Biggest Superbowl Commercial Flop?

Biggest Superbowl Commercial Flop?
	SoBe Life Water 3D
	Budweiser Clydesdales
	Troy Polamalu Mean Joe Greene Coke
	Miller High Life One-Second Spots
	GoDaddy.com
	Frosted Flakes Plant A Seed
	Other (Leave Comment)
pollcode.com free polls

An interesting trend with Superbowl commercials this year was that there were advertisements for the advertisements ("Get your 3D Glasses for this years' SoBe commercial!" or "Miller running 1-second ads! Keep your eyes open.") . Even with extra hype surrounding some of these ad campaigns this year, many fell flat. Please leave your comments on which commercials you think flopped the most.

Why social networks aren’t for PR Flacks

HARO has helped thousands upon thousands of reporters push their need for content via social network. It even helped me receive some ink for Axiom, per Julio Ojeda-Zapata’s last-minute “Twitter bad for business” request. Still, in the midst of agencies’ desperation for hits to keep client retention high, PR people get a little desperate – resulting in more flacks than friends online.

While Shankman does a really good job of disclaiming proper HARO etiquette here, discussions about PR spam on social networks continue. We’re now seeing posts about proper Twittiquette, a story angle most likely perpetuated by mishaps like these. Despite the attempts to curtail the flacks, peeps like Lois Whitman-Hess are among the many that have or are in the midst of infiltrating social networks. Reporters, journalists, and sound PR peeps-- time to put on your hard hats and dig hard.

If I were a reporter, I don’t think I would appreciate the many social media enthusiasts’ attention to detail in documenting myself and the many other media now part of Twitter. If you think pitching is bad on e-mail, wait for it—just wait for it on Twitter. Sure, you can choose to respond, but the quick update feed might send your head spinning.

A marketer like me, Jim Connolly is a perfect example of how pitches on a Twitter feed can be so daunting—enough to send you packing for FriendFeed. Suddenly e-mail seems tolerable again.

Don’t undermine flacks. They understand that the key to a reporter’s heart, in addition to successfully helping them out with a story deadline, is knowing their kids’ names and favorite pastimes, commenting on their latest family adventure with Garmin, or explaining to them what #followfriday is on Twitter. Following the “thanks” or the @ reply, the leftfield pitches and follow-ups soon commence, as proper correspondence does not lie within flacks’ vocabulary. Plus, being human is even more insanely hard. Flacks are anything but human, so it’s a wonder why transparency is so time-consuming. I repeat; it’s not in their make-up, but well within Facebooker and blogger confines.

So...the next time a blogger reprimands you for not properly using Twitter, or Peter Shankman sends out a mass HARO alert with another etiquette disclaimer at the tip top of his e-mail, take it very personal. The last thing you want attached to your e-mail pitch is “flack” and BULLSH…

If you're having difficulty, check out this site

So what do you think? How can PR professionals befriend reporters on HARO and other social networks? How have you been successful in your approach?

$3,000,000 for 30 Seconds

Wanna buy a Superbowl ad?

* Word of warning - just because you have funny or memorable commercial idea does not always mean you will be successful because of it.

Millions of people will see your brand and many may remember your commercial, but not all of them want to buy a dog toy.

Here's one alternative. Here's another idea. And you should probably watch and think about this.

The world of ads is changing and not just because of a bad economy.

Art, Marketing, and Social Media

Twin Cities-based artist Phil Hansen isn't a household name yet, but don't be surprised if that soon changes. Without the big bucks in his pocket to hire fancy public relations firms or high-priced talent agents, Phil's decided to spread his own word through the use of social media.

His online influence has increased significantly since he began posting videos of his projects on Youtube and Facebook. Phil's latest series, which he's titled Art Happening, strives to be as topical and culturally relevant as possible in order to appeal to a wide range of demographics without diluting the work's fundamental essence.

It seems to be working. The Art Happening series has attracted the attention of CNN, Dr. Phil, and thousands of eager viewers and art lovers throughout the vast online community.

We spoke with Phil about his DIY approach to marketing his unique artwork, as well as the challenges, benefits, and drawbacks that come with putting your own creative vision out into the world for all to see...

Get the Most Amount of Exposure for Your Brand with the Least Amount of Money

Today's post is from our friend Jacob Morgan.

Jacob Morgan is a social media consultant and runs a team of Technical SEOs. Jacob has founded a start-up in the social media space and has worked with brands such as Adobe, Conde Nast, Sandisk and Salesforce on creating search strategies. He is an avid and passionate blogger on all things social media and marketing related. He also loves meeting and building relationships with people so say hello and let him know if he can help you. You can connect with Jacob on: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Exposure is something that every business wants. If you’re Intel or the mom and pop shop on the corner you want exposure. The difference between these two examples is that Intel can play around with a lot more money…a lot! However, if you’re a small business you can still get a lot of exposure (or if you’re a mid/large business) without spending thousands of dollars. I will preface this by saying, it does take time and effort, but it can be done. This is a high level post of three core principles that you need to follow to get the job done. Here is what you need to do:

Exist

Simple right? You have to make sure that you exist online. At the very least you need to make sure that you are showing up in search results for your brand/company name. If you need a few quick tips to do this then read my quick and easy SEO tips for creating a:

• Title tag
• Meta description
• URL structure

These 3 simple things should get you to rank for your brand/company name (provided it’s unique, and yes there is a lot more you can do for SEO). The whole point behind existing is to create a “hub” for your company, a main central site a.k.a your website.

Spread

Now that you have a central site where people can come to find information about your product and services it’s time to expand out across the social web. This means joining sites like twitter, delicious, facebook, linkedin etc. This means creating a blog (if it’s relevant) where you can post information and build trust/authority in your niche. Don’t just go out there and join every and any social network you can find. Make sure you search those networks for relevancy. Use tools such as twitter search or google alerts to identify possible communities that may exist (or perhaps people that you can just reach out to).

You also have to remember to take the same trust and authority that you are trying to build on your main site and apply it to your “spreading” sites. This means providing quality valuable content across all of your channels, no spam, no junk, and no B.S.

Here are a few ideas to help you spread:

• Offer to write guest posts for other people (blogger outreach)
• Find people on linkedin that might be able to help spread the word (PR, journalists, etc.)
• Attend offline events that are relevant to your industry
• Encourage your users to help spread the word for you
• Make your content easily shareable (do you have links on your homepage to your social media profiles?)

Aggregate

Now that you exist and you have spread across the web it’s time to bring everything together to home base. The key for all of your social media efforts isn’t to get more friends on facebook or followers on twitter, the key is to get yourself exposure. This means sharing yourself across your social media channels and driving all of that traffic and community to your site.

Here are a few ideas to aggregate:

• Cross-link your social media profiles and site. This means put a link to your website in your twitter profile, put a link to your twitter profile on your facebook page, create an email signature with your links
• If you write a blog post then tweet about it and put it up on facebook (etc.) get the word out
• Once people visit your site you should provide an easy way for them to become repeat visitors. Offer an RSS subscription service and an email subscription service.
• Create a newsletter that will offer users unique content that only you offer
• If your community grows create your own ning site (free)
• Give your users the opportunity to guest post on your site
• Hold promotions or contests on your site (that you let people know about through your other social media sites).

This is obviously a large topic with a lot of room for expansion and discussion, but do what you can to follow these three principles and you should notice a strong increase in your site exposure. Have any other tips you want to share? Was this valuable to you?

Thanks for reading!