360DigitalInfluence

(Part 2? Yeah, check out Part 1.)

In case you missed it, Ron Paul supporters, ASU students, and VFX artists were among those that joined the fray since my last post. The variations continue to proliferate further down the tail, satirizing - and entertaining - more niche audiences. What does this add up to? Segmentation.

While I easily enjoy Sh*t ASU Students Say even though I’m not a Sun Devil - and haven’t even been to the campus - the video resonates better with those who were. Beyond that, the video’s arc is more relatable to students who enrolled in the past 5-10 years and drink socially - perhaps even deeper for students who were in the Greek system and enjoy campus takeout.

The point is, there’s a clear difference in the type of viewer who’s going to watch the video halfway through for a chuckle and a viewer who’s going to share across social networks. Those pearls of info are demographic, psychographic, and behavioristic qualities - in some ways digital has obscured their importance.

As segmented as some brands' social media programs get these days.

On-platform segmentation

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“It’s an English basement.”

That might not mean much to you, but it probably made you chuckle if you fall into one of the two groups:

1. Current or former D.C. residents
2. Viewers of Sh*t People In D.C. Say

Of course, this video is one of many variations of the Sh*t Girls Say series - which has a cumulative YouTube viewership of 20+ million and growing. You know the premise: Stereotypical expressions from people of a certain ilk, organized by gender, hobby, lifestyle, or geography. There are takes on skiers, hipsters, suburban moms, and even sh*t nobody says (a personal favorite) and the meme’s ’success’ reminds me of basic marketing program goals: generating word-of-mouth, stimulating co-creation, and targeting segmented audiences.

$1,400 for a converted sunroom? Not bad - better than an English basement.

First: Why do we care about sh*t other people say?

As a meme - both intentionally and by accident - these videos satisfy several of the 7 Drivers of Word of Mouth synthesized from Emmanuel Rosen’s work: there’s a good story, people can show their involvement, there is an implicit invitation to participate through their involvement, ’supporters’ can be creative, and, most crucially, there’s a clear value offering - comedy.

The power of these elements is not only clear in the 20+ million video views of the original - and millions more on the variations - but the number of amateur aueters who created their own. An absurdly unscientific calculation using YouTube shows 200+ videos using a basic search - let’s safely presume 50 are duplicates and 50 are spam. Even at 100 and with absolutely no prize, that’s higher participation than most branded video submission challenges get - save Survivor applications and Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl.

What’s the lesson?

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Google. Facebook. Groupon. Yelp. LivingSocial. Amazon.

It’s a lineup of online juggernauts — all executing thrusts and parries to build an empire in the group buying space. In case you can’t keep up — and who could — Google is testing Google Offers in Portland, Amazon is playing around with AmazonLocal in Boise, ID, and Yelp continues to dodge cable cars in San Francisco and keep its Deals afloat.

Oh, and there’s this little company valued at $15 to $30 billion, a smaller, but emerging competitor in LivingSocial, Bloomspot, KGB Deals, Buy With Me, EverSave — ad infinitum. All of these socially-driven deals add up to an estimated 2,670,000,000 clams and growth rates continue to be astounding.

Yowza! The number of offers published has nearly doubled in the last quarter.

Logic would say — with the space’s proliferation — restaurants, bars, and yoga studios must be praising the day Andrew Mason and co. decided to bring cut-rate organic spray tans to the masses. Logic would say that, but it’s up for debate.

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Fresh off the conference floor from this year’s School of WOM, it’s difficult not to feel conflicted as a digital communications professional. However, I’ve come to realize the true value of most conferences isn’t in the “Ah-ha!” moments, but rather the reflection. I don’t ever want to walk away from a gathering like WOMMA’s yearly event with notebook full of answers. If I did, I could have easily learned those lessons in a book or a blog post. A valuable conference in this industry is one that spurs discourse, rumination, and plenty of brow-furrowing.

What concepts stirred the pot during the 2.5-day event? Find out after the jump.

Crayola provided crayons so we could show off our artistic abilities (or lack thereof)

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Do you follow Santa on Twitter? I don’t, but I imagine him tweeting his way across a city’s rooftops on December 24th like so many metropolitan food trucks. He could use foursquare to check-in for valuable chimney-descending tips or to know what kinds of cookies to expect, but that might ruin the element of surprise.

Regardless, Santa is no different than most of us – save a red jumpsuit and diminutive slave labor – in that he has been changed by social media. If the millennium-old character can keep up with the times, clearly there’s an opportunity for most organizations’ communications to evolve. In fact, savvy Santa – or, if you prefer, Rudolph (@RudolphHoHo) or the horrifying Krampus (@MisterKrampus) – can teach us an important lesson about enrichment through social media.

Enrichment, in this context, is a concept that organizations can add communications dimensions through providing entertainment, information, and other value-adding layers. Enrichment could entail a number of techniques, and @santaNORAD demonstrated how social media can be used in a unique way to enrich a folkloric figure.

Santa tweeted from the rooftops in 2010 with help from NORAD

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If you’re like me, the announcement of Facebook overhauling its clunky messaging service made your heart flutter. For my needs, many of the platform’s ancillary services – chat, video hosting, messages – leave a lot to be desired. The prospect of an @Facebook.com email client signaled a strong move toward effective messaging and only an appeal at that level would tempt me to take it seriously.

Leading up to the reveal, netizens unleashed prognostications such as a full-fledged war on e-communications and a lot of Gmail killing. Then came the big day – Monday, November 15. In the usual style of past Facebook reveals – unintentionally anticlimactic and awkward – Zuck gave us Facebook Messages, The Sequel. The touted benefits included seamlessness, immediacy, and relieving the heavy “cognitive load” of traditional email. And in that pitch, Zuckerberg showed us a tool that embraces what his company is great at: simplicity (seriously).

Believe it or not, Facebook is run by the tenets of simplicity and ease-of-use – they are two preeminent goals in every iteration the platform undergoes, every tweak that it makes. While some users find its tinkering a nuisance, Facebook aims to bring numerous Web functions under one roof, cut the fat, and find the efficiency in them all. Hence many features of the new Facebook Messages: no subject line, prioritized inbox, and consolidated email, chat, and SMS.

The reworked Facebook Messages promises efficiency, lame graphics

Sounds cool, right? But is it enough for you to take Facebook seriously as a mature messaging tool – one that you can use for business and pleasure? While I wager you would concede that a Facebook profile comprise much of your online identity, are you willing to put First.Last@Facebook.com on a résumé and compose sternly-worded missives beside LOLs, emoticons, and Farmville alerts? The Magic 8-Ball proclaims, “Outlook not so good.” Here are two reasons Facebook won’t take my email to its grave (and one reason why it might).

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It was during the summer of 2006 when I sat down with my first McRib. Over the next two weeks, I ate at McDonald’s seven times, downing eight rib-resembling sandwiches (I clearly wasn’t having the best day on one of those visits). Despite the obsession, the McRib hasn’t crossed my mind often in the four years that have passed. Until ten days ago as I was browsing my Twitter feed …

McDonald's confirms the McRib's triumphant return on its official Twitter account.

The McRib will be gracing menus in less than two weeks and fans have wasted no time leveraging digital media to celebrate its resurrection. There’s the handy McRib Locator to map sightings, @McRibWatch on Twitter for real-time updates while on the hunt, and more than 200 Facebook groups dedicated in some way to the elusive sandwich – all unofficial. All this for a sandwich available for a limited time “because people get tired of it,” according to the McDonald’s U.S. president.

Parables of cross-country travel and sandwich-smuggling have framed the sandwich as a cult product, appealing to a cadre of obsessive fans with most consumers left to smirk (or gag). However, in an era of heightened word of mouth and social media broadcast, a growing group of McRib fans is finding its voice. While McDonald’s’ most infamous sandwich has a history of online success spurred by farewell tours and a “Save the McRib” campaign, this is the first opportunity social media users nationwide have had to be vocal.

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The Sunday circular was once a premier destination for grandparents armed with scissors at the prospect of saving $0.15 on frozen peas. I used to roll my eyes and wonder how this habit could be a smart investment of time. Then I found FatWallet.com, a site that gives users 1%-30% cash back with a few clicks of the mouse. Suddenly, FatWallet = the Sunday ads and my mouse = scissors.

It was then I realized the apple didn’t fall far from the tree and my miserly roots were exposed. Even though I was effortlessly getting cold, hard cash back on my click investment, I was hesitant to reveal this find to friends. Saving money hasn’t ever had its time in the spotlight. Microsoft tried to build momentum around the concept with Bing Cashback, but the program never took off and sang its swan song July 30. Geek got chic, so why couldn’t frugality?

And then, just when parsimony was destined to be a virtue relegated to secrecy and smoke-filled rooms, along came Groupon.

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Of the sectors throwing caution to the wind and making social media integral to long-term communications plans, I perceive higher education as dragging its feet. Fresh off graduation, I can still smell the ink drying on hastily-minted digital plans for universities of all sizes and ilk. That’s why I was surprised after a recent finding from the Society for New Communications Research: higher education is outpacing the Fortune 500 in social media adoption by more than 2 to 1.

We must consider such inferences carefully. The deeper one digs into the study, the more context must be added. In one instance, researchers found 95% of schools use at least one platform to recruit. While the for-profit equivalent of recruiting is acquiring new customers, social media serve many more functions in both sectors. In education, uses include informing current students, communicating with alumni, and promoting curricula, courses, and extracurriculars internally, among countless others.

The study’s broad statements must be examined carefully and, while the rate of adoption may be high, it may not translate to effectiveness. Social media shouldn’t be drooled over solely for external promotion and recruiting, but also for opportunities to create an enriching stakeholder experience. For example, Harvard University has been an early adopter in its use of social platforms to welcome guests with campus tips on foursquare, serve diverse audiences on Twitter, and provide students resources to get involved via Facebook.

“Well, that’s freakin’ Harvard!” one might say. Sure, but it could be any university with the strategic insight to serve disparate audiences through social media. While not every institution can offer a custom foursquare badge to visitors, it can bring a campus, its students, and the community to life with a fuller interactive, multimedia presence. Obviously it’s no cakewalk and schools must address four fundamental uncertainties that inhibit effective use of social media in higher education:

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