Facebook‘s IPO is today and the topic of advertising revenue is at the heart of the value proposition. With an opening price of $38.00, will it go up or down?

Take a look at the article from Co.Create on The 5 All-Time Best Facebook Campaigns. What can you learn from these campaigns that will help your organization?

“In a dramatic bit of timing, GM announced it was pulling its $10 million in Facebook advertising mere days before the latter company’s IPO.

The high-profile move drew a line under the already pronounced question mark around Facebook’s real value as a paid advertising platform. While some, including Ford, rushed to make the point that proclaiming Facebook ineffective is simply admitting that you’re doing it wrong, the fact is that there has been little to support the notion that there’s a link between paid advertising on Facebook and real, bottom-line results…”

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Reposted from C0.Create

10 Predictions From The First Internet Bust And What They Tell Us About Digital Marketing Now

By: GM O’Connell

One of the original digital marketing execs, GM O’Connell, made some predictions in 2002 about how the Internet would impact people and brands. Here, he looks back and assesses his accuracy, and, along the way, reveals some timeless truths about marketing in the digital age.

What was the world like 10 years ago? It was the year the euro went into circulation, Mark Zuckerberg was a senior in high school, and J-Lo topped the list of the hottest Google searches. “You’ve got mail” was still heard on millions of computers across the country.

It was also the year I gave the keynote speech at AdTech. The dotcom bust hung like a cloud over the audience as bankrupt companies like Webvan, Pointcast, Excite@home, Pets.com, and many, many others hit the skids. The Nasdaq had hit bottom at 1,400 from over 6,000. You could have bought a share of Yahoo! for less than $5 (compared to $100 in 2000 and $15 today), or even a share of Apple for $6 (just in case you want to kill yourself).

The point is that in 2002 the Internet was poison. Traditional marketers breathed a sigh of relief and stopped Internet spending in its tracks. Still, people went online more than ever. This is nothing new considering that consumers are usually ahead of the curve. During my speech, 10 years ago, I made some predictions about the future of online marketing. At the time, they may have seemed a little out there…

Here a look at those predictions and how they hold up 10 years later.

1. Internet penetration will reach 96% by 2008.
We came a long way from Nokia bricks, WAP, and the original BlackBerry Bold. The fact that wireless connectivity was going to increase dramatically was pretty obvious. But the power and popularity of wireless broadband via 3G networks and Wi-Fi combined with iOS and Android smartphones was even more dramatic than I thought. We are always on, everywhere. Amazing–if you don’t take it for granted.

2. Spam will be a capital offense by 2009. Just like pop-ups the year before. You simply cannot annoy people into liking you. Or fool them into it.
Well, sort of right, but mainly wrong. First the law hasn’t been passed–yet. Second, companies continue to spam (although the smart ones do a decent job with enabling the customer to set permissions). We do seem to see fewer pop-ups, but I suspect that’s more a function of pop-up suppressing browsers. What’s really happened is this: Everybody spams. Not just marketers, but half my Facebook friends and Twitter blowhards. And so my conclusion seems to escape the egregious offenders out there: companies and “friends” that continue to blast away with re-targeted, misleading, self-aggrandizing ads, posts, and tweets that seem dedicated to the fatuous belief that indeed we can be annoyed into a requited relationship.

3. New Networks will emerge after 2010, driven largely by email and instant messaging. These will not be created by marketers but in spite of marketers.
The only thing I didn’t know is that they would be called social networks. And they incorporated and even supplanted both email and instant messaging. Over the last 10 years, it’s been the rise of social networks combined with mobile access that has changed what we do when we are connected, which for many of us starts when we wake up and ends when we sleep. It hasn’t been marketers that gave consumers content, tools, and a framework either. It was Facebook. It was LinkedIn. It was YouTube. Marketers have tried to insert themselves with some success. But I now predict that the phrase “join the conversation” will be outlawed from the conference circuit, just as “new paradigm” was back in the ’90s.

4. With the growth of personal video recorders, people will their own broadcasters, Tivo-ing content through their own New Networks to friends.
YouTube launched in May 2005. Skype with video conferencing in 2007. Video has not been the same since. Can there be any doubt that people under 25 would rather give up cable TV versus IP based video if they had to make a choice? And of course marketers and business managers have screwed that up as well: The pre-roll and music stripping DRM algorithms once again compete with the user/amateur creator. If advertisers and/or agencies and/or the video platforms could be as innovative when it comes to monetization as they were with the invention of the platforms themselves, we’d all be happier campers. Why is YouTube spending 100 million on “professionals” for new channels, but not a dime on new monetization innovation (i.e. a decent ad format)?

5. After 2010, you will no longer be able to manage your own reputation. It’s going to be in the hands of customers, and if you don’t make them happy, watch out.
At first a cottage business within the context of the Internet Industry, online reputation management is now a nearly billion-dollar business. At the same time, thankfully, most businesses seem to understand that the key to online reputation management is not merely monitoring and “joining the conversation” (sorry) but in concentrating on providing better up-front quality and stellar customer service.

6. In 2010, there will be holographic kiosks, wrist-PDAs, cell-unit implants. A telepathic mind modem will be in development at MIT. You are never going to be out of reach, unless you want to be.
2010 was a typo. I meant 2020. Let’s jack into each other’s mind modems then.

7. Customers won’t want ad messages from the Internet. They’ll be going to the Internet to extract value. And in that fact will lie the secret of interactive marketing.
Not exactly a prediction, but still the biggest semi-learned lesson of all. Now that we have the Internet, now that we have social networks, now that we have mobile ubiquity, now that we live in a world where no one is separated from friends or businesses that we depend upon, one thing should be clear: Connecting with customers is not about good online advertising. In fact, I’d argue that message-based advertising is irrelevant. It is about providing great services that can only be provided economically via digital means. The key is to go beyond messaging and email and banners and fans and friends. It’s about value provisioning itself, and that’s where online “marketing” dollars should be spent.

8. After 2007, no one’s going to drop off a roll of film. Even motion pictures will be shot and shown digitally.
RIP, Kodak.

9. In 2010 advertisers can be omnipresent in their customers’ lives. Always on for them. Good interactive marketers will figure out that the Internet lets customers manage their relationship with brands. It is done with utilities and services that become part of a brand offering and gives customers the comfort that you’ll stick around.
This hasn’t really happened. But it will. And when these services are distributed in tight bundles/apps, we’ll realize that the main job of “advertising” online is less about messaging and more about distributing tight little bundles–even thimbles–of usefulness and value.

10. Back in the beginning of the decade, we came up with the theory of the value exchange which, in a nutshell, means the value you get is proportional to the value you give. It will earn me a nomination for the 2009 Nobel Prize for economics–which will ultimately go to Jeff Bezos for his theory of inevitable profitability.
Jeff Bezos has done better than me. He did, however, ultimately achieve profitability in part by providing more value than all the other retailers and cloud service providers from whom he’s stolen market share. See you in Oslo!

GM O’Connell is cofounder of Tango Modem. In 1987 O’Connell cofounded Modem Media, the first online marketing agency. In 2004, he left the company, moved to Argentina with his partner and four kids and fly-fished his cola off. He returned to Connecticut 8 years later and is well rested.
In 2009, O’Connell cofounded Tango Modem, a new breed of mobile and marketing production outsource provider.

[Images: Nejron Photo, Obak, and Robyn Mackenzie via Shutterstock]

“Until recently we’ve only been able to speculate about story’s persuasive effects. But over the last several decades psychology has begun a serious study of how story affects the human mind. Results repeatedly show that our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values are strongly influenced by story. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence”

Read the full article from Co-Create

James Pecht, former DBJ employee, joined Interstate Batteries in 2009 to help focus their social media efforts. Then “Last year, Interstate partnered with Dallas-based Splash Media to help build social media and blogs just related to marketing the company’s franchising efforts.”

“One lesson Pecht learned last November about staying in touch with customers online: When they speak, you better listen.”

“Interstate Batteries now runs an active Facebook page, Twitter account and YouTube channel. Most of their efforts are related to the company’s sponsorship of Joe Gibbs Racing, a NASCAR partnership that dates back to the early 1990s.”

“Let’s not discount the value of a free article that tells you how to pick a marine battery,” he says (Pecht). “When the time comes, hopefully we’re educating you for making that purchase and you think highly of us for giving you that information.”

Complete DBJ Article

Original Post: Pepsi Launches First Global Campaign “Live For Now” With New Social Platform, Pulse

By: Joe Berkowitz

Centered around pop culture and entertainment, Pepsi is launching its first global positioning in an effort to connect with “the Now Culture.”

Pepsi has launched its first global campaign around the theme of “Live for Now,” both a rallying cry and a spirit the company hopes to embody with a pop-culture-focused campaign.

Based on extensive global research with thousands of fans, “Live for Now” launches in the U.S. May 7 and will be centered around a major new social and content curation platform, Pepsi Pulse.

“Live for Now” came out of “the desire to build a global positioning for our flagship brand Pepsi,” says president, global enjoyment, brands, and chief creative officer of PepsiCo, Brad Jakeman. “It’s the culmination of 9 months of work around the world to understand the unique place that Pepsi already owns in people’s hearts and minds.” Jakeman says the research revolved around finding out how Pepsi “loyalists” defined themselves, and he says that what emerged as a theme was “the notion of making the most of every moment.” Now that’s being translated into an overall global campaign statement, one anchored by the ambitious new social platform, Pulse.

An extension of a tool launched last fall, Pepsi Pulse marks an ambitious foray into social and also a brand-wide re-emphasis on pop culture and entertainment, long a Pepsi staple. “It’s not enough for a brand to just say something, they also have to live it,” says Shiv Singh, global head of digital at Pepsi Co. In the spirit of what the company is calling the Now Culture, the HTML5-powered Pepsi Pulse will provide engaging aggregated content for users, with immediacy and interactivity.

Pepsi Pulse serves as a “dashboard of pop culture,” curated by Pepsi, pulling pictures, tweets, and news items from premium content sources, filtered by social ranking, to gather the top 10 stories at any given moment. Users will also be able to organize content around categories such as music, design, and sports.

Aside from producing these pop-culture cheat sheets, the site will also livestream concerts and feature an interactive component, with challenges from musicians and celebrities like Nicki Minaj who have endorsement deals with Pepsi. Nicki Minaj, for instance, might ask her 10 million Twitter followers to send her pictures of their alter egos (hers is called Roman Zolanski), which will then be displayed on Pepsi Pulse.

The brand has been moving toward beyond-advertising social efforts for the last several years, starting with the Refresh Project in 2010, which allocated $20 million in grants to causes generated by users online. Last fall, Pepsi introduced a social site called Pepsi Sound Off tied into Simon Cowell’s reality singing competition show, The X-Factor. Created to foster a co-viewing or social TV experience, and modeled after Twitter, Sound Off provided fans of the show a chance to interact with each other, and with the show itself, by posting comments in a stream, and promoting other people’s comments. Those that received the most “likes” would end up featured in custom 15-second spots running during the show.

Pulse is an extension of the platform and embodies the marketing shift from ad messaging to continuous engagement. Pepsi CMO Simon Lowden says that the development of the platform reflects the importance of connecting with audiences across all platforms and the acknowledgement that divisions between things like media, ads, and technology are ad industry constructs that have little relevance to the way consumers actually behave. He also notes that Pulse makes the most of Pepsi’s heft when it comes to culture-based assets–whether that’s its longtime sponsorship of the NFL or its relationship to musical artists. “We now have a platform to leverage that work,” says Lowden.

Pulse is launching in beta now and Lowden says over time the brand will build in other features, like geo-targeting and special offers with selected partners that focus on “how to make the most of now.” Partnerships will include those with daily-deals sites to promote special events across the U.S. Pulse will live at its own web destination as well as on the Pepsi home page.

The global campaign and platform also represents a new approach for Pepsi in terms of how it works with its creative partners. The brand has worked for some time with agency TBWA\Chiat\Day L.A. in the U.S. and CLM BBDO on international business; the team on the Live For Now project included people from both of those agencies as well as those from other Omnicom-owned agencies, including digital shop Organic and media entity OMD. “We curated this team of the best of Omnicom talent, cross functionally,” says Jakeman. “Where advertising and digital and media and sales promotion worked together really across the board. The goal was to develop something that was immersive and not just an ad.” Jakeman says the brand is in the process of working with Omnicom “to figure out how to codify that into a more formal situation.”

The first “Live for Now” ad will appear across the U.S. on May 7 and will feature Nicki Minaj’s song “Moment 4 Life” and Minaj herself in a cameo.

Looking back on history one can see how the lack of technology and relationship slowed an organization’s global expansion. Many companies were limited to their local geography to conduct business but today, most barriers have been removed or reduced. Let’s take a look at a few:

1. Transportation – As the cost to drive, fly or ship people and goods decreased, more organizations could reach beyond their local borders.
2. Communication – The Telecom boom of the 1990’s expanded capacity to talk and send data cheaply anywhere in the world. Then came Video, Skype, and Smartphone expansion. With our Smartphone we can access anyone, anywhere, anytime.
3. Information Access – Thomas Freedman writes about the “Uploading” (flattener #4) of information in his book The World is Flat. We now have the information of the world in the palm of our hand. “Not knowing” is no longer an excuse.
4. Relationship Access – With the development of Social Networks it is easier to identify, connect and build relationships with people of other lands. Prior to my last trip to the Middle East, I was able to set 5 meetings with new contacts from LinkedIn and Facebook. After meeting them in person, we continue to build our relationship through email, Skype and Facebook. See a related article by Alana Muller President of Kauffman FastTrac, created by the Kauffman Foundation.
5. More ways to get Paid: EBay (Entrepreneur), Amazon (Wikipedia), PayPal (Overseas selling guide), and Square (comparison by HubPages) provide 4 additional ways to exchange value for currency and the cost of these transaction has decreased as well.
6. Where is Value built: During the industrial revolution, value was built in the factory. Today, value is built with the licensing of Intellectual Property (Inc.), on-line, in the cloud, with virtual relationships, using technology and by knowledge workers.
7. The Rise of the virtual organization: Co-workers no longer have to be in the same room, building, floor, city, county, country, or time zone. This means that your next great hire can come from anywhere and this may help you uncover global markets as well. Why not hire a developer in a country that you would like to expand? A good example of a virtual company is 37 Signals, maker of such products as Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack & Campfire (I like the outdoor names). They have succeeded as a virtual company where other non-virtual companies have struggled (i.e. Microsoft)

Still, with technology and access, you may be concerned about your own Cultural Awareness. Someone’s cultural awareness is their understanding of the differences between themselves and people from other countries or other backgrounds, especially differences in attitudes and values. Here are three ideas I have used to improve my own cultural awareness:

1. Someone from there is already here – I look for foreign nationals, refugees, foreign dignitaries and others who have recently arrived from another country I am seeking to learn about.
2. On-line help – Before traveling to the West Bank of Israel, I watched 28 videos from TEDxRamallah.
3. Go and see – It is cheaper and easier to get to other countries than it used to be. Go and see for yourself.
4. Get professional help – I have engaged university professors (Dr Robert Hunt) and other professionals (CI Cultural Intelligence) to help me overcome my own misconceptions.

My perception is that any business can have a global outlook if they choose. A hair salon can become globally oriented by saying so on their website, building relationships with global travelers and opening up communication channels such as Skype. What about your business; can you be a Global business today? Instead of a mammoth multinational corporation could you be a micro global business?

I look forward to reading your thoughts on the comment section of my blog (see below).

Resources

• The Next Decade’s Top 10 Growth Industries
• Companies Going Global
• CI Collaboration
• DFW World Affairs Council
• The International Business & Trade Help Center
• HOW TO: Build Your International Business Network Online
• Cultural Awareness

Events Worthy of your Consideration

• 5/2/12 – Biz Connections w/ the Irving Chamber
• 5/2/12 – TEDxSMU Wednesdays
• 5/5/12 – The Dallas Leukemia Cup Regattas
• 5/7/12 – Marc Lynch, the Arab Uprising
• 5/8/12 – Selling in a Social Media World
• 5/8/12 – Using Facebook to Market your Biz
• 5/9/12 – Using Facebook to Market Your Biz
• 5/9/12 – Dallas Biz Club Happy Hour
• 5/14/12 – Consul General of the UK
• 5/15/12 – Morocco & the Arab Spring
• 5/15/12 – Collaboration System Mgmt
• 5/16/12 – Success North Dallas
• 5/16/12 – DFW AMA – Chick-fil-A
• 5/17/12 – DFW Tech Cocktail
• 5/19/12 – Social Media can make a Difference
• 5/23/12 – Nobel Prize Winner Leymah Gbowee
• 5/29/12 – The Last Tuesday at the Ritz
• 5/30/12 – Career Pathing for 2012 & Beyond
• 5/31/12 – Membership in the Digital Age

The town square suddenly becomes the nexus of all manner of cascading storylines and supporting players. There are car chases, a girl in lingerie on a motorcycle, football players, and cops and robbers. When the gun smoke clears, a giant banner comes down the side of a building that reads: “Your daily dose of drama. TNT.” And then everybody presumably went home and DVR’d Law & Order.

Original Article: http://www.fastcocreate.com/1680531/tnt-pushes-the-drama-button-on-unsuspecting-belgians

Somewhere along the line, ending one’s workday before 8:00 p.m. became a source of shame and sign of laziness — or at least that’s what many of us have tricked ourselves into believing.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is familiar with the funny, uncertain feeling that comes with checking out soon after 5:00 to be with family, and although she used to worry about what others thought of her departure time (which is a completely reasonable hour to head home, by the way), she has finally reached a point where she can take off at 5:30 p.m. without the lingering concern of how others are perceiving her.

“I walk out of this office every day at 5:30 so I’m home for dinner with my kids at 6:00, and interestingly, I’ve been doing that since I had kids,” Sandberg said in a new video for Makers.com. ”I did that when I was at Google, I did that here, and I would say it’s not until the last year, two years that I’m brave enough to talk about it publicly. Now I certainly wouldn’t lie, but I wasn’t running around giving speeches on it.”

To make up for ducking out at 5:30 p.m., Sandberg said, she would send emails to colleagues late at night and early in the morning as proof that she was still giving her all to work:

“I was showing everyone I worked for that I worked just as hard. I was getting up earlier to make sure they saw my emails at 5:30, staying up later to make sure they saw my emails late. But now I’m much more confident in where I am and so I’m able to say, ‘Hey! I am leaving work at 5:30.’ And I say it very publicly, both internally and externally.”

Many of us know the stigma against going home early all too well, especially in competitive work environments in which many judge work ethic by the number of hours spent in the office. There should never be any shame associated with heading home before 6 p.m. to eat dinner with one’s children and spouse, and Sandberg is sending a much-needed message to parents everywhere that it’s OK to leave work before dark for family time, especially since research has shown that children are healthier, happier and better performing students when they eat with their families.

In high school, my friends used to always say they envied my family for making it a rule to have dinner as a unit at least five nights a week, and I honestly feel I would have become a different person had my parents not prioritized it.

[H/T The Grindstone]

Thumbnail image courtesy of World Economic Forum, Flickr

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This article originally published at The Jane Dough here.

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The Jane Dough is a Mashable publishing partner that is the go-to site for news, insight and commentary on women in the business world. This article is reprinted with the publisher’s permission

Original Article

I received this notice today about my Flickr account:

Just a quick reminder that you’ve just chosen to start sharing your Flickr uploads on your Facebook Timeline. New photos and videos will be sent to Facebook about 10 minutes after you upload them, as long as they are publicly viewable.

If this is what you want, no action is required. If you do not want your Flickr uploads to be shared on Facebook you can manage your settings over here.

You can always share any of your photos individually on your Facebook Timeline by using the Share menu.

The Flickreenos

Your use of Flickr is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the Flickr Community Guidelines

Check your settings today.

Ndubuisi Ekekwe is a founder of the non-profit African Institution of Technology and posted the below article in the Harvard Business Review. Please add your comments below the article.

Mobile devices have exacerbated an always-on work culture where employees work anytime, anywhere. They’ve contributed to the blurred distinction between when you’re “on the clock” and when you’re not. Service industry professionals are especially tethered to these devices. There’s an assumption that using smart devices boosts productivity, since they allow us to work constantly. But, we’re also jeopardizing long-term productivity by eliminating predictable time off that ensures balance in our lives. Is the obsession of regularly checking email really helping anyone’s bottom line? Are the unrealistic expectations these devices facilitate not setting staff up for burnout?

From my experience, this hyper-connectivity carries a cost to organizational productivity. Many months ago, in my Africa-based startup, my top managers decided to adopt a business engagement process where customers and staff could reach them 24/7. There was a perception that if a customer or a colleague needed something and couldn’t get it immediately, the firm would not be taken seriously. The staff was under intense pressure to be available whenever anyone called — it was simply expected. Six months later, we noticed that customer complaints were actually up, and team morale was down.

So, why were we spoiling dinner time for each other with calls that could have waited until the next business day?

In a forthcoming book, “Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24-7 Habit and Change the Way You Work,” Harvard Business School professor Leslie Perlow provides insights on this fraught relationship with smart devices. In an experiment that focused on mandating time off for consultants for at least one night per week, she noticed that — over time — their work lives improved, and they were largely more productive. For the research subjects who followed her policy of disconnecting from work at night, 78% said that they “feel satisfied” with their jobs, compared to the group of people who ignored the policy, where only 49% noted the same sense of satisfaction. Her results show that we’re creating a self-perpetuating perception that working faster is better — even when speed may not be necessary.

The reality is that business processes have been changed by technology. Competition is now global and companies need to act fast to survive. Accordingly, we have institutionalized a system where customers and staff expect everyone to be always-connected. And with that, 24/7 speed has become a key performance metric. The impetus to examine whether what we do requires 24/7 responsiveness is overlooked. We all work longer and harder, despite the possibility that we could work better. But since everyone is doing it, it’s considered acceptable.

But, here’s the thing: Business will not collapse if we don’t respond to e-mail at 11 PM. Waiting until 9 AM has plenty of benefits that arguably outweigh the benefits of speed, such as giving ourselves an opportunity to think through the problem and provide a better idea that customers will appreciate. Instead of acquiescing to the knee-jerk reflex of responding to every incoming message, we should put these devices in their place — that is, to serve us, and not the other way around.

Companies need to help employees unplug. (Of course, every business is unique, and must take its own processes into consideration. But for most companies, giving employees predictable time off will not hurt the bottom line.) In my own firm, when we noticed that always-on was not producing better results, we phased it out of our culture. A policy was instituted that encouraged everyone to respect time off, and discouraged people from sending unnecessary emails and making distracting calls after hours. It’s a system that works if all of the team members commit to it. Over time, we’ve seen a more motivated team that comes to work ready for business, and goes home to get rejuvenated. They work smarter, not blindly faster. And morale is higher.

Give it a try in your own company. As a trial, talk to your team and agree to shutdown tonight. I’m confident that you’ll all feel the benefits in the morning.

Link to orginal article.