As I neared the fourth year authoring the Punxsutawney Phil Twitter account (@GroundhogPhil), I cut my losses on attempts to hand the account over to the Groundhog Club and just went for it.

Read previous year’s posts and subsequent coverage here:

• 2011: A big day for @groundhogphil
• 2010: Huffington Post, Good Morning America, National Geographic, Urlesque and more pick up @groundhogphil
• 2009: Punxsutawney Phil on Twitter: a lost opportunity?

For 2012, it is clear the growing interest in animal based Twitter accounts (see @BronxZooCobra and @NYTChicken) amplified the general public’s interest in chatting with a forecasting rodent via 140 characters or less.

Building on three years of prognostication-related tweets, this year’s momentum was strong and resulted in even more big name coverage of Phil’s tweets. Like doing an interview with Mashable in character, for starters.

Again this year, The Huffington Post, The National Post, local media and weather sites again retweeted and/or referred to @GroundhogPhil’s tweets.

And the data was just tremendous. The RT’s were flying!!

In the spirit of good faith, I again offer up the account to the top-hatted groundhog bunch. However, given they’ve ignored this offer and opportunity for four years now, I’ve decided I’m happy to keep it until Phil predicts Twitter is a relevant audience for their event.

Long live @groundhogphil!

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

Brands have been educating consumers about the benefits of technology — from simple things like e-mail and photo attachments to more complex challenges like integrated devices and cloud storage — for decades.

In some ways, the education gap is larger than when the world was smaller and less connected. Where will we be in 15 years? Let’s look back to get a sense.

2011: “Now you can use your voice to use your iPhone.”

1998: “If you have a phone line, you can be online”

1993: “Have you ever sent someone a fax from the beach?”

I heartily look forward to the opportunity of mocking Siri as antiquated technology.

And I still can’t send a fax from the beach. Can you?

That’s me running the laptop. :)

Read the story: Answering the PR alarm bell

“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.

I was interviewed for Fox 9′s investigative report on Wednesday, “Is Formspring a New Forum for Bullying?”

The report focused on Formspring, a fast-growing social community that is part of the a new Q&A trend that includes Quora and Facebook Questions.

Because users are allowed to ask questions anonymously, many questions involve topics or sentiment one may not say to someone’s face. Like any social network of this nature, anonymity increases the chance for hurtful comments that can contribute to bullying.

However, I was quick to point out most sites, including Formspring, have privacy settings to help users avoid such situations.

Formspring is just one of many (and many to come) social sites that can be used both positively and negatively, depending on the user. And although it’s difficult to cite a social network for fault when its users misbehave, there are tangible consequences to naiveté when it comes to privacy.

Ultimately, responsibility comes down to vigilant parenting matched with ongoing education to equip today’s teens at how to navigate a changing social landscape.

Watch the segment here.

LINK: Interview I did with Ogilvy about @groundhogphil.

I’ll say it again this year:
I will glad turn over the account to the PP folks in PA. Let me know if you guys want it!

Filed under: Me Being Stupid, Social Media Tagged: @GroundhogPhil, Punxsutawney Phil, punxsutawney phil on twitter ]]>