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Lady Gaga is a phenomenon in the world of music and quite frankly, in the world of word-of-mouth marketing. With over 9 million Twitter followers, over 32 million Facebook fans and being recognized as an artist with the most digital singles in RIAA history (20 million sold), it is obvious that all brands can learn a few things from Lady Gaga.

Always acknowledge your fans: Besides lovingly calling her fans “little monsters”, Lady Gaga constantly validates her fans’ love for her music and personality by posting their videos, tweets, comments back to them and showing them that she is paying attention. She even invited a young Canadian fan to perform with her on stage - a video that has garnered over 3.5 million views since being posted a little over a month ago.

Establish partnerships that are an authentic extension of your brand: Lady Gaga is no silly lady at all. She understands in the shifting arena that is the music industry that she has to remain viable through brand partnerships. However, she only takes on partnerships that make sense for her brand, such as her digital camera, printer & glasses with Polaroid, her March cover on Vogue magazine, Vogue’s iPad app of her and her upcoming fashion column with V Magazine. These brand partnerships are believable because Lady Gaga is fully immersed in the fashion and digital worlds.

Content must resonate with fans: However people may feel about Lady Gaga’s music is irrelevant because she does not create content for everyone. She is very clear about who her audience is (ie: those who have been bullied) and creates content specifically speaking to her audience. Her content continues to be eye-catching, over-the-top and show-stopping while her Twitter & Facebook updates are all about her fans, her successes and upcoming projects — a balance that her fans appreciate & love. Her content resonates for her fans because she understands what they want from her & she delivers on it — when your content is strong, its that much easier for your fans to share & discuss it.

Ask for help: As phenomenal as Lady Gaga’s rise to fame continues to be, note that she didn’t get there by herself. She had help - and she was aware enough to recognize that she needed help within the social media space to reach her goals.

As brands continue to grow in the social media space, remaining authentic in fan interactions, brand partnerships, content creation and even self-awareness are solid ways to make true believers out of your fans — the ultimate goal of any word-of-mouth marketing effort.

Right now, many of us have a solid grasp on how to leverage Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Tumblr to build online communities, promote their latest events/products/services and generate overall buzz about our clients’ brands. But what about LinkedIn?

What about the fact that LinkedIn is reaching 100 million members worldwide as we speak?

Maybe the fact that LinkedIn has company pages that smartly showcase how users are connected to brands and make it easy for them to recommend them?

The knowledge of LinkedIn’s growing recommendation engine that provides insights on companies & jobs that may be perfect for its members?

Today’s launch of LinkedIn’s student job portal that leverages the networks of students & recent graduates to recommend jobs & illustrate connections that may have been forgotten?

Or even LinkedIn’s API development that allows brands the opportunity to tap into LinkedIn’s growing network?

Every one of these opportunities benefit both the user and the brand. Every one is an opportunity for the brand to extend its reach, showcase its prowess, grow its credibility and have the best talent at their companies. We can help our clients do this with LinkedIn. continue reading

I think Pat Benatar had it right when she sang “love is a battlefield” almost thirty years ago. Love is, and will always be, a space for our hearts’ inner most fears and desires to be won or lost for all to see. Love is just that motivating, inspiring dangerous and sometimes, simply nuts. And Valentine’s Day brings all the vastness of love to a head and often times, leaves some of us out in the cold. That is, until social media showed up.

What with all the social media marketing efforts flying around for Valentine’s Day, such as being able to send loved ones an Angry Birds - themed Facebook valentine or sending a virtual gift from CBS’s Mad Love Facebook Page, it is easy to assume that Valentine’s Day has lost all of its remaining sentimental value. However, I would argue that social media is actually beneficial for all the lovers out there. With tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, Yelp or even a recent startup (that connects to Facebook to help people find local & gift recommendations that match a loved one’s taste), making plans and sending gifts has become a simplified process. Now, there is really no worry (nor excuse) to not have plans, a gift or even a simple status update to showcase your love for another on Valentine’s Day.

Check out this video from Socialnomics to see just how easy social media has made it for anyone who needs to pull together great Valentine’s Day plans at the last-minute:

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Facebook is now 7 years old!

In only seven years, Facebook has grown at a tremendously fast pace and now almost has 600 million users. All of those users are individuals who just may be interested in your brand and who may want to build a relationship with your brand. Within this time, Facebook Page management has grown from being focused solely on fan acquisition to now shifting towards Page management and engagement.

However, for still too many Facebook Pages, management and engagement is still not emphasized enough. As we continue to see with the growth of Facebook & other social media platforms, only having a lot of fans/followers is just not enough.

So what should you do to effectively manage and engage your fanbase? Establish at least one individual who can tend to your fanbase - a community manager. continue reading

We are now fully in the swing of things in 2011 and brands are focused on new ways to engage, encourage and interact with their Facebook fans.

With developments such as OfferPop (a social media marketing software company that provides Facebook-specific applications that facilitate easy interactions between users while showcasing brand products), Zibaba (an ecommerce storefront provider that will soon be launching an affliate storefront program for Facebook Pages), or even Sharethrough (that places brand videos into Facebook ad units), there is a constant river of new & improved ways to reach Facebook fans.

However, as a refresher for the new year, don’t forget some of the essentials to what makes a Facebook Page fantastic.

Tip 1. Keep the discussions authentic to your brand — it fosters trust.

Tip 2. Be consistent in your interactions — your fans want to be able to trust you.

Tip 3: Don’t take your brand too seriously — let your fans interact with you on a human level.

Focus on these three tips to keep your Facebook fans cognizant of why they are your fans in the first place and you will be able to foster a sense of community, intimacy and gratitude between yourself and your fans — bringing them back to you, time and time again. Take a look at this Facebook Page for a great example.

What is your 2011 resolution to improve your Facebook Page’s engagement and fanbase?

On Wednesday, Facebook announced a new way for brands to grow their fanbases by using email contacts to build your Facebook Page.

Now, from a brand perspective, this sounds great and it sounds like a fantastic way to reach individuals who are already interested in your brand and who just may not know about your presence on Facebook.

However, given my email marketing background, alarms have been going off in my head about whether or not this new development will alienate customers on your email contact lists.

Out of sheer curiosity, I tested this new Facebook tool and found a few things that made the email marketer in me a bit worried.

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I know the last time I was here, I spoke generally about Facebook fan engagement and how you have to have a vibrant, consistent and fun interaction with your fanbase in order to have them be engaged with your Page. And all of what I said is indeed true — however, I want to dig a little bit deeper on what keeps your fans coming back or…has them leaving you alone.

If we take a far enough step back, from all of the tools out there in the world of social media and even all of the tools out there on the internet, we are left with what exactly? The product or issue or message that you want to get out to particular audiences, right? And if we take an even further step back, we recognize that what we (as in brands) are really trying to do is get someone out there to understand us, connect with us and hopefully want to hang out with us, right? continue reading

What makes a great Facebook Fan Page? What makes it fantastical and special for all to see?

One quality of a great Facebook Fan Page is a strong level of engagement. But where does one even start a discussion? How do you keep your fans engaged, especially if you feel as if you have run out of ideas? A look at some conversations from strong brand Facebook Fan Pages can help steer you in the right direction.

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For many people, geo-location and location-based social networks are still brand new or are completely unfamiliar. However, these networks and the tremendous growth of geo-location are not even right around the bend – they are already here and growing at a rapid pace. Will geo-location completely change the way we interact?

Location-based social networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla are being used by organizations as diverse as the White House and Marc Jacobs. Through these networks, they offered people exclusive content and experiences. The White House used Gowalla to provide citizens a stamp at check-in for attending their recent National Conference on Volunteering and Service conference – giving users a more fun experience. Marc Jacobs took location-based mobile check-ins to the next level by allowing a select number of those who checked in to win tickets to the Marc Jacobs show during Fashion Week 2009.

In addition, Twitter now has geo-tagging for its updates and has established Twitter Places for itself and with Foursquare & Gowalla. On a much larger scale, with over 500 million users, Facebook has recently confirmed that it will indeed have location-based features integrated into its platform – linking the real and online worlds in a much deeper way.

And let us not forget about email marketing. MailChimp announced earlier this year that it will have geo-targeting integrated into its emails – giving businesses the opportunity to send more targeted emails to customers and clients by IP addresses, not just by zip code or address.

As developments in apps continue and users become more adept with the capabilities of geo-location, the way people interact with one another will shift – allowing people to more readily tap into their own communities and create new ones. And with guests being able to earn real rewards from hotels and airlines simply through location-based mobile check-ins –- geo-location can guarantee that people will begin expecting even more fulfilling, localized and unique interactions from the organizations they care about. 

Weigh In: Does geo-location completely change the way we interact? Or just add another dimension to our lives?