360DigitalInfluence

Jeremy Ames from the EPA just wrapped up giving a really interesting presentation recapping how his agency used social media to crowdsource the production of a video Public Service Announcement encouraging people to test their homes for radon gas.

The EPA launched a contest and asked film makers to submit their concepts, with the winning entry receiving $2,500. Getting this off the ground was not easy, according to Ames who was faced with the prefect storm of social media barriers: legal, technical, and budgetary. Let’s watch the winning entry and then we’ll look at how they did it..

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A few months ago, Kaitlyn Wilkins covered the Air Force’s Rules of Engagement - online that is. This excellent flow chart mapped how when and how to respond to conversations about the Air Force online. In yesterday’s Social Media and Government conference, I got to listen to Air Force Captain David Faggard talk about his his role in both monitoring social media as well as internal training.

It was, in my opinion, one of the best presentations all day. He gave an inside look into what the Air Force is currently doing and what they have in store. For example, Captain Faggard is currently one of three people working in social media - he said the Air Force has plans to increase that number to 19 in the near future.

One my favorite stories came when described what happens when the Air Force starts following the conversation on Twitter. Some one playing an air-combat video game tweeted that air force one had crashed prompting a quick reply from the Air Force correcting this misinformation. Below is a quick clip from a post-presentation interview retelling this story:

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I’ve just completed a successful day at Search Engine Strategies in NY, with tons of great panels, Guy Kawasaki keynote admitting how good he is at spamming twitter, and plenty of iPhone giveaway business card drops.  The last panel of the day “Video Search Engine Optimization: 2009 and Beyond” featured some good presentations, saving the best for last; Matthew Lui, YouTube Project Manager, Sponsored Videos.  I was able to flipcam is speach.  

If you can get past the video quality, my shaky arm, and the jerry curl in front of me, there is actually some excellent information in here about video search engine optimization, and the YouTube advertising platform  Enjoy!

I’m attending the Advanced Learning Institute’s Social Media and Government Conference and am listening to a great presentation from Stephen Miller from the U.S. Department of State. He’s been focusing alot on many of the internal and external communities that facilitate discussion from employees stationed around the world.

He recently gave an inside peek into the volume of the conversation going on inside the state department’s online communities. continue reading

Over SXSW, I had several opportunities to sit down and learn from mom bloggers what their experience has been of working with marketers. Dinner with the Walmart 11 moms, long conversations with Stacy and Rebecca from MomCentral and hallway conversations with people who are only indirectly connected with mom bloggers like Laura Mayes from Kirtsy - as well as experience in working on a few programs focused on mom bloggers for clients have all led to this post.

So, here are the top 7 things gleaned from conversations with mom bloggers that most of them really wanted PR people to know. At the end of the list is an 8th that I didn’t actually hear from anyone, but still think is valid enough to include on this list:

1. “Get to know me.” Mom bloggers are often sharing extremely personal things about their lives on their blogs, from helping a family member deal with a difficult illness to their own stories of juggling everything. Take the cues from their writing about whether your product or service is a good fit and when is a good time to contact them about it.

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This was my first year at SXSW - big shout out to the
Gods at Ogilvy’s 360 Digital Influence Group for sending me down to the
Lone Star State!  I originally intended to write two “wrap” posts on
SXSW - one from me, and one “round up” featuring insights and takeaways
that I solicited individually from some of the best and brightest in
the social media space over email and Twitter.  However, as I was
working on both simultaneously I discovered that - as usual - 15 social
media brains are better than one (even though I like my brain). So, I
decided to write one post and share out the four biggest insights that
I culled from my own experiences and the wisdom of the masses.

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WOMM-U is a 2-day comprehensive and interactive educational experience from WOMMA. It’s built around giving you the real-world knowledge you need to execute exceptional word of mouth marketing programs that are most effective in today’s recession economy.

Check out the essential agenda for the May 13-14 practical learning event in Miami from WOMMA now > (if you use the code  ”fanofogilvy” you will get $200 off the registration cost for a limited time - I think you need to register by April 3rd)

• Go because you want to get smart in applying social media strategically for your brand
• Go because WOMM is a more effective especially integrated into other forms of marcom

• Go because of this wack session from Jeben Berg -  YouTube: It’s more than OMFGYHTST!

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Here are two great resources to find how different brands are using Twitter. Who knew that New York Tourism ran a Twitter feed at NewYorkology - great place to hear about Museum specials and more.

• Tracking Twitter: The fine folks at Electric Artists created a short list of brands on Twitter.  
• Social Brand Index: Fluent Simplicity created a growing wiki of brands on Twitter. This list is quite long and organized reasonably usefully.

For my second interview of Search Engine Strategies speakers I’ve had the privilege of connecting with Sharad Verma from Yahoo!

Sharad is a senior product manager for content, crawl, and indexing systems of Yahoo Search Technology. Before joining Yahoo in 2007, he worked for multiple Silicon Valley startups.   Sharad graduated from IIT Bombay (India) with a degree in chemical engineering in 1999.

Sharad will be speaking on the panel Discovering the Power of Linking: Link Building Basics, as well as several others.  The term “Link Building“  is often discussed among marketing and pr professional, however, more often than not a genuine understanding of what goes into this effort is lacking.  Hopefully Sharad will be able to clear some things up with this Q&A.

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I will be attending Search Engine Strategies in New York March 24th - 26th.  In preparation for the conference I’ve had the privileged of interviewing Marjorie Madfis, an Interactive Marketing Manager and Web Editor at IBM. She will be one of the speakers in the session Key Points in Launching a Global Website.

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