I recently came across the 2011 CMO's Guide to The Social Landscape. I think this is pretty on target when it comes to figuring out how to best align your goal with the right social media channel. However, with multiple goals and channels, it can get tough to maintain a consistent brand. Your brand may come off as disjointed or fragmented, leaving customers filled with doubt about what exactly your brand stands for and where the value is, thus negating all your hard social media work. Mashable posted their 5 Tips for Maintaining Brand Consistency Across Social Media. I agree with a couple, but not sold on all of them. Below are some additional tips that can help give your brand one voice.

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Google just re-launched it's realtime search results with a new look, URL , and features. Some key improvements include the ability to search by location or source (Twitter-only, for example), conversation view - giving you the all the buzz from start to realtime, and realtime alerts based on your chosen search terms and delivered up to the minute, daily, or weekly.

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Twitter has become one of the best ways to spread the word about your new business and increase exposure across markets. With such a flexible tool, it's easy to abuse such a strategy and consequently turn its power against you. Of course there are no Twitter speed limits, yield signs, or stoplights to control the speed and accuracy of your social media campaign. But as for any newly developed open market, there is a natural etiquette that emerges and continues to grow.

I've compiled a list of Do's and Don'ts from my own experience that may help in growing your follower crowd. Slackers be warned: this is not a get rich quick scheme. If you're looking to grab several thousand followers in a day and don't care who you pick up along the way (spam, robots, etc.) then there are tools out there for you. The following list is how to attract valuable followers that could potentially become customers. This "helicopter tour" list can grow and morph with time, so I encourage feedback and input.

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Have you played with this yet? It's sort of like Twitter + Facebook + FourSquare / Gowalla. Interesting concept, it's built on the back of the "like" and "share" integration with Google Reader that was introduced awhile back.

You've seen the "Drive-Thru Diet" commercials from Taco Bell, right? It's a perfect example of what happens when a company loses its brand focus. What is it that people love about Taco Bell? Words like "late night," "delicious," and "guilty pleasure" come to mind. According to Zeta Buzz, the most common words surrounding Taco Bell in the online space were once "favorite," "delicious," and "love." (AdAge source). Then the Drive-Thru Diet happened.

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As you know, Facebook recently changed its privacy policy. What you may not know, is this seeming act of goodwill is actually a pretty sketchy effort to make user information even more public. There is definitely value in the change; but the roll-out of those changes, and the accompanying spin, is (for me) disconcerting. 

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Yesterday's Middle School Marketing meeting focused on something we talk about a lot: social media monitoring. Long-time attendee Wendy Scherer of The Social Studies Group kicked things off with a brief presentation that highlighted pros and cons of various monitoring tools.

No one argued that there are a number of tools available for monitoring brand(s) on the web. The trick, however, is find those that work best for you.  Key take aways from our discussion included:

• Set Up is Key: Regardless of the tool, time is required to set tools up so they're meaningful. The old, "junk in, junk out" phrase seems to apply; the time invested upfront will surely pay off later.  
• Time Commitment Required: As with any monitoring tool, time is required to review and analyze data. Similarly, it's not just about the information tools provide, it's what you do with the information that sets you and your social media strategy apart. 
• Sentiment Stinks: Overarching consensus was that no tool does a "great" job getting sentiment right. Human review is still needed. Tools like Open Amplify seem to be making headway, but we weren't convinced it replaced good ol' fashioned human review.
• No Tool Does Everything Well: Each tool has strengths and weaknesses. Some might be great at blogs and Twitter, but lacking on general media clips; others might provide in-depth data, but not sexy charts and graphs. Long story short: you'll likely need more than one tool to get all the data you need. 

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Nissan recently put their hat in the ring of energy-efficient vehicles with their announcement of the 100% electric, zero-emissions Nissan LEAF. (To be fair, they’ve had an Altima Hybrid since 2007 but the technology is licensed from Toyota). As is the case for many hybrid and electric vehicles, a key part of the message is centered around technology. In fact, it’s the technology that auto manufacturers are hedging their bets on. A quick read of Nissan’s initial press release for the LEAF yields tech phrases from “laminated compact lithium-ion batteries” to “exclusive advanced IT system”. One way to try and communicate that you're on the bleeding edge of technology is by engaging consumers through the latest popular communication channels.

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This weekend Matt Dickman, Paul Isakson, and Seth Godin wrote three excellent posts along the same vein that are worth checking out. We wrote a few similar posts recently, so I thought I'd aggregate them for your reading pleasure. Here's the theme:

Strategies should never be limited by the toolset. Yes, toolsets can inspire good ideas but, once again, we should start strategic planning by asking questions like,

“What will truly involve the user? How do we connect them with our brand? How do we connect with them? How do we improve their lives? How do we surprise them? How can we help them overcome their problem? How do we achieve our/their goals?”

The problem occurs when we start with tactics - when we start by asking questions such as, "How should we use Twitter?" As Godin puts it,

In my experience, people get obsessed about tactical detail before they embrace a strategy... and as a result, when a tactic fails, they begin to question the strategy that they never really embraced in the first place.

Enjoy the posts:

• When Tactics Drown Out Strategy - Seth Godin
• Want Better Digital Strategy, Ban Seven Dirty Words - Matt Dickman
• Fish Where the Fish Are...Or Not - Paul Isakson
• Ideas Should Drive Tactics. Tactics Shouldn't Drive Ideas - Josh Chambers
• Don't Let Tactics Supplant Creativity - Josh Chambers
• Establishing Your Brand's Message Before Jumping into Social Media - Anjali Merchant

Augmented Reality is getting a lot of play. Why? Because it's awesome. It's changing the way we interact with our surroundings, and don't you get the sense that it represents the edge of a technological brink? Sort of like what the Piano Key Necktie was for fashion. Soon we'll be in a new technological world. I imagine 30 years from now when younger generations are making fun of these lame augmented reality apps...

What if you could literally try on clothes via the web? What if you could take a car for a test drive? What if you could view your next guitar up close and personal?

What it's really doing is opening up data in a way that provides real value well beyond charts and graphs. It brings data to life - and we are in a world packed full of data...so much data we don't know what to do with. It reminds me a bit like the Infographics trend we're seeing - people are trying to make sense of all this data!

Here are a few links worth reading, and (to-date) my two favorite AR concepts.

Ikea

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I grew up in a family where "buying American" was expected. My parents both had American cars for as long as I can remember. My uncles were "gear heads" and dismissed foreign cars when Hondas and Toyotas were popular and made more economic sense. Friends in high school rebuilt classic cars like '57 Chevys and '67 Nova's. And, even though my first car was a '67 VW Fastback (dad has a soft spot for classic VWs), 2 years later I got a Ford Explorer.

Like so many others, I'm REALLY pulling for GM. That's probably why I was so bummed to see the new Chevy VoltAge social site.

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The title pretty much sums it up.

Want to know how to use Twitter? Flickr? Facebook? Social Media Tool X? PPC? SEO? Don't start with the tool, start with an idea.

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Most Fridays here at Viget, someone has an opportunity to present on just about anything (including hockey fighting), but mostly it’s on industry trends. I presented this last Friday and thought I'd pass it along for anyone who is interested (there are a few slides missing that were specific to Viget; but you'll get the picture).

The concept of “Branded Utility” isn’t new (we wrote about it here and here), but it's still in its infancy and by no means has it been widely accepted, or widely disseminated -- we're hoping to help change both of those things! Enjoy the slideshare!

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This week’s MSM kicked off with a great question from Matt Smith of SmithGifford: is Twitter the ultimate form of emotional branding?

Some went on to argue that from a rational standpoint, Twitter might not make much sense since it doesn’t directly generate ROI, however emotionally it was huge. With Twitter, consumers feel more connected to a brand. Plus, aside from a resource cost, there is no other cost, so why not be on Twitter?

On the other hand, some argued that there IS a tangible ROI. Take Dell for example, who claims that Twitter has helped to bring in $3MM in sales thus far.

As always, however, with good comes bad. In the case of Twitter it’s risk. One negative @reply about your brand and you could be destroyed. Well, maybe not destroyed, but it could certainly sting a little.

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Yup, it's true. Google will now be inserting (or, at least, testing)Tweets into AdSense advertisements. The first company to participate in the alpha testing was Intuit's TurboTax. My initial reaction to the news ranged from "No way will this work" to, "Maybe...?" to, "This disgusts me" to, "I respect the effort"... and I still haven't seen it in action. Marketing Voices Podcast has an interview with Intuit’s director of online advertising and internet media, Seth Greenberg (which you can listen to below),  and, despite my initial reservations, I found myself impressed with Intuit's approach,and Seth's attitude towards what he calls the "test."

"We're not changing the way we talk ... we're not optimizing for broadcasting, we're optimizing for individual relationship ... we're not trying to buy followers, we're just trying put out the same message that you probably wouldn't see in other channels."

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