts would yield a 100% conversion rate. And I’m guessing this is not the case.

But why is this? Why do you continually reach the wrong people at a much higher frequency than the right ones? It isn’t that statisticians and scientists aren’t good at building lookalike and predictive models based on audience data. More likely it is because the data used to power those models just isn’t very good.

A lookalike model is only as good as the data that goes into it. Models are built based on aggregating and correlating the data attributes for a particular audience segment that then identifies commonalities across users taking certain actions. It then uses those commonalities to find people that look the same based on those data attributes. If your model has 2 data attributes, it spits out a value using each of those two attributes. If it has 50, it spits out values and combinations using those 50, and so on. To yield greater efficiencies in targeting, the focus should be on not just having a lot of data attributes for your audience, but on having as many unique and differing types of data attributes as possible. Behaviors, yes, but also genuine interests. The predictive models themselves aren’t broken. The data that goes into the models is what makes the targeting less than ideal most of the time.

This is why many advertisers and companies in our industry are falling short in their targeting efforts. They either don’t have enough data points to make the models meaningful, or they might have many data points from a number of different sources but it is all collected and attributed in a homogenous way, and therefore really doesn’t help a whole lot. Sure, demographic data is great. In fact, going way back, magazines first really introduced the concept of targeting profiles and audiences using this type of data. But now, online behavioral targeting has provided us the opportunity to take this to a whole new level. Still, today, the data most prominently used is based on inferred extrapolated audience behavior and doesn’t properly factor in the interests or even mindset of the individual that explain and outline what caused the person to take that behavior in the first place.

Cross channel data and audience insights solve this. A prime example would be the combination of Facebook and social media profile data with display behavioral data. On Facebook, every attribute is based on user-expressed interests. What people like to do. The activities and media properties they say they are interested in. These user-expressed interests give insights into who the person is, and help explain why that person, based on their interests, is drawn to a particular brand, or towards purchasing a particular product. These are incredibly valuable insights.

In combination with behavioral data, these insights make it much easier to cut down that large group of wrong people you are reaching, and provide the ability to hone in on the people that not only have the behaviors of a person that will take action, but also the underlying interest in doing so. In execution, by just adding the interest profile of a user from social media layered onto the behavioral attributes from a lookalike profile, it consistently yields a 3-5x increase in conversion and engagement rates over the standard behavioral lookalike profile that most use today. Talk about game-changing.

In our journey towards a true cross-channel marketing approach, which is where we’re all heading, the people you identify and target with your messaging will always be the starting point. Therefore, shouldn’t you be targeting a person based on their interests and behaviors, not just their behaviors? The answer is yes, and making this distinction is the start of making your marketing efforts more effective, and will save you from continually reaching lots of the wrong people.

That’s why some innovative marketers have found a different approach—identifying and establishing a common, general website domain that focuses on what the consumer is looking for.

A recent example of this is ShinglesInfo.com. Instead of sending customers to Merck’s massive corporate site, or asking them to try and remember the name of their shingles vaccine, Zostavax, the marketers behind the drug found the perfect domain name. Broadcast and print ads can now point people to the simple and easy-to-remember domain ShinglesInfo.com, a site that shares information on the disease without explicitly stating that it is a website sponsored by Merck. Drug information is not pushed on the consumer; it’s more of a resource for people to learn more about the disease. Eventually, when a consumer decides to “take the next step,” it leads to zostavax.com for specific drug information.

As well as being easy to remember, the domain is easy to find. In fact, domain names such as ShinglesInfo.com have the added benefit of not needing a great deal of search engine optimization (SEO) to be successful. Even if a consumer hasn’t seen the commercial and was simply looking for “Shingles information,” Googling that term brings Merck’s site as the second search result. Pairing a relevant domain like this with quality site content guarantees that it will be found by its intended audience.

Another separate, but no less important advantage of using a dedicated domain like this is that it minimizes the need to rely on a “social” approach to providing information about a topic or product. Too many companies drive traffic to Facebook or other social networking sites and in doing so they make it too easy to lose control of the audience and the message. Facebook and other social media methods are, of course, very important elements of any campaign, launch or marketing strategy. That said, being able to control the information in a centralized location that can serve as a definitive resource for consumers is important, especially in the highly-regulated pharmaceutical industry, where follower opinions cannot be intermingled with official information.

The ShinglesInfo.com strategy is a good reminder of just how important a strong, recognizable domain name is—especially when a brand is hard to spell or remember. Regardless of whether your strategy calls for the site to be neutral or specific to what’s being sold, the importance of a memorable, simple domain name as the key part of your marketing campaign can’t be understated.

Recent polling suggests that teens and twenty-somethings are experiencing social fatigue. Facebook doesn't seem to hold the same sway with these age groups. On the flip-side, individuals in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and above are a growing social audience. Being that I am only 4 years from being a member of the 40 club, I am not prepared to label any of these demographics as dull. Still, more mature users have different reasons for establishing a social media presence. This may come as a shock but finances and marketing often aren't at the top of the list.

For instance, let’s use my mom as a case study. She decided to join “The Facebook” to see pictures of her animal grandkids. If I asked for her opinion on social sales or daily deals, I’m sure she’d look at me cross-eyed; however, that doesn’t mean she’s not an engaged user. She likes to “Like” but for different reasons. Her rationale for liking something is much more emotionally-centric. There is a wistfulness tied to not only liking but sharing as well. And that’s what CEOs like the recently axed Johnson must begin to understand.

For folks loyal to retail chains like J.C. Penney, the discount philosophy was an emotional touchstone. It provided comfort and assurance that the store had their best interest front and center. As lives become increasingly complex and fragmented, it’s nice to know that something as mundane as a shopping experience can remain just that – simple, familiar, and unaffected. Social media can easily reflect this customer culture. Campaigns showcasing weekly discounts shouldn't be considered uncharted territory, especially in the Groupon and Living Social age of commerce. In fact, strategic social initiatives through Instagram and Pinterest could serve to visually reflect what shoppers value most; thus, giving retailers like Penney a strong branding opportunity.

Social media and the quest to be incredibly new and cool needn't always mean having to reinvent the marketing wheel. Only time will tell if J.C. Penney investors learned this lesson too late in the game.

Use stock photos! Stock photos and product shots on social make us cringe, but the practice is all too common. If your social media marketing strategy involves stock imagery and products shots we have rounded up the top reasons to convince you to change it up.

Here are the top reasons not to use stock photos in your social posts:

1. Who are these people anyway?

If your grandparents looked like they crawled off a Clairol box, then congrats on hitting the genetic lottery. For the rest of us, stock images showing perfect people in perfect families just aren’t relatable.

Showing images of real people using your products, who are truly enthusiastic, are going to go much further with your target audience. Your brand’s likes,  share and overall engagement will go up.

2. Cans lack soul.

It’s a can of cat food. Yes, if you are a cat owner you probably have a brand of cat food that you like. And, if you are the cat food company then you probably paid thousands for a photo shoot in which each piece of niblet of meat in this can was arranged.

But, chances are if you saw this can of cat food pop up in your newsfeed accompanied by copy like “Like this if your cat eats this”- you would not even pause for a second look. Even if it had the most gorgeous label in the world. It's still just a can.

On the other hand….

If you are a cat food company and post a pic of a real cat a user shared on your wall or on another social platform, who is super cute, and put your branding on it, BOOM. Magic happens...

People will share. Fancy Feast rocks this tactic all the time on Facebook, and their images get a lot of love. Always think about your brand’s content from the user’s perspective- not just the brand perspective.

If your brand is posting cans, bags and other product shots- not matter how lovingly poised that product may be, it will never have the soul of a user generated image.

3. Stock photos aren’t funny, smart or interesting

Think about it for a moment. You went to school for photography. You have to make extra cash. So, you create the most generic images possible like the above “couple brushing teeth” and add a million random tags to the photo in the hopes that your image will be downloaded enough times that you can buy groceries this week.

The result: Boring images.

This image was posted on Colgate's wall. A consumer is proving the whitening power of their toothpaste with a photo taken in black light.

That would be a very funny post from the brand as well, but instead Colgate responded "HAHAHA" and let the post wither on the "Recent Posts by Others" vine, instead of using the image in a post on their own wall with thanks to the user who submitted it.

Instead they use images like this...

I don't mean to pick on Colgate or their agency or in-house person tasked with picking stock photos of perfect people with perfecter teeth.

They are just typical of the way brands use images to little effect on social.

So, use real user generated image on your wall and consumers will see that you are paying attention to them, and even better that you are celebrating their relationship with your brand. They may also post a pic in the hopes that they will get a star turn in your brand’s posts.

Have you made the switch from product beauty shots and stock images to user generated on social? Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

Social media increases the flow of quality information for medical professionals

On the one hand, social media inevitably and irreversibly increases the flow of information across the web, across geographies, and between both colleagues and strangers. Social media connects us like never before, and can very well assist physicians in obtaining information they need or want at a high-speed, interactive level.

The way doctors use social media is different from the average Joe, though. According to a recent study conducted at the John Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, only about 7% of physicians use Twitter to stay updated in their field, primarily preferring specialty medical forums, like PracticeFusion.com, which is both an Electronic Medical Records database and physician-networking site. Rather than just gossiping over celebrities, doctors are using social media to connect with other professionals in the field to expand their knowledge and stay on top of their game. This same survey found that about 25% of physicians use social media to scan for new medical information on the horizon, and 14% actually contribute their expertise to the conversation.

What this boils down to is a growing web of medical professionals who are able to communicate with each other across any distance, at any time, and use social media to bolster their practice. This translates to better care for patients and an improved medical practice overall with well-informed and tech-savvy doctors.

Social media creates an online community for patients

Physicians are not the only ones taking advantage of the connectivity that social media offers. Oftentimes, patients who are diagnosed with a serious disease end up feeling lost, confused, isolated and defeated, even with family members and friends close at hand. With social media forums like PatientsLikeMe, patients can easily connect with other people across the globe who are undergoing a similar experience. PatientsLikeMe was started by two engineering brothers at MIT back in 2004 when they learned their other brother had Lou Gehrig’s disease. They were dissatisfied with the lack of support and resources online for the disease sufferers and close family members. Now, the site has more than 200,000 users and a database of more than 1,800 diseases.

What a relief to be able to have someone understand what you are going through! Plus, an added bonus of the site is that it allows researchers to aggregate information about user data, like patient habits, efficacy of treatments, and prescription drug use, in order to tailor better methods for the future. Social media not only helps patients share stories and feel less alone, the platform is also a natural study in tracking and improving patient outcomes.

Social media can improve the doctor-patient relationship

New territory is being charted in the online doctor-patient relationship realm, as there have been countless conversations, both officially and through the Web, about the appropriateness of doctors issuing medical advice via platforms like Facebook. Last year, the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) issued guidelines for doctors in using social media to interact with their patients, basically prohibiting fraternizing with patients or dispelling medical advice online.

However, as one small-town doctor, Jen Brull, M.D., elucidates, social media can actually spur a trusting and comfortable relationship between the doctor and patient. What she does is this: when a patient asks her for medical advice via Facebook, rather than breaking FSMB rules, she can send them a third-party web page, like WebMD, that contains basic medical information, and the patient feels cared for without any major repercussions. If the interaction is publicized, other followers can easily see that she is receptive. Or, if the question is more urgent and specific, the doctor can refer patients to the hospital’s patient portal, send a private email or contact them personally through phone, thereby increasing the rapidness of response.

PricewaterhouseCoopers recently did a study on social media in healthcare and found that 41% of respondents felt comfortable sharing medical information with their doctor through social media, 61% said they’d trust advice received via social media, and 70% said they would appreciate physician communication through social media, including referrals. Without overstepping the lines created in the sand between doctor and patient on social media, online social networking can be a highly responsive and useful tool, fostering trust between doctor and patient, and potentially increasing efficiencies in communication.

Social media and reliable medical technology to improve patient care

In a world of constant technological innovation, mobile apps can even play a role in cutting down inefficiencies from red tape, human error and large stacks of paperwork by cultivating dynamic virtual connectivity. With the rise of patient portals, online forums and streamlined Electronic Health Records (EHR), patients’ health information can be sent precisely where it needs to go in a shorter amount of time, improving the speed of care. For example, with prescription refill apps, like RefillRx Mobile, patients can scan the barcode of their current prescription bottle and have that information sent straight to their pharmacy for pick up from a pharmacy technician. It’s as easy as 1, 2, smartphone. Instead of going into the pharmacy, or waiting on hold for a pharmacy to re-confirm and/or re-order the prescription, the patient information is already in the system through apps like this.

Some social media networks, like the soon-to-be-launched cancer treatment site Esperity, also allow patients to monitor symptoms, track treatment progress and share results and reactions with others online, increasing a sense of community and empowerment among patients. Tools like medication reminders, monitoring patterns and drug interactions can help the patient see for herself how she is recovering, rather than waiting in fear for results from every hospital visit. The vital resource of sharing through social media also has profound benefits in decreasing negative feelings of isolation. It’s these types of social media sites that are helping to revolutionize the medical field.

Social media promotes patient-centered care and increases transparency

As we’ve seen, social media has the capacity to enhance communication, utilize technology to streamline treatment, and provide a greater sense of community and relief for those suffering from a medical ailment. The big picture points to a transition toward patient-centered care, a trend that has been prominent in the U.S. lately. The infamous portraits of a doctor’s office, filled with long lines, indifferent physicians, bureaucratic ineffectiveness and endless frustration, may be transforming into a thing of the past. When patients start to be seen as customers rather than just recipients of care, the entire structure of the medical field will start to readjust to serve the patient well because suddenly, business might suffer when a doctor’s practice starts lagging behind the competition.

Social media helps this process along because it puts the patients in the spotlight, allowing them to write reviews about their care, share positive or negative thoughts online to their followers and even potentially create a buzz around a specific topic or establishment. Social media helps shift the balance of power to the consumer, in this case the patient, so that medical professionals are more accountable for their care, and their practices become more transparent. A recent study by PwC’s Research Health Institute found that more than half of 18-24 year olds used blogs and social media sites as their primary method of finding a healthcare provider. With the digital age only ramping up, and this age group paving the way for Internet trends to come, it’s not only desirable, but necessary, for doctors and medical establishments to integrate a social networking plan into their marketing. First and foremost, recognize the duty to the patient, and then use social media to make that understanding clear and well heard – the response will be affirmative

A good example is the recently concluded Linley Tech Mobile Conference, held last week in Santa Clara, CA and organized by Mountain View, CA-based The Linley Group, a market research firm providing independent technology analyses of semiconductors for networking, communications, mobile, and wireless applications. The company also produces a trade publication, Microprocessor Report.

This was the fourth year the event was held; according to company founder and Principal Analyst Linley Gwennap, the conference attracted about 200 people, including those from mobile IP and chip companies, handset and other device vendors, carriers and software vendors, as well as the financial community and press. Attendees represented a broad range of companies, including Broadcom, China Mobile, Cisco, Dell, Ericsson, HP, Huawei, Imagination Technologies, Marvel, Samsung and Sony, as well as financial analysts from Bank of America, Credit Suisse, UBS, and Wells Fargo.

The conference focused on a wide array of topics; here’s a snapshot:

• Heterogeneous processing
• Licensable CPUs for mobile devices
• Licensable GPU and DSP cores
• Mobile semiconductors
• Mobile SoC design issues
• Mobile software trends
• Multicore application processors
• Other low-power IP cores

The presentations addressed design issues for mobile devices -- tablet computers, smartphones, navigation devices, media players, handheld games, and e-book readers.

One of the conference highlights, noted Gwennap, was a panel on the growing China mobile market, featuring executives from China Mobile, Imagination Technologies, MediaTek and Spreadtrum. The panel addressed key challenges and opportunities for mobile products in China, the diverging demands of Chinese consumers and the different tiering in that enormous market. One interesting takeaway: the total available market for mobile handsets in China is larger than the entire population of the United States!

Another session on mobile CPUs talked about major issues for mobile product development. One of the panelists, Mark Throndson, serves as Director of Processor Technology Marketing for UK-based Imagination Technologies.

One of Throndson’s conclusions was that industry trends are forcing more efficiency in how companies build products, and to enable this, new technologies are abstracting software development away from the underlying hardware/instruction sets.

“At the end of the day, even though software is becoming less dependent on the hardware it runs on, good underlying architectures are still important as they affect the user experience through delivering high performance, longer battery life, and lower costs,” said Throndson.

Another interesting session focused on power-optimized design. This is an increasing challenge as today’s mobile devices integrate ever-more features and functionality, yet battery technology hasn’t kept pace. A couple of session participants proposed that the answer lies in adding a bit more complexity in hardware to handle power management. While this additional logic may consume some power, the end result, according to these panelists, is increased efficiency and longer battery life.

I’ve been to gobs of analyst-driven events that focused too much on promoting the market research firm and its offerings; the buzz on the Linley gathering from attendees is that it was two days well-spent.