I’m here at BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Los Angeles ignoring the beautiful palm trees and weather in favor of sitting inside and listening to compelling speakers present on the latest digital, social and interactive marketing trends.

Tom #1: Data-Driven Insights
I was impressed by the opening Social Media Business Summit keynote from Tom Webster at Edison Research, who leads exit-polling for elections, among other things. Tom’s focus was on ways to sort through sheer amounts of data, research, studies and trends.

Tom says social media is great for casual listening but isn’t quantitatively effective in driving research and insights. Essentially, social media is great for asking questions but isn’t the best at ascertaining answers.

Tom has found that reframing issues and questions allows for brands to achieve better answers. Rather than asking, “What do you want,” he suggests asking “How can XX make your life better?” Then brands can track those answers and map out a strategy. Notice, this doesn’t say rely on broad trends or generic studies.

While it’s fine to acknowledge the latest eMarketer hype, Tom says all the data coming out about the best time of day to tweet, publish a blog post, or the best place to place a link in an article makes him cringe. He says these types of question assumes that there is obviously a best time or a best place.

But what if it is an incorrect assumption these can or should have obvious results? Instead, Tom recommends conducting scientific studies to confirm or disconfirm these assumptions.

Data for “content creation” is inherently incurious, he says. It takes time and disconfirming things to find the right answer. And Tom uses the word “incurious” as a vulgarity!

For example, a study came out that showed press releases distributed at 1 a.m. were the most effective. This study spread like wildfire across the social web and quickly became folklore and accepted as fact. But this study made an assumption that there actually is a best time to distribute a press release, and (according to Tom) the people sharing the results of this study were relying upon flawed “science.”

Instead, Tom recommends marketers “do their own work.” Rather than align strategy with another organization’s research or logic, he suggests analyzing where one’s customers are, determining what motivates them and driving your own research.

Tom #2: Mo-Money, Mo-Mobile

Another compelling session was Tom Hayden’s session on mobile engagement. Yes, another Tom. My schedule picking strategy was to only attend presentations from guys named Tom (or Thomas or Tommy), and I succeeded.

This Tom says marketers should focus on mobile behavior and not mobile technology. When you think of mobile behavior, consider what we do, how we live and why we use mobile in our lives.

Tom says humans are not designed to sit for long periods of time, to stare at screens full of synthetic illumination and host prolonged conversations through text. Mobile allows users to more natively incorporate brand integration into our normal lives.

Mobile integration is evolving to the tipping point (50 percent of users will have smart phones by January 2012). But when a new user acquires a smart phone for the first time, they aren’t installing FourSquare and Instagram. Rather, they are using it for what they are familiar with from their “desktop past” — email, web surfing and possibly chat.

And that web surfing? It’s mostly search. Tom says 70 percent of mobile search ends up in an offline action within two to three hours. Again, this goes back to mobile behavior, not the technology. Desktop surfing is rarely integrated with an offline action. This was a key takeaway for me as I consider mobile strategy for clients.

Below is Tom’s outline of mobile friendly sites and mobile ready sites:

What is mobile friendly?

• Condensed content (4-10x reduction of desktop site)
• Navigation limited to 2-3 actions beyond the landing page
• Quick load time (you have less than 30 seconds)

What is mobile ready?

• Responsive design (device detection and customized content based on user)
• Data feed (API – location, device, A-B testing, time/date) with CRM and/or profiling platform)
• Cross-platform tested (iOS, Android, RIM, Windows, Palm and across multiple years and OS updates)

Another variable to consider when planning mobile programs is that fact that humans are not only staring at screens less, they are typing less. Touch screens are harder to type but easy to facilitate face to face (e.g., FaceTime, Skype, facilitating an IRL meet-up). So we’re moving back to a preference of face to face while lessening our focus on the written word.

Of note, this is why people put “sorry for typos” on their mobile signature. Tom says we’re apologizing for bad technology and subconsciously will shift to avoid it. I know personally I have significant issues typing on my iPhone and iPad, and that’s why I’m actually typing this post on a bluetooth keyboard for my iPad.

Tom showed Forrester data that illustrates barcode scanners are the fastest growing app right now — beating weather, games, navigation and music apps. As native QR apps come out in operating systems, this is a technology that is happening and won’t go away anytime soon.

Humans are comfortable with the cameras on their phones and will understand how to scan a QR code as that technology grows. However, it’s important to include multiple mediums to reach the masses (URL, SMS, QR, etc.). Tom recommends including opportunities to scan, text and click in communications with potential or current customers, then keep good track of the metrics to adapt campaigns.

I asked a question about mobile commerce and its adoption. Tom says that even though Google Wallet and other start-ups have pioneered the space, there are technological barriers PLUS human behavior barriers that will delay widespread adoption of using your phone to purchase goods on a consistent basis.

Specifically, retail stores have one kind of credit card scanner that can scan every single brand of credit card, but the acquisition of unique technology for mobile commerce is complex and expensive. I personally think barcode technology will be a good stop-gap — allowing anyone with smart phone to scan and buy something, billed back to their phone plan. I guess we’ll see!

What’s your strategy for navigating data overload and trend-based laziness? How are you rethinking mobile strategy for a changing culture?

Leave comments over at Social Studies

“The highs and lows of social media“

Social media is a powerful way for civic government to connect with its social-savvy citizenry,” wrote Greg Swan, a Chaska resident and vice president of digital strategy for Weber Shandwick. “The city of Minneapolis uses Facebook and Twitter to announce snow plowing. Stillwater residents promote community garage sales via Facebook. Shakopee posts video from their music in the park series on a city YouTube channel. The Chaska Police Department uses Nixle to send SMS text alerts about breaking news in town.

“Jumping on the Bandwidthwagon“

Greg Swan, a Chaska resident and vice president of Digital Strategy for Weber Shandwick, would agree for the most part, but he still has some constructive criticism for the city.

“Like many organizations and businesses, the city of Chaska jumped on the Facebook page bandwagon, but hasn’t had a strategic communication and community management strategy to ensure updates are timely, questions are answered and that the page adds value to its fans,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Podhradsky gets that, acknowledging, “We gotta be better at this.”

While critical, Swan also understands the challenges cities like Chaska face.

“To be sure, Chaska government officials have plenty on their plates, and in an era of limited resources, we taxpayers want them to prioritize their efforts,” he wrote. “Yet, in many cases, a dormant social media profile is worse than a non-existent one … It’s of-ten difficult to justify return on investment in moving resources into social media, but the opportunity cost of not participating in conversations about your community can be high.

I also put together a “5 Social Media Trends to Embrace/5 Social Media Trends to Ignore” sidebar that ran within the feature.

Five social media trends to embrace

* Online monitoring of what people are saying about your community

* Social community building and engagement with two-way conversations

* Real-time event coverage (photos/video/news) on social channels

* Social focus-grouping, letting your online advocates get involved

* Live streams of public meetings with real-time chats

Five social media trends to ignore

* Establishing social media channels without a content and community management policy

* Outsourcing social media management to vendors

* Editing Wikipedia, which is against site policy for affiliated organizations

* Focusing so much on ROI that you miss out on the conversation happening today

* Google+, which hasn’t yet set guidelines for non-humans

It was a fantastic round-up by the Chaska Herald with stories on the faces behind city social channels, the role of public safety in social and interviews with social channels from Eden Prairie, Chanhassen, Chaska, School District 112, Carver and Carver County. They should enter it for an award. I’m serious.

You’ve just closed the elevator door, and the CMO asks you “What’s so great about this blogging thing?” Obviously, it’s a pretty broad topic — but you only have 10 floors to the lobby.

What do you want him to remember when the door opens?

Here’s what I would say:

Read others’ responses here.

What would you say?

That picture is something else. :) — Read the whole article here.

Read the whole thing here.

The findings are quite compelling:

• 73 percent of Fortune 100 companies registered a total of 540 Twitter accounts.
• 76 percent of those accounts did not post tweets very often
• 53 percent of the accounts did not display personality, or a consistent tone/voice
• 52 percent were not actively engaged
• 50 percent of the Fortune 100 accounts had fewer than 500 followers
• 15 percent were inactive; of those, 11 percent were merely placeholder accounts
• 4 percent were abandoned after being used for a specific event.

Weber Shandwick prescribes five basic, but essential steps for Fortune 100 companies to start to create true engagement and market interaction on Twitter:

1. Listen to conversations.
2. Participate in conversations.
3. Update frequently with valuable information.
4. Reply to people who talk about issues that are important to your company.
5. Retweet relevant conversations.

Full paper here:

Download  it here.

Nathan Wright and I copresented “Social Marketing 101: Everything you think you should already know…”

Get the handout here (pdf)

1. Foursquare
It’s like Twitter, except not only do you care where your friends are AT THIS VERY MINUTE, you all earn points for going to those places. I signed up for Foursquare long ago, but just like Twitter, it takes a good base of friends actively using it be fun. Local businesses would be smart to set up Foursquare nights/tours for their early adopter patrons. Are you the mayor of anything yet?

2. Google Voice
I finally got my beta invitation and locked in my Google Voice number with a personalized XXX-XXX-GREG, which I’m very excited about. You can set it up to forward all calls to cell, home and work phones or filter some folks to one or the other. Online voicemail with transcripts is fun, and I was able to install an app on my smart phone to make calls without using minutes and send SMS without using my plan’s allotted texts. The set up was very intuitive, and I’m excited about the future of this technology and integration with the Google cloud suite.

3. Stuff in 3D
I’ve seen some microsites and business cards utilize Web cam to 3D technology, but last week I discovered Best Buy (client) using the advancement in human brainpower to put graphics on their ads that turn into 3D images when placed before your Web cam. The technology is here, and it’s time to experiment. Can you imagine a tiny Trent Reznor playing a 3D show on your laptop?

4. TweetYourSenator
President O’s PAC is still spending all of those tiny donations leftover from the election, and this time he’s made it simple to “Tweet Your Senator” about healthcare reform. As if our elected representatives’ aides didn’t already have their hands full sending form reply letters and deleting voicemails from constituents, now they have incoming tweets to ignore. But wait! There are a surprisingly large number of congressional members on Twitter, and I’m excited to see ways to harness the burgeoning interest in tweeting.

5. Twibbon
If you were an avid Twitter user in the summer of 2008, you’ll remember Ze Frank’s Color Wars, where users chose a team, tweaked their avatar to show their team spirit and participated in challenges just like summer camp. I was on the red team and remember agonizing over my avatar in Windows Paint trying to get it just right. These days people pimp their avatars for more genuine reasons (green avatars for Iran, Stellan, etc.). And thanks to Twibbon, it’s easier than ever to tweak your avatar with a cause or image overlay. Don’t see a cause that resonates with you? Make your own. Very cool.

–Greg Swan

Please leave comments over at Social Studies.

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Conference is this week in Austin, TX. It’s the annual sharing and learning event for interactive professionals around the world.

This morning I hit the “Emerging From a Recession with Emerging Media” panel, featuring Patrick Moorhead of Razorfish and David Polinchock of the Brand Experience Lab.

The premise: The economy has tanked. Slides showing an entire foreclosed block of houses for sale, charts of stock prices and crying children quickly made their point for attendees. However, panelists argue, a poor economy is not a reason for marketers and brands to sit on their tried-and-true laurels.

More than 50 widely-successful companies were started during the Great Depression and/or 1970s Recession, including CNN, QuickTrip and Buffalo Wild Wings.

Polinchock made frequent reference to Encyclopedia Britannica sticking to their business model of selling information a letter book at a time for decades, ignoring that consumers were changing their consuption habits. Wikipedia may not be as trustworthy, but it’s instant and intuitive.

This is why it’s imperative for companies to reevaluate their approach to ROI, instead focusing on Return On Innovation as they weigh marketing strategies and tactics for the short and long term.

Technology You Won’t Be Able to Live Without 10 Years From Now

• QR codes: tiny graphics that can be photographed/scanned to pull data or direct to a Web site
• Real-time video: Companies like Qik already allow consumers to stream to the Web live from their phones. Can you imagine the implications of going to a concert where people are streaming the show live? It’s coming. (NOTE: This is one of my big concepts I’ve been talking about for a few years, actually. I want to go to YouTube Live and see 2,000 live feeds from fans at a Radiohead concert in Madrid by 2012. We’ll see…)
• Ordering a Big Mac using RFID: The concept of ordering food by pointing your phone to the food you want, getting txt updates when it’s ready, billing it to your cell phone bill and your food knowing where you’re sitting in the restaurant. RFID has huge potential.
• Visual search: the concept of typing “lime green shoelaces” into Google and getting 18,000 text results will seem archaic. We process visual information faster (don’t have to read). Like.com already lets you shop visually for shoes and handbags.

Takeaways:

• Don’t take technology for granted
• Consumers get spoiled easily – expectations are high
• Innovation happens – what are you going to do?
• Evolve or die
• Suspend disbelief in order to get smart
• No “no risk”

Create customer engagements that are:

• As intuitive as play
• and are as emotional as film.

The panel ended with Polinchock showcasing this awesome interactive program for MSNBC NewsBreaker that allows cinema audiences to control the game. I took some video of the panel audience controlling the game:

Please leave comments over at Social Studies.

Perfect Porridge Indy Band Marketing Tips: Media Outreach