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SMX Social: Evangelist - The Marketer's Role in SMM

By Li Evans

SMX Social:  Effectively Using Social Media - Second Life, Big Brands & Managing Social Media Strategies, Working with Bloggers

Rob Key - Converseon
Community has become the center of the web experience.  There are dozens of communities that people communicate in and have emerging cultures that are different in each community.  These shared experiences help us communicating with each others.  As marketers, we haven't been invited into these environments.  The challenge is that these communities are evolving their own norms.

The role of a social marketer is sort of being like an anthropologist.  Second Life shows a bit of this with their "2nd Life Liberation Army" where they take avatars in commerical properties in Second Life hostage.  Sony got outted for their "flog", Wikipedia has it's own strange culture as well.

As marketers, we know that backlash is going to grow as brands penetrate social media communities.  Driving factors such as tagging and increasing personalization will affect this as well.  Ask not what the community can do for you, but what you can do for the community - a play on JFK.

8 Principles of Karmic Communication

Simpsons' Movie a Hit - Producers Point to Viral Marketing Campaigns

By Li Evans

If you haven't heard, over the weekend the Simpsons Movie, took in over $71 million dollars.  That makes it the 5th best opening of the year topping even the opening of the Transformers and Disney's Ratatouille movies.

What made the movie a hit?  Well I'm sure most of the popularity of the movie came from the fact that it is the longest running sitcom of all time and it has a rather large fan base.  Really who doesn't know such phrases as "doh!" and "eat my shorts!"?  However, the producers of the the movie at 20th Century Fox, also are pointing to another contributing factor.

The producers of the Simpsons Movie have said their very successful marketing campaign for the movie, comprised mostly of Viral Marketing stunts had a lot to do with the weekend success of the movie.  From changing 7-11's to Kwik-E-Marts to the extremely popular Simpsonize Me site (check out my review of Simpsonize Me), apparently these viral marketing pieces did have an affect on people to draw them in to see the movie this weekend.

Up next, movie and internet marketing wise, Bourne Ultimatum.  Marketers for this movie, did a paid marketing piece for their site within Google Adwords to promote the movie with both a paid ad aligned with a video in You Tube that all tie to a special site "The Ultimate Search for Bourne".

Simpsons Movie & Burger King Goes with Viral Marketing to Promote Movie

By Li Evans

Did you know the Simpsons Movie is coming out at the end of July?  Well if you didn't hear about the marketing antics happening for the movie so far (Seven 11's turning into Kwik-E Marts), look out because something Viral Markets this way.

Burger King has teamed up with the Simpsons to promote the movie with a site called Simposonize Me.  Now I did a little digging to see if Crispin Porter + Bogusky, of Subservient Chicken fame was behind this viral marketing piece, but I couldn't find any information on their site, nor BK's.  I wouldn't doubt that there is some kind of collaboration here with the movie studios and CP + B, these guys have come up with some really great work in the past couple of years.

No doubt this will catch on like wild fire, viral marketing at its finest.  You can Simpsonize yourself, add a pet, add backgrounds, email the picture to your friends, download it to your computer and even make it your screen saver.  I sat and played around on this site for well over 30 minutes, and thoroughly enjoyed the site.  It has that Simpsons humor behind it, and there's no doubt Simpsons fans will love it.

Take a look at just what I created.

   
notice the greyhound ;)
   

 

Now, go on, Simpsonize yourself, and share your pictures!  Feel free to link to your Simpsonized pictures in the comments below! :)

My Super Proposal On Veronica Mars?

By Li Evans

Arrrg! TypePad decides to go down at the most inopportune times! I wanted this out a few hours agao, but Typepad wouldn’t cooperate, sorry folks!

Well if you watched the SuperBowl, and you've seen the line ups of commercials, you'll know by now that JP's deal fell through to have a commercial appear during the game.  Probably what was most disappointing was that CBS was still calling JP during the game to say it "might" still happen.  By the 3rd quarter, it was a no go. I had been in contact with Joe the morning of the SuperBowl, and because they won the adAge poll, there was that “chance”, but it wasn’t to be. :(

What sucks is that we had to suffer through Flomax, re-fried GoDaddy and SalesGenie commercials instead.  Blah!

There is a bright spot though, JP's still going to do his proposal via a TV program.  Which one?  Veronica Mars!  I'm a fan of that show - love the twists and spins those writers come up with!  Anyway - back to JP, he's bought a local spot on the CW where he lives.  No, I don't know where that is, since Joe's the only one who knows that (I've considered bribing him, but you know that price might be a little high!), it's been kept under tight wraps.  But interestingly enough Joe's working on possibly getting the commercial aired nationally.

Either way, if I find out more - I'll let you know.  So watch Veronica Mars tomorrow night to see the super proposal we didn't get to see during the big game!

Superbowl Commercials, 30 Minutes Later - Name Your Top 5 Ads

By Li Evans

The Superbowl Champions may be the Indianapolis Colts (Pat, I bet you are dancing right now!), but there's also other winners.  Who are they?  Those whose commercials you remember 30 minutes after the game and can chuckle or talk about tomorrow at work.  These marketers paid several millions of dollars on 30 second spots that they hoped caught your attention enough to remember them AFTER the game, enough to talk about them tomorrow and for days/weeks after the game has faded into memory.

So I'll share my type 5 favorite Superbowl Commercials:

1. Career-Builder Ads - all of them, hilarious!
2. Emerald Nuts - so that's what happens at 3 p.m. - I'm on the watch for Robert Goulet now!
3. Budwiser Ads - both the crabs (the animation/reactions - just funny!) and the JayZ/Don Shula ad (great graphics!) - both were great
4. Nationwide's Federline Ad - *sighs* I admit it, I found it funny, even though I saw it on Monday- it's still memorable!
5. Tie:  Coca-Cola Ads (all of them) / Footlocker Garnett Autograph Ad - Coke's ad were fun, classy and cute. Footlocker, just made me laugh, "oh no not my shoe!"

Those are the ones I'll be talking about - Viral Marketing / Word of Mouth Marketing in high gear, in a positive way.

The Superbowl Commercials I didn't really care for (mostly because they were lame!):

1. GoDaddy - come on guys, you tried that same approach the other year - nothing new here, move on to another idea!
2. Revlon - Uhhh, I don't have a colorist following me around for 6 weeks, why do I care that Sheryl Crow does?  Do guys really care about coloring their hair?
3. Budlight - the one with the gorillas, just, kinda, stupid.
4. Sales Genie - just plain out LAME-O
5. Flomax - yes, just what ever guy wants to see, a commercial for male urinating problems! (I couldn't find it on YouTube - I wonder why!? LOL)

So, which one's did you like and not like?  I'm interested in knowing!

2000 Bloggers' Tino Buntic Explains The 2000 Bloggers Project

By Li Evans

Small Preface:  If you are coming from a link posted that infers that Tino had other prerogatives when he started the 2000 bloggers project, please move on.  There's an individual out there trying to portray this interview in that way and that is not why Tino did the project, please know that, that person is just taking things out of context before reading on.

Have you heard of Tino Buntic?  Well if you haven't, come on out of that cave you've been hiding in the last week!  Tino is the creator of the 2000 blogger project and this project has taken the blogosphere by storm in the last week.

Tino's interesting project, just started out as an neat collage, but it's blossomed into something much bigger.  In about a week through word of mouth and viral phenonena, the project has over 1,000 bloggers within it.  The project has even managed to gain some sales leads for participants at Trade-Pals, his B2B Directory for Professionals.  There's even a 2000 Bloggers community on MyBlogLog, and a lot of people are finding it alluring to look at all the faces, trying to find their own or those of their fellow bloggers.

I got really interested in why Tino started this and what affects it was having.  Tino was gracious enough to answer a few questions for me, which I'm happy to share!

Q:  How long have you been blogging?
A:  I think I've had my blog up for about two years. But, you know, I've never really put much work into it prior to the 2000 Bloggers project. It was just there. Nobody read it. I had one just because everybody else had one. Even still, my blog is not my first priority. It's really way down the list. My first priority is my website, TradePals which provides free sales leads to business professionals. 2000 Bloggers was just a side project that I thought up.

Q:  What is your opinion of the term LinkBait?
A:  Nothing wrong with linkbait. Isn't that everybody's real goal? Getting link backs means that people like what you do or what you create. Why would you be online if nobody links to you? If nobody links to you then you should probably just quit what you're doing because nobody but yourself is seeing it anyway. Link bait is just smart online marketing.

Q:  How and why did you come up with the concept of 2000 bloggers?
A:  I don't even know. Honestly. One day I just started doing it and then it started to look quite nice. 2000 was never the original target. I started added photos of bloggers to a blank page and there more I had, the nicer it looked. Then I came up with a number. 2000. 2000 looks nicer than 1000 and it even looks nicer than 3000. Think about it - "3000 Bloggers" just doesn't sound right, does it?

Q:  In your own words what exactly is the goal of 2000 bloggers?
A:  When I started putting it together and the collage began looking pretty, I knew people would like it. I knew people would link to it. When you first come across the page you it strikes you. Who are all these people? You look closer. If you are a blogger, chances are that you'll eventually recognize someone. What if you come across the page and see yourself? The first 300 people on the page didn't ask to be on. I found their blogs myself just by clicking though people's blogrolls. I linked to it on my blog. A few visitors saw it and clicked on a few of the links. Some of those people checked the referral stats and saw visitors coming through the 2000 Bloggers page; they checked out the page, maybe clicked on a few themselves, and some linked to it to show others. It kind of snowballs. As more people come, they click on the links, suddenly everybody's getting referrals from the page and linking to it. Everybody's happy.

Q:   What are the benefits of 2000 bloggers - first for yourself, and 2nd for those Bloggers you feature?
A:  2000 Bloggers is hosted on my main website. That page is getting quite a few links. Getting the links has SEO benefits and hopefully will benefit the rest of the site. I don't exactly make any money from the 2000 Bloggers page. I got Google Adwords there but way at the bottom; it's bad positioning
to actually earn anything. And, I don't want to place any ads at the top because that would take away from the page. I'm just really hoping that the SEO benefits from the links has a positive effect on the rest of the site.

In terms of benefits to others, it's quite a bit. Absolutely every blog on that page is getting links. For example, Technorati is crediting every blog on 2000 bloggers with a link. In addition, that collage is constantly being re-published on other blogs and so people are now getting multiple links to their blogs. Everybody's Technorati ranking is increasing and having a good Technorati rank is quite important in terms of people being able to actually find your blog in a sea of 55 million blogs. Originally, I planned to make the code available for reprint when I finished but people have already
started reposting it. I'm fine with that. It's helping everybody.

Did you know that there are some blogs there that had no links prior to 2000 bloggers? Now they have dozens. I'm planning on elaborating on this and some other interesting stats a week or two after I finish.

A lot of people have been saying that they've been getting a lot of traffic from the 2000 Bloggers page. I guess that would probably depend on your positioning in the collage or how much your photo stands out.

Q:  What have been some of the drawbacks to doing this project?
A:  The only drawback is the time it takes to do. It is quite time consuming.   However, I am now the world's fastest photo resizer. If there was ever a World Championship competition for resizing photos, I would win, hands down.

Q:  What happens after you reach 2000?
A:  When I reach 2000, I get to finally take a nap. And, I will have a personal  bookmark page of all my favorite blogs, including yours, Li. Traffic to the page will eventually die down from the high it's on now. But there will always be some benefit. It already has a lot of links and there will be more. It's already getting traffic from Google and a little from StumbleUpon. It will die down, but it should continue to provide some traffic from a variety of sources for a while to come. And, it's all free!

Thanks Tino for answering this blogger's inquiries, I greatly appreciate the time you took to sit down and explain this to not only me, but to the rest of the audience. 

If you'd like to be part of the 2000 blogger project, (I don't think he's reached 2000 just yet), drop a comment in Tino's blog.

Superbowl Winner? Colts, Bears or J.P.?

By Li Evans

UPDATE - Proposal to be on Veronica Mars

I got an email from Joe Morin, while contract negotiations are still being worked on, it's amazing to find out what's happened!  Just the other day Joe had over 48 media requests for J.P. and himself.

If you watch Entertainment Tonight, J.P.'s going to be on there tonight.  After the SuperBowl,  there's a planned "whirlwind" media tour of the newly engaged couple.  Where?  Just take a look at where Joe told me that the two are going to appear: Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Early show, Fox Morning Show, Entertainment Tonight again, Inside Edition, Letterman, Leno, Global National TV (Canada), The Ellen Show and more to come.

Wow - all of that started with a few blog posts and a Press Release.  Word of Mouth Marketing, certainly is a powerful thing!

I'll update you all when Joe finally seals the deal.

My Super Proposal Gets Some Super Coverage

By Li Evans

UPDATE: Proposal to happen on Veronica Mars

I just got done hopping around the major news sites, of course Hilary's the big news right now, but my eyes fell upon something a little "closer to home" when I came to MSNBC's site.  Joe Morin's efforts to help J.P.'s "My Super Proposal" have hit the front page of MSNBC. 

With about 3 weeks left till the Super Bowl's kick off, I certainly hope we get to hear some good news, and I'm really cheering for Joe's efforts.  MSNBC is reporting in the article that something is going to be finalized on Monday - apparently 6 companies are in the running!  What an amazing turn of events, and a lot in part to Joe's efforts.

Joe himself is even getting a little press for Storybids, Inc., with a couple of paragraph mentions about how Joe became involved and what his role and Storybids' role is with My Super Proposal.

I'm keeping my eyes glued to Joe's blog on Monday, that's for sure, I'll make sure to pass on what I find out too.

Barack Obama Doesn't Know What a Widget Is - Internet Marketing Meets Politics 101

By Li Evans

Barack Obama doesn't know what a widget is, neither does John Kerry, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and I highly doubt Hilary Clinton does either.  I know, the next question is "what about John Edwards?" Well likely he understands the concept of the widget, especially in light of him announcing his candidacy on YouTube, and I'm sure that Robert Scoble has schooled him a bit as well.  Edwards also has a pretty decent blog, for that matter, and his website is full of a lot of social media pieces from Facebook to YouTube, he's actually someone who's learned a lot about the internet in 4 years (or has learned that he needs a savvy internet strategy). 

These next two years are going to be interesting ones as Internet Marketing is going to meet Politics head on.  There will not be any more casual accidents like Howard Dean.  These next two years are going to prove who are the savviest political internet marketers, and it could be one of the biggest deciding factors of the 2008 presidential election.

This place we are in here at the end of 2006, is actually a pretty fascinating place to be right now.  We are all witnessing the birth of a new form of political advertising, not by happenstance, but by deliberate forethought.  These politicians, are looking right now at John Edwards likely saying "how do I get that?", "how do I beat him at his own game?", "how do I reach more people with my own message?" - more importantly to us "who can I get to do that for me?"

This is the point where Internet Marketing and we as professionals have to step up to the plate.  It's not about whipping out a credit card and paying for a PPC campaign anymore.  It's about a deliberate, well thought out, marketing strategy that will not only delivery the candidates message or reach people they can't reach through a handshake, but also about energizing the base and asking them to help and participate in a totally different way.

It's true, that the most reliable voters likely won't know what a widget, a blog, or what a viral flash game is, but these really aren't who Internet Marketing campaigns are designed to reach, are they?  Those voters are stalwarts to the newspaper and TV, and I'm not saying that this medium of advertising is going away - not by a long shot.  However, candidates today, have to look at energizing another sort of base, find another way to reach younger voters.  Those younger voters are consistently moving over to the internet and mobile devices.

No, I'm not naive enough to think that Internet Marketing is one thing that's going to push Generation "M" and Generation "Y" to the polls in mass droves.  But, by providing a much easier way to access information about a candidate and their message, Generation "X"ers will be influenced and probably more "Y"'s and "M"'s will take notice.  And if these groups see the ad online enough - or are passed a "cool widget" by a friend, or given a link to a "great blog", or told "hey check this out" by one of their friends, its more likely they'll remember the name, than some annoying political ad on TV they've seen 20 times already.

I am betting that by the end of Q1 2007, Barack and Hilary are going to be a bit more educated about Internet Marketing, I don't doubt that McCain's looking at some sort of book about this industry already and Giuliani might be out here on the internet reading about it all, too.  John Edwards gave them all a wakeup call this week, Internet Marketing & Political Campaigns aren't happenstance anymore.

The SES Chicago Comic!

By Li Evans

Leave it to the "Kings of Linkbait" - and I mean that in total absolute praise and adoration, the folks at SEOMoz.org - in particularly, Rebecca Kelley & Rand Fishkin have put together the most HILARIOUS cartoon strip of SES Chicago!

Kudos to Rebecca & Rand, this had me just rolling with laughter!  Below is just 3 panels, you really need to check out the rest!  Rebecca included some of the pictures I took from SES Chicago and some Barry Schwartz took too.  I certainly hope this returns in London and NYC!