I can’t go into too much detail without covering old ground already, but as you may have seen Old Spice in conjunction with their agency Wieden + Kennedy have generating an amazing buzz through their Old Spice man, ex actor and NFL athlete Isaiah Mustafa.

The Original Ad

What they did over the past few days has been to respond to any question asked on twitter, or even the internet in some cases, with a brilliant and funny video response.

They have literally churned out hundreds of these videos, in some cases less than two hours after a post!

The key to the success of this campaign, excluding the massive staff of incredible writers and staying power of Isaiah, is that they have targeted key influencers such as Perez Hilton, The Huffington Post, GQ and more which just drove the views and publicity through the roof!

It doesn’t take long for others to get on board either, with challengers entering the fray

This isn’t a completely new concept, although it’s execution and delivery definitely raise the bar and will see this kind of thing done more and more, it is reminiscient of such youtube videos as the Ask A Ninja series.

Unfortunately, like all things awesome, they come to an end. And these videos have just been completed. I’ll leave the closing statements to Old Spice Man himself

You can view all the videos on the Old Spice YouTube page here

I’ve heard a lot of MDs and marketing managers talking about their Twitter or Facebook “campaigns” lately, and not really understanding what the real benefits of Social Media are. They have been loosely playing with these tools, and maybe have even run offers but haven’t really seen any obvious returns or benefits. Most of them are approaching these tools as stand-alone areas, with no real plan. They don’t stop to think, “What is Social Media?”

Social Media is the chatter occurring between customers, observers, critics, companies and it’s a conversation that’s happening right now whether you’re involved or not.

In fact, most likely it’s happening online right now about your brand. Take a quick look! Search for your brand in Google. Check the Twitterverse.

If you want to be really thorough try a real-time search website such as Social Mention. http://www.socialmention.com/

Facebook and Twitter alone aren’t social media, they are two tools with which people engage in Social Media (of the many - take a look at this Conversation Chart for an idea of how much is out there). This is an important consideration when planning your online campaign.

Consistency is very important in an online presentation of your brand. What your saying on Twitter should be consistent with what you say on your website. What you post on Facebook should tie in with your Linked-In. Your landing pages should connect with your different online advertising and so on.

Remember: One Message across many tools.

Your Social Media campaign should be about engagement and evolution. People have the opportunity to express their sentiment and air their grievances with you at any hour from anywhere. Ideally, quick reaction to these comment will aid you greatly. You can respond to misconceptions about your brand by providing an information “hub” (such as a micro site) and then funnel people to that point. You can learn about your businesses strengths and weaknesses, and what people REALLY think about your brand. People are brutally honest, approaching outright harsh online, but this doesn’t need to be a bad thing.

Of course, we don’t all have time in our schedules for such an intense level of involvement. Even if you can only set aside one hour a week for Social Media, you will still reap immense benefits and be amazed by what you can do for your brand with this exciting medium. Start exploring these tools and work towards establishing a long term plan rather than seeding small disjointed conversations online.

Everyone has a camera, everyone loves dancing. Combine these two things and WA-WHAM! Dancing Flash Mobs.
Here are a couple I’ve seen lately:

H&M Kids Fashion Flash Mob

Some 55 kids, decked out in H&M Kids Fashion, proceed to have a fly hip-hop dance battle in the middle of Union Square, San Francisco.
A great demonstration of the great range of movement (splits abound!) and comfort these clothes provide for kids (as well as sweet hip-hop cred!)

Bondi Beach

This is a routine organised by DJ Dan Murphy and led by famous aussie drag queen, Joyce Maynge. They are part of Rock Your Box - Join up here if you’re keen on getting involved in their next one.

aaaaand, with over 1 million views, this next video goes to show you just can’t beat a fat guy in Speedos doing a dance.

For my first non-business related foray into Facebook I’ve decided to create what I saw as a hole in what is one of Melbourne’s biggest strengths, Live Music.

I created Melbourne Live Music, a page dedicated to the live music scene in Melbourne. I kept it intentionally genre unspecific as I want it to become a community controlled and driven entity.

The home page of Melbourne Live Music

Since it’s creation on the 18th of March the group has attracted 154 fans so far. This isn’t bad, but it can be A LOT better. This numbe

r has been reached so far from inviting 50 people, and providing daily posts on the wall. I also setup two discussions and a twitter account to support the page.

Over the next couple months I will be exploring different tactics to expand the fanbase, and increase audience involvement. Stay tuned for the journey.

You can take a look at the page here and the Twitter (@melblivemusic) too.

The engagement stats so far… Not very impressive yet.

Klout is an excellent online tool for tracking your twitter progress. It provides a great deal of specific stats, as well as suggestions on where you can improve your overall twitter engagement.

How many people are seeing your tweets if they are re-tweeted, who are you influencing and being influenced by, where are these people located in the world?

My Klout stats are a bit lame; so here is the Dell Outlet’s impressive stats

You also get an overall “Klout” score out of 100. All these stats are displayed in a pretty javascript interface, so it’s great for presentations as well.

All the achievement junkies (like me) will definitely find this keeps driving you to be more useful with your tweets!

You can find it here: http://klout.com