Digital advertising & social media marketing, Sydney, Australia
Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon gives Leonard the best advice when he’s down in the dumps about Penny paying attention another nerd. The advice from Sheldon?
“Its a perfect time to launch a blog with an interactive comment section”
The question is: do strangers give better advice than your friends?
I find the most successful campaigns or brand strategies has the idea owners (usually the strategic, brand or above the line agency) run the idea through the relevant channels. That’s not to say that they need to do everything, more that they need to be hands on where the the rubber hits the road, the point at which the creative concept (the big idea) becomes a tactical execution. It’s in the clients interest to give this responsibility to the lead agency, and hold them accountable for the execution. So many times, the way the “big idea” is executed becomes about cutting corners because of “saving money”, or its “death by a thousand cuts” the slow, slicing and removing of functionality because of a lack of understanding how it is an essential part of the bigger, strategic picture.
There’s been some healthy debate around the “exclusivity” of the Sydney Social Media Club. And despite the title of the post, you won’t need a secret handshake to be let in. Mumbrella released the news this morning about the Social Media Club Sydney starting up, with the first event scheduled for April 27th featuring the figures at the centre of two famous social media incidents in 2009 – the (fake) Stephen Conroy a.k.a Leslie Nassar and Naked Communications Adam Ferrier.
Twitter since it’s launch 3 years ago has been a major part of SXSW, so much so that Pepsico spent some sponsorship dollars this year in creating an interactive visualizer of the various Twitter streams, following the parties just as much as the event itself.
Which brings me to the most pop cultural use of Twitter as interactive backchat. So You Think You Can Dance Australia has a bunch of amateur commentators (me included I’m afraid) who sit on Twitter every Sunday and Monday evening, tweeting on the minutae of costumes, music, hair, camerawork and oh yes, the dancing. Every week, the #sytycd hashtag becomes a trending topic, prompting Twitter users from opposite hemispheres (literal as well as metaphorical) to ask “what’s sytycd?”. Meanwhile the backchat goes on in an interactive (at least amongst the amateur commentators) stream.
What’s consistent about all these personal brand identities, is that that they have built an authentic brand without necessarily using their real faces or their real life names. That’s not to say they aren’t also known as their real life names, only that they have constructed a consistent and authentic online or brand persona that lives over and above their real life personality. Its the consistency in communication or voice as suggested by Seth is what makes the personal brand authentic.
I have a quiet obsession with visualizers, so I’m jumping on the SXSW bandwagon only because of this amazing Twitter mashup PepsicoZeitgeist. It combines mapping (swarm) showing where there are multiple tweeters in one spot, with the SXSW streams of tweets (stream), tracks hotspots, (party), and trending topics (popular). Pepsico are also putting out a […]
