“The new Levi’s collection was designed with you in mind. And we would like you to represent it,” reads a photo uploaded by Levi’s to the site. “It could be you, it could be someone you know, it could be someone you’d like to know.”

The positive press plus all the great photos already uploaded makes the campaign is a win-win for Levi’s. The toughest thing the company will have to do is go through all the photos and make a decision.

View #IAMLEVIS Instagram photos through Web viewer Statigr.am/iamlevis.

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Me? I love it. Why? It’s a great example of good advertising enabled by the interactivity of  social media — it engages. The Museum of Me brings you, Facebook and Intel together as co-creators of a multi-room archive of your friends, photos, words and movies. The effects are striking and the music is stirring.

In the Museum of Me, the whole is greater than the parts. Our viewing animates the rooms and embeds them with meaning. As we move through the galleries constructed from our “content,” the experience moves us.

Some find the Museum of Me creepy. I didn’t. I found it moving, much in the same way that Facebook can be moving when you connect with a photo of a friend’s new baby or see the anniversary pictures of dear friends living far away. Some find it narcissistic. Maybe a bit, but not in a pathological way. It’s about as self centered as any photo album, home movie, or article that we post on the semi-public places of the Internet.  Why do we do it? Because in many ways our life is our art, and the Museum of Me reflects back to each of us the self-curated collection that is our story line.

The Museum of Me showcases Intel’s Core processor, the flagship of the brand.  Core bundles computing capability and the graphics capability on one chip. It provides rich high definition visual effects that let you connect content from your laptop wirelessly with your TV through a technology dubbed WiDi.

I spoke with Jayant Murty, Director for Brand Strategy and Integrated Marketing, Intel Asia Pacific, who oversees marketing for a 2 billion person market that includes Australia, Korea and Japan.  He worked with Stephanie Gan, the Asia Pacific Regional Manager of Advertising and Digital Programs to create the Museum of Me, with support from a digital agency called Projector in Japan.

What kind of reach has the Museum of Me had?

We have had more then 3 million visits to the site so far. We are still scratching the surface.  I think many more people will experience it in the next few weeks. Through Twitter and other social media, it has a life of its own.

My experience of the Museum of Me was surprising and alarming and then ultimately satisfying. Are you still fine-tuning it?

The user experience is a lot richer for people who use Facebook frequently. This is a social archive. The friends wall has room for only 58 pictures. The initial gallery is the 7 people you interact with most.

There was a lot of risk-taking in this.  You can’t share your video. We thought about this aspect and discussed it a lot.

The Museum of Me has memories that are uniquely yours. These are very personal things. It means a lot you as an individual.

We decided, “Let’s make this the first really private experience in the a public environment.”  Almost 80% of the people come back and say, “We love the fact that it is private.” The other 20% say, “Come on! You should have made this shareable!”

We are listening all the time.

How do you listen to feedback from 2 billion people?

It is more gratifying when people have different levels of joy and satisfaction. Brands are conversations.  The more the conversation is two way, the richer the brand and also the stronger the brand becomes over time. We are constantly listening to people who comment and post stuff.  There is this constant dialogue.

Intel posted its social media guidelines publicly in 2008. You have been active in the social media space for years. You‘ve had your share of controversy and adjustment.  What lessons can you offer other corporate brand managers who are not as experienced?

All our best practices are public. It is a fairly transparent system.

The only learning we can offer is to be able to start off with the belief that no guideline is accurate from day one. As long as you have a guideline within your company that says you are always thinking in the best interests of our customers and you will be maintaining that as you go along, you’ll be OK. If you  understand that nothing is set in stone, then generally you are in good shape.

How does the Museum of  Me further your Visually Smart brand?

In the Museum of Me, the branding is very quiet. You see the Core branding at the very end.

What we are finding in these noisy environments is that if you keep the brand noise low and you keep the consumer engagement high, no matter how muted the brand, consumers catch it. They like the fact that we keep the brand low.  We’ve learned that understatement helps.

This is even more important in social networks, where consumers really reject brands when they are seen as being manipulative. The Museum of Me does not take you down the path of intrusion. It is a rich experience that they have not had before.

The social Web can be a powerful for changing the culture of businesses themselves. What has Intel learned?

First, fundamentally, product cycles and business cycles have changed in the tech industry. Now we are launching products every 6 months. Second, how do you get there? The answer is extraordinary listening. We have an extraordinary number of ethnographers who work with us.

Social media has added another layer to listening.

The important question is, “What do you do after you listen?” There is a cycle time involved in responding to listening.

Some companies are extraordinarily intuitive and gifted. They can  just guess where the planet is headed and that’s fine. But for most companies, listening makes a huge difference and will help a company come out with products that matter.

There is a cycle time involved in responding to your listening. As long as you can get some agility between the time you get feedback and revise and return to consumers then you have a virtuous circle.

How is marketing on the social Web evolving?

Things are getting more and more intuitive.

You assume when you see an arrow up or an arrow down, that sets the volume up and the other sets the volume down. You can look at the world and say it is hugely complicated or you can look at the universe and say that there is something that holds people together.

What you will see is that the more intuitive the social Web gets, the easier it is to deal with the complexities of language and culture.

We in the technology industry have a better chance for making things more universal.

Intel was early out of the gate using social media and is practiced at working with its community. The company currently has 75 Intel-related accounts with nearly 180,000 followers. The company has 19 different topical or regional blogs. The company has 11 communities in several different languages plus software community for developers. Intel’s Facebook presence comprises 50 Facebook Fan Pages in different countries, led by Facebook.com/Intel, which has 1.5 million fans, plus a YouTube Intel Channel. You can view some gorgeous promotional films on the Visibly Smart theme on the company’s website.

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And oh yes, we meet up in person. You might say we “tweet up.”

Events, both hosting and attending them, are key to a successful social media strategy. By meeting someone IRL (“In Real Life”), your relationship with that person strengthens naturally. Even if you spend only a couple of minutes together, you’re able to read each other’s body language, maybe share a couple of stories and ultimately establish a human bond that is impossible to achieve online.

At ChicagoNow, the web site I worked at before joining 435 Digital, events were essential to growing our online community. When we launched the site in May 2009, we wanted the bloggers to regularly link to each other, comment on each other’s posts and even collaborate. The best way to do that, we decided, was to introduce the bloggers to each other in person and hope they clicked.

So, borrowing a line from the brilliant Andrew Huff of Gapers Block, we began holding monthly meet-ups. Each month, we invited the ChicagoNow bloggers to join the ChicagoNow staff for drinks and conversation at a bar in Chicago’s River North neighborhood. ChicagoNow picked up the tab and staff members introduced bloggers to each other, making sure everyone felt included.

My favorite part of a meet-up goes something like this:

A talk man with gray hair turns to the young woman next to him. “Hi, I’m Joe. I write the blog ‘Arresting Tales.’ I don’t think we’ve met.”

The woman’s eyes light up. “Joe! I know you! I’m Jessica. I’m ‘All the Single Ladies.‘”

The man gasps. “Jessica! It’s so good to finally meet you in person!”

Turns out they’d been commenting on each other’s blogs for weeks. They’ll now spend the next 20 minutes exchanging funny stories and deciding how they can collaborate on future posts. A friendship that was two-dimensional online suddenly becomes three-dimensional offline.

Don’t believe me? Then I invite you to attend tomorrow’s ChicagoNow Tweet-Up and see for yourself. We’ll be gathering for free drinks, food and lots of conversation at Sub 51 from 6 to 8 p.m. You can RSVP on ChicagoNow’s Faceook fan page and yes, you can bring your friends. Online ones and off.

-Tracy Samantha Schmidt

The post Social Media A-Z: E is for Events appeared first on 435 Digital.

Ever the fashionable geeks, we rushed out the door to see what Facebook Deals was all about. And oh yes, pick up our free jeans from the Gap.

Unfortunately, as our short video clip shows, we were just seconds too late.

Gap’s Facebook move was a smart one and proves once again that Gap is a leader in the social media space. In August, Gap partnered with Chicago-based Groupon to give customers a deal for $25 off a purchase of $50. It was the first nationwide Groupon deal, ultimately bringing in $11 million in revenue, according to Tech Crunch.

And, as we wrote about in October and again this week, Gap turned to its fans and followers to fix its logo’s botched redesign.

For small and medium-sized businesses, Facebook Deals could be huge. The key word, though, is “could.” Because while Facebook has more than 200,000,000 mobile users, for now only iPhone and Android users can access Facebook Deals.

Should Facebook Deals roll out to all smart phones, it will be a game-changer for businesses who want to get people in their stores and, most importantly, to tell their own friends to meet them there.

-Tracy Samantha Schmidt

The post #FreeJeansFail: Testing Facebook Deals appeared first on 435 Digital.

With 500 million Facebook users, that’s a lot of potential dough! But just because someone “likes” your business page, it doesn’t mean automatic dollars. Anyone can set up a Facebook page, but not everyone can do it right (although, 435 Digital does it the best ).

Below are the top 10 tips on how to best prepare your social media campaign and how to setup your business Facebook page!

But first, here are questions to ask yourself before starting your Facebook campaign:

1. What is your message?

2. How much time are you going to spend on your Facebook page?

3. What do my customers want?

4. What are your goals?

5.  How are you going to measure your success- Fans, comments, new customers? 

6. What is your starting point?

7. What are you using as a benchmark?

8. What are your competitors doing?

9. How much money are you going to spend?

10. Who is going to be in charge of your Facebook page?
How to setup your business Facebook page:

1. Establish a business account NOT a personal account.

2. Obtain a Facebook vanity URL so that people can find you easily. In order to get  a vanity URL you need 25 fans. A vanity URL is a customized web address for your Facebook page.  When you create your page, Facebook automatically assigns you a URL with random letters and numbers.

3. Let people know you are on Facebook by adding your Facebok URL to your E-mail signature and any marketing materials (business cards, etc.)

4. Let your fans know what your business is doing by posting updates on your wall. Post  professional or business casual photos of yourself instead of company logos, so your fans can better relate to you.

5. Establish creditability in your field by sharing useful articles and links that interest your fans.

6. Add Facebook widget to your website and other social media accounts to strengthen brand identity.

7. Advertize special deals and promotions but familiarize yourself with Facebook rules to make sure you aren’t doing anything illegal by holding contests or giveaways.

8. Install appropriate applications to integrate feeds from your blog and other social media accounts into your Facebook profile.

9.Use Find Friends for suggestions s of other people you may know to expand your network. Look for mutual contacts on your fans’ friends lists.

10.  Find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog or speaker at your event. You can post blog entries on your Facebook through an RSS feed.—DANNI WYSOCKI

Related links:

http://gigaom.com/collaboration/32-ways-to-use-facebook-for-business

http://www.socialreflections.com/difference-between-a-page-and-profile-on-facebook/

http://www.7strategy.com/webdesign/2009/04/facebook-tips-h.html

http://www.slideshare.net/sandrafdzh/social-media-measurement-and-monitoring-for-beginners

http://www.biztipsblog.com/2010/03/facebook-pages-are-fast-becoming-essential-for-business.html

http://www.scopeformoney.com/10-reasons-why-you-need-a-facebook-page

The post 10 Tips for Establishing Your Business Facebook Page Campaign and Setup appeared first on 435 Digital.

Minivan meets cool with Toyota’s online marketing “Swagger Wagon” campaign for the 2011 Sienna minivan. Cleverly done, this outside-the-box marketing approach will put a smile on your face.

Rapping white parents tout the Sienna features while having a blast dancing around with their kids.
By the end of this video you’ll be saying, “Where My Kids At?”

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What makes stuff viral?

It’s the content, stupid!

When it comes to marketing your content for your social media campaign – one thing is crystal clear. If the content isn’t amazing (not just good, cute or nice) then the best campaigning in the world won’t achieve the white hot buzz you want.

Our attention span has shrunk to the point where only the craziest links on the web will prosper. But once a piece of amazing content hits the right swath of influencers and if they like it – they will tell all of their followers about it.

How does your business take advantage of this new landscape? I hate to break to you. It’s hard. The fine line between love and hate is incredibly short with the average Internet user. If you just simply put a commercial on the net, you’ll be lucky to break 100 views.

So here are the three things in common that most popular internet videos have are

Feigned Authenticity
Does it look real? Does it have the feeling that an amazing moment was captured? People want to see it.

Really Funny Comedy
Is it so funny that you laugh out loud and have no problem sharing it with others. That’s what people want to see.

Short
Is it 90 seconds or less? You’re golden.

Of course the hardest part is actually making a video that accomplishes all of those points. But if you do have a video you believe in that will rock peoples socks off, the campaigning is almost done for you…almost.

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