By: Shannon Aronin & Dave Kerpen

Given the buzz Pepsi’s Refresh Project generated by NOT participating in the Super Bowl and instead donating ad spend to charity, we expected the Big Game ads to be pretty heavy in social content. Overall, we were disappointed. At nearly $3 million for 30 seconds, what a waste when brands could have done a much better job building an ongoing relationship with their audience. A few Superbowl advertisers were at least using social media during the Super Bowl and talking to people about their ads. These included HomeAway.com, and the US Government Census Bureau, both on Twitter. In terms of social media integration into the ad campaign themselves, a few standout ads made the cut.

theKbuzz Presents:

Super Social Super Bowl Ad Awards

Honorable Mentions: Coca-Cola & Honda

Honda’s Squirrel ad got a lot more attention than the “Who Do You Know” ad they ran in the 3rd quarter – but it was the latter ad that featured a really short screenshot at the end of the ad, of the link: Facebook.com/Honda. While we couldn’t find anyone talking about this (and somehow we can’t even find the ad online today), we believe this was the 1st time any Super Bowl advertiser has used even a precious second to promote a Facebook Page rather than a website- a notable acievement in its own right.

We really wanted to love Coke’s ad for their Live Positively campaign. They get an A+ for effort. But somehow the execution fell flat. They had all the right ingredients: cause marketing on Facebook that donated $1 up to $250,000 to Boys & Girls Clubs of America for every Coke you shared, a sneak peek at the Super Bowl ad on Facebook, and it featured The Simpsons. We expected it to be innovative or hilarious. Instead it was just kind of cute. The “Open Happiness” tagline suggested that a broke Mr. Burns could be made happy, along with the rest of Springfield, just by having a Coke.

3rd Place: Motorola

Start with Megan Fox in a bath tub. As ads go, that’s a good start. Megan tells us that this “little guy” has MOTOBLUR. She goes on to tell us that MOTOBLUR pulls her important stuff and lets her update all of her networks at once with a shot of Facebook on her phone. She then takes a picture of herself and wonders what would happen if she posted it? Watch what happens next for a giggle. But the lesson in this ad is that you need to sell Facebook in order to effectively sell a mobile phone.

2nd Place: Vizio

Vizio’s had the star power of Beyonce and included a montage of what we love about the internet: David After Dentist, Numa Numa Guy, Overly Dramatic Groundhog, (interestingly CarMax seemed to build their ad on this meme too) Twitter, Flickr and of course Facebook. Vizio’s tag line, “The best of the internet on your TV,” sums up the strategy of this campaign.

1st Place: Google

The fact that Google bought an ad at all is buzzworthy.

The online chatter began the day before the Super Bowl when CEO Eric Schmidt tweeted hinting at the ad, saying that “hell has indeed frozen over.” The ad, “Parisian Love,” has been on YouTube for over three months, as explained on Google’s official blog. Undoubtedly, Schmidt’s tweet and subsequent online buzz helped catapult Google to the top of  BrandBowl, where it lost only to Doritos, who ran 3 Super Bowl ads to Google’s 1.

The ad is a bit of a tear-jerker. No dialogue at all. Just a demonstration of how google users interact with the product, and how their search capabilities can be life changing. It’s a classic boy meets girl tale, told as only Google can.

Congrats to the most social Super Bowl advertisers! What were your favorite Super Bowl ads and why? And when will television advertisers, Superbowl and otherwise, understand that in order to extend the buzz and effectiveness of an ad, you’ve got to use and integrate social media?

By Sara Day and Emma Lyons

You may have noticed that your Facebook friends are looking more like Hollywood’s elite as of late. It’s not just you! For the past week, people have been changing their Facebook profile pictures to those of celebrity look-alikes to participate in Doppelgänger Week. The point of this? No idea. Mashable doesn’t even have an explanation for it. But it’s fun!

Beyond sheer amusement, it’s important. Within days, most people traded in their profile picture for that of an A-list celebrity. It shows how quickly trends like this can spread on Facebook and create buzz both online and offline.

Although this particular trend is just for fun and entertainment, some trends do have merit. Take the bra color trend as an example. Earlier this year, Facebook statuses took on an array of color. Women posting “black,” or “pink” weren’t listing their favorite colors; they were describing the color of their bras. The trend spread quickly, and soon, it was difficult to find a female (and some males!) who hadn’t set her status to a color.

Through a quick Google search, it was discovered that women were doing this in order to raise breast cancer awareness. The actual origin of the trend is extremely difficult to trace though. Some people believe that it was started by a group of women in Detroit trying to raise awareness of breast cancer. But the most interesting thing about this is that no information about breast cancer is explicitly stated in the status. It simply consists of a single word.

To some, the notion of viral success without any branding is a bad move, but we say it is a unique and innovative approach. The buzz generated around this trend is hard to match through alternative means. According to ABC News, “color status on Facebook” was number 11 on Google Trends on January 8. That amount of buzz is hard to create through a status that says what it openly supports, such as, “Post this as your status if you support breast cancer awareness!”

The trend may not have made breast cancer research organizations any immediate money, but it raised awareness and created buzz around the topic. In our eyes it’s a step in the right direction, as awareness and recognition are vital in gaining new donors and supporters.

The fact that such trends are able to spread so quickly and easily opens up many possibilities for marketers. They are now able to harness their influence by creating powerful conversations through social media. The virality of these recent successes tells us that it may be best for marketers to keep the message cryptic. The perplexity of it ensures that people will be talking about it, asking questions and spreading the word in order to discover what is happening.

But how do you determine which topics will easily stick and catch on, and which conditions contribute to their rapid spread? The problem with this method is that it is so new that no research or how-to guides exist. What do you think is the best way to utilize this form of buzz marketing on Facebook? Share your ideas in the comments section below!

Sara Day and Emma Lyons are two of our Buzz Builders in our Boston office. At theKbuzz, Buzz Builders have the opportunity to get involved in a variety of ways such as designing and building pages, managing the social media presence for clients as well as constantly researching advances in social media marketing. Click here to learn more about our Buzz Builder program.

by Kristen Malzone

Facebook is celebrating their 6th birthday today and we want to celebrate by giving you a quick look at Facebook over the years. Let’s scroll down memory lane…

2004

Mark Zuckerberg and co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin launch thefacebook.com from their Harvard dorm room. At the end of the year, they hit 1 million active users.

2005

Facebook expands to support more than 800 college networks, high school networks, and international school networks. At the end of the year, they hit 5.5 million active users.

2006

Facebook expands registration so anyone can join. Facebook mobile, news feed, and share feature launch. At the end of the year, they hit 12 million active users.

2007

Virtual gift shop launches as a feature, as well as Facebook Platform with 65 developers and over 85 applications. At the end of the year, they hit 50 million users.

2008

Facebook launches in Spanish, French, and German; and releases Translation application to 21 additional languages. Facebook Chat also launched. At the end of the year, they hit 100 million active users.

2009

Facebook adds the Like feature, launches Facebook Usernames, and adds status tagging. At the end of the year, they hit 350 million active users.

2010

Facebook has already launched some big features in 2010 like Post Insights and the “Via” Feature. What new developments do you hope to see this year? Share by commenting here!

(source: Company Timeline)

In today’s Watch Me Wednesday video, I talk with Ilise Benun. She is the co-founder of Marketing Mentor and the author of The Art of Self Promotion. We speak about the 3 keys to self promotion, which are:
1) Consistency - By being consistent in your marketing efforts, you can maintain a high visibility while letting your customers know what they can expect from your brand. Most importantly, by communicating with your customers on a regular basis you stay on their minds so that you aren’t soon forgotten.
2) Networking - Build connections both online and offline. When you connect with your consumer in person, you do more to reinforce your online connections and vice versa.
3) Everything Flows From the Market – Think about everything from your customers’ point of view. What do they want to know about you? How do they prefer to receive information about your brand? Only by listening to your customers can you learn how to best engage with them.

By Shannon Aronin

Nonprofits have been hit hard by the recession. Now many nonprofits also face the typical “donor fatigue” fundraising challenges that follow any major natural disaster such as the recent earthquakes in Haiti. All of the traditional funding streams have been hurt, and nonprofits, by and large, keep plugging along – doing more with less, to hang on till better times when they can again focus on their mission with vigor. It’s hard when you are short-staffed and under funded to consider jumping into anything new, but for nonprofits your very survival depends upon committing to building and maintaining a strong social media presence. Here’s why:

1. ALL of your donors are online. The stereotype that social media is for kids is simply false. Study after study proves it. The largest growing demographic on Facebook is women over 55. More interesting, there has recently been a big jump in social media users age 63-75! Individual micro-donations can be difficult to solicit because it takes so many more of them to make a dent in your organization’s budget, but remember, this strategy won Obama the White House. Social media can also support fundraising event participant growth (from galas to individual pledge events like walks) through the sharing of invitations or requests to friends.

Even traditional foundations’ program officers can be reached and moved by your relationship, something that can get a lot stronger when you are Facebook friends or even connected on LinkedIn. You already know that your Millennial supporters are on Facebook and Twitter, but so is everyone else and their grandmother.

2. Corporate giving is changing. More and more corporate grants are crowdsourced through competitions, like the Pepsi Refresh Project. Online cause marketing simply reaches a bigger audience than an offline event sponsorship or gift. As best practices are identified the popularity of this method of corporate philanthropy will only increase. Other brands are simply giving away money to a charity they choose as a quid pro quo for your attention to their message, for example Coke’s Live Positively Campaign rewards users for sending a Coke to their friends with a $1 donation to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. These are only two out of many examples of this growing trend.

Look at your grant application. See where it asks what percentage of your board is giving? That is because if your own leaders don’t care enough to give, why should your donors? Competing in an online funding competition driven by social media requires good online presences to succeed for the same reason. It looks like a lack of effort and doesn’t engage your audience if you don’t include pictures, videos, links to blog posts or reviews by a client who has benefitted from your services (equivalent to letter of support), links to current research, and customized profiles. You also need to develop a community of online supporters to act as your ambassadors and mobilize their friends to vote for you. This is a unique opportunity to tell your story and back up your case for support. If you don’t care enough to showcase your good work, why should they?

3. While traditional fundraising has been down, online fundraising is up. For example, 2009 was a record breaking year for Network For Good – they processed over $100 million. The popular Facebook application Causes also reports huge growth; in 2009 they reached $20 million in donations to date. $14 million of that was given in the last 12 months, and year over year giving quadrupled. This trend is not going away. You can’t ignore it.

The field of fundraising is in a period of transition. If you have been in the third sector long enough, do you remember when all your foundation grants started moving to online applications? It was an adjustment. Remember before that when the concept of evaluation became increasingly important, particularly qualitative outcome-based over quantitative results? It was an adjustment. Now every single funding stream you have ever had is going to or already has transformed because of social media. Direct mail; events; foundation grants; corporate giving; individual gifts; memberships; government affairs and advocacy for funds; and even major gifts will never be the same again. If you aren’t doing the best job you can with social media, you aren’t doing the best job you can in fundraising. It’s time to adjust.

Does your board and staff leadership understand that social media is not just important but essential to your survival and growth? What are the biggest challenges your organization has faced in implementing social media strategies?

by Devin Sugameli

If you were watching the Grammys last night, you may have noticed a pretty heavy integration with digital media, including some of your favorite social networking sites. The “The Grammys” iPhone app gave users the chance to guess this year’s Grammy Award recipients and access trivia, fun facts, and photos from previous Grammy Awards shows while offering direct links to purchase the artists’ albums on iTunes. Meanwhile, celebrities present at the show like @kelly_clarkson kept busy tweeting from the event while The Recording Academy offered their own live updates throughout the show via both their Facebook fan page and Twitter feeds. For most of the evening, the Grammys consumed Twitter’s trending topics, with the worldwide TT being entirely Grammy-related by the end of the show.

The Recoding Academy’s work to generate non-stop buzz for this year’s awards show really impressed me. Here are my top 3 favorite steps they took to really involve the fans:

1. We’re All Fans (dot com) – The motto this year’s Grammy Awards was “We’re All Fans”, and the associated website demonstrates that by celebrating those actively professing their love for their favorite musicians and artists on social media sites. The “We’re All Fans” website pulls YouTube videos and tweets referencing one of 16 featured artists from fans all over the world to paint a mosaic of the particular celebrity in question. You additionally have the option to create your own portrait showing your “musical DNA” by uploading a picture of yourself for the mosaic and selecting your favorite artists.

2. The Bon Jovi vote – While the majority fans watching at home will never participate in the Recording Academy’s panel to determine actual Grammy award winners, this year’s Grammy Awards did give fans a chance to contribute to the show. Up to just minutes before the performance, fans were able to cast their vote for one of three Bon Jovi hit songs on CBS.com to determine which one they would play at their first ever Grammy performance. The fans of course selected the ultimate Bon Jovi classic, Livin’ On A Prayer.

3. Grammy Live! – Perhaps the coolest thing the Recording Academy provided this year was its 72-hour live broadcast featuring videos, photos, news reports, artist interviews, and updates from a few select Grammy vloggers. Grammy Live allowed fans a new insider’s look at Grammy events and backstage footage not typically shown on the television broadcast, bringing the fans even closer to the show.

But that’s not all! I also have to give celebrity props to Imogen Heap for #Twitdress. Though not provided by CBS or the Recording Academy, Imogen Heap deserves an extra special shoutout for her own efforts to bring the fans to the red carpet with her custom engineered “#twitdress”. The dress included a small screen which displayed pictures uploaded by fans while she accepted her own Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical before the televised broadcast.

And finally, the biggest social media-related disappointment: despite the massive amount of iTunes and Target promotion over the course of the show, neither iTunes nor Target made any significant effort to take advantage of the real-time buzz online. @TaRgeT only tweeted a single reminder to followers to pick up their free 3-D glasses for the Michael Jackson tribute the night before, and @iTunesMusic similarly posted just one reference to the show the night before asking for fans’ predictions. Why wasn’t @iTunesMusic reminding followers about their special Grammy album during the show, or providing links to music downloads for each of the winners? Why wasn’t Target offering any specials on music CDs? It seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity to me. So congratulations to the Recording Academy! Here’s hoping future awards shows (Oscars anyone?) learn from the unique experience you’ve provided.

By Jenna Lebel

The connectivity of social media has opened the door for companies in their efforts to engage their customers, solve their problems and build overall brand favorability. Aside from reaching fans of your brand, you can use the micro-blogging site to better serve them and improve your customer relations. The benefits of using Twitter as a customer service tool are unparalleled. Through Twitter, you can resolve problems for your customers, portray your brand in a positive way and set the record straight when it’s portrayed in a negative way. Arguably the most important benefit is that it can reduce costs since customer service via Twitter likely takes less time and money than a dedicated call center does. Here are examples of 6 companies who are very effective in using Twitter for customer service. Can you think of others? Share in the comments section below.

Whole Foods (@WholeFoods)

Followers: 1,755,414

Whole Foods uses Twitter to build relationships with their customers by not only having a corporate Twitter account, but also having a Twitter account for each Whole Foods location. Through the corporate Twitter account, Whole Foods effectively addresses customer concerns by directly tweeting at the customer with the response to all problems. Whole Foods answers customer service questions and takes actions to solve customer problems. For example, in response to one customer, Whole Foods tweeted “I just called P Street for you. The chicken breasts are fresh, but you can find frozen chicken strips in the store as well.” Whole Foods encourages customer feedback and as an added bonus, they offer a $25 gift card for the tweet of the day!

JetBlue (@jetblue)

Followers: 1,612,373

JetBlue uses Twitter to promote sales and provide information about flights and additional services. That’s only one way that JetBlue uses the micro-blogging platform. They also frequently use Twitter to respond to customers’ concerns and issues. JetBlue tweets use a light and friendly in order to keep unhappy customers somewhat calmer. For example, in response to a tweet concerning a 3-hour delay, JetBlue responded “JFK is on an air traffic control ground delay program due to gusting winds. We’re working to push flights safely asap!”

Zappos (@Zappos_Service)

Followers: 3,565

Zappos uses twitter for customer service by having a separate Twitter account that directly addresses customer concerns and enables customers to communicate with employees of Zappos. There are actually more than 400 Zappos employees tweeting! Sometimes an employee will introduce himself by name so that customers know that they are communicating with a real person (example from yesterday, “Good Wednesday morning! Stephanie here if you need any assistance!”) The employees who tweet for Zappos not only answer questions posed by customers, but also actively respond to compliments and other comments

Comcast (@comcastcares)

Followers: 37,613

Comcast has a separate Twitter account run by Frank Eliason, Senior Director of Comcast National Customer Service, that directly addresses customer service. Frank includes a complete bio as well as his blog URL and email addresses to encourage customer feedback and service assitance. In response to one customer’s concern about not receiving channels, Frank responds, “Not connecting to any channel? Any error message? Have you unplugged it and plugged it back in?” Frank’s identity behind the Twitter account gives a true sense of customer care because it lets customers know that they are directly communicating with an informed Comcast employee who will address their questions.

Microsoft (@MicrosoftHelps)

Followers: 4,693

Microsoft also has a separate Twitter account dedicated to customer service. This Twitter account has four customer service employees who tweet: Andrea, Andrew, Brian, and Zahn. Monday through Friday from 7:30am to 5:30pm, these Microsoft employees tweet to customers and answer questions and concerns. In response to a question about Windows Explorer crashes, Brian responded, “Since it’s happening on 2 different Windows 7 machines, I created an MS Answers post for you. http://bit.ly/b6NWwh –BK.”

Starbucks (@starbucks)

Followers: 756,106

Starbucks’ Twitter account aims at being very interactive with its followers. The bio reads “Freshly brewed tweets from Brad at Starbucks in Seattle, WA.” Brad works to address any customer concerns, comments and compliments. When responding to a complaint about a bad cup of coffee, Brad tweets, “@FaythMichelle Sorry about that. If it isn’t perfect, we’ll remake (repour/rebrew) it.” While the Twitter account is not dedicated primarily to customer service, Brad makes it a large part of his daily tweets.

by Kristen Malzone

Have you heard about the iPad? The answer to that questions is probably YES. In case you haven’t, check out Mashable’s Comprehensive Guide.

The world has been buzzing since Apple’s announcement about the new iPad yesterday. There has been buzz around the name of the product, the functions, and the price. But, what does the iPad mean for the world of social media?

1. Accessibility: Most social media platforms can be accessed on the mobile web, but how accessible are they really? It is much easier to navigate through social media platforms on your laptop or desktop computer. The convenience of being able to access your social media networks via mobile phone may outweigh the limited functions available through the mobile web, but the fact is that those functions are important and should be more accessible. The iPad is both mobile and functional. iPad users will be much more connected to their social media presence.

2. Business App Development: Yesterday, Steve Jobs  touched on improvements to app development as the iPad is introduced into the market. Games, social media, and organizational apps will be much more advanced and complex on the iPad. But, what about new apps for businesses? The app store currently does not provide many tools for tracking and managing social media presence for businesses. With the iPad’s enhanced functionality, these apps will soon be introduced in the app store.

3. Buzz Buzz Buzz: We all witnessed the buzz about the iPad yesterday into today. The iPad dominated the trending topics on Twitter and was the subject of many users’ status updates on Facebook. Much of this buzz had to do with the branding of the product as the “iPad.” Many opinions, jokes, and videos were shared. Whether this controversial branding was intentional or not, it has created a lot of buzz on social media. This has set the tone for the iPad’s presence on social media and there is sure to be more buzz in the future about the product.



Please share your own predictions about the effects of the iPad on social media by commenting here!

This week/Watch me Wednesday, how do I top last week’s interview with Ashton Kutcher about Twitter? Another celebrity interview? An interview with a brand? Predictions about Apple’s tablet like every other blog out there? Naaa I’m giving you a tour of our New York office. The Shea Stadium lobby seats, hundreds of jars of honey, our photo booth, see it all here. If you watch until the end, you’ll get to see me holding hands with a male pop star in the category of “most awkward photo ever.” Thanks for indulging us today. Here’s a question for thought and discussion: How does your office environment and corporate culture affect your company or organization?

by Dave Kerpen

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections. President Obama called it “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.” I may be a business owner but I agree with Mr. Obama – I don’t think it’s a good thing that corporations should be able to influence our elections process even more than they already do.

But opinions aside, this decision will surely lead to more media spending this year. Needham & Co estimates the decision will lead to an additional $300 million in political media spending, while Wells Fargo media analysts predict it could lead to an increase of up to $500 million.

My questions is this: How much of all this additional spending will go towards tv commercials that people simply fast forward through, or direct mail that goes directly in the trash?

Barack Obama in 2008 became the first national candidate to effectively use social media and conversational, digital word of mouth marketing to help become elected. But in the last year, dozens of candidates and advocacy groups have used Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media effectively. (See Mashable article and Inside Facebook article.) They’ve used social media to get their messages out, but much more importantly, they’ve used social media to listen to constituents and voters, and to create communities where like-minded individuals can gather, share ideas, and work together to support their candidates and their causes.

My hope is that corporations with new money and access to spend on issues and candidates in 2010, will use these dollars to create communities and foster conversation using social media, rather than dumping it into a never-ending stream of tv ads and junk mail, the traditional spend of political dollars. What do you think – any shot?