Grammy 2.0

 As I sat down in front of my TV Sunday night, I could barely contain my excitement that the Grammy's were on! I watched as Lady Gaga was carried inside of an egg (she truly never ceases to amaze me!) and each artist that performed was better than the last. When Lenny Kravitz came out to introduce Muse, I could no longer keep my excitement to myself. I HAD to share my thoughts on Facebook. So, I posted exactly what was on my mind, "I freakin love Muse! And even though Lenny Kravitz hasn't changed his look (or outfit) since 1991, he's still dead sexy!" Pulitzer Prize winning material? Not at all. But, thought provoking? Apparently. Within 10 minutes I had three 'likes' and a, "Omg I could Not agree More." Thus began my night of status updates and comments with friends about anything and everything Grammy.



 At the same time I was updating my status and commenting on my friends posts during the show, I was also going to grammy.com for updates and behind the scenes videos that I couldn't get from watching the show or from Facebook.

 For years the music industry has fought with different types of social media (Napster anyone?) in order to hang on to their rights and control over music. But, after years spent fighting, the industry is now finally embracing social media and figuring out how to use it to their advantage and include their fans as well. This year's Grammy's was proof that the recording industry is taking social media seriously. In an interview on mashable.com, Evan Greene, Chief Marketing Officer of the Recording Academy said that, "...the Academy established a social media task force in 2008 and did a lot of outreach in 2009, basically assessing the climate, the places where the fans were spending their time, and evaluating the decision to jump in full force. Evan made it very clear that the Academy didn’t want to just haphazardly get involved, if the organization was going to do social media, it was going to do it correctly, (mashable)."

 As part of this year's marketing campaign, the Grammys got their fans involved through WereAllFans.com. The site basically lets fans interact with their favorite artists by creating a video compiled of youtube videos, pictures, tweets, blogs and other fan generated social media 'blips.'  Some of this year's most popular artists on we're all fans were Lady Gaga, Beyonce and The Dave Mathews Band.

 In the days leading up to the show, the Grammy's showed their openness to embrace all things social media by hosting the Social Media Rock Star Summit. Amongst stars Adam Lambert and Chamillionaire, the founders of Digg.com, Mashable.com and Foursquare.com were also a part of the panel. The summit was streamed live on grammy.com and YouTube, and for anyone who missed it, there are videos broken down by topic on grammy.com. The video clips are broken down into topics such as, "Foursquare Discussion at Social Media Rockstar Summit," and "Social Media v. Creativity at Social Media Rockstar Summit."

 During the show, fans like myself could go to grammy.com and check out behind the scenes pictures and videos. And the next day, there were links to download performances, answer polls, videos from every category, 'thank you' blogs, pictures, and this list goes on. Basically, if I missed one second of the Grammy's I could just go to grammy.com and find it.


 This year, the Grammy Awards were an interactive experience for fans like myself. It allowed us to experience the show by watching it play out on TV, but also made us feel like we were part of it all through the Grammy website and We're All Fans site. I am looking forward to what the future holds for Grammy groupies like myself. Who knows, maybe some day they'll be a virtual Barbara Streisand standing in my living room. In the meantime, I'll be on grammy.com watching the video of her performance whenever I choose. After all, it was like buttah!












sources: http://mashable.com/2010/01/25/grammys-2010/, http://www.youtube.com/, http://www.grammy.com/,

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What's Chuck Norris got to do with it?

I am pretty much a novice in the world of social media marketing. Actually, who am I kidding? The only thing I knew about social media marketing is that I didn't know anything other than that I needed to learn more about it if I plan to work in the Marketing/PR world. So, imagine the sigh of relief I felt after reading the first few chapters of Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies. The first six chapters in Li and Bernoff's book are generally a 'how to' of what social media marketing is, and what companies need to do to use it in order to benefit from it. And everything is explained through case studies, MANY, MANY case studies!

Li and Bernoff define the groundswell as, 'A social trend in which people use technologies to get things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations, (Groundswell, 9).' Translation to companies: People will buy/consume your product based on what they hear from their peers, not what your Marketing/PR departments tell them. But, Li and Bernoff are not saying that Marketing/PR departments are a thing of the past, but that they have to learn about, join and adapt to the groundswell.

The first step companies need to take in joining The groundswell, is to figure out where their consumers are in the groundswell and how to most effectively reach them. To best figure this out, Li and Bernoff developed The Social Technographics Profile.

The Social Technographics Profile breaks down into groups where people are online. I completely agree with Li and Bernoff that it is a necessary and essential tool for companies to build their social media marketing strategy from. If a majority of your customers are Joiners it would be a huge mistake, as well as a waste of time and money, to start a blog. But if a majority of your customers are Critics, blogging would be the most effective way to reach them.

Once a company understands where their customers fall in the social technologies profile, there are no limits as to how far they can reach. Once they start using social media, they can not only reach their customers locally, but globally. '...the fundamental emotions that drive people to the groundswell--the desire to connect, to create, to stay in touch, and to help each other--are universal, (Groundswell, 49).'

What do companies do once they have entered the groundswell? According to Li and Bernoff, they MUST talk with the groundswell. The book uses Blendtec as an example of how talking leads to profit.

In short, The high end, high cost ($399) blender company Blendtec tests it's product's power by blending random things (ie. lumber) into unrecognizable pieces of dust. After walking through the lab one day, Blendtec's marketing director, George Wright, got the idea to video tape CEO Tom Dickson 'testing' the power of the blender. Blendtec's web tech downloaded the video to the company's website, and then added a link to digg.com. In one week there were over 6 million views of the video and, 'Sales at Blendtec are up 20 percent since Blendtec's "Will it Blend?" series started appearing on sites like YouTube, (Groundswell, 100)." 

 Now Bledtec's "Will it Blend?" is a series of videos on YouTube, with it's most popular video being that of Tom Dickson blending an iPhone into oblivion, with over 9 million views and counting. As Li and Bernoff say, "Blendtec had exploited the groundswells viral potential for marketing messages. George had cracked the code, in his own unique way, for talking with the groundswell, (Groundswell, 100)."

As companies begin to tap into social media marketing, they need to follow the lead of their customer. If Blendtec hadn't accidentally stumbled into their viral market, they potentially wouldn't have had the opportunity to 'talk' to their customers by allowing them to live out their childhood dream of destroying anything and everything with household appliances by watching Tom Dickson demolish an iPhone, which turned into a 20 percent sales increase. And who doesn't like a good old fashioned demolition? I certainly do! 

As I say farewell for this week, I leave with one pressing thought: We all know Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. Chuck Norris waits. BUT, when put to the ULTIMATE test, can Blendtec stand up to it's toughest challenge yet...Will it blend Chuck Norris?

Week1_O

 Remember the days when you could go out with friends for a simple night out of fun and drinks, but if it got a little out of hand, it was easily fixable? You could just call Joe the next day and tell him you really do like his hair and it doesn't really make him look like Billy Ray Cyrus. Or, you could just keep the picture of you mooning the policeman on the corner out of the photo album and no one would know? Those days became a thing of the past with Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.
 Now, a drunken 3 a.m. post is not only seen by your closest friends; but you're co-workers, old next door neighbor, camp councilor from 6th grade summer, and any number of your 'friends' on Facebook can see that you lost the Man vs. Food taco eating contest, and have 'shared' the pictures on their page to prove it. And the, "Oh No, did I really say that!" questions can be easily and quickly answered. Just look at your Twitter account, because not only did you say that, 37 of your followers are now Tweeting about it themselves. Waking up and erasing the evidence of last night's festivities is too little too late.
 But, in the age of all things social media, there is actual software to protect you from completely embarrassing yourself and offending others. In my quest to find new and innovative ways to use social media, I stumbled across something that helps us protect ourselves from it. Webroot is an Antivirus & Antispyware company that debuted it's new Social Media Sobriety Test in 2010.
 Once the test is downloaded, you can program what time of day you want the test to pop up and which sites (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc.) you want to be blocked from if you fail. And once you have failed the test, the program automatically sends a post to your designated social media sites stating that you're "Too drunk to post."

  Although Webroot's Social Media Sobriety Test is funny, it shows how much social media has effected our every day lives. Drunken cartwheels posted on YouTube on a Saturday night with friends quickly turns into water cooler talk at the office Monday morning, and could potentially effect your job, or at the very least, the way your coworkers or clients perceive you.
 The Social Media Sobriety Test is a goofy way to say that we may actually need more software to protect ourselves from making poor choices and exposing too much of our personal lives on social media sites, whether we're drunk or not.
 But, I have to admit, I really do enjoy logging onto Facebook on a Saturday morning and reading all the posts from my friends who stayed out a little later than they should have!