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.

It wasn’t about story-boarding or scripting, it was about asking questions, getting answers, and weaving content together to produce an interesting and useful story. The benefits of combining the approaches of traditional journalism and brand storytelling seemed obvious. It’s something we’ve called “brand journalism” since day one, and it’s picking up speed as the new-media world continues to evolve, along with consumers’ habits.

Businesses are using social media, web video, and digital publishing to speak directly to consumers. It’s a way for brands, big and small, to use the approach of professional journalists to create, curate and share expert content in the form of blogs, articles and video. Brand journalism is obviously not as impartial as journalism, but it’s a way for a brand to engage an audience with relevant and interesting material. The content must be factual, and keep “relevance to the viewer” top of mind.

Marketing strategist David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, says “brand journalism is winning over direct marketing and PR attention-getting techniques.

“I'm convinced that those with the traditional skills of marketing, public relations, and copywriting are not the right people to create brand journalism content. Instead you need the skills of a journalist.”

Brand journalism is about facts and balance. It’s about telling an engaging story, and the goal is to educate rather than blatantly market. This way, readers or viewers are informed, and they become engaged with your business and it’s mission.

Home Depot is one major brand that has been creating expert content and useful do-it-yourself advice for a while, and it’s reaping the benefits. The content, whether it’s in the form of blog posts or web video, generally doesn’t try to sell anything directly. Instead, it keeps the focus on education.

Cisco is another example. On its blog, most of the articles and videos don’t mention the company at all. Its plan is to create a conversation and to position itself as a leader in the industry it represents. The company’s digital lead, Karen Snell, has said: “The goal was to generate engaging content to spark a conversation ... If we can make people understand what Cisco is doing, then we’ve been successful.”

Boeing is often mentioned as a successful adopter of brand journalism. “When brand journalists think of what’s interesting to their audiences and create engaging content, they generate stories that can really take off,” writes communications director Todd Blecher. “This story is about testing the brakes on our new 747. It involves speeding an airplane down a runway, hitting the brakes just before takeoff. It ends with the brakes on fire, which is eye catching, to say the least.

“We’ve had millions of views, and our key messages about safety and durability reached more people through our website, YouTube channel, and Facebook than we would’ve ever reached with a traditional news release.”

There are huge benefits to providing content that educates and informs, and it’s easy to measure the return on investment. How many hits did it get? Was it shared? Did it spark conversation? As the public and businesses become increasingly “social,” brand journalism can make communicating with consumers more interesting, while setting a company apart from outdated "push" marketing approaches.

Businesses that do it properly can create a huge competitive advantage, while increasing their credibility and relevancy in the marketplace.

Lisa Ostrikoff is a TV Journalist & Anchor turned creator of BizBOXTV -- a Canadian Online Video Production/Advertising + Social Media Marketing Agency. You can find her on Twitter and Facebook.

As Chris Johnson of A4U details in an excellent analysis of the IAB / PwC OPM study, the affiliate marketing industry in the U.K. has been valued (alongside lead generation) as a £9 billion ($1.43 billion) revenue generating industry.

Source: A4U

Key Highlights (courtesy of A4U)

• There are c. 3,000-4,000 advertisers and c. 10,000 publishers actively engaged in Online Performance Marketing in the U.K. (in this instance — Affiliate & Lead Generation).
• Advertisers expected to spend (through commissions, management fees, bonuses and other marketing spend) £814 million on Online Performance Marketing in 2012, generating c. £9 billion of sales for advertisers.
• This spend was achieved through at least c.100 million transactions and an additional c. 70 million leads generated.
• This is equivalent for c. 7-9% of U.K. digital marketing spend, and drives c. 5-6% of retail e-commerce in the U.K.
• The largest end-sectors include Finance, Retail, Telecoms & Media, Travel & Leisure.
• Market growth of c. 14% p.a (2008-11) and c. 7% p.a in 2012 (expected).
• Cashback, voucher, loyalty and price comparison websites are the leading publisher types.
• Sites designed specifically for mobile and tablet account for c. 4-5% of advertiser spend on Online Performance Marketing.

Leading Industry Sectors
Similar to the U.S. market, U.K. advertisers in finance, health and wellness and travel and leisure are some of the top spends of online performance marketing services.

According to The Next Web:

The biggest spenders in OPM are in the financial sector with insurance and credit card advertisers taking the lead with 45% of expenditure. This is followed with 20% by clothing, accessories and electrical and computing advertisers. The top five are rounded out with telecoms and media, travel and leisure and gaming.

Growth Forecast
U.K. suppliers of OPM services are experiencing a strong increase in demand for their services. According to The Next Web, between 2008 and 2012, OPM expenditure in the U.K. grew by 57%. Suppliers of OPM services and technology estimate that their revenue will grow by 25% this year.

What the Report Means for U.S. Marketers
The study of the U.K. online performance marketing industry is instructive for U.S. marketers in several ways.

First, it offers a comprehensive look at how OPM is positively impacting advertisers and publishers across an entire country. Recognizing that UK advertisers spent £814 million in 2012 on performance marketing services, generating c. £9 billion of sales, provides a solid baseline for performance marketers to use in generating additional new and incremental business opportunities with clients.

Second, it firmly establishes the proper role and value of online performance marketing. For an industry as robust as it is, OPM often suffers from a lack of broad understanding by advertisers and publishers of how it can benefit their business. This report makes clear that there are a variety of industries that benefit from performance marketing services (e.g., finance, travel, insurance, etc.). Consumers recognize the value of performance marketing campaigns, as they are estimated to generate c.100 million transactions and an additional c. 70 million leads.

The fact that OPM campaigns account for 7-9% of U.K. digital marketing spend, and drive c. 5-6% of retail e-commerce in the U.K. indicates that OPM is an important factor in brands’ retail and lead-generation efforts.

Finally, the report demonstrates to US advertisers that performance marketing is here to stay. After more than a decade of rapid growth, online performance marketing has matured to a point where it is a recognized marketing channel and increasingly comprises a larger percentage of advertisers’ online marketing budgets.

The Christmas shopping list has been checked-off: An iPad Mini for Dad, Kindle for Mom, Beats headphones for Bobby, One Direction singing dolls for Suzy.

But, what remains in the shopping season is the opportunity for the best present of all: The Unexpected Gift (TUG).

This is the magic item that comes from knowing someone so well that you get them a gift they never even thought of asking for. The item doesn’t have to be expensive – I once received a small, maroon paperback copy of Catcher in the Rye purchased for probably $0.25 from a school flea market that remains on my bookshelf today. Fulfilling these gift wishes requires only thoughtfulness and knowledge of the person and their interests.

Instead of scouring stores thinking, “What would this person want?” start from the comfort of your own home. Use today’s digital tools and these three tips for leveraging digital media to get a gift that TUGS at the heart:

1. Window Shop on Social Media:
Thanks to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest you have direct access to the things people want or need the most – they have already broadcast their interests. Maybe they have tweeted about their messy house; then buy them a Groupon for a professional cleaning service. Or, if Facebook gleans they’re a fan of American Idol, order Scotty McCreery’s holiday album from Amazon. Pinterest makes it even easier – just look for a purchasable item they pinned and wrap it up as a gift. Can’t be there to deliver the gift in person?  Facebook has rolled out its ecommerce offering with over a dozen retailers and services so you can buy and send gifts directly over the social network.

2. Command the DVR:
When watching TV together, resist the urge to skip commercials. A person’s response to television advertising gives great insight into their likes and preferences. If he laughs at the latest Bud Light ad, ask casually, “What kind of beer do you like best?” and get him a case for the holidays. If she sparkles when a Gap holiday ad appears, gift a winter sweater, or hat and scarf combo. This is especially simple with kids – just aurally gauge the squeals-of-joy during a Toys “R” Us commercial to determine the most desired toy.

3. Showrooming Together:
Showrooming – the act of visiting a brick and mortar retail location to browse products, then purchasing that item online for a lower price – has grown significantly this holiday season. The National Retail Federation projects that over half of holiday shoppers will buy gifts online. Snag your tablet or smartphone and hit the stores looking for deals. By showrooming together, you’ll get direct consumer insight on the products they like most. Just be sure to dissuade them from actually purchasing the item, so you can buy it for them later.

With a little cyber-sleuthing you’ll be primed to give the perfect gift from a knowing heart. When asked, “How did you know?!!?” just say it’s a secret between Santa and you.

With the rise of many quality blogs, online publications, and digital video and social media, we continue to see this content shift online faster than ever before, and the old school newspaper monetization model doesn’t work online. For instance, even if a newspaper sold all of their banners at the highest possible CPMs, it would never make up for what they have lost from their traditional model, and therefore will never be able to support the glory days of newspapers. Say a newspaper could sell four banner ads on a page for $10 CPM each (and that’s being generous). For every 1,000 page views, they would make $40. Applying Denver Post’s comScore stats for last month where they generated 45,000,000 page views, they would make $1,800,000 per month. I can guarantee you that the incremental $1.8M made from banner ads comes nowhere near what they used to make from their traditional model.

An additional problem for publishers is that the Internet is considered by most to be inherently free, which explains why publishers have struggled to establish payment models online. And the problem isn’t limited to the news publishing industry – many different industries struggle to churn out the content readers/viewers desire while remaining profitable.

The TV industry is a perfect example; when TV content first moved online, broadcasters and content providers made some TV content available for free. Even if you think back to the beginning of Hulu, it was a free service before they added HuluPlus, their premium subscription site. However, as more users have gone online for entertainment and opted to ‘cut the cord,’ we’ve seen content providers go to extreme lengths to protect their cable/satellite subscription models by requiring terrestrial subscriptions for online consumption, switching to online subscription-based models, in addition to relying on pre-roll video advertising. This has created a confusing environment for consumers, but we must also recognize this is an environment full of experimentation and testing. And while confusing, choice is usually a good thing for consumers.

We continue to see a wide variety of business models created for accessing content online, making one point very clear: the future of media is paid. Publishers and content providers simply can’t afford to provide content for free without getting something in return. But as some companies are finding out, what they receive in return doesn’t always have to be money or ad dollars, it can be a user’s time or even actions like posting on a brand’s Facebook wall. The good news is that consumers have shown they’re willing to pay or give their time for content they care about.

The New York Times paywall is a great example of a paid model that is working. When they first launched the paywall in early 2011, many were skeptical that readers would pay to access New York Times content online. Fast-forward almost two years later, and the paper boasts more than 530,000 paying subscribers for its digital editions, with some analysts estimating that the paper will have more digital subscribers than print within a couple of years.

Google recently made a move in an effort to convert engagements into cash by launching a new product, Google Consumer Surveys, which prompts visitors to answer a microsurvey on market research before accessing a site’s content. It’s a win-win for both advertisers and publishers. Advertisers run the surveys and Google pays sites five cents per response. For sites with heavy traffic, that can add up to a lot of cash when combined with their ad revenue.

And it doesn’t end there – a host of Internet-based companies have seen great success by establishing business models that require some sort of payment or engagement. The freemium model, which offers basic products or services for free, but charges premiums for advanced features, has seen an incredible amount of success with companies like Pandora and Dropbox leading the charge.

Options for watching TV content online are improving as well, and several companies have developed options for consumers when viewing the video ads played before entertainment content. Solve Media is allowing consumers to skip ads by typing in a captcha, and SkipIt allows viewers to earn opportunities to skip video ads by liking a brand on Facebook or paying a small fee. This is important to publishers because in a recent SpotXchange survey, more than 90% of consumers said they were more likely to visit a website more often if it allowed them to skip video ads.

The Internet is a dynamic environment where users create their own experience. Media companies are quickly realizing that they can no longer just copy the business models of their traditional broadcast and print mediums. It’s also clear that consumers are open to choice and paying a premium for the services and content they want online. The challenge for publishers and content providers is deciding what exactly that business model will look like.

Source: eMarketer

Thus, a recent eMarketer report, titled, “Brand Advocates: Scaling Social Media Word-of-Mouth,” was a timely addition to marketers’ library. The report highlights the stunning growth of brand advocacy over the last five years while providing helpful tips companies can use to cultivate brand advocates and how to avoid common pitfalls of annoying those who most appreciate your brand.

Not surprisingly, the report’s executive summary sums up what most marketers already know: “Brand advocacy is becoming a critical part of the social media marketing mix.”

But there’s more than the obvious that underlies successful brand advocacy campaigns. Consumers aren’t just “liking” a brand and commenting about it on social networks for the fun of it. As eMarketer reports, they are doing so because many desire to see their favorite brands succeed. And that can have powerful positive effects on companies — if they respect and utilize their brand advocates properly.

One interesting point I took from the report was that while brand advocates are interested in companies’ content, more important is their loyalty to a brand. A CMO Council study found that brand loyalty (48%) was far more important to brand advocates than whether a company had great content on its social networks (30%). This suggests that great content is helpful but being a great brand that your customers can feel proud to be associated with is more important.

So what makes for a successful brand advocacy program? And who are these “brand advocates” anyway? Let’s take a look:

eMarketer defines brand advocates as consumers who “use social media to not only interact with brand pages, but also to actively promote the brands, products and services they love.” They provide valuable insight to marketers about what is, and is not, working with a brand’s products and services and how the brand is being perceived outside of its four corporate walls.

The Role of Brand Advocates

1. They recommend products and services — frequently. According to Zuberance, 38% of brand advocates recommend a brand about once a month while 12% do so several times a week.
2. They educate other consumers. As noted earlier in this post, brand advocates aren’t just in this for themselves (well, most of them at least). Market research company TNA found that the No. 1 reason people write about brands online was to offer advice. That is, they want to help their fellow consumer make more informed decisions.
3. They interact with brands and other consumers on brand pages. Brand advocates don’t just comment online about brands. They actively participate in companies’ online activities. Find ways to target brand advocates beyond just Facebook “Likes” and Twitter mentions.

Recognizing Brand Advocates

eMarketer offers a great list of eight attributes marketers can use to recognize brand advocates.

1. Brand advocates are young. eMarketer forecasts that 52.7% of U.S. social network users will be under the age of 35 in 2012. Building a strong base of young brand advocates now will pave the way for powerful brand advocacy in the future as those millennial consumers become more affluent and ingrained in the purchasing habits in the years ahead.
2. Brand advocates are helpful to others. This may be the most valuable (or detrimental) aspect of a corporate brand advocacy program. It’s not a stretch to state that brand advocates can make or break some companies. Marketers shouldn’t discount their value or strength of voice and ability to influence others.
3. Brand advocates want to see brand succeed. Your company’s online advocates want you to succeed and marketers need to develop strategies that help those advocates spread the word about a brand’s success.
4. Brand advocates are active offline, too. They talk up your brand, no matter where they are. Think of ways to tie online marketing campaigns into offline campaigns, and vice versa.
5. Brand advocates make brands part of their online persona. They feel a connection to your brand that extends into how they represent themselves online. Find ways to feed this connection through programs like a “Virtual CMO for a Day” and other persona-based advocacy programs.
6. Brand advocates use social media more than the average consumers. No surprise here but marketers report that despite brand advocates’ preference for social media they find it difficult to get brand advocates to talk about their brand in social media in a way that matched their desired brand attributes.
7. Brand advocates are influenced by social media. This shouldn't come as a surprise to any marketer. Give your brand advocates the content they need, across the social channels in which they communicate with their followers, and let them help spread the good word about your brand.
8. Brand advocates are moms and dads. Don’t just settle for the common perception that your brand’s advocates have to young and technologically savvy. A brand advocate can come from anywhere and any age. Marketers need to work to cultivate all potential advocates across multiple verticals and demographics.

So what’s the best way to reach, engage and cultivate brand advocates? Have a strategy. Don’t just rely on one program for all your brand advocates. Figure out how different groups respond to different promotions and communications and develop distinct campaigns based on that feedback.

In the digital age, brand advocates have asserted themselves as powerful forces in the consumer marketing space. Marketers need to recognize and respect their value and begin developing sophisticated digital marketing campaigns that combine offline incentives with online recognition and feedback opportunities.

Whether that is good or bad for business and the future of social networks is up for debate. But what is perceptible to us is that Facebook advertising is growing up – in a positive and mature direction.

Take, for example, Facebook’s recent announcement that brands can now target their posts to users by gender, “interested in,” relationship status, education and workplace.

This new ad targeting feature, combined with Facebook’s recently released Reach Generator, should cause marketers to think more seriously about the value of brand marketing on Facebook.

First, some clarification: If a user “Likes” your brand, do not assume that your posts reach them on their newsfeed. Facebook revealed back in February that only 16 percent of brand posts are seen by users’ newsfeeds. That’s small potatoes considering Facebook has more than 950 million users worldwide.

Reach Generator Extends Life — and Reach — of Posts

It is for this reason that Facebook introduced Reach Generator — a paid service that guarantees 70-80 percent of brand posts are seen on users’ newsfeeds. Now it appears that Facebook is allowing a “pay-to-play” post generator at the post level, as opposed to a flat monthly fee for all posts. The individual post can be targeted to specific demographic to better aim at relevant users.

The introduction by Facebook of new targeting options for brand posts is a positive step forward for the social network. Social marketing success is recognized when relevant engagement is executed as opposed to mass-market broadcast. This new feature by Facebook allows marketers to highly target their paid posts.

One word of caution: Marketers should not view this as an advertising channel. They should remain focused on “stories” and “conversations” that reinforce the brand promise, value and commitment to their target market. They should remain strongly committed to responses and conversation that benefits their customers — not just ads that make their company look good or smart.

For marketers, Facebook's new posts targeting options present a positive step forward, providing opportunity for deeper connection with the target market.

Take a step back from all of the digital experts' views on Facebook

Another day, another report telling marketers something they probably already know about Facebook.

Last week, it was a survey from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, reporting that “Facebook's reputation for customer satisfaction continues to tarnish while Google+ pops up,” as CNET described it.

Also out last week was a report by TBG Digital, which found that Facebook outperforms Twitter on the mobile advertising front. This comes after a mountain of reports and punditry informed marketers that Twitter was gaining the edge over Facebook in all things advertising. So much for that.

Not a day goes by, it seems, that another survey or analysis is issued in which it is claimed that Facebook is either doomed, poised for one hundred years’ growth or something in the middle. See this week’s speculation over what The New York Times described as Facebook’s “day of judgment” over its forthcoming earnings numbers.

The analyses are understandable, perhaps, given Facebook’s recent IPO, its 900-plus-million users and the fact that many brands and advertisers have staked their digital success on the hope that Facebook’s meteoric rise continues.

But the reports are nauseating for marketers who are seeking more in-depth guidance as to where the industry is moving.

What are marketers to make of these conflicting reports, surveys and anecdotes? Unfortunately, not much. Each adds to the cacophony of noise surrounding all things social media. And each adds another layer to the confusion companies have over where to invest their marketing dollars.

It’s no secret that marketers are feeling pressure to come up with provable ROI for their social media spend. But as eMarketer found last year, demonstrating ROI is becoming increasingly difficult as the social networking landscape continues to shift, consumers’ interest in social media waxes and wanes seemingly on a weekly or monthly basis and conflicting reports make it difficult to get C-suite buy-in for even the most basic of social media and digital investment.

It’s time for a break. Enough with the deluge of reports, analyses, surveys and general punditry about the brand value of Facebook, Twitter, et al.

That’s a tall order, I know. And it’s not likely to happen. But for those marketers who are grappling with the weight of keeping up with all of the information and data flooding in about their own brands, let alone the countless reports one needs to read to stay on top of industry trends and news, it’s necessary to take a step back.

It’s time to focus more on one’s brand(s) and less on the daily minutiae of the industry. Doing so will ensure marketers keep their focus on the bigger picture and don’t make snap campaign or budget decisions based on one-off reports and analyses.

What could help remedy this problem? A couple of ideas:

1. More analysis and less punditry. We get it: Facebook and Twitter are hot. They are growing. Or maybe not. It all depends on which report or pundit you believe. But enough with the day-to-day micro-analysis. Marketers need deep more in-depth, macro-analysis that extrapolates past results with future possibilities to help them understand where, when and how to invest their brand dollars in social networks and how those investments might pay off in the long run.
2. Less of the “this social network is up while that social network is down”-type of reporting. Who cares? In the grand scheme of things, these “analyses” don’t matter to brands and marketers because they generally make their investments in large enough chunks that a weekly examination of which social network is winning the growth game is irrelevant to their long-term planning.

My fear is that as the digital age evolves, we’ll continue to see more of-the-moment analysis of social networks’ growth and prosperity. It may make for great headlines but it’s lousy for helping marketers understand where and when to place campaigns on various social networks. For that, the industry needs more in-depth analysis and a move away from the weekly punditry cycle.

Much of this improvement is based on data and learned information about customers.

New technology has created an evolution for direct mail marketing, allowing companies to seamlessly integrate it with email marketing. This delivers better leads for brands while ensuring their direct mail and email marketing campaigns are actually read by consumers.

Recently, Ed Kats, president of digital media agency MediaWhiz (disclosure: I'm head of marketing and communications at MediaWhiz), was asked by Inc. magazine to offer his thoughts on how companies can effectively integrate direct mail marketing and email marketing. Below is a summary of his responses:

1. Know your audience and business model and then integrate direct mail marketing and email marketing to either be a 1-2 sales punch or complimentary to each other. For example: direct mail is meant to compel customers into a store through the use of coupons or advertisements. An email is generally meant as an “Act now!” retail sale for non-considered / non-essential purchases. For considered purchases (those that consumers think about purchasing before going to a store or brand website), companies should use direct mail and email marketing in tandem to drive consumers to either call or visit a website and “learn more” about the product.
2. When used for customer relationship management (CRM) campaigns, businesses should plan their event calendar well ahead of time and make sure they have different conversations with customers across direct mail and email marketing that are complimentary to each other. It’s important, however, that those marketing pieces are segmented by tactic and channel to ensure quality and consistency with how your customers have responded to direct mail and email offers in the past.

What are your tips and best practices for integrating email marketing and direct mail marketing campaigns? Share them in the comments section.

Despite no shortage of proponents in each camp, we think the conclusion is simple: it’s pointless to compare email marketing with social media marketing. Each has a unique value. More importantly, we believe that email and social media should be used in tandem, not against each other, for effective digital media and marketing campaigns.

The problem with comparing email marketing and social media marketing is apparent: one (social media marketing) is a brand strategy while the other (email) is a direct-response strategy. Each requires the other in some form to be effective, and each builds off the other for greater value and efficiency.

The infographic isn’t without merit. It offers some valuable insight marketers can use to understand how, when and where to use and integrate email marketing and social media marketing to improve their lead-gen and digital engagement efforts.

But first, it’s necessary to look at the facts.

Email Still Generates Results

Email marketing continues to produce eye-popping results. According to HostPapa, business spending on email marketing campaigns has increased 60 percent in the past year, accumulating 17.4 percent of U.S. brands’ digital marketing budgets in 2011. Email open rates continue to rise, too, improving 12.6 percent in Q1 2012, according to a report by Epsilon and the Direct Marketing Association.

Those are no small feats; especially for a form of digital communications many believe is dead/has died/will die.

Social Media is Garnering Big Money

Those numbers pale in comparison, however, to the growth of social media. The figures are widely known but worth repeating for full effect. Facebook has 900-plus million users worldwide. LinkedIn has 161 million active members. Twitter has more than 100 million active users. That doesn’t take into account the $4.7 billion businesses are projected to spend on social media marketing in 2012. Or data indicating that small to medium-sized businesses are projected to increase their social media budgets by 100 percent this year.

HostPapa concluded in its infographic that email “wins” because of its allegedly superior reach, features and usage. But that misses the larger point addressed above: social media isn’t about generating a direct response or a purchase. It’s about connections, relationships and engagement between brands and their customers. Of course it is different than email; comparisons between the two are futile.

What does this mean for brands still confused about how, when and where to integrate social media into their digital marketing campaigns?

1. The natural synergy of email and social media. Direct marketing (email) is more effective when there is branding (social media) behind it, and branding is improved when there is direct marketing behind it. Look for ways to integrate best practices from each into your next email or social media marketing campaign.
2. Social goes beyond engagement. The common perception of social media is that it doesn’t offer a direct sales component. It’s great for engagement but bad for lead generation. That’s true … to a point. Brands can turn social media marketing into leads if they include a way for consumers to opt-in to their email marketing campaigns within specific social media messages. From a tactical perspective, the digital age demands that email marketing and social media marketing are interconnected and integrated.
3. Let social do the soft sell and email go direct. Know where you are placing the appropriate function, how it will be consumed and how audiences will react to the message. Include social components in every email marketing campaign to ensure that first-, second- and third-tier readers can share your content and advocate for your brand.

Keith Trivitt is director of marketing and communications at MediaWhiz, a performance marketing and integrated digital media agency. Steve Goldner, senior director of social marketing at the Ryan Partnership, a MediaWhiz sister agency, also contributed to this post.

Yet, when it comes to practice, many of us look for the quick fix, the easy way or expect it to just simply happen. We’re all susceptible to this way of thinking. I’ll admit it has failed me a time or two, as well. In fact, I’m still trying to decide how to drop the twenty pounds of sympathy weight I achieved from the births of my two children the last four years. I know the real answer - I just want it to be easier.

Let’s say you are a corporate CMO or VP of Brand Management or an advertising agency SVP of Accounts or Creative Director; you possess great responsibilities to move a company forward, create sales, help the brand achieve a voice and a litany of other objectives. Yet, when it comes to actually doing that, you frequently fail. Yes, that’s right - you (the one reading this), in all your greatness, fail all the time. You are failing right now, and you probably don’t even know it. Why? Three reasons:

1. You facilitate or create false direction
2. You get discouraged
3. You don’t define accountability

FALSE DIRECTIONS

In personal and work life, false directions exist on every corner: the newest fad diet, the work from home and get rich quick scheme, the 'we can get you ranked on the top of Google' pitch, and my favorite – the 'send this to seven friends in the next minute or else' message. In the business world and, specifically, the digital media industry, there are many false directions. These can take the form of a process, another person or your own worst enemy: yourself.

On a weekly basis, I interact with many businesses. Most have a false direction in their midst. For example:

1. The social ‘guru’ that told them they need to get to 400,000 Facebook likes to be successful
2. The lack of analytics and insight from which to make strategic marketing and/or operational decisions
3. A person (boss or yourself) that fails to look beyond the initial obstacle and realize it can be done - and done well - with proper measurement and true accountability

To each of the examples above, I’ll offer you the following:

1. Likes, page views, brand impressions and the sort are not success metrics, they are not goals – they are false directions
2. Failing to implement, assess and mine your data with advanced analytics is relegating you and your business to mediocrity – the failure to realize this is a false direction
3. Applying obstacles - and not options - to challenges is not only misguided strategy, it is (you guessed it) a false direction

False directions lead us down the primrose path. False directions do not teach us right or wrong or challenge the standard. False directions do not hold themselves accountable. False directions misguide and tell you research isn’t that valuable or is always skewed. False directions tell you to focus on Facebook instead of things that are platform-neutral, such as communication strategy and content development. False directions tell you analytics and measurement are too expensive, not valuable or make excuses as to why they are not ready for that data to be extracted and used.

False directions lie, steal and cheat you from success. Now, don’t misquote me - I’m not saying all false directions are liars or will steal intentionally. It is very important to understand that false directions may be sincere, but being sincerely wrong can and does occur. False directions will fail you if you give them a chance.

DISCOURAGEMENT

Ok, well no one ever said life was easy, right? The same holds true for work. Managing the above 'false direction' issue is hard. Actually, it’s both simple and difficult. We are all, on some level, driven to succeed. But if and when we let false directions creep in, we get discouraged.

Discouragement often occurs when something isn’t going our way or doesn’t happen on our terms. It takes perseverance and focus to keep us on track. Referencing one of the above examples, we let a false direction in when we fail to realize that measurement by who ‘likes’ us is not really measurement at all; it is simply a metric of convenience. What we have done in this instance is allow a false direction to lower our standards, make a mockery of our true goals and lead us to a discouraged place. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have people ‘like’ you, but using that as a primary focus will eventually lead you to discouragement. And when that happens, there is no one to blame but numero uno because you didn’t focus on the true goal which, in this case, would be customers taking action, engaging with your messages and ultimately buying your product or services.

Let me provide you a sports analogy. You know you want it - sports analogies are never discouraging.

In 1990, a running back from the hometown of Pensacola, FL was drafted into the National Football League. He was a good athlete; not by any means the biggest, not by any means the fastest (in fact, I truly believe I can personally outrun him in a 100 or 200 meter sprint – I’ll bet a grand on it). The first time he ever touched the ball in the NFL, you know what he did? Nope, he didn’t score a touchdown. He rushed for one yard. That’s three feet for the mathematically challenged – you can spit further than that. You know what he did the second time he touched the football? Boom Jackpot! Another yard. Yep, Emmett Smith ran for a total of two yards in his first game with the Dallas Cowboys. I’d call that a slow start.

So what does this have to do with discouragement? I’ll tell you what: consistency. Over the next 14 seasons, Emmitt Smith would become so consistent, he would eventually break the record for most yards rushed by the one and only Walter Peyton. Taking the time to study, create a game plan and execute it time and time again, coupled with solid intelligence, gave Emmitt Smith the ability to become one of the best ever. Discouragement was not in Emmitt’s repertoire. You can do it, too, by creating real goals (not convenience goals) and by staying consistently focused on the end result. That will keep discouragement at bay.

ACCOUNTABILITY

So, what’s the best way to avoid false directions and discouragement? Being accountable. You know what it takes to be accountable? Two things:

1. A partner
2. A system

A partner: someone or something that can objectively measure and hold you to goals, stretch your goals, challenge your thinking, challenge your focus and help you with proper direction. A partner is an absolute necessity. You may find this in a business partner, a co-worker, a vendor or a mentor, but you must have a partner that can be there with you along the way and question your path critically. And you must listen!

A system: something that will allow you to be consistent all day, every day. A system is practice or putting into practice. In both our personal and business lives, it's easy to get jazzed up and then quickly distracted. How many of us have ever seen or heard something we thought was a great idea, and we tell ourselves, 'I’m gonna do that.' But we never do. Without a system, something you can follow and stress the importance of, you won’t have accountability, and you will miss the opportunities that come your way. I don’t think I have ever heard any successful businessperson simply say, 'I was just lucky.' Even if they did, it’s not the truth. The truth is they worked hard, many times for many years, to put them in a position to take advantage of an opportunity and get lucky. They learned to be accountable. Lucky didn’t just happen.

So learn to do it right. Don’t let false directions guide you. Be consistent so discouragement doesn’t invade your journey, and create accountability in all you do in order to create a strong and true direction. Now, send this to seven friends in the next minute or else you will have bad luck for 10 years… seriously.

Follow me on Twitter: @sparkerjr

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In the final days of the pledge drive, the reporters and station managers start getting punchy from endless hours of pimping tote bags for cash, and their rationales for why you should pledge come unhinged: “You wouldn’t walk into a book store and steal books, then expect the other customers to pick up the tab for your stolen books, would you? Well, that’s what you’re doing when you don’t help pay for all the great content on NPR.”

I admit to getting perverse enjoyment from listening to these loopy, caffeine-jag analogies, because they’re actually probing some hard truths about how we get people to pay for things they might otherwise get for free. The subject is of great interest to me because it’s one of many areas of human behavior that can be illuminated by game theory, which concerns itself with the incentives and disincentives that drive cooperation.

From a game theory perspective, you’d be hard-pressed to devise a worse system of incentives than the NPR pledge drive. Its fatal flaw is that it rewards contributors and non-contributors equally – with free content – and punishes them both equally with jarringly interrupted programming. In game theory, this is known as the volunteer’s dilemma: all NPR listeners have a collective interest in keeping NPR on the air over the long term, but in the short term, you can contribute nothing and enjoy exactly the same benefits – minus the tote bag – with very little risk that your personal failure to contribute will doom NPR. It’s a system that encourages freeloaders, and it gets them; only 1 in 10 NPR listeners is also a contributor.

I have a friend who runs fundraising for public broadcasting in central California, and on a recent visit, I subjected him to my pledge drive critique. He listened patiently, then said, “That’s a good point. So how would you fix it?”

Um, OK, you got me there. NPR is part of a broadcast medium, and all my ideas about incentives and access to content are based on digital media, which can be as narrowcast as you want it to be. And of course, as a taxpayer-funded entity, NPR is legally obliged to provide open access to contributors and non-contributors alike. So any system of incentives would have to start with that premise.

But in my fantasy pledge drive world, NPR could construct its incentives around whether I’d be subjected to their soul-deadening pledge breaks. They would give me a strong incentive to make my contribution at the start of the pledge drive, because immediately upon doing so I would receive a code I could punch into my clock radio or car radio to shut off the pledge drive pleadings and return me to my regularly scheduled programming. It sounds sci-fi in practice, but in principle, it’s not much different than me subscribing to Salon.com so I can shut off the ads.

The increase in consumption of “traditional” content via digital media offers the potential to solve classic problems like the volunteer’s dilemma: in digital media, we have the ability to construct finely tuned incentives and pricing tiers because content can be distributed one-to-one.  In short, we can allow people to decide how much hassle they want to go through for access to content, and we can allow them to pay their way out of the hassle. This means we can reward subscribers without completely shutting out non-subscribers, who can accept the trade-off of inconvenience for access. It’s taken us a decade to figure out how to do this well, but successful models like the New York Times’ new paywall system reflect a growing understanding of the behavioral economics governing content consumption.

That’s one of many reasons I’m excited about the amount of content delivery converging around the mobile medium. Convenience is a big incentive in getting consumers to pay for content, and mobile is all about convenience (or at least it should be). NPR may not have figured out how to crack this code, but some of their shows have.

I’m a fan of This American Life, but I’m never near my radio during its scheduled airtimes. The TAL mobile app solves that for me, and it offers finely calibrated levels of convenience based on what I’m willing to pay. If I’m willing to pay nothing, I get an ad-supported app that streams the latest episode. If I fork over three bucks, I get access to the episode archive, but I can only have one episode downloaded at a time. If I want more, I can purchase individual episodes via Amazon through the app.

That’s a smart content strategy, and it deftly avoids the volunteer’s dilemma by giving me the short-term rewards of greater choice and convenience in exchange for my cooperation. (Although I should acknowledge that Ira Glass still works a pledge pitch into his intro, and the app is prone to crash. Nothing’s perfect.).

We may be a long way from NPR being able to unshackle its loyal contributors from the ear-manacles of the pledge drive, but I think we’re heading in the right direction in digital. In game theory terms, a state of equilibrium exists when content producers are getting paid (or funded), and consumers are getting the content they want at a reasonable price.  An equilibrium is a stable marketplace: customers tend to stick around, until the content producer does something to upset the balance. Sound familiar, Netflix?  Nope, I’m not even going to touch that can of worms yet – I’ll save it for next week, when the pledge drive is over and my mood improves.

That is all about to change.

With the recently passed universal health care bill, and growing concern over the long-term viability of Social Security and Medicare, all US citizens are not only required to have healthcare -- they are actively seeking personal healthcare options. Individuals now have the ability to choose which provider is best for their personal needs. Therefore, insurance providers will have to cast a wider (and more effective) net to sell their products to those not covered by a comprehensive corporate plan.

So, how can these insurance companies begin targeting consumers, while still executing effective campaigns to drive both brand awareness and new members? They will need to take a page out of the playbook that has been so effective for brands and retailers in recent years: creating engaging and informative shopper marketing campaigns that run on relevant retailers’ websites – in this case, notable retailers such as Walmart, CVS and Rite Aid.

Consumers regularly visit retail sites to purchase products or to conduct research before purchasing. By reaching them at this point along their digital path to purchase, brands capture the shoppers' attention at the perfect time and place: while they're in the shopping mindset and making their purchase decisions. Insurance providers have a new opportunity to begin developing comparable “retail channels” in order to message and position new offerings to the growing number of consumers considering personal healthcare choices. For instance, insurers could create a series of short videos that educate online shoppers about healthcare requirements, the services they offer, the network of doctors they are affiliated with and the various levels of co-pays associated with the plan. By doing this, the savvy insurance providers can empower the customer to make a purchasing decision, while edging out competitors.

Eight in ten Internet users already look online for health information (Pew Internet Study, August 2011). With consumers using online resources more than ever before to research healthcare topics, insurance providers will have to become proactive, creative and engaging in their efforts to reach consumers as they move along the digital path to purchase. Stagnant collateral, legacy sales channels, direct mail pieces and traditional print advertising will miss a significant demographic of consumers looking for healthcare options. It’s time that insurance organizations start evaluating shopper marketing campaigns that live on retailers sites – to target and engage consumers as they click their way to making a big decision about their protecting their futures and personal well being.

Note: This is a SAFE FOR WORK article – get your head out of the gutter, pervert.

The industry of Adult Entertainment (referenced as AE herein) has brought with it many of the advances we use every day in the Internet, Digital Media and Advertising Industry. Don’t flush red just yet. As I said, this is a safe for work article. However, I know the mention of the word “porn” brings with it raised eyebrows, unsettled seat shifting and for some, total damnation. It’s a contentious word in parts of the world and a flavorful one in others. For some, the word conjures “free speech” and for others proof that this obscenity means we should not be so free.

Let me clarify the following up front…

1) I, in no way, support the AE Industry, and

2) I am not stating the AE industry invented all these innovations

However, I am stating that the AE industry has clearly utilized these innovations to their advantage and does drive technological advancement in all of them.

To recap history, in the 1980’s the AE industry helped usher in the unanimous use of the VHS tape as the standard in-home movie viewing over that of Beta. Of course as DVD media format came on the scene in the late 1990’s even VHS began to fade in its dominance, and it would be fair to estimate that soon digital downloads and streaming will give fade to DVD format just as digital downloads have led to the demise of physical CD or Albumin the music industry. Some suggest that digital will all but eradicate DVD format as early as 2015.

So what are the contributions and innovations of the AE industry to the more mainstream Internet, Digital Media and Advertising industry?

1. Video Downloads & Streaming

2. Electronic Billing

3. Digital Rights Management

4. Pop-up Ads

5. Affiliate Marketing

6. Wireless Content Delivery

7. Geo-location Software

Some of these may be surprising to you. Geo-location software? You may be thinking to yourself, “no, no, no that was pioneered by the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla.” Well, not really. Clearly Foursquare and Gowalla have become darlings of the mainstream industry and VC’s alike, but there is a darker side to location-based services. Albeit, not unintelligent.

Over the last few years I have spoken to a number of technology providers that serve both the AE and the mainstream media industries (i.e. companies like Time Warner and Comcast serve both by the way) to understand how they are implementing technology and services, creating unique revenue models and growing their businesses. I do not aspire to work in the AE industry, but I will tell you that many of the folks that do are very smart and well-versed on the ins-and-outs (it’s ok to laugh) of the Internet, Digital Media and Advertising Industry. Yes, we all hear of the seediness of AE but these folks also know their business and their legal limits, arguably better than executives of many mainstream companies, such as Goldman Sachs, Citibank, AIG and any other high profile financial institutions that always seem to “bend the law – make that break the law.” Yes, that’s a personal jab (Advice – rent the Oscar Award winning documentary “Inside Job” – it’s a financial flick, not otherwise, Gutter Boy).

More importantly, these folks in the AE business are specific, detailed, know what they want, what they expect and how to measure it. They are well-organized and do make many, very smart decisions. Some of their businesses are more profitable and operate more efficiently than many mainstream publically traded companies.

The following are three examples of how the Adult Entertainment or Porn industry has provided innovation in the Internet, Digital Media and Advertising Industry.

Affiliate Marketing - the industry of Porn has all but conquered the ultimate business model in Affiliate Marketing. These companies build multiple platforms from which to share content both owned and from competitors. They squeeze every conceivable cent from potential customers all in the name of making a profit, in some cases with very advanced methodologies.

Example: If a customer on company X website doesn’t purchase company X content, then company X serves up company Y content (Y may happen to be their competitor). The focus is on revenue, and some is better than none. Imagine Jenny Craig sending customers to Weight Watchers–not likely to happen. However, some mainstream companies have embraced this approach – Progressive Insurance comes to mind. Can’t find a great rate with Progressive they’ll offer you other options, from competitors.

Pop-up Ads – ok, so not every technology or deployment from the AE industry would be considered positive or advance the Internet, Digital Media and Advertising Industry. Most all of us would agree that Pop-up Ads are akin to junk mail and fairly annoying, even potentially harmful to brand reputations. Nonetheless, the AE industry led the charge to deliver on these ads and to this day continues to thrive off of them.

(Special Note: In 2002, just a month prior to me co-founding my current company, I worked for iVillage. We were the first to publically ban pop-up ads from our web properties. This started a movement that led to the likes of Yahoo, The New York Times and WSJ, among others, following suit. This had a great impact on the diminished use of these ads today from what was, at the time, overwhelmingly commonplace.)

Digital Rights Management (DRM) – this is a key area where the AE industry is possibly further along than most all other mainstream industries in both understanding and usage. Ownership and delivery rights related to Porn not only have financial implications but also legal. Clearly there are federal and state laws against/for the use and distribution of this form of content, and the content owner,

A) does not want it stolen by a pirate, and

B) neither do they want it shown somewhere it should not be (shared or viewed) for legal reasons

Two companies have driven this innovation further than others: they include Vivid Entertainment and Private Media Group. Vivid Entertainment and its visionary founder, Steven Hirsch (I’ll refer to him as a younger Richard Branson), was the first to deliver in the DRM area by offering customers one-time downloads (burn to DVD) from a website. This is? controlled and limited use of the content by the consumer. Vivid aims to vigorously protect its content and ownership credentials.

Meanwhile, Private Media Group (PRVT – a publicly traded company, NASDAQ) CEO, Ilan Bunimovitz, was one of the first to offer HTML5 iPad optimized downloads and is also working on cross-platform delivery across multiple devices for its content. Supposedly, Private Media Group does not DRM protect any of its content because as their CEO states, “The way to fight piracy is not to limit who you sell content to…(i.e. consumers)” [but rather fight the piracy sites directly.]

So, the next time you fall in love with that really cool technology or sexy app that helps you through your day, consider where it spent the night before you.

I would enjoy your comments on how you feel the AE industry has driven innovation in these areas and others and how this had benefited the Internet, Digital Media and Advertising Industry. Please comment below and follow me @SParkerJr on Twitter.

Image Source: crazy-desktop-wallpaper.blogspot.com

Web design is like fashion; it changes every season, what's old is new again, and when you look back, you can't believe you actually wore it.  

Before I was Creative Director at Epic Advertising, I was a landing page and banner designer. Flash back to the early 2000s—anyone who surfed the Web can remember those annoying "Get a Free iPod" ads, and it was obvious in those days that design aesthetics were not a priority across the interactive landscape. Then, it was all about the large seizure-inducing flashing buttons, high-contrasting colors and thick strokes around all the text. Thank goodness Web design has evolved! Here are some of the trends I have seen crop up recently that give promise and hope to providing better creative services for clients:

Traditional Print Style
One of my personal favorite trends is the utilization of traditional print design style for Web design initiatives. There's more focus on typography (heading and body copy interaction), clean lines, lots of white space and beautiful high-quality imagery.  

Targeting & Design
With a greater emphasis on the use of anonymous data for better targeting, most advertisers can now target the look and feel of their ads and sites to the users' demographic, psychographic, contextual and behavioral attributes. Designers now have the capability to make the user feel like the ad or site was made just for them, and can use creative Web design to tailor the look and feel depending on the user and their preferences.

Mobile
According to a 2009 eMarketer report, by 2013, the total number of mobile Internet users is expected to reach 134 million globally because of the popularity of smartphones. When designing landing pages and Web sites, it would be smart to keep that growth statistic in mind. This statistic, if it holds true, represents a dramatic shift toward many people accessing the Internet on a small screen, so sites will need to be less reliant on Flash (which still doesn't work on the iPhone or iPad), and if you're not planning on doing a "mobile" version of your site, your main site needs to be simple and easy to navigate. Nothing is worse than trying to access a site on your smart phone when nothing shows up.

Branding & Quality
With more of the Fortune 500 brands putting additional funds towards interactive marketing, we've had to change the way we approach our projects. While the call to action is still important, we've really needed to focus on following the brands' already-developed image. Quite often, Web designers stray too far from the established branding, which only confuses potential consumers.

As an online Creative Director, it's so important to keep up on new and evolving trends in marketing and be able to suggest alternative online treatments to advertisers. Another important aspect of the field is for creative designers to always expand their capabilities. Years ago at Epic Advertising, the designers' only focus was landing-page design, banners and mailers. Now, the team is responsible for corporate Web sites, Flash presentations, Twitter skins, Facebook fan pages, sweepstakes and contests, video ads, iPhone landing pages, plus virtually anything else you can think of. Social media seems here to stay, and creatively, we all must adjust and embrace it.

The types of online ads are not the only thing evolving in our industry; quality and quantity are, as well. More Branded Agencies and Fortune 500 Companies are turning to online Marketing Agencies to help develop their ever-changing marketing strategies. It's an exciting time for anyone who's involved in Web design. Within our dynamic marketplace, the creative opportunities are never-ending and it's only going to get bigger and better from here.

Erica Baer
Director, Creative Services | Epic Advertising

SuperBowl miniature screens for Social media advertising

Social Media Temptation:

The Super Bowl according to accepted belief, is the second largest food consumption day in the USA after Thanksgiving day. So when a major advertiser decides to not splash out on advertising during this acknowledged "National Holiday", it would set the entire advertising and media spheres abuzz! This is exactly what has happened on every major discussion forum, even on large online business social networks such as LinkediN.

How Pepsi could have used Social Media at the SuperBowl:

What if Pepsi were to have installed a temporary Wifi Network at the Stadium itself. A private stadium wide network, where access was free but via a Pepsi branded landing page or gateway page. The connection to the outside internet would also be there, but could be regulated to reach only popular Social Networking sites such as Twitter, MySpace and Facebook. This choice would be completely at Pepsi's discretion.

Here's how it could have been implemented and 4 advantages:

1. - Pepsi would have instantly brought Social Media advertising, into the Real World and on-ground, right at the Super Bowl
2. - Thousands of Blackberry, Iphones and Smartphones would have been converted into miniature SuperBowl Screens, if Pepsi was streaming a live feed to them or showing instant replays, and of course, Pepsi Commercials
3. - All that a smartphone user would have to do is turn on their Wifi enabled devices and log on to the Pepsi Private Wifi Network.
4. - Pepsi could have turned this into a direct source of revenue. Example: On every Pullring of a can of pepsi a password could have been printed (for single login) giving time limited access to the Wifi Network. This would actually help in sales and consumption of the product.
5. - Ticker tape like real estate on the main SuperBowl scoreboard screen could have been rented by Pepsi, showing Tweets sent out live by the fans at the Stadium, via the private network. Or this could me moderated and outside tweets from fans at home could also stream in.
6. - Fans could upload live snapshots to their facebook accounts from the stadium.

This would have brought online Social Media networking face to face with real people on-ground! an experiment worthy of a separate study in itself. Pepsi could have accomplished both, on site advertising mixed with social media advertising, and possibly driven up sales of it's product in one go.   Read the rest of this article and more ideas for Pepsi Vending Machines here: http://realvision.ae/blog/2010/01/4-ways-pepsi-could-have-used-social-media-advertising-at-the-superbowl/