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Will we ever kill the business card?

Let’s say you are attending a TEDx event, where speakers from different fields come to talk about the latest technologies, their achievements, and magnificent ideas. Yes, the talks are great, but we are all here to network, and the time has come! You start going around the room, talking to a few people, and the moment of truth is here, did you bring your business cards?

You are now frantically searching for them in your pockets, your bag, your wallet, but no luck. Isn’t it such an awkward situation when people are handing you their business card and you have to apologize for not having yours? They either think you are careless for not bringing your cards to TEDx, or that you only have a few and don’t think they are important enough to hand them a card.

A great scenario here is that you did bring your business cards with you, and your networking skills are on fire! You are ecstatic about the number of people you met and the cards you got (awesome event!). But let’s be real, it only gets worse when you head back to your office and stare a the pile of cards you got (let’s hope you remember the names of the people you want to get in touch with). What to do now?!

Our post was inspired by a recent article by Scott Kirsner.

These little rectangles accumulate in pockets, purses, and desk drawers. In the 20th century, we knew what to do with them: staple them to other pieces of paper and insert those pieces into a device called a Rolodex. The number of Rolodexes on a person’s desk was an indicator of power and influence.

In the 21st century, though, we want phone numbers and e-mail addresses to be digitally accessible. I have been exploring the best ways to accomplish that – by scanning cards, photographing them with a mobile phone, mailing them to someone else to deal with, or trying to avoid exchanging cards entirely. The only strategy I have eschewed is typing the information in myself.

What I personally do is take a photo of the card, email it to myself with the contact’s name and company in the subject line. Absurdly manual, and I need a better solution.

Thanks to Scott’s diligent research, we have options:

CardMunch (it’s free):

Unfortunately, it’s only available for the iPhone, with no plans announced for an Android version. Given a decent picture of a business card, CardMunch not only returns perfect data in the proper fields, but it also tries to find the person’s profile on LinkedIn, the business networking site. (LinkedIn bought the company in January 2011.) The app gives you the ability to connect with the person via LinkedIn, and also to export their contact info to your iPhone’s address book. CardMunch doesn’t bother trying to automatically recognize the text on the card; instead it sends the digital image to an army of self-employed typists around the world who act as your outsourced secretaries in exchange for a few pennies per card. To ensure accuracy, each card is typed in by as many as four workers, and the results compared. CardMunch promises a 24-hour turnaround time, though the actual results can be much quicker.

ScanBizCards (priced at $6.99): 

It first tries to decipher the text on a card. Then, you can either make the corrections and fill in any missing data, or you can request that someone else do it for you. (The app comes with a couple of free transcription credits; after that, transcriptions cost 18 cents per card.) When the app failed to notice that a person’s office was in Cambridge, and missed the company’s name because it was printed as a swirly logo, I requested a transcription. It came back within 10 minutes, with everything entered perfectly.

CamCard (priced at $6.99):

It doesn’t include the human transcription option. Both CamCard and ScanBizCards back up a copy of your data on their secure websites, and they also both offer free versions of their apps that have limited functionality.

CloudContacts:

You toss the business cards you would like to have digitized into an envelope, mail them to the company, and they scan and correct them for you. You can then download a file from CloudContacts’ website that can be imported into whatever software you use for managing your contacts. (CloudContacts will even transcribe notes you have written on the back of a card – as long as they are legible.) The company charges $29.95 to digitize 100 cards.

The challenge here is accumulation:

If you keep up with cards and scan them as you get them, any of the mobile apps will probably work just fine. If you let them accumulate and don’t have time to process them, it’s hard to beat the CloudContacts solution.

Scott and Sid Viswanathan (co-founder of CardMunch) both agree:

That paper business cards may be like handshakes – a central and ineradicable part of the ritual of meeting someone new. “We’ve been very focused on not breaking the social protocol of exchanging business cards,’’ says Viswanathan, who is now a product manager at LinkedIn. “Even though the mobile device is becoming the center of your contact universe, the new Rolodex, it still seems like the most frictionless way to exchange information today is the business card.’’

What do you think? Is it just a matter of time for business cards to become obsolete? Or are they here to stay?

To read the Scott Kirsner article, click here.

from BostInno http://bostinno.com/channels/will-we-ever-kill-the-business-card/

Apple Reportedly Developing High-Definition Audio Format with 'Adaptive Streaming'

The Guardian reports that Apple is currently working on a new audio format that could allow the company to offer "high definition" audio via iTunes. The format would also integrate an "adaptive streaming" component that would allow music being accessed from iCloud and iTunes Match by portable devices to be automatically adapted to fit bandwidth or storage constraints.
Apple is working on a new audio file format that will offer "adaptive streaming" to provide high- or low-quality files to users of its iCloud service. [...]

The new system would adjust itself to the bandwidth and storage available on the receiving device.

It is believed that Apple will use the new file type to upgrade its iTunes Match service, which allows users to re-download music from iCloud to their Apple devices.

According to the report's source, Apple has asked one London music studio to prepare audio files in the new format, which would allow Apple to instantly and automatically improve the quality of iTunes Match content. The source is unclear, however, on whether Apple would transcode the higher-quality files on the fly to match a given bandwidth/hardware setup or if it would simply maintain several versions of the track at different qualities and serve the most appropriate one for a given situation.

Given the timing of Apple's work, the source suggests that the company is likely preparing the new format for a demonstration at its iPad media event rumored for next Wednesday, March 7.

The new report comes less than a month after Neil Young revealed that he had worked with Steve Jobs on a high-definition music format for the iTunes Store but that "not much" had ended up happening with the effort. Apple has also recently begun a significant expansion of its Mastered for iTunes program. The initiative encourages recording professionals to utilize high-quality master recordings of songs and albums as the initial source material for iTunes Store submission, processing them using Apple's guidelines and tools to achieve file compression allowing for the highest-quality sound available.


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from MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/28/apple-reportedly-developing-high-definiti...

France's Bold Drunk-Driving Legislation - Every Car To Carry a Breathalyzer

Zothecula writes "It is a great irony that alcohol should be legislated into becoming man's most commonly used recreational drug, as it's the only drug that causes more harm to others than to the user. This is most evident on our roads, where even in first world countries with low road tolls, alcohol still accounts for between a third and a half of road deaths. Now France is to attempt a novel solution — from July of this year, it will become law in France to have a working breathalyzer in every car on the road, with enforcement beginning November 1."

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from Slashdot http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/02/27/1835257/frances-bold-drunk-driving-le...

Join Altimeter Group at SXSW 2012

Left: Downtown Austin, 2007

Will you be at SXSW this year? This year, we’ll have another cadre of Industry Analysts there, please join me and my colleagues in learning, sharing, and networking at this annual festival.

I’m excited to return for my 5th interactive festival and it’s been fascinating to watch it grow and change to now include many business folks.


Altimeter Industry Analysts at SXSW, 2012
Calendar: Let’s Connect!  

Daily

  • Blogger Lounge, Daily: The Altimeter Group will assemble when available at meet folks at the blogger lounge, in part sponsored by Brian Solis in the conference.

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

  • Syncapse event, speech by Rebecca Lieb, Sat 12:30 Rebecca will be sharing her insights on content, future of media, and more at this sponsored event hosted by Syncapse.
  • Book signing, Rebecca Lieb, Sat 2pm Rebecca will be signing her latest book Content Marketing at 2 Sat: Austin Convention Center in foyer of Ballroom G.

Sunday

Monday

Where will you be? Leave comments on the top panels and events where the Altimeter community can meetup, learn, and network. Looking forward to a great SXSW, get those boots on, stay hydrated and bring plenty of business cards.

from Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2012/02/26/join-altimeter-group-at-sxsw-2012/

5 Clever Social Media Campaigns To Learn From


This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

You don’t have to be in the market for a Super Bowl ad to learn the world’s biggest marketers. In fact, as a quick trip to Facebook illustrates, social media has a leveling effect: Whether you’re Coca-Cola or Jones Soda, your Facebook Page looks pretty much the same. Coke’s billions won’t buy a dedicated wing on Twitter, either.

With this in mind, the following social media campaigns from marketers big and small are designed to be idea generators. This isn’t a ranking of the most effective social media campaigns of the year, but rather the ones that have the most to offer an entrepreneur with big ideas and a not-so-big marketing budget.


1. Kraft Macaroni & Cheese’s Jinx


Last March, the venerable Kraft brand launched an interesting campaign on Twitter: Whenever two people individually used the phrase “mac & cheese” in a tweet, Kraft sent both a link pointing out the “Mac & Jinx” (as in the childhood game Jinx.) The first one to reply back got five free boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese plus a t-shirt.

What you can learn from this: This is a low-cost way to track down potential fans on Twitter. All you have to do is search a given term and identify two people who tweet the same phrase at (roughly) the same time. In return, you’ll gain goodwill, a likely follower and probably some good word-of-mouth buzz on the social network.


2. Ingo’s Face Logo


When Swedish ad agencies Grey Stockholm and Ogilvy Stockholm merged last year, they wanted to get social media fans involved. The two agencies asked fans to participate by signing into Facebook to see the new name. Every time new people logged on to the dedicated site, the logo added their profile picture. With every picture, the logo got a little bigger, until 2,890 fan photos comprised the full name, Ingo, over a four-hour period.

What you can learn from this: This was another inexpensive way to get fans literally enmeshed with the brand. Another alternative is to create a real-life mosaic based on pictures of your Facebook fans, a project that Mashable recently completed.


3. BlueCross BlueShield of Minnesota’s Human Doing


What better way to illustrate the plight of the common man than an actual common man? That was the thinking behind a BlueCross BlueShield of Minnesota program last year that put Scott Jorgenson, a St. Paul resident, in a glass apartment in the Mall of America for a month. To demonstrate the recuperative effects of exercise, Jorgenson was put on a workout routine for the month that compelled him to exercise three to five times a day, in 10-minute spurts. In a social media twist, Twitter and Facebook followers dictated the type of exercise for each session.

What you can learn from this: Creating an event, especially one that involves social media fans, is an alternative to launching an ad campaign. Humanizing a problem for which your company provides a solution is also a good idea.


4. GranataPet’s Foursquare-Enabled Billboard


Pet food brand GranataPet earned worldwide attention last year for its billboard in Agenta, Germany. This wasn’t just any billboard, though. It was rigged so that if a consumer checked in on Foursquare, the billboard would dispense some of the company’s dog food. Someone from Granata’s ad agency filmed the billboard in action, and the video now has more than 50,000 views on YouTube (in various iterations.)

What you can learn from this: In the social media age, a single ad or a single billboard can generate images, press and videos, but only if it’s clever enough.


5. Reinert Sausages’s Wurst-Face App


Another German brand, Reinert Sausages, transcended its roots with a clever Facebook app that let users upload their photo and receive a “Wurst Face,” a graven image of themselves in cold cuts. The name “Wurst Face” comes from the extra piece of sausage that kids get for free at the butcher.

What you can learn from this: If you can create an app that’s social, fun and brand-appropriate, it will function more effectively than even a high-budget ad campaign.


More Small Business Resources From OPEN Forum:


- The Quick and Dirty Guide to Tumblr for Small Business
- Community Managers Share Best Productivity Apps and Tools
- 5 Tips For Using LinkedIn’s Mobile Site

Kraft image courtesy of Flickr, Lulu Hoeller

More About: Facebook, facebook marketing, features, mashable, online marketing, open forum, social media marketing, Twitter, Twitter marketing

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/02/26/clever-social-media-campaigns/?utm_source=feed...

Bluefin Labs: The Oscars Fall Flat When it Comes to Social Media [Infographic]

Editor’s note: This post was originally published on InTheEmpire – a Streetwise property launching in New York City in the coming weeks. For more info follow Will Wei on Twitter.

Powered by a wardrobe malfunction from a certain Bronx-born celeb, last night’s Oscars garnered a seemingly robust 3.8 million Tweets, Facebook status updates, and other social media comments, according to Bluefin Labs (via Peter Kafka of All Things D).

Sure seems like a lot, but when you compare that 3.8 million figure to the Super Bowl’s 12 million social media comments and the Grammys’ 13 million, the Oscars fell flat on its shiny golden face.

MIT’s very own Bluefin Labs, which measures “social media conversations about TV,” says that social comments about the Oscars went up by 293% this year, which still pales in comparison to the Super Bowl’s 580% increase and Grammys’ 2,300% bump.

The good news is that the Oscars’ social media presence jumped up by a ton. The bad news is that it’s not keeping up with the other big annual live television events. The social media peak for the Oscars came at about 11:30 pm, when Meryl Streep won the award for Best Actress and The Artist won Best Picture.

That’s a telling sign as to why the Oscars didn’t dominate Twitter and Facebook as well as the Super Bowl and Grammys did. Meryl Streep won again? Yawn. The Artist got Best Picture? Who’s this artist guy?

There were no surprises and no drama this year at the Oscars — save for one nip slip, which didn’t ever register a, no pun intended, peak on Bluefin’s infographic below.

If you look real closely, you’ll also see that a certain four-letter word was trending on social media sites in relation to the Oscars. We’d like to think passionate Oscars viewers were Tweeting out messages like “F*ck no! Meryl Streep again!?”

from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/02/27/bluefin-labs-the-oscars-fall-flat-when-it-come...

How Startups Can Build Lasting Relationships With Journalists


Dmitry Dragilev is the marketing lead at ZURB, the interaction design firm behind ZURBapps, a suite of apps that helps people quickly design great products through rapid prototyping, iteration and user feedback.

It’s a week before launch and you’re hoping to score some awesome traffic from a well-known publication. Here is what usually happens: You send a PR release to a bunch of publications, you pay big bucks for PR agency representation, you tweet the day of the launch, and you hope your story gets picked up.

Be honest — how well did this approach work for you the last time you tried it? Lots of effort, but my guess is you were probably disappointed with the return.

Instead, approach reporter interactions as you would an actual relationship.


1. Date Before You Pitch


Most of us decide to pitch journalists right before a product launch launch or announcement, shooting out a press release and hoping to score great articles. This is the worst thing you can do. Don’t expect to pitch someone who doesn’t know you or your product, in the hopes that person will understand the story and details just right — all in a few days.

Instead, build a strong relationship that benefits both of you — it’s the only way you can ensure great news coverage of your product launch.

After all, you don’t pitch a VC or angel investor cold, expecting to earn funding, right? These days, you don’t apply to a job cold and expect to get hired. As you know, relationships are everything when you are trying to build a company. A strong relationship with the press is just as important as maintaining relationships with your investors. Before you can even pitch to a reporter, you’ll have to spend months of hard work, maybe even years, building a strong relationship.

Here are some specific tips on how to build genuine relationships with journalists.


2. Courting


First, you need to have a good idea of who your paying customers might be, where they tend to gather on the web. Which news publications/blogs do they read? Look at the comments on articles and figure out which publications you want to target.

Once you determine the correct reporters/publications, build a relationship with reporters almost exactly like you would build a relationship with a potential spouse. Research what catches the reporter’s eye, both personally and professionally. Have at least three points you want to genuinely talk about, none of which relate to your product. Reach out and give the reporter something first (e.g. send in a story tip, for instance) before asking him for anything. Remember, you aren’t looking for a “one night stand;” you are courting for a long-term relationship.


3. Dating


This isn’t an “adult” friend finder service; this is eHarmony. Develop your reporter relationship over months: Help him out and show your interest in his beat. Show how the reporter can benefit from your help: Bump a reporter’s stories to the top of Techmeme, tip him off about breaking news, talk to him about his articles, respond to his questions in articles and via social media.


4. Getting Serious


You’ve already built a solid and genuine relationship with your reporter. By the time you ask for coverage, you should have helped him out a number of times. You’ve initiated multiple discussions that cover a variety of topics. You’d be comfortable meeting up and grabbing a drink with your reporter.

From here on out, you need to be extra careful. Around the time you’re attempting to seal the deal, your actions are critical to achieving awesome results.


5. The Actual Pitch


By now, you can determine your reporter’s interests and beats. Your pitch should be connected with at least two articles the reporter has written. If it doesn’t, you’re pitching the wrong person.

Your story must have a hook; in other words, it must relate to current trends or events. Most bloggers and news sites won’t be interested in a product that’s off-trend.

Stay super simple. Practice your pitch and wording before you talk to people. Think of it this way: Would your grandmother be able to understand what you’re taking about? Remember, you’re competing with a million other things that might grab a reporter’s attention. If you aren’t crystal clear, a reporter can get distracted or bored with what you are saying. Connect your product to trends and show how it stands out from others in this area.

You should be able to pause after the first sentence of your pitch, confident that the reporter already partly understands what you’re talking about. It’s good if the reporter asks a question back. If you receive a confused response (or none at all), you probably need to make it simpler.

Here are a few sample pitch sentences we used when launching our app.

  • App X helps you see if ads are getting in the way or if content isn’t getting read.
  • App X is a another tool to supplement surveys, feedback forms and chat.
  • App X can help you test landing page performance — it’s a guerrilla marketing tool.
  • App X helps you determine if your brand is headed in the right direction.

6. Ongoing Relationship


Your relationship with a reporter or blogger doesn’t end after the pitch. You want it to be in it long-term, like a marriage. Like a real spouse, you’ll have to invest in the marriage, maintaining it over time. After all, you’ve spent months and months courting this reporter — you don’t want to toss him aside once the story is published. Keep the lines of communication open, and you won’t be without a date the next time you launch a product.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, wellphoto, Flickr, thinkpanama

More About: contributor, features, How-To, Marketing, Media, pr

For more Business coverage:

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/02/27/how-to-pitch-media/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_...

Day One: A beautiful and functional cross-platform journaling app

Have you ever kept a journal or diary? For writers, it's almost a given that you're going to keep a personal log of what you do during each day, how you feel, or interesting things that might create that prize-winning book some day. For others, it's a way to keep track of health issues, emotions, relationships, the growth of a child or the decline of an aged parent. Day One (US$9.99 for Mac, $1.99 for iOS) is a well-designed and implemented journal app for Mac OS X and iOS.

Day One for Mac

First, let me describe the Mac app. It's available through the Mac App Store and loads quickly. When launched, Day One recognizes whether or not you have Dropbox installed, and asks if you wish to use that service for syncing with the iOS app. Day One also supports iCloud for syncing -- it's easily enabled through the app preferences.

The next thing the app asks is whether or not you want to enable reminders and quick entry in the menu bar. Reminders will prompt you daily to update your journal, while quick entry makes writing an entry as easy as clicking an icon in the menu bar and typing your words.

The user interface of Day One for Mac is spare and functional. On the left side of the app window are five buttons -- one to add a new entry, one to show your entries in a list format, one to show your entries on a calendar, another to display "starred" or favorite entries, and a final button for setting reminders.

Gallery: Day One for Mac

Clicking the add entry button opens a blank page. Since this app is Lion-friendly (it runs on OS X 10.6 and later), it can go full screen, although that simply puts the fixed-width app window into the center of your screen. That works great on an 11" MacBook Air; it looks absurd on a 27" iMac. I found that once I got the general idea of how the app worked, I just used the quick entry button on the menu bar to write my entries.

All entries are time and date stamped, of course, making Day One useful for situations where you might want to keep track of what you're working on -- a contemporaneous work log. Day One supports both Markdown and MultiMarkdown in the edit and read modes, so if you're familiar with Markdown it's simple to add emphasis and links to an entry while typing away.

Any entry can be emailed, exported as text or Markdown, or printed. There's a gem of a feature built into the Info button on each post -- a word and character count. That's great if you're trying to write Twitter-length entries, so let's hope that developer Paul Mayne adds Twitter support to the next version of Day One.

At the present time, Day One doesn't support the addition of images to journal entries. However, that is on the to-do list for the app along with tags and categories, encryption of entries, and location data if desired. I think the last would be incredibly powerful for doing a trip log, as travelers would be able to write entries marked with their current location, and embed photos. One other handy addition would be the capability to store multiple journals -- for instance, one for work, one for personal, one for a vacation, etc...

My biggest love of this app is the simple and clean interface. Anyone can be up and running in minutes, and Day One makes keeping a journal a pleasure instead of a chore. Now let's take a quick look at the iOS version.

Day One for iOS

The iOS version of Day One is universal, so you only need to purchase the app for iPhone or iPad to have it run on both devices. Paul Mayne has done an awesome job of optimizing the user interface for each device. On the iPhone, the entry method is simplistic and similar to the quick entry mode on the Mac. On iPad, there's the luxury of more room, especially in landscape mode.

Remember that Info button I talked about in the Mac version? On the iOS version, you just pull down a journal entry to reveal the current word and character count. And remember my comment about wanting to be able to send a short journal entry as a tweet? It's possible with the iOS version.

Syncs through Dropbox are almost instantaneous. I didn't try syncing through iCloud, although it should work in a very similar manner. Mayne does note that there are some performance issues with current versions of the app doing first-time syncs over iCloud with large journal libraries.

Conclusion

For keeping a private journal, I can think of no better solution at this time than Day One. Being able to make journal entries anywhere, anytime is a powerful way to keep the log of your life up to date. The similarity in the UI between the apps makes it easy to switch platforms at the drop of a hat, and the support for Markdown / MultiMarkdown provides a decent level of formatting.

While the app currently doesn't have the power of Mariner Software's single-platform MacJournal ($39.95), Day One is ultimately a much more user-oriented app that makes keeping a journal a pleasure. With the changes that developer Paul Mayne has planned for Day One, a great app will only get better.

Day One: A beautiful and functional cross-platform journaling app originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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from TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com/2012/02/27/day-one-a-beautiful-and-functional-cross-platf...

Comcast to launch Xfinity Streampix streaming video service, challenge Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon (update)

It was only a matter of time, right? The Wall Street Journal reports that Comcast is rolling out a VOD competitor for Amazon, Netflix and Hulu so it can grab a slice of the streaming video pie. Called Xfinity Streampix, it brings shows from NBC and ABC, along with movies from Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. Scheduled to launch this Thursday, the service will be rolled in for free with some existing cable packages and available on its own for $4.99 a month. For your five bucks, you get access to a back catalog of shows and movies on any internet-capable device, though, naturally we don't know exactly how much content will be available when it goes live. What we do know is that price point puts Streampix well beneath the $7.99 asking price of its competition, so here's hoping a VOD price war ensues.

Update: Check out the official PR after the break for more details, including a list of the content coming to Streampix and Comcast's plans to bring VOD to the Xbox 360 and Android.

Continue reading Comcast to launch Xfinity Streampix streaming video service, challenge Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon (update)

Comcast to launch Xfinity Streampix streaming video service, challenge Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Wall Street Journal  |  sourceComcast Voices  | Email this | Comments

from Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/21/comcast-reveals-xfinity-streampix-streamin...

5 Tips for Reaching Voters in the Social Stream


John Manoogian III is the founder and CTO of 140 Proof, the leading social ad platform for Twitter and Facebook. John created the 140 Proof brand and co-led development of its API and ad-targeting architecture.

Every election year breaks records for ad spending. The total spend leading up to the 2008 election in TV alone was over $450 million. But in 2012, where does social advertising fit in to the political advertising landscape?

Political advertising hasn’t fully embraced digital, but the tide is turning.  Much like government agencies, political marketing teams are lagging behind brand advertisers in adopting digital and social initiatives. Political agencies are only now beginning to hire “new media directors” to manage online outreach channels like Twitter and Facebook.

However, the online momentum of the 2004 and the 2008 presidential elections shows the growing value of digital advertising in general and the massive potential of social advertising in particular. With the triumph of Barack Obama in 2008 and, before that, the unexpected fundraising success of Howard Dean in 2004, more advertisers are paying attention to social as a channel, both for earned and paid media programs.  MediaVest, in a report to its clients, stated that political activity in social campaigns has increased “exponentially.”

Will the race of 2012 ultimately be decided in social?  It’s too soon to tell, but for candidates who want to get a jump on their opponents, here are five tips for using paid media to reach voters in the social stream.


1. For a Great Campaign, Start With Polls


Campaign managers identify challenges and opportunities through polls. Polls don’t just predict winners, but they also show the demographics of who loves a candidate, who hates one, and who’s still on the fence. A candidate may enjoy broad support from working-class New Englanders, but if Latinos in the Southwest have yet to join the bandwagon, polls can help identify those voters’ core concerns.

By using polls to identify audiences, you can then address these audiences with targeted campaigns. Don’t just stick to the tried-and-true categories such as “soccer moms.” With social and interest graph data now available to campaigns, you can target audiences of all stripes, from Moderates to Green Traditionals to Tea Party Teens.


2. Be Quick on the Draw


After Joe Wilson, U.S. Representative for South Carolina’s 2nd district shouted “You lie!” during the September 2009 presidential address, both Wilson and his opponent Rob Miller enjoyed a boost in fundraising efforts. In the week following the incident, Wilson had raised $1.8 million and Miller had raised $1.6 million (3 times his 2008 campaign budget). For events like Wilson’s outburst, moving quickly right afterward yields the biggest benefit.

In social advertising, we’ve seen the advantage of acting fast. And while media buyers don’t usually need to create campaigns on the spot, be ready to launch big initiatives on the same day you realized they’re needed. To get the word out and tip public opinion regarding an incident like Wilson’s outburst, I recommend extending the current broadcast strategy: Use the candidate’s Twitter account as the mouthpiece and social stream ads as the megaphone, extending the candidate’s reach beyond his followers for the duration of the desired social campaign.


3. Power Your Campaign with Influencers and Crowds


Political campaign managers know the value of influence and crowds.  If a medium can reach influencers who sway the opinions of others, or if it can reach large groups, or community organizers — like the church group grandma who may pledge only $5 per cycle but is active in the community and can bring 25 volunteers to the local rally – then it’s valuable for the political campaign manager.

With two-thirds of online U.S. adults using social feeds, campaign managers can use paid social advertising to reach large numbers of voters. And they can also zero in on influencers by targeting people with a high number of followers or users who demonstrate thought leadership on key issues.


4. Find the Marketable Message in Every News Story


Campaign managers create messages tailored for their key audiences. And smart players will even capitalize on blunders. For example, the recent fracas between Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and President Barack Obama made headlines nationwide. Jan Brewer’s supporters in Arizona will be sure to spin the incident during her reelection bid. (To reach this audience, Brewer’s PAC should target Arizona residents following GOP accounts like @SenJohnMcCain and @JeffFlake.)

And, on the flip side, Obama’s team could use the story to craft a message alleging Republicans are refusing to reach across the aisle. To reach audiences of moderates and independent voters with this message, I’d recommend reaching beyond the already-outsized and committed following of @BarackObama, instead focusing on the audiences of more independent influencers like @fivethirtyeight and The Washington Post’s @mentionmachine.


5. Write for the Stream


Finally, don’t forget to write for the medium you’re advertising in.  Here are some best practices for writing for the social stream:

  • Be brief, keep it light, and fit your tone to the context. More people pass along upbeat, personal, or humorous messages.
  • Social stream ads allow you to refresh early and often, so change creative every two weeks to satisfy the fast-paced, real-time audience you’re targeting in the social stream.
  • Focus your call to action. Separate the invitations to learn more from each one, and optimize for what works best.
  • Spark conversation.  For example, a successful social stream campaign for Best Buy asked: “Do you know anyone who’s ashamed of their old phone?” Thousands of people named their friends, passing along Best Buy’s link to the “Phone Shame Eliminator.”

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, gunnar3000

More About: election, Facebook, Marketing, Politics, Social Media, social media marketing, Twitter, voting

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/02/21/election-social-media-tips/?utm_source=feedbur...