We were very excited to attend this year’s Gravity Summit at UCLA.

What a great event! We wanted to share this review of Gravity Summit from WhatGives.com.

Did you attend? What did you think?

Confused by Analytics? Want to know if your tweet really made a difference in your company’s bottom line? This month we are going to take a deeper dive into one of the easiest ways to measure online social media efforts – through Google analytics.

Come join Social Media Club – Los Angeles on Tuesday, Feb. 23rd from 7-9:30pm as we discuss the topic of Google Analytics!

Speakers include:

John Shiple, CTO, Ultralive
www.linkedin.com/in/johnshiple

Alex Becker, Co-Founder and President, Highly Relevant
www.linkedin.com/in/alexybecker

Andrew Hahn, Luxury Link and Familygetaway.com
www.linkedin.com/in/andrewhahn

Erica Forrette, Online Marketing / E-commerce with a stealth startup (moderator)
www.linkedin.com/in/ericaforrette

A huge thank you to our location host! Mahalo
Mahalo
902 Colorado Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90401

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you’re more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.

Techzulu will be streaming this event live for us! If you are unable to attend, please check www.techzulu.com and watch the show live!

A special thank you to our food sponsor for this event, Fresh Brothers Pizza!
Check out their website at http://wwwFreshBrothers.com
Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/freshbrothers
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/freshbrothers

Register now: http://ow.ly/1oIzdh

Thanks Fresh Brothers, TechZulu and Mahalo for making this event possible!

Gravity Summit at UCLA- Best Learning and Networking Event You’ll Attend All Year! Plus you can get CE Credits for attendance! http://bit.ly/7GhSRc

SPECIAL DISCOUNT OF $100 OFF FOR SMCLA FOLKS!! Register here for $249 (reg. $349) http://bit.ly/bwYz1y

What is Gravity Summit?
Gravity Summit events help bridge the gap between the new Social Media Marketing tools and the business community. We seek to help educate and inform marketing professionals, small business owners, advertisers, and c-Level executives, and others, about the exciting new marketing and communications landscape that is evolving daily.
Gravity Summit is the brainchild of New Media Visionary, Author and Strategic Consultant Rodney Rumford. Beverly Macy, Managing Partner of Y&M Partners LLC, also teaches Social Media Marketing for the UCLA Extension Executive Business and Management Division.

Who Attends Gravity Summit Events?
Industries: Healthcare, pharmaceutical, communications, real estate, communications, software applications companies, franchise organizations, nutriceuticals, sports marketing, entertainment, music and gaming, financial services, non-profit organizations, advertising and PR, packaged goods
Decision Makers: Senior VP, CEO, President, Physician, Recording Artist, Publisher, VP Business Development, VP Marketing, Director of Client Services, Director Events and Promo, Business Manager, Senior Partner, Director of Membership Development, Managing Director, Director Content Management, SEO Specialist and more

Most social media events are preaching to the choir. We are raising the bar and increasing the level of education by presenting actionable knowledge that will help attendees move the meter and have an impact on their marketing objectives.

We deliver the critical knowledge on what to do next and what matters most for your business. In these competitive times, having this knowledge and knowing how to move forward can be a strong strategic advantage.
We will present the latest in digital leadership knowledge to help you with your business.

Attendees walk away with:
Best Practices
Action Items
Unique Insights
Case Studies
Unique Trends Data
Clearly Defined Objectives
Access to a Peer Network

GRAVITY SUMMIT 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EVENT
Monday, February 22, 2010
Covel Commons, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
330 DeNeve Drive, Los ANgeles, CA 90095
More Information: Beverly Macy 310-860-4788 beverly@gravitysummit.com
AGENDA
8:30 – 9:00 – Registration and Breakfast
9:00 – Welcome and Overview – Beverly Macy
9:20 – Keynote,Jeffrey Hayzlett, Eastman Kodak

9:50 – USA Today, Brian Dresher
10:10- Boost Mobile, Rachel Gross
10:30 – Networking Break
10:50 – Mazda / Rebel Industries, David Harris/Josh Levine
11:10 – Citizen Net, Dan Benaymin
11:30 – AWARDS PROGRAM, Co-Hosted Gravity Summit/UCLA Extension Business & Management Program

@Feliciaday
@shareourstrength Domino Foods
@jeffreyhayzlett Kodak
12:15 – LUNCH
1:15 – BREAKOUT SESSIONS – Choose One

Music, Entertainment, Sports, Sponsored by LA Clippers

Getting Started, Sponsored by GoDaddy.com
2:30 Networking Break
2:45 – Keynote, Ramon de Leon, Domino’s Pizza

3:10 – Turbo Tax, Scott Gulbransen
3:30 – Satellite Marketing, Kevin Popovic
3:50 – Markyr Media – Bringing It All Together, Kyra Reed
4:10 – Closing Comments
4:30 Adjourn
AFTER PARTY at The Roxy Theater on Sunset, Sponsored by Flip and Mazda

Hey everyone,

The 2nd annual Gravity Summit is coming up next week on Monday, 2/22 – if you haven’t signed up yet, there’s still time! Social Media Club members can get $100 off the registration pricing by clicking here. Here’s more info:

Gravity Summit at UCLA- Best Learning and Networking Event You’ll Attend All Year! Plus you can get CE Credits for attendance!

Gravity Summit events help bridge the gap between the new Social Media Marketing tools and the business community. We seek to help educate and inform marketing professionals, small business owners, advertisers, and c-Level executives, and others, about the exciting new marketing and communications landscape that is evolving daily.

Gravity Summit is the brainchild of New Media Visionary, Author and Strategic Consultant Rodney Rumford. Beverly Macy, Managing Partner of Y&M Partners LLC, also teaches Social Media Marketing for the UCLA Extension Executive Business and Management Division.

Who Attends Gravity Summit Events?

Industries: Healthcare, pharmaceutical, communications, real estate, communications, software applications companies, franchise organizations, nutriceuticals, sports marketing, entertainment, music and gaming, financial services, non-profit organizations, advertising and PR, packaged goods

Decision Makers: Senior VP, CEO, President, Physician, Recording Artist, Publisher, VP Business Development, VP Marketing, Director of Client Services, Director Events and Promo, Business Manager, Senior Partner, Director of Membership Development, Managing Director, Director Content Management, SEO Specialist and more

Most social media events are preaching to the choir. We are raising the bar and increasing the level of education by presenting actionable knowledge that will help attendees move the meter and have an impact on their marketing objectives.

We deliver the critical knowledge on what to do next and what matters most for your business. In these competitive times, having this knowledge and knowing how to move forward can be a strong strategic advantage.

We will present the latest in digital leadership knowledge to help you with your business.

Attendees walk away with:

Best Practices
Action Items
Unique Insights
Case Studies
Unique Trends Data
Clearly Defined Objectives
Access to a Peer Network

I’ll be there and I hope you will too!

So here you are, espousing your thoughts and a few work tips on Twitter when suddenly you receive an unexpected email. Your mother is now following you. Your mother is now reading your notes. Worse yet? She’s providing her advice. On your lunch diet.

As technologies continue to make it easier to connect with friends and family online, families are turning more and more often to the distribution communication platform that Twitter and Facebook Status Updates provide. Combining Twitter with other social applications (like Facebook) serves to strengthen and magnify the communication capabilities of families on the Internet to an even greater degree.

So why connect with your family on social network platforms?. What is driving this increasing trend?

Sharing family successes has long been a part of Twitter – tweeting while at a son’s baseball game or a daughter’s dance recital has provided Twitter users a way to share their family pride with family members and strangers alike. New Twitter tools, like whrrl, enable instant photo sharing. Instead of providing a link to a photo or an album, you can provide the entire multimedia experience in a much easier fashion. This only serves to enhance the wildly popular link-sharing capabilities of Twitter.

Even the military recognizes the power of the online family and now provides significant support for families on Twitter in the form of educational feeds (usually issued by a government group), support groups for overseas personnel and injured veterans, general family support, and just about anything one can think of. In short, individuals and groups are taking the lead on organizing Twitter. In the absence of tools provided by Twitter, families are using Facebook and other social media networks to more easily integrate Twitter updates into their families.

Perhaps the most common and familiar use of Twitter and the family involves the unfortunate aspects of tragedies and disasters. Disasters can take a number of forms ranging from earthquakes and wildfires to highway accidents and home fires. It is fairly clear, just by looking at the news, that Twitter is a now a major factor in keeping families in the loop as to the current state of a given disaster. Whether a family needs general news on a situation or specific feedback from a family member in jeopardy, Twitter maintains the variety of communication channels (Web, IM, SMS, etc.) necessary to significantly increase the chances of messages getting out in a timely manner.

Personal tragedies also continue to shape the evolution of the Twitter communication medium. Most of us seen some sort of cry for help from a family member, a friend, or “friend of a friend” . We have seen this in email, blogs, whole Web sites, and now Twitter. One of the best uses of Twitter we have seen is a hospital using Twitter to inform families on the status and results of an operation.

When communicating with family on Twitter (and other public-facing social sites), privacy concerns should be a strong consideration when discussing personal family issues . Families have a tendency to talk casually with each other online, which too can have negative results such as Criminals have begun to monitor sites like Facebook and Twitter in order to determine when families are on vacation, which is an ideal time to commit robbery. The usual warnings to putting private and family-related information on the Web apply. Just as you wouldn’t put flyers outside your home when you go on vacation, think twice about posting your vacation plans, until after you get home.

The growth in family uses of social media will only continue to grow as more and more tools for information sharing develop. But as this trend continues to soar, so do the dangers. By being careful with what you share online (no personal or financial information, no specific travel dates, no home address), you should be able to enjoy sharing your news online safely.

Flattened by last night's info-overload.

The ubiquity of pink cows: How Facebook and iPhone are changing the way we play.

Just as the Internet has transformed how we watch movies, read books, and listen to music, social media, led by Facebook and iPhone, are changing the way we play games. How has the gaming industry responded to our new recreational habits? To answer this question, SMC-LA invited Girl Gamer co-founder Mike Prasad to chair “Games go social” a panel discussion exploring the impact of social media on the development and marketing of PC and console games.

Some background about the gaming industry

• Market size: estimated between $46 and $65 billion in 2010.
• Demographics are changing, led by strong growth in casual gaming.
• Online and mobile sectors are developing and shaping business strategy.
• Distribution channels are moving away from brick-and-mortar operations to digital downloads.
• 50% of game players are on Facebook.

Building community: Facebook & traditional computer games

Prasad opened the discussion by asking how console and computer game developers are using social media to build and strengthen communities. Aaron Kaufman, community manager for Command and Conquer, said he uses Facebook to connect with loyal, if not hard-core, gamers.

“Message boards are scary,” he said, “and do not represent the actual user population.” In two months, Kaufman created a 20,000-person fan base on Facebook, and is now able to connect with more gamers, more reliably.

Quin Banks said that Tarver Games is using Facebook to help gamers of “Ghost Attack” play with friends and to prolong the experience. Since this game is intended as a television pilot, it also creates excitement and connection to characters.

What makes a game social?

The stereotypical social game is free, small, and everlasting, but, according to all the panelists, bragging rights are also strong motivators. (Think about how proud someone is to inform you that they have 12 pink cows while you are still trying to figure out how to play Farmville.)

Giving users the opportunity to create and share content, a key part of World of Warcraft’s success, also builds community. In addition, Josh Hartwell, CEO of GoSub60 Games, suggested allowing users to customize a game’s presentation thereby creating a personal experience. Again, this provides opportunities to showoff that can increase motivation to play and share.

Games go mainstream

When iPhone made Facebook mobile, games became portable. It set the stage for Farmville and other casual games (like solitaire and word games) to infiltrate the general public. These games replace crossword puzzle books and mad-libs.

“They are filler,” Banks added. “We play them on our phones while waiting in line at the grocery store. The games are secondary.”

Strategy

Hartwell echoed Banks’ statement when he said that gaming is a service. As a service, a game developer must think about the ongoing, long-term dialogue with a growing, and diverse, set of players. Strategically, the gamer and the developer are partners and that relationship needs to be nurtured.

Social media makes building this relationship easier, but requires forethought. Your users are your revenue base, and making money is necessary. Revenue models need to fair, non-exploitive, and successful. When Prasad asked if anyone was doing it right, the panel had a hard time citing any good examples.

Everyone is still climbing that learning curve.

The challenge for gaming companies in the age of social media: Make long-term commitments with gamers by sustaining (developing) interactive and collaborative communities that generate revenue.

* According to Business Week, PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted $46.5 billion in 2006 and Reportlinker estimated 8.9% growth annually, totaling $76 billion in 2013.

As a warmup to next week’s meeting on Sports and Social Media, I thought a few reflections from one of the greatest baseball players of all time would be appropriate.

Last week, I started reading a book called “Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee” and am amazed by how much I have learned about Yogi so far.  I am only up to page 70 in the book, but I am already convinced that Yogi is (was) the best catcher who played the game (sorry Bill Dickey and Johnny Bench).

While I am not a Yankees fan, I am a baseball fan and the book is a fascinating read so far as it traces Yogi’s roots from a boyhood in St. Louis (Joe Garagiola grew across the street from him) to minor league baseball teams in Norfolk and Newark to a short stint in the U.S. Navy (he was at Omaha Beach on D-Day) and then as a 21-year-old rookie for the New York Yankees in 1947.

So, who knew his real name is Lawrence Peter Berra?

And can you believe that his first year salary with the Yankees was only $5000 (doesn’t A-Rod make that in 5 minutes?) and he had to work in the hardware department of Sears in his off-season?

While thinking about the impact Yogi has made on the sport of baseball, I imagined the impact that Yogi would have if he had been talking about social media instead.  Yogi was and still is a colorful personality who is well known for his malapropisms and for fracturing the English language.  So, I have taken a few of his famous quotes or “Yogisms” and interpreted them as if Yogi was really talking about social media.

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

This Yogism is a perfect analogy to social media.  Implementing social media successfully requires a lot of experimentation to test what will work in a specific situation and what won’t work.  With the social media landscape changing so rapidly, Yogi is urging us to remain flexible as something that worked last month may not work next month.  So, if you come to a fork in the social media road – take both forks and keep trying.

In baseball, you don’t know nothing.

And in social media, most people don’t know nothing either.  There are many people who claim to know it all and there are many people who say they are practicing social media when they aren’t.  Yogi is telling us to keep learning and pushing the envelope.  If you think you know it all, then you have stopped thinking.

Social media (or baseball) is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.

Implementing social media is not just something you think about or do once and move on.  In other words, social media is like putting Rogaine on a bald man’s head – you have to keep at it on a daily basis.  Yogi is telling us to put in a strong effort on the strategy and pre-game preparation, but then you must actually put in the same or greater effort on a daily basis out on the playing field.

If people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, how are you going to stop them?

Likewise, you can’t stop people from not visiting your website or participating in your community.  Baseball teams have to field a compelling product (i.e. a winning team) if they want fans to come to the ballpark.  In the same manner, Yogi’s advice is that companies need to provide a compelling reason for customers to visit their website and to interact with them in today’s competitive environment.  Are you interacting with your customers and prospects – or just talking at them?  Are you providing multiple ways for customers to find you online?

You can observe a lot by watching

There is a lot to be said for lurking.  Most of what I have learned about social media came from seeing what worked for other people and then testing it myself.  Social media is so new and is transforming so quickly that most people have learned their craft through on-the-job-training.  Yogi compels us to keep observing and pay attention to what is working (or not working) for others.

Finally, I want to leave you with a final Yogism and with a few links to explore:

• Wikipedia entry for Yogi Berra
• Yogi Berra Website
• Yogi Berra Fan Page on Facebook
• More Yogisms from Steve the Ump

And remember…

The game isn’t over until it’s over.

…so play hard all nine innings!

[note: this post originally appeared in my Social Media Musings blog]

In anticipation of the March SMCLA gathering to discuss “Building a Brand Through Social Media”, we thought we’d offer up a brief primer, a series of quality links, and a few questions to stimulate thought. It’s always amazing to see what this group comes up with when we all put our minds to something, so let’s have at it, shall we?

Can you use social media to successfully build or manage a brand?  The sheer volume of Google results available to this query seem to suggest a resounding “YES We Can!”.  For those who don’t want to read all 8 million results, here’s a quick primer on what you can do to get started.  These are viewed as entry level tactics that are mostly free to use and easy to configure.  If you or your brand are already doing these tactics, go ahead and skip to the questions section to really sink your teeth in to what we hope to explore at our next meeting.

Quick Primer

Building a brand online requires a three tiered approach: generate content, monitor conversations about your brand/industry, directly engage with people in a meaningful and relevant way.

Generate Content
Be a good writer or hire one.  It all starts with well written content that provides value and encourages people to comment, borrow, re-post, and to come back for more.  You can gain trust, reputation, and respect based on the quality of your content.   Become trusted sources of information within their specific industries through blogging, document uploading, producing and publishing audio and video to fully blanket content channels with sources of information about you and your brand.  Adding professionally produced photos, videos and audio is an extra level of polish that you may wish to invest in as the quality of your content reflects directly upon the quality of your brand.

Tools Used:

WordPress		www.wordpress.org
Blogger		www.blogger.com
Blogsome		blogsome.com
Movable Type		www.movabletype.org
Textpattern		textpattern.com
B2evolution		b2evolution.net
LiveJournal		livejournal.com
MSN Spaces		spaces.msn.com
Squarespace		squarespace.com
TypePad		www.typepad.com
Yahoo 360		360.yahoo.com

Blog tools credit:  Forbes.com Best of the Web

Automated Dissemination (Makes Me Giggle Too)

Now that you’ve produced all this great content, you really want to get it in front of the people you’re targeting with your brand and your product.  Assuming that they will all take a minute to drop by the one place on the Internet where your content lives is a bit naive.  Taking that content and pushing it out into as many streams as possible is absolutely the way you’re going to engage with as many people as possible.    Thankfully, automation of posting and Social Media networks makes this part very effective.  One of our very own LA Tech stars, Sean Percival (@seanpercival), gave a very insightful presentation recently at “Startonomics” detailing out how he uses automation and aggregation to push his content out as far and wide as possible and how to follow and capitalize on trends.

Tools Used:
A full summary is available on PR 2.0: http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism.html

Power Tools Used:
Friend Feed
Twitter Feed
Social Too

Monitor Conversations
Okay, now that you are a beacon for the world to tune into, it’s time to stick your nosy brand-building self right into the middle of all the chatter out there.  My boss was once misquoted on a conference panel as describing Twitter as a “large cocktail party”.   Ever since, whenever I read blog comments, I  picture these people leaning into a circle of conversation to add their two cents.  That visualization is actually a pretty good metaphor for what you should be doing when you monitor the conversations occurring all over the Internet.

Tools Used:
Google Alerts
BackType
Twitter Search
Technorati

Engage

Carrying the cocktail party metaphor right along, try to apply the same level of social engagement one would expect if you were to introduce yourself into that circle of people.  Barging in and announcing your product without really getting a feel for the conversation or the people engaging in it won’t get you the results you want.  In fact, you run the risk of turning people off due to your lack of finesse.  Ease yourself into the conversation by listening to what the people are talking.   Offer sage words of wisdom that are relevant to their post and actually help them or provide value to them in some way.  Perhaps your product is exactly what they need…wouldn’t that be magic?  At any rate, don’t be a poor conversationalist when you transition monitoring into engagement.

Food for Thought / Questions for the Next SMCLA

Good examples of Social Media Brand Building

• Zappos (@zappos)
• Whole Foods (@wholefoods)
• Wine Library (@garyvee)
• Planet Chiropractic (@chiropractic)

Bad examples

• Heavy Handed Comment Entries
• Spam-like outbound messages and auto-replies
• Large brands with non-existent social media presences

Questions
1. What are some more advanced ways to go beyond these basic tactics for social media brand management?   (What’s NEXT?)
2.  How does a larger brand use social media to manage their reputation?  deal with a crisis?  solicit product feedback?
3. Your questions and more via comments or tweets using the #smcla hash tag.  See you at the next meeting (details to be announced soon)

Helpful Resources

Sources used to research this post:
http://mashable.com/2008/07/18/building-your-online-brand/
http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism.html
http://www.maxgladwell.com/2008/06/be-a-beacon-first-principle-social-media/
http://www.maxgladwell.com/2008/12/social-media-predictions-2009/#more-1109
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/3302506/The-Socialization-of-Your-Personal-Brand-by-Brian-Solis
http://www.seanpercival.com/blog/2009/02/12/video-of-my-startonomics-talk-social-media-is-dead/

Written by: @geoffabrown

Super Bowl XLIII is in the Books
The Cardinals and their loyal fans have licked their wounds and returned home with dignity, and The Steeler Nation prepares to celebrate their sixth Super Bowl championship in franchise history (a “six pack” a true football fan can appreciate), we can all head out to Denny’s eat a free Grand Slam and ponder the involvement of Social Media in and around this massive event.  The game came down to a fourth quarter rally involving a safety and a last minute drive.  Add to that the longest play in Super Bowl history: a 100 yard pick six with :00 left in the half, and you’ve got yourself a sporting gem worthy of the ages.  By contrast, aside from offering up the most expensive ad slots in the history of the game at $3 million per :30 second slot, the advertisements and the public reaction to those advertisements seemed to fall a bit flat. In fact, from a social media perspective, we saw very little “official” brand or broadcast incorporation of all of the tools we have come to embrace as social media fans and enthusiasts.

Brands Don’t Get Social Media…Yet
Calling out the use of Social Media references by major brands is a stretch…since there really weren’t any of any significance doing anything terribly engaging. It was fun watching @superbowl offer up a few tweets throughout the event “via web” and then “via twitterberry” (assuming they headed down to the field), and even more amusing to see the account of @nfl (completely blank), but nothing really materialized into a true 2-way conversation between @superbowl and anyone else. It was even more amusing to see @MCHammer’s account activity during the game and around the time of his Cash4Gold ad spot. People seemed to really reach out to him specifically because he is so engaging via Social Media. If only a brand could capture that magic… One brand did get a LOT of mileage out of their campaign: Denny’s. It’s two days later and as of the time of this posting, people are still posting about the free Grand Slam breakfast!

Social Media Adds a Layer to the Event
Some took matters into their own hands, providing a fascinating social outlet for reactions. Just let yourself be dazzled by this amusing graphical depiction (New York Times) of some Super Bowl related keywords on Twitter during the game to see what people thought about the game.  In addition to the organic chatter on Twitter (ex: #SuperBowl, #Steelers, #Cardinals), Facebook status updates and MySpace postings, there were multiple view & vote options to share feedback and thoughts about the advertisements. The most visible seemed to be YouTube, Hulu.   Even PR 2.0 maestro Brian Solis (@briansolis) and friends (Jeremiah Owyang – @jowyang, Chris Heuer – @chrisheuer, Louis Gray – @louisgray, Jesse Stay – @jesse, and Guy Kawasaki – @guykawasaki) offered up a “Twitter Bowl” option incorporating hashtag #SuperBowlAds complete with a SocialToo poll. The big takeaway here is that there were plenty of people engaged with the event who were aching to contribute to the experience with their thoughts and ideas. These people are using Social Media to great effect to collectively share a worldwide experience with one another and to add a new and engaging layer to the broadcast experience. Think of it as “viewing in 3-D”, but without the red and blue glasses.

Room for Improvement Across the Board
We understand that not everyone will be as compelled to fire up a laptop or a mobile device in the middle of a crowded Super Bowl party, but it seems clear that there is much more that can and should be done to incorporate Social Media into Nationally broadcast events with extremely high ratings. There was not one @ reference as far as we could see throughout the pregame, in-game, or even post-game official broadcast. Most web URLs flashed by so quickly at the end of an ad, that they were easily missed and didn’t really encourage user participation. Here are just a few ideas for how the broadcasters, the brands, and even the viewing audience can improve upon this year’s toe-dip into the Social Media broadcast experience:

• Use the 30-second spots to draw users into web sites/wap sites where they spend more than :30 seconds interacting with the brand. For example, Anheuser-Busch’s newly launched http://ab-extras.com could have been mentioned, but wasn’t.

• Encourage user participation.  Some of the biggest laughs were had by those reading the constant stream of tweets from those watching the game. Incorporating this level of user-generated content (via filters…for family friendly outcomes: see NYT link for example) and feedback can absolutely enhance the broadcast. Think MTV’s TRL, then go a few steps further.

• What would Obama Do? Borrow a page from the most successful social media engagement of recent note: Obama’s campaign.  Collect people who are interested into email databases, phone databases for opted-in sms updates, deploy a FREE Super Bowl mobile app for extended commerical footage, enhanced statistics, player bios and historical information. The peak of interest in the game seemed to be during the two weeks prior to kickoff when people anticipated the game. This is the key window of opportunity to convert anticipation into participation.

• It’s been done before, but technology enables us to go further now with the cliffhanger ads that require user participation to achieve resolution. Now that mobile devices can handle video clips, brands should take advantage of new companies like Mogreet who offer the ability to deliver up to :15 second clips to opted-in users who want to further their participation in the advertisement.

We look forward to your feedback and views on the Super Bowl as it relates to Social Media. Please feel free to link to this article, borrow ideas, and share back. We’re all in this together! Perhaps next year, we’ll even experience the Super Bowl that much more collectively!

Written by: @geoffabrown

Follow #SMCLA on Twitter!
@smc_la