Promoted Tweets

Everyone's talking about Twitter's new revenue model called Promoted Tweets. What is it? In plain english, Promoted Tweets are just paid search. A brand buys some keywords from twitter, when the user searches for said keyword in twitter's search function, the paid search Brand tweets will rise to the top of the search queue and populate first, over the community's conversation that may incorporate the same keywords.

Someone like Justin Bieber probably won't need Promoted Tweets. However, this could have been very handy for Motrin, back in the day when the Motrin Moms debacle erupted. Or for Southwest Air when Kevin Smith shook up the tweetstream with his outrage. In instances like that, when thousands of people are chiming in and creating a tweetstorm, Promoted Tweets would help a Brand elevate their POV to high ground rather than drown in the tweet tsunami.

Am I wowed by Promoted Tweets? Not so much. Not yet, anyway. I've got my eye on the next gen of Promoted Tweets, that's gonna be the game changer.

The next gen of this model will change how tweets appear in your personal tweet stream. I have a feeling that's going to rock a lot of boats, which is why that's the next gen feature. Twitter is going to have to do a lot of testing before they roll that out. It sounds pretty invasive and in fact, may be outright disruptive.

According to the NY Times, "In the next phase of Twitter’s revenue plan, it will show promoted posts in a user’s Twitter stream, even if a user did not perform a search and does not follow the advertiser...For example, if someone has been following people who write about travel, they could see a promoted post from Virgin America on holiday fare discounts."

That's going to be tricky for Twitter to implement. Twitter users tend to be finicky curators of their "streams." A lot of people I know approach their tweet stream like a Bonsai project, ever so carefully pruning and cultivating to ensure they don't have spammers in there or people who are "too noisy" or too focused on a specific topic they aren't interested in or if they're like me, cultivating a stream that is the almost-perfect balance of lifestreamers who happen to work in fields related to mine or live in the Philly-area. Tweet streams are serious business for much of this dedicated community, so effecting the individual's curation of it may be a landmine for twitter.

That said, as an advertiser, if I could join a conversation about a topic related to my field or product and share information related to it, that does sound mighty appealing. For me, it's really going to boil down to the integration of the second generation of this product. Am I butting into someone's stream, or am I a blade of grass gently shooting up alongside the stream? Can't wait for the little blue bird to let us know.

ShePosts.com: Part Gawker, Part Mashable and all Mommy Blogosphere.

Today, at noon EST, ShePosts.com will launch. This online news destination will comprehensively cover "what’s happening in the Mommy Blogging world – from paid PR campaigns to drama with the New York Times. We’re embedded in the mom blogosphere and will share the scoop on the latest posts and events shaping the community. "

Founder Esther Crawford says that the site will include:

• Comprehensive coverage of major brand-blogger relationships
• Maintain a list of all current brand ambassador programs
• Create a ‘brand event’ list which shows who has attended private events hosted by major brands
• A complete calendar and map of related conferences, workshops and Twitter parties
• Coverage and follow-up of all popular conferences such as Blissdom, Mom 2.0 and BlogHer
  

Other things to note:

• On average, we’ll have 4-6 posts a day tracking the latest news + gossip covering the Mom Blogger community
• We’ll feature interviews with well-known mommy bloggers and providing their take on current events as well as hot-button issues such as monetization, privacy concerns, brand evangelism, and the future of the mommy blogging space. And we won’t be lobbing softballs in our interviews.

Last night, Esther was kind enough to answer a few light-hearted questions for me about the site.

What do you want ShePosts.com to be when it grows up?
As ShePosts grows up it'll include a lot more people - there are already a few well-known and loved women from the mom blogging community who are going to be joining the ranks as contributors in the coming weeks.

A lot of sites answer the easy questions like "What happened?", but ShePosts is also going to be a place to find out why it happened.

It'll be journalistic, but with a splash of gossip and irreverent snark thrown in because c'mon - this is the internet and we're living in the age of The Gosselins.

You’ve told us a little bit about what ShePosts.com is. Can you tell us what it isn’t?
ShePosts is not another community site singing "kum ba yah". Disagreements and drama are part of business, as is demonstrated on industry sites like TechCrunch and Mashable each day.

And let's be clear - mom blogging has become a business, which happens to be incredibly lucrative for a select few.

Think about this: major brands routinely fly out a dozen or more mom bloggers to get wined & dined in exchange for a few tweets and links.

While we'll be the first to congratulate folks who get it right, we're not afraid to get our hands dirty while reporting the news - which means calling companies or individuals out when they're involved in shady business.

At the end of the day we believe that accountability & recognition raises the bar, which is good for everyone.

If ShePosts were a cookie (no, silly, not the website tracking kind. The eating kind!), what kind of cookie would it be?
We aim to make ShePosts like Girl Scout thin mints, which are so addictive that you can't help going back for more.

If ShePosts were a Pandora station, what would play?
It'd play strong women who are deep yet know how to rock it. In other words, we'd have Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" on repeat.

The Heckenbergerization of Foursquare

Well, you knew it was coming. I've done my fair share of bitching about how I think some people I know on Foursquare are doing it wrong (*wink*). And before anyone freaks out, this blog post isn't about suggesting "rules" for Foursquare because no one but the platform (or the law) can mandate how you use social media. This post is about the Heckenbergerization of Foursquare: how I use Foursquare and how I'd love to see Foursquare used by more people.

Background
Foursquare is the 1-year old child born from mobile social networking platform Dodgeball, which my friends and I used religiously starting in 2004. Among my friends in NYC, Dodgeball was our way of life.

When you're young and in NYC, you're generally out every night (your apt is too small to spend much time in it), covering multiple neighborhoods and meeting up with multiple groups of people. At first, Dodgeball was just a great way to mass text friends as you traveled from bar to bar. Dodgeball sent an sms (if they choose to receive sms) to your friends when you checked in, telling them the name of venue & the address and phone number. Super convenient. Genius at the time. (Remember, no twitter & no iphones in 2004)

Soon, Dodgeball started featuring users with the most check-in's on its' website, and that became a status symbol among core users. Later, Dodgeball added a "crush" feature. You could check out the other users on the site, mark someone you thought was cute, and if you ended up in the same bar, you'd be notified of your crush. Until then, all you knew was that someone had a crush and let me tell you - it was compelling. You were dying to know who.

Whoa. Holy tangents. Stop.

Long story short, Google bought Dodgeball, Google dicked Dodgeball, creator Dennis Crowley walked from Google and partnered with Naveen, they built Foursquare, a geo-location based mobile social network inspired by Dodgeball.

Today
And here we are. The basic premise of Foursquare remains the same as Dodgeball - it's a simple mobile way to check-in and let your social circle know where they can meet up with you when you're out socially. On the functional side, it prevents cumbersome mass calls/texts to friends as you dine and/or bar hop. It's also a way to see where your friends are without calling around or texting, if you're looking for something to do.

Bells and Whistles
However, there are Mayor, badges and points systems for the obvious reasons: incentives for people to come back/increase frequency of use and create a B2B revenue model. Obviously, venues want more check-ins from users - that provides viral value (user's check-in and their friends see the venue/tips) and it identifies loyal customers (repeat customers can win Mayorships at the venue, which smart venues reward with a freebie or special).

Heckenbergerization
I check-in to Foursquare when I'm out socially. If I check in at a venue, it's cool for my friends to meet up with me. If I see a friend checked-in'd in on Foursquare, I may stop in and hang with them.

I don't check-in at work. Work is work. I'm busy there. I just don't have time to invite friends to stop by - unless we're hosting a social event. If you're checking in at work, consider this: Foursquare is google searchable. If your boss has google alerts set for the business, your Foursquare check-in's are like punching a clock. Just remembering to check-in at lunchtime? Mmmm. Might not look so good.

I don't check in at home. I'm rarely inviting people over to my place. Mi casa es no su casa. My apt is not a public venue. Sorry.

That's it. Not so complicated. Hope you find Foursquare as fun and functional as I do.

Oh look. What do we have here? In exploring Facebook's redesign, I spied a new tab under "Account," called "Credits Balance." When you click on it, it opens this:

So here we can guess that soon you'll be paying for all of that virtual clutter people are sending (That's YOU, farmers) and those endless games of free Bejeweled could be coming to an end. But bigger news, if my theory is true, is that Facebook has finally found themselves a micro-purchasing revenue model (which includes buying social ads and likely more to come) and quietly rolled it out buried in a redesign.

Congratulations, Facebook. You just may be all growz up. Your parents, also known as investors, will be so proud. And rich.

Great little story on rainy Monday morning to share with you. This one is about the real power of social media: connecting with an expanded social graph or social network to make good things happen.

One of our Creative Directors here at Red Tettemer has been collecting clothes to send with his sister and brother-in-law as they go to Haiti with Partners in Health to help in a few weeks. They are partnering with the organization Angel Flights with to transport the donations to Haiti and last week, found out that Angel Flights would only be able to transport the goods to The Dominican - this couple would have to find a way to move the donations from there to Haiti.

Over the weekend, my colleague's wife said, "I'm going to post on Facebook and see if anyone has any ideas of how to get these donations to Haiti." They figured it was a long shot, but why not try?

A short time later they had a Facebook message from a an old classmate in California, A. She has a good friend, D. (also in California), who has family in Port-au-Prince. His brother has a friend named R., who has his own plane in Ft. Lauderdale. R. is commissioned to take people and supplies on a regular basis to and from Haiti. Once hearing their story, he said if they could get the donations down to Ft. Lauderdale, he'd load them on his next flight and fly them to Haiti, gratis.

So Angel Flights is transporting the supplies to Ft. Lauderdale, and then R. will fly all of the supplies ( well over $100,000 worth ) to Haiti. Sometime next week, some of those strangers we watch on the news may be wearing some familiar looking clean clothes.

That's social good.

RUMOR!

AOL just bought social media industry blog Mashable.

Anyone have confirmation on this? What are the terms of the deal? Do tell.

If you follow me on twitter, you know a lot about me. You know I have a sense of humor, you know I love the Phillies, you know I love my job, you see campaigns I am working on for clients, and you know my dad's been battling cancer.

There are things I don't share on twitter and keep to myself, but for the most part, I like to keep my social media...social. I try to only follow people who do the same. We don't do business with a company, we do business with people who work for the company, don't we? I buy from and tune in to people I know and like. I think many people do that. Isn't that what word-of-mouth is all about?

Social media isn't the cure for the cancer that is killing big pieces of traditional media. It also isn't the enigma that so many people may think it is. Social media, is just another media channel. A few years ago, my colleagues and I at Red Tettemer illustrated what that channel looks like:



And yes, this channel works a little differently, so did TV when it was introduced.

It's going to be ok.

More than 3 years ago, my friend Chris Heuer shared something the CEO of iProspect said, which I've never forgotten: "The Brand with the best storytellers wins." I love that. That, is the secret to social media - not much of a secret; it's something that advertising and PR have known for years.

The opportunity with social media, for creative advertising agencies, is enormous. No longer is creative chained to :15 or :30 or :60. We aren't limited by 1/4 page or 1/2 page or double trucks. We can create content and tell our stories to massive global audiences and immediately hear back from them, what they think. It's like being in everyone's living room when a tv spot airs - exciting and scary, isn't it? We can launch unfinished content, and let the customer tell us how they want it to end. We can engage our audience and give them option to buy DIRECTLY FROM OUR CREATIVE WITHOUT EVER LEAVING THEIR COUCH. That may make some advertising execs shiver, it gives me goosebumps from excitement.

I see a shift happening within the social media channel. Initially, PR seemed to dominate integration of this channel in their work, naturally, because it connected them quickly and widely with global audiences - press and consumers alike. The channel didn't have that many features and that was ok for PR because they just wanted to tell their stories.

Today and in the future, the channel has bells and whistles. And while PR will continue to work in the channel, telling stories, advertising creatives have the opportunity to stretch the functionality of the channel, create new features with their partners in interactive, and tell the stories with mind blowing creative showcasing new products and services like we've never experienced before.

You want the secret to making social media work for a brand? It's all about integration. A holistic approach to social media in your overall marketing plan, great storytellers and oh...creative that gives you goosebumps.