The global Social Media Week Conference dominated buzz in the digital world this week, with some of the foremost players in the space joining forces in New York (and in the five other host cities) to discuss the most hot-button issues in social. We were honored to be a part of it all as speakers and as global Communications Partner. Here’s a quick look at what we said – and saw – during Social Media Week 2010.

360i Event Coverage:

• Networked News Gatherers Panel Share How Social Editors Work: David Berkowitz recapped a panel on defining the social media editor role and how the pervasiveness of social media is changing the relationship between news consumers and journalists.
• Social Media & the Haiti Disaster: How the Social Boom Has (And Hasn’t) Changed the News Media: This session focused on how social media influences the way breaking news is both presented and consumed during times of crisis. 360i’s Izzy Forman brought us key takeaways from the panel, which included (among others) Ann Curry of the Today Show and Rob Mackey of the New York Times.
• A Tweet for a Vote? The Role of Social Media in the Bloomberg ’09 Campaign: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2009 campaign for re-election received a significant boost from digital marketing strategies, specifically in the realm of social media. Katie Perry covered the session, which was led by Bloomberg’s Chief Online Strategist Jonah Seiger.
• The Future of Space and Time: Techies, Normals and the Location-Based Revolution: Danielle Nuzzo covered Wired.com’s “Future of Space and Time” panel, which focused on how emerging location-based platforms will evolve the relationships between brands and consumers.
• Four Questions Not Asked about Social Graph Optimization: David Berkowitz presented some of the questions he wasn’t able to cover as moderator on Meebo’s Social Graph Optimization panel, including how real-time search fits into the equation.
• Leave Your Smartphones at the Door: Humanizing Social Media with IDEO: Amanda Bird and Mae Karwowski reported on IDEO’s social experiment event, which challenged the ways in which we relate to each other via social channels. Does “tagging” one another lead to deeper relationships? Or are we simply identifying similarities?
• Reporting on Reporting: The Evolution of Journalism at Mashable’s NextUp NYC: Matt Wurst covered Mashable’s “Future Journalist” event, which focused on how the Web is shaping journalism — and how current (and future) journalists should adapt to the changing times.

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Stay tuned for more coverage today on Digital Culture NYC: Breaking Down the Walls (MOMA), Unleashing Social Media on the Sports World and McGraw-Hill’s Digital Innovation event. You can read these articles and more on the Social Media Week New York blog.

360i Speakers at SMW:

David Berkowitz, Sr. Director of Emerging Media & Innovation

• What’s Next? Social Media in 2010 (Feb. 3): David Berkowitz joined this Social Media Club panel focusing on which trends, tools and technologies will emerge in the coming months. When crafting a social media strategy, he pointed out that goals, assets, rules and value are paramount.
• Social Graph Optimization, Sponsored by Meebo (Feb. 3): Consumers interact with their social graphs in a range of ways. How can brands reach, and ultimately, engage these networks at scale? David moderated a discussion that focused on how marketers can and should connect with consumers via the social graph.
• EventCamp NYC (Feb. 6): David will kick off this Saturday’s event with an opening session (”How to Change the World: A Good Guide to Social Media Marketing”).

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Orli Sharaby, Sr. Social Marketing Strategist – Lifestyle
Fashion Goes Social at #SMWNYC (Feb. 2): Orli Sharaby joined a panel of Fashion 2.0 experts for “The Devil Wears Prada & Tweets About It.” Conversation topics included how aspiring designers can leverage social to grow their brand, rising concerns about blogger integrity and the place of fashion bloggers at runway shows.

You can read the official SMW blog post by Amanda Rykoff (@amandarykoff) for the details of what was covered there, including what social graph optimization really means (I’m not as convinced as some panelists that we need this as a discipline separate from social media optimization), what marketers need to measure, and where mobile location-based services fit in. That last discussion was inspired by @BukolaE, who’s not even in New York City currently but participated via social media. If you’re so inclined you can catch the whole session’s video.

As SMW host Toby Daniels (@tobyd) acknowledged, the panel lasted a good 75 minutes and could have gone far longer. There were a number of questions I didn’t get to ask as a moderator, and the audience had some questions we couldn’t cover. I’ll share the questions here, along with my stab at responses. I’d welcome hearing your answers in the comments or via Twitter (I’m @dberkowitz and we’re at @360i).

1) Seth from Meebo kicked off the session with a parallel between search engine optimization and social graph optimization. So is there white hat and black hat social graph optimization?

Both versions definitely exist, and it would have been fun getting into this. Looking at black hat SGO in particular, you can buy Facebook fans and Twitter followers. You can engage in pay-per-tweet campaigns. You can even game search engines through social media, as my colleague Mike Dobbs described in his post on ‘doorway tweets.’ Yet with social media, the demand for authenticity is far greater; you – whether you’re a person or a brand – really have to be who you say you are and do what you’ll say you do. The standards are higher, and they should be, as it’s ultimately about people, not clicks and traffic.

2) The entire discussion around SGO was about earned media, even while held in the office of a nearly 150-year-old advertising agency. Does paid media play a role in social graph optimization?

There definitely is a paid media or advertising component that can and often should be a part of it. For instance, part of social graph optimization is getting your target audience to take actions that wind up being broadcast to their networks. One way on Facebook this works is to build fans, as the action of becoming a fan will show up in their contacts’ live feeds. When launching a new page, paid media can help jumpstart those actions, even if most of the fan activity ultimately comes from earned media.

3) Rafael Bonnelly, in town from Madrid, asked over Twitter, “Do you think social graph optimization levels the field between large companies and small businesses?”

The short answer: no. You do have small businesses that are incredibly nimble, entrepreneurial, and smart with social media. Just look at the Roger Smith Hotel as an example, as represented by Brian Simpson on the Social Media Club NYC panel earlier that day. But large companies with big brands have a number of advantages: most importantly their brands, but also the potential for cross-disciplined team approaches, budgets, and access to a lot of the best talent out there. Certain small businesses will be able to compete in any niche and vertical, but they’ll be the exception.

4) Finally, schudnoff tweeted: I hope they touch upon the change that real time search will bring to how one best goes about optimizing the social graph.

Okay, we didn’t touch on this – I’ll take the blame for that. The difference real-time search will make is that will allow for real-time social graph optimization. That brings pros and cons for marketers: the pros are the opportunities, while the cons are the pressure to act immediately and the lack of focus that can arise when everything needs to happen in the moment.

That’s just my take though. Perhaps the panelists and others will chime in with more.

Mayor Bloomberg tweets alongside Twitter creator Jack Dorsey (image by davidall via Flickr)

Social marketing programs have proven their worth in driving sales (@DellOutlet), building loyalty (Coca-Cola’s Facebook page) and improving customer service (@comcastcares) – but in the throes of a complex political campaign, what is the worth of social engagement?

If done right, it just might be the difference between victory and defeat.

The evidence? Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2009 mayoral campaign, in which he won by just over 50,000 votes. Jonah Seiger (@jonahseiger), Chief Online Strategist for Bloomberg ’09 and Managing Partner at Connections Media LLC, shared the social strategies that ultimately bolstered the then-incumbent’s road to re-reelection at a Tuesday Social Media Week event hosted by ClickZ and the Personal Democracy Forum.

Victory Tweet: @mikebloomberg responds to the win.

Seiger admits that social media, though not necessarily the linchpin component, played a crucial role in Bloomberg’s eventual victory. To illustrate this point, he walked us through a series of calculations:

• According to what Seiger calls “conservative” estimates, there are +/- 3 million people in New York City’s social media sphere.
• Seiger estimates his team’s efforts had a 10 percent share of voice during the campaign – that is, 1-in-10 people using social media saw someone they knew say they were voting for Bloomberg.
• 10 percent of the +/- 3 million estimate totals 36,720 voters, per Seiger’s estimates; however, he argued that people active in social media, these “online political citizens” tend to participate at a much higher degree than average voters.
• Based on this, he estimates that social media drove roughly 85,000 votes for Bloomberg on Election Day.

“From the top of the campaign [Bloomberg] down to the volunteers, digital was embraced in a way I’ve never seen before,” Seiger said. “There was an awareness of the importance of digital as a communications and engagement channel.”

Seiger, who also worked on Bloomberg’s 2005 mayoral campaign, said his team weaved social media into a broader digital strategy that encompassed web design, display media and paid search. These components, in turn, were “integrated within the larger campaign strategy,” he said.

• Campaign Web site – Infused rich media and included a “bottom bar” that provided an engagement option on every sub-page. The site provided more opportunity for engagement via Facebook Connect. About 40 percent of site traffic was organic (funneled from social media and natural search).
• Display media – Included rich content and links the Mayor’s YouTube channel. Seiger said YouTube plays totaled 224,000 during the campaign, or the equivalent of about 450K views of 30-second TV spots.
• Paid search – Search ads appearing on the engines drove traffic to the Bloomberg’s Twitter feed (@mikebloomberg) and Facebook page. For example, if someone searched “Twitter” from the NY metro area, they would see a sponsored ad promoting @mikebloomberg.

The social aspect of the digital program was especially impactful. The number of people fanning and following Bloomberg on Facebook and Twitter reached 40,000 by campaign end (that number is nearly 42K at present). Though this number pales in comparison to Starbucks’ count of roughly 6 million between the two social networks, it is staggering when compared to that of Bloomberg’s competitor, Bill Thompson, whose combined total was about 6,300.

Supporters engaged with the Mayor’s team via Facebook.

Here are some key takeaways regarding the campaign’s use of social media:

*Tweets and Facebook updates came from the campaign itself (not Bloomberg personally) and Seiger’s team “made no pretenses that mike Bloomberg was personally tweeting.” That aside, Seiger said Bloomberg’s personal interest in technology and social media led to times in which the mayor himself tweeted from the account: a designated day during the campaign and on Nov. 3.

*Seiger’s team estimates there were 31 million second-degree followers of @mikebloomberg (followers of his followers). Of this number, they calculate that 11 percent were NYC residents. For Seiger, these geographical insights were key. “The intelligence garnered from Twitter traffic shows what themes or trends are bubbling out of certain communities,” he said. “Twitter is moving more toward geo-location, and this will become important for the execution of social media in politics.”

*The campaign utilized hashtags (like #yankees, #brooklyn and #jobs) to tap into relevant conversations already occurring among NY-based Twitter users.

*A “Tweet Out the Vote” push allowed Bloomberg supporters to voice their advocacy with the ease of a click. Re-tweets of this message by Twitter power users like @jack and @craignewmark added further momentum. This strategy was mirrored on Facebook by inviting people to donate their status to Bloomberg’s cause.

*A core component of the strategy was inspiring and maintaining two-way conversations on Twitter and Facebook. “Social media is as much about listening as it is about talking,” Seiger said. “Talking back is especially important.”

*Seiger also noted the importance of supplementing organic/word of mouth promotion for a Facebook page with paid advertising. When asked if he would agree that advertising should be utilizing to gain fans, Seiger was in “adamant” agreement. “Any legitimate social media strategy necessarily includes online advertising as a component,” he said.

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ClickZ’s Kate Kaye , who spearheaded the launch of the site’s Politics & Advocacy section, also contributed to the discussion. For further reading check out Kaye’s recent analysis that breaks down the Bloomberg campaign’s digital spend in the context of overall media spend.

This post was originally published on the Social Media Week New York blog.

Image by nicksayers via Flickr

Everything you need to know about social media measurement was covered in 45 minutes at MediaPost’s OMMA Social event in San Francisco last week.OK, that’s not entirely true, but the five panelists I had the honor of moderating covered a lot of ground. They probably could tell you everything that matters — if you gave them just a little more time to do so. There is a lot of ground to cover, as you might have inferred from my column on 100 ways to measure social media.

Instead of trying to rehash the session, I’m letting the panelists share their thoughts in their own words. Below are a series of questions that I either asked during the session, I planned on asking, or the audience asked. Note that I shortened this version somewhat for readability; the “director’s cut” is on my blog.

The panelists included:

• Carla Bourque, VP of Sales and Business Development, Six Apart
• Steve Kerho, SVP, Analytics, Media & Marketing Optimization, Organic, Inc.
• Amber Naslund, Director of Community, Radian6
• Bill Stephenson, VP, Social Media Sales & Client Service, Nielsen Online
• Jim Sterne, President, Target Marketing of Santa Barbara

Not everyone was able to get their answers in before the deadline, but Carla, Bill, and Jim have all shared their candid thoughts below.

When a marketer wants to know what the value is of a Facebook fan, a Twitter follower, or a blog commenter, what do you tell them?

Jim:  It’s much more than a person on the freeway not looking at your billboard or the person in the bathroom while your TV ad blathers into an empty room. On the other hand, once you link reach and awareness to conversion, you can do the math and tell me.

Bill: Placing a specific value on a fan or follower or commenter is a slippery slope.  At Nielsen, we believe the best currency to use when valuing fans, followers, commenters, etc., is advocacy.  This is a metric that can be calculated across most social networking sites and one that most large companies can relate to and value, based on their unique industry, product, transaction price, etc.

Carla: The “value” of a fan is directly related to the relationship that that fan has with the brand, and with the broader audience of influencers.  Fans may have a certain value today based on their level of engagement – but they can be even more valuable if you keep them engaged and leverage them as a source for advocacy.  Engagement, Amplification, and Equity are the three highly connected measures for determining value.

Do you see attribution models playing a role in social marketing?

Jim: Absolutely. Marketers need to know if they should invest 30% of their social budget in blogs, 10% in tweets and 50% in Facebook — or 10% in blogs and 50% in tweets and 30% in Facebook. Without attribution, there’s only deciding by guess, by God and by gut feel. Oh  — and by last year’s (now useless) results of course.

Bill: The best marketers are taking an enterprise approach to measuring social media, recognizing that near real-time, voice-of-the-consumer affects all aspects of the business, from customer service to marketing to public relations and corporate communications, to design, quality and the retail experience.

Carla: Yes. While certain industry segments are embracing the use of attribution models as a way to measure influential points across advertising channels, the most accurate results have been when attribution models have been applied to the search industry. As these models develop and gain greater adoption, their role in accurately measuring social media will also increase.

Via the audience (Faisal Laljee): With social media, messages and content can spread many degrees from the source. How far can and should marketers track these ripple effects?

Jim:  As far as you can  — within reason. If the seventh forward or retweet brings in buckets of money, that is very valuable to know… unless it costs a ridiculous amount of cash to find out.

Bill: The dispersion of social media about your company, products, executives, issues, etc. should be measured continually as it ebbs and flows from one network to the next, from one influencer to the next. At Nielsen, we’ve seen social media catastrophes start with a decidedly non-influential consumer and then get picked up by an influential blogger or other influencer.

Carla: Depending on marketers’ objectives, and the type of audience they are trying to reach, the level of analysis will vary.  Messages and content can spread widely, and often even beyond the proverbial six degrees.   Understanding how and when content dissipates, and which forms of content gain momentum, can deliver valuable insights to inform a marketer’s publishing strategy.

What needs more improvement right now: the technological tools that marketers use, or the way marketers and agencies use them and analyze the information?

Jim: We have far more technology and waaaaay more data than we know what to do with. What we need is technology that can identify what we should be looking at rather than throwing more reports at us.

Bill: The technology is out there but there is a lag in standard Key Performance Indicators and a common currency that companies across industries can use and leverage.

Carla: Both. The technology and tools are still somewhat nascent, as are the metrics and approaches for utilizing them.  The more marketers and agencies can embrace a “test and learn” approach to social media measurement, the more our industry can adopt measurement standards and best practices.

Via Twitter (smcatl): When is predictive analysis going to become part of social media return on investment (ROI) considerations?

Jim: ROI is a backward-looking concept and predictive analytics is a forward-looking technique. Predictive methods are being applied by scrappy start-ups as we speak. Stay tuned!!

Bill: Predictive analysis is already part of social media ROI, but it’s more of a niche metric because it is difficult to calculate and the data needed to calculate isn’t always easy to get.

Carla: See above re: emerging metrics — “test and learn.” All in good time!

This article was originally published on MediaPost’s Social Media Insider blog

Social Media Week kicks off today in six cities across globe, including right here in New York. 360i is proud to be a part of the action as official Communications Partner for the week. Be sure to check the SMW blog all this week to read our coverage of some of the more than 50 events taking place in New York through Saturday.

In addition, we’ll be speaking at a number of events. Here’s a quick rundown of where you can find us:

• Tuesday, Feb. 2 — Fashion Goes Social: The Devil Wears Prada & Tweets About It
  Speaker: Orli Sharaby, Sr. Social Marketing Strategist – Lifestyle at 360i
• Wednesday, Feb. 3 — How to Use Social Media in 2010
  Speaker: David Berkowitz, Sr. Director of Emerging Media & Innovation at 360i
• Wednesday, Feb. 3 — Social Graph Optimization, Sponsored by Meebo
  Speaker: David Berkowitz
• Saturday, Feb. 6 – EventCamp NYC 2010
  Speaker: David Berkowitz

Follow @socialmediaweek, @smwny and @360i for live updates all week long.

Behold the iPad: Apple’s new tablet debuted this week (image via Mashable).

What a week. Steve Jobs revealed Apple’s much-anticipated tablet, the iPad, to the world, location-based services continued to be main topics of conversation and we at 360i began a new chapter in our journey. We’ve got your complete recap below.

Marketers Predict Big Things from Apple’s New Tablet

On Wednesday Apple debuted its newest gadget – the iPad – poised to rival Amazon’s Kindle, the Sony Reader and similar products. The iPad, which resembles an oversized iPhone, is what Steve Jobs calls a “third category of device” – a fusion of a phone and a netbook. The new tablet features a number of bells and whistles: YouTube HD capability, Google Maps, a sleek music player, photo programs and even a compass, should you ever need it.

The marketer implications for this product are huge. In addition to being able to run classic iPhone apps, iPad comes with a new app, iBooks, which features literature from some of the world’s largest publishers. Forbes’ Laurie Burkitt also points out that the new device will provide more opportunities for marketers to engage with consumers via multimedia content. For example, someone using the pad to watch their favorite TV show could theoretically tap an object on the screen to get more information.

David Berkowitz, Sr. Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy right here at 360i, told Forbes that forms of advertising that have lost their luster (think catalogs and the like) could see a resurgence thanks to the iPad. “Everything has the potential to be more interactive and will be able to give a richer experience,” he said.

There are lots of big questions in terms of how it will compete with other media people consume and other devices they use. This could potentially compete with the iPhone, desktop computers and e-reader devices like the Kindle. The marketing opportunities are ripe for entertainment brands; they’ll lead the way by capitalizing on the iPad’s opportunities for video and gaming experiences, which supersede any from Apple’s other portable devices.

Loopt, AT&T and Twitter Get in the Geo-Social Game

There were a number of announcements regarding new location-based services. To start, we found out that Loopt is working on a new deal-based app, LooptCard, which will reward consumers for checking in to various businesses. Loopt innovates this feature by offering custom deal options for marketers (i.e. deals based on time of day). And there’s more: TechCrunch reports that the app will be built “entirely on top of Facebook’s social graph.”

SearchEngineLand reports that AT&T plans to launch Buzz.com, a Yelp-like Web site that will allow people to read and provide recommendations about local businesses. It works like this: users can poll their friends, or designated “experts” for advice on businesses in their area. On a mobile device, the user could even narrow results based on where they are at the given moment.

Finally, Twitter began testing its new Local Trends feature this week. Local Trends narrows top trending topics based on a user’s location. For now these parameters include only a handful of countries and cities – but Twitter is working on providing more locations soon.

Want more news from the location-based space? Be sure to read David Berkowitz’s newest Social Media Insider column on the various ways to check in and check out via geo-social platforms.

360i & Dentsu: A New Chapter in Our Journey

Tuesday marked a big day in 360i’s eleven year history as Dentsu, one of the world’s most renowned advertising companies, acquired 360i along with sister companies SearchIgnite and Netmining. Dentsu presented us with a wonderful opportunity to increase the value we provide to clients. At the same time, they have partnered with us to maintain the management style, culture of innovation and entrepreneurial spirit that have defined us to date. 360i CEO Bryan Wiener addressed the news in a letter published to the blog this week.

Foursquare: The Ashton Kutcher of location-based apps?

I have a confession to make. On more than one occasion over the past several weeks, I’ve excused myself at several restaurants to go to the bathroom to indulge my guilty little habit. My wife tolerates it, but it’s taking a toll on my social life, and getting addicted once makes it all too easy for it to happen again.I’m referring, of course (ahem), to location-based mobile social networking applications. I’ve been playing with eight of them lately: Buzzd, CauseWorld, Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, MyTown, Whrrl, and Yelp. These apps all offer ways to find friends, local hot spots, and often both, and they’re increasingly incorporating location-based advertising.

I have mixed feelings about the overall craze. I’ve discovered friends near me through these apps, and I’ve learned about local destinations. Yet it can get antisocial; I’ve discreetly checked in under restaurant tables across the country. And when I’ve really wanted to be discreet, yes, I’ve done it in the bathroom. It gets to be a problem when you start interacting with the apps so much that you’re not interacting with the people in front of you.

After weeks of using some of these and months of using others, I’ve provided a rundown of how these apps differentiate themselves. To bring them to life for those who aren’t actively using them, I’ve paired each app with a celebrity that personifies it. Note that all references below are to the latest iPhone versions, and the corresponding links go to the iTunes store.

Buzzd: Lindsay Lohan

Buzzd doesn’t give a bleep if you’re in JFK or the grocery store. It wants to tell you what’s hot and where the A-listers are. Are you the party girl — or the paparazzi? Take a spin with Buzzd, which remains far safer than hanging out with Lohan, since you probably won’t wind up in a rehab clinic by sunrise. Buzzd is a little too cool for me so I don’t use it as much as the others, but if you’re more into bottle service than cupcake trucks, party on.

CauseWorld: Lance Armstrong

I dare you to say something bad about Lance Armstrong. Come on, the guy has won more Tour de Frances than, well, whoever has won the second most Tour de Frances, and now he’s become one of the best known faces of philanthropy. CauseWorld may not be as much of a name brand as Armstrong, but it’s just as much the do-gooder. Every time you check in somewhere, largely at retailers and restaurants, you earn karma points that you can donate to a number of charities, all thanks to sponsors. The appeal here is all about the charity rather than finding your friends.

Foursquare: Ashton Kutcher

Foursquare’s the red-hot celebrity trailblazer. Just like Ashton keeps doing things his own way, from popularizing the cougar craze to starting his own production company, Foursquare is responsible for a lot of how we think about mobile social media, from “merit” badges to local advertising. Foursquare may not be as mainstream as Ashton, but Ashton likes hanging with the geeks and cool kids now anyway. It’s tough to say how well Foursquare will play to the masses, as the whole idea of checking in creeps some people out. I still like using it to see if I know people at certain venues, but a lot of the fun of the badges has started to wear off.

Gowalla: Anna Kendrick

You might be thinking, “Anna who?” That’s the reaction I still get when talking about Gowalla, even as it racks up investments and increases its global appeal. Kendrick is the younger female lead in “Up in the Air” with that breakthrough performance, and Gowalla is also adorable in its own way with a big opportunity ahead. I like the gaming aspect of it, where you find virtual objects in various locations, and you drop objects of your own to claim spots as a founder. And as Kendrick isn’t just a pretty face but brings credible acting chops to her roles, Gowalla has its own talents with locating you and keeping you honest. You can only check in if you’re really at or close to a location, something Foursquare doesn’t require.

Loopt: Mark-Paul Gosselaar, circa “Saved by the Bell”

You remember Gosselaar. He was an adorable kid during the “Saved by the Bell” middle school years and then became the heartthrob in high school. But his popularity faded when they tried stretching the show to college. I fear the same is happening to Loopt. Sure, it was in Apple’s ads for awhile and may have a passionate fan base. But it seems short on features compared to its competition. During its “college” phase now, it’s the one I keep forgetting about. Remember though, “Zack Morris” returned to rave reviews in “NYPD Blue” and even played Broadway in a successful run; Loopt still could have a strong second act ahead.

MyTown by Booyah: Ellen DeGeneres

MyTown has the most fun with location-based checkins. It’s bright and cheery, and you can’t help but get caught up with how much fun it’s having — not unlike watching Ellen do her little dance routines. In MyTown, you buy properties and upgrade them, and then you keep collecting rent while finding new items to boost your points (writing this reminded me that my rent was due). And just like Ellen has done alright making a living off of her shtick, the latest version of MyTown includes various game boosts for sale, both for real dollars and virtual treasure. I spent $1.99 for a pack of “leaderboard wins” that increased my points, and I may have to shell out a bit more. Its popularity is on the rise; TechCrunch reported this month it’s bigger than Foursquare and Gowalla.

Whrrl: Dame Helen Mirren

Whrrl’s not the newest or the hottest of the apps, and it’s been around awhile relative to some of the others. It’s more of the artiste, like Dame Mirren, and a bit of a shape-shifter who myou can’t always recognize. Whrrl has been through a number of changes in its career, but it remains focused on storytelling, and does the most to encourage sharing captioned photos of where you are. It’s not a must-use for me, but I like how it practices its craft, including telling you the most popular spots people go after checking in where you are. Expect more innovation to come from it.

Yelp: Michael Jordan — on the Chicago White Sox

Yelp’s a monster when it comes to review apps, dominating its field. It has the chance to be the Michael Jordan (Chicago Bulls style) of review sites, if it doesn’t get crushed by Google. But now it’s trying a new game, adding check-ins. While users love it for reviews, the notion of checking in is not part of its core purpose. I found myself checking in for the sake of doing so, not because I particularly enjoyed it. Still, when I used Facebook Connect to find which friends were using it, I added dozens of connections instantly, giving me more of a network there than on any other such app.

I’m not getting rid of any of these apps just yet, and I’m sure I’ll wind up trying others. But I won’t need to check in at every place at every venue, as I’d rather make the most of the time with the people in front of me rather than earning points for broadcasting my whereabouts to others. If the habit’s so bad I can’t do it at the dinner table, I’m better off not practicing it.

This article was originally published in MediaPost’s Social Media Insider.

Dentsu presented us with a wonderful opportunity to increase the value we provide to our clients by granting an increased global presence, enhanced technology investments and expanded, integrated capabilities. At the same time, Dentsu has partnered with us to maintain the management style, culture of innovation and entrepreneurial spirit that have defined our company to date. We will continue to run our agency in this way within the Dentsu family. You can read the official announcement here.

As we embark on this new and exciting chapter in our company’s just-over ten year history, we will continue to offer forward-thinking solutions to our clients and retain and recruit more great people for our growing team along the way. While we look forward to exploring each of the far-reaching benefits this new synergy has to offer, our chief objective and focus at 360i remains unchanged – to best serve our clients and to relentlessly pursue innovation and the emerging opportunities that will meet their business objectives. We are confident that this move makes us better equipped than ever to deliver on that promise.

As always, you can follow our journey and thoughts here on Digital Connections and of course on Twitter @360i.

Warm regards,
Bryan Wiener
CEO, 360i

Kodak’s channel on Seesmic look (click to enlarge image)

This week in digital included the debut of a Twitter client like you’ve never seen before, new Facebook analytics tools for Page administrators, a study that showcases the growth of social marketing investment and more. We recap the top stories from the last seven days below. Quick plug: If you’re not following @360i on Twitter, today’s a good day to start. We’ll be posting some of our newest job listings in vein with our #findajobfriday tradition.

Seesmic Debuts New “Look” Platform

Seesmic announced its newest platform, Seesmic Look, on Thursday. CEO Loic Le Meur told ReadWriteWeb that the easy-to-use Twitter client represents an innovative step forward from other products (like TweetDeck) in that it’s tailored to more mainstream Twitter users. In addition to boasting a sleeker-than-sleek design, Seesmic makes Twitter more organized by aggregating lists of Twitter accounts by topic. Users can then peruse the various channels for up-to-the-minute news and entertainment.

The channel feature, and perhaps even more so a feature called “Seesmic Looks,” provides tremendous opportunities for brands – if consumers embrace it. The latter function allows marketers to customize their own branded channels. Current partners include Red Bull, Kodak and Ford, among others. You can read more about the opportunities for marketers in our recent post: Seesmic Courts Brands and Your Mom – Will Either Bite?.

Google Offers New Mobile Targeting Options

Google AdWords announced this week that it’s now offering new targeting options for mobile ads. The new feature lets advertisers target specific mobile devices or carriers. For example, you can choose to deliver ads to all users, or hone in on Android users, iPhone/iPod Touch Users, Palm users or any combination of the three. You can also choose any combination of mobile providers, including A&T, Verizon, Sprint and other major carriers.

Search Engine Land notes that the new feature is especially useful for marketers wanting to reach users with specific messaging related to their device and/or carrier. This seems to be yet another move on Google’s part to innovate the mobile space. For more mobile, see David Berkowitz’s Mobile Outlook from this year’s CES event.

Facebook’s New Post Insights Feature Goes Live

Facebook’s newest feature for Pages – a product called Post Insights – educates administrators on the reach and engagement for each story they post on the page. AllFacebook reports that the tool shows how many impressions the post received as well as the percentage of impressions that result in likes, comments or clicks.

Image via AllFacebook

Post Insights arms Page administrators with powerful information about which types of posts generate the most engagement from fans. This is a huge value-add for marketers looking to take a more strategic approach to the kinds of updates they provide to fans on their brand’s Page. As AllFacebook notes: “Knowing your impact is critical.” This will be especially useful once marketers start establishing benchmarks to understand what kinds of posts resonate the most.

Study: Marketers Warming Up to Social in a Big Way

Alterian has released a new study on social media marketing adoption which solicited feedback from more than 1,000 marketing professionals across the globe. TechCrunch summed up the report, which found that approximately two-thirds of those surveyed are investing in social marketing this year. Moreover, 40 percent of that group said they plan to move more than 20 percent of direct marketing budget to social marketing.

Another interesting stat: 36 percent of marketers surveyed said they are investing in social media monitoring and measurement tools. This seems to align with the growing desire for better social media metrics – as well as more strategic planning when it comes to measuring a brand’s presence in online spaces.

360i CEO Bryan Wiener authored “The Social Landscape in 2010” for SoDA’s annual Digital Marketing Outlook, which came out this week. In this article he forecasts a big year for social media measurement (hyperlinks added):

Expect new metrics and models, from planning media on a cost-per-social-action basis to measuring Key Conversation Indicators (KCIs^SM) that are better suited to earned media. 2010 will also bring more progress with technologies that can automatically measure sentiment; mass market tools today are generally not accurate enough to rely on for thorough campaign measurement. Enhanced dashboards will make it easier for marketers to view the effects of social marketing on a real-time basis.

You can read the rest of the article on p. xiii of the report.

Whitepaper: 2009 Was Solid for Retailers in Search; Bing Continues to Grow

A new whitepaper from SearchIgnite (a search management and attribution technology provider – and 360i sister company) found that multi-channel retailers in the U.S. upped their paid search spend by 12 percent in Q4 2009 (year-over-year), marking the fourth consecutive quarter of YoY growth since SearchIgnite began tracking this metric.

Key Findings:

• December showed signs of growth from non-retail marketers, with spend up 12% YoY, marking the first spend increases across all verticals — inclusive of travel and finance — since August 2009 (0.6%).
• Microsoft’s Bing continued to capture more of marketers’ search dollars in Q4, increasing its share of search spend to 7%. This movement was largely at the expense of Yahoo!, which fell to 16% share of marketer spend. Google remained at 77% of all spend in Q4 and throughout most of 2009.

You can download the full report here.

This week, Forrester announced a new segment to be added to the Social Technographics Profiles – the Conversationalists. Conversationalists are social media users who update their status on Twitter or a social networking site (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) at least once a week. They are less involved than Creators, who write blogs, create content, or publish websites. But they are more expressive than Critics who simply post reviews, comment on others’ blogs, or contribute to forums.

The newly updated Forrester Social Technographics Ladder (Note: Segments are not mutually exclusive, therefore the percentages do not add up to 100%).

There were two other important insights in the Social Technographics update from Forrester:

• The new Conversationalists group is 56% female, exceeding the concentration of females in any of the other groups. This finding correlates with other studies that show more women are actively using Twitter than men. In fact, Quantcast estimates 53% of Twitter visitors are female.
• Three years ago, Inactives (online consumers who did not participate in any social media activities) made up 52% of total internet users. Today, that number has shrunk to 17%, while all other segments of behavior have increased. From this, we can assume that social media usage is becoming ubiquitous.

Comparison between Social Technographics Profiles in 2006 and 2009

What do these insights mean for marketers?

Forrester’s Social Technographics is just one of many tools to help marketers understand how consumers are behaving in the social media sphere. In developing social media strategy, it’s crucial to first examine and listen to the target audience before moving forward.

Knowing that Conversationalists have a higher composition of women than the other Technographic segments can help inform the strategies of the multitude of brands that target women. Campaigns surrounding Twitter updates and Facebook posts should be placed into consideration.

The addition of Conversationalists to Social Technographics, more than anything, is an indication of how social media behavior continues to change and showcases the growth of social as more people move from being Inactives into other parts of the ladder. In 2006, it wasn’t necessary to create a segment to describe people who simply post updates on their lives, especially in microblogging environments like Twitter. Now it has become a common activity where 1 in 3 online adults update their connections with bite-size pieces of information or content at least once a week. The lesson to be learned is to never rely heavily on a single platform or technology for social media, but to always be aware of the changing trends and behaviors of consumers.

If you’re interested in taking a look at the Social Technographics data of few different audience bases, try the Forrester Social Technographics tool here: (Note – the addition of Conversationalists has not been added to this free widget)

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-Christine Hsu, Social Marketing Strategist at 360i