Adspace Pioneers

List of Music Festivals using Social Media well

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:21:00 +0000

We are well and truly into the Music Festival season. Promoters have always been great at using social media so I thought I would take a look at some of the better examples of music festivals using social media.

Stereosonic
Their twitter account is run by the general manager of the festival which gives the inside scoop on the happenings of the festival. This is also used to gauge feedback of certain ideas.

They have created a competition on Facebook, where punters have to take photos of the Stereosonic advertising, they then go in the draw to win tickets. Here is an example of a fan going over and above to get the ticket (action kicks off at 30secs)

Defqon.1 Maximum Exposure
One of the best competitions this year was run through dance site Inthemix
Defqon the competition asked people to get the Defqon logo out to the most people. The prize was to win a trip to Holland for music festival Defqon.1

Check out some of the other great efforts

Outside Lands (USA)

Looking abroad, this is a great example of what could is possible. Attedees at Outside Lands could use kiosks so you could upload your own photos and videos of the shows Then share them online with friends on Twitter, Facebook and other sites. They also streamed all the festival live on Youtube. Read the full case study on InsideFacebook.

Lollapoolza (USA)
An amazing case study on measuring the effectiveness of Social Media for ticket sales to Lollapoolza. Clever use of tracking tags and google analytics, read here.

Seeding a Green Festival (UK)
A case study from the London Green Festival, which gave the chance for a band to open the festival. Really nice simple case study to read.

BONUS
Sydney Bicycle Film Festival

Although not a music festival, I thought I would add this one. The Facebook Admins have been taking photos of bikes around Syndey and if your bike was featured you would win tickets to the festival, nice idea. The festival kicking off on Wednesday night, go here for more info and tickets!

I am looking to build this list out. Let me know what festival has done something different in the social space and I will add them to the list.

How to get an internship! Got any tips?

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:14:00 +0000

With all this chatter about graduates getting jobs at the moment. I thought I would throw my two cents in about how to land an internship.

1. Know where you want to go
I think the first thing to do is suss out the situation and find out who is doing kick arse work in the area you are interested in. Make a list and go for the top of the pile.

2. Volunteering is not enough
Having an intern is a lot hassle for employees these days. You have to always find them small tasks to do. So instead of just asking for an internship find something that you can do for the company that can add value. Social Media offers a great opportunity for Gen Y looking to get an internship. A number of marketers don’t get it and want someone young to explain it for them. If I was looking for an internship at the moment in a marketing organisation, I would tell them that I would like to compile a report for them, on what people are saying about their brand online and what are competitor brands doing in social media?

3. Something different

Have a talking point. My next door neighbour, Josh Clement sent me this great video he created to help him find an internship. Awesome.

4. Contacts
When I was at University, my mum knew a lot of people in advertising so she kept on trying to introduce me to people working in Advertising. It shitted me to tears, I wanted to make it on my own. That was until she helped me get my first break with Sputnik. Do not be stubborn like I was, take all the help you can get. Most people in this world will try to help you out and will enjoy seeing someone succeed.

What other tips do you have for graduates looking for jobs/internships?

The Perfect Gift for a Man

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:19:00 +0000

So if you are like me and struggle with buying Christmas and birthday presents, do not stress I have your brother and dad sorted this Christmas!

Back in June, a number of bloggers (including myself) shared some really personal stories about what it means to be a man for the Inspire Foundation's Man Week. There were a number of amazing heart felt stories, at the time it felt like something really big.

The super smart Gavin Heaton and Mark Pollard took the idea to the next level, they helped to get the story beyond the blogosphere bubble by creating a book ‘The Perfect Gift for a Man’ which was a collection of stories about being a man. Below is Gavin helping to get the story out on KAK.

If you would like to purchase a hard copy of the book you can buy it from Blurb.com or you can buy the e-Book from The Perfect Gift for a Man website. The profits will all go to The Inspire Foundation, so dig deep!

Case Study: Yves Klein Blue Twitter Application

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:25:00 +0000

Problem
Yves Klein Blue are an indie/rock band who in June were about to release a new album Ragged and Ecstatic. With the release of the new album it was hoped that it would become a Top 40 selling album.

Strategy
To captalise on the growing success YKB were having with Twitter we decided to leverage one of the recent innovations through Twitter which was a Twitter application which allowed someone to download an mp3 when they tweeted a unique code for, this had been used by TRVS-DJAM weeks earlier.

We proposed that Yves Klein Blue would allow people to download one of their songs and go in the running for VIP tickets to Splendour in the Grass if they tweeted a specific code.

Implementation
We used Culture Jam who built the original TRVS-DJAM application to build the site/app for us. For launch, we went out to Yves Klein Blue existing social network and communicated the offer.

TRV$DJAM Twitter Promotion Screencast from Culture Jam on Vimeo.

We then went out to a number of influential music tweeters/bloggers and made them aware of the offer.

Results
We were hoping for 1,200 downloads of the song (estimated that of their current social network that 15% would tweet the offer and they would influence one person in their twitter following to do the same).

We ended up falling significantly short of this target with only 432 downloads of the track.

The silver lining was that we were able to double the size of YKB Twitter following in two weeks, they went from followers 487 to 1,017 in three weeks. It took 5 months to get their first 487 followers.

Learnings
I really think that you learn more from the campaigns that do not match your expectations than the ones that do.

Size of Twitter in Australia
Twitter is really really small in Australia. Twitter has 250,000 active Australian users. That is nothing! That is 3.5% of the size of Facebook. When you are trying to find a niche of fans, it probably would have been better to not make it even harder for ourselves by launching on a niche platform.

Locking in influentials
Locking in relevant influential Tweeters (music+following) prior to
launch is essential

Easier site navigation
We got 1,700 visitors to the site and only 432 followers. The drop between visitors and downloaders indicates that the bulk of users did not have twitter accounts or couldn’t be bothered to follow the steps

Mix of earned and paid media
We can’t rely on publicity to drive traffic to an application, since doing this venture with YKB we realized that it requires a mix of earned and paid media for an idea to kick off in the social media environment.

Comparing the Australian and US audiences
Be cautious when making comparisons between the US and Australia. Travis Barker and DJ-AM at the time had a substantial following, YKB did not.  

A digital music mystery: Australian Idol Fan to Follower anomaly, Do you know the answer?

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:39:00 +0000

What is the difference between a Facebook Fan and a Twitter follower?

I have been doing a bit of research into Australian music artists and their number of fans online. My hypothesis was the more album you sold, the more fans you would have on Myspace, Twitter and Facebook.

My white paper that I will release soon, finds benchmarks for ARIA charting artist. I have found the average number of Facebook fans, Myspace friends and Twitter followers of an artist should increase depending on what level of sales they got to on the ARIA chart (Gold, Platinium or 2x Platinium).

But I noticed one really interesting pattern, ex-Australian Idol contestants index really low on Facebook Fans but then really high on Twitter Followers?
For instance, a Gold (35,000+ album/single sales) selling artist the average number of Facebook Fans is 14,000 (e.g Karnivool, Bliss N Eso and Pnau all have between 10-15k for fans). However Australian Idol contestants Wes Carr and Ricki-Lee have a very low number of fans (2000 and 1,700 fans respectively). However when you look at Twitter followers the average is 1,300 followers but Wes and Ricki-Lee have triple that number with 3900 and 3800 respectively?!?!

So why is it that Australian Idol contestants index so low on Facebook fans yet so high on Twitter followers?

I have got no idea, I would be really keen to hear your theory on why this phenomena is occurring. Free Guy Sebastian album for the person who comes up with the right answer!

Case Study: My Year Without Sex Social Media Campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:27:00 +0000

Problemo: My Year Without Sex was a new Australian film, which was hard to market as it didn’t fit into one specific category. The trailer was not going to be enough to get people to watch it. Working on a small budget we needed to get people to talk about the film.

Strategy: Use word of mouth to help fuel discussion around the movie

Implementation:

Identifying Key Environments
We identified the target market as mothers. Using Google Ad Planner and a number of other tools we looked for the environments where mothers were most vocal online and three environments stood out; Facebook, Mothers Forums and Mother Blogs.

Part 1: Mothers Forums
We went out to a number of the major mothers forums and offered the Moderators of the sites free double passes to see the film. Forums host some of the liveliest discussions online.

Part 2: Blogs
We identified a number of influential female blogs that we thought would enjoy the film. These bloggers were found using the Top 100 Australian Women Bloggers list. From this list we got a number of high profile bloggers to go and see the movie. We also used the NuffNang to outreach to a further 20 bloggers.

Part 3: Facebook
There was an opportunity to get a number of people along to a pre screening for the film in each major cities. We used Facebook Advertising and a Facebook Event to set up an exclusive Facebook Pre Screening for 500 people. We also ran a Facebook Page which had further information about the movie.

Part 4: Youtube - Creating a piece of passable content
We decided to create a piece of content around the film which we believed could have mass appeal online. We created the ‘5 Things that get in the way of Sex’ video. We were able to get this video to the front page of Digg and then Youtube Honour Board with 25,000 views in one week. This ended up being the feature of a blog post in Sydney Morning Herald Ask Sam Blog.

Result:
In its opening week MYWS took $177,522 and has currently grossed $1,127,838 in box office sales.

Learnings:
Facebook Page
It is really hard for someone to become a fan of a product that they have no knowledge about. We did not see growth in the Page until after the release date which usually does not work with the timings/budgeting of films.

Facebook Advertising
This campaign ran from early April to May this year, this was before the upgrade to the Facebook advertising model. We were only able to manage to get 900 people into the Page for the movie, when we promoted Cedar Boys another Australian film we were able to get 2,000 easily into the Page. So this new upgrade has definitely made a difference.

The 'R' in Social Media Revolution stands for 'Rubbish'

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:22:00 +0000

Next week this blog will turn 3 years old, there has been a change in direction over the past 12 months. Last year I used to speak about social media as a revolution that would change the way businesses would approach marketing! WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH!

After working in an agency for a year, I realised that social media will actually be an evolution of the current digital/advertising model. I find there is still to many of these revolutionary spruikers in the blogosphere who are referencing one off social media examples as proof of the revolution! I think what is needed is more people sharing stories about first hand experience on how they overcame barriers (money/legal/administration) and how they integrated social media into their current digital/advertising model.

Revolutionary Social Media spruikers are good for one thing, they help to get people who know nothing about social media excited about the possibility of the technology. However, once this excitement dies down, there needs to be information on what people can actually do.

I guess what I am trying to say is, I am thinking of scraping the name Adspace-Pioneers.blogspot.com and going with the name examples_of_social_media_being_used_in_digital_campaigns_and_other_shit.blogspot.com

Facebook Page Growth: 30-40% attributed to earned media

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:20:00 +0000

Facebook is really helping to close the gap between advertising and social media. It now gives brands the opportunity to incorporate and track both paid and earned media in the one place.

Doing some analysis over three Pages (The Contender Australia, Grinspoon, Vanessa Amorosi) I am currently working on I worked out that for every three people that join a Page through paid media, they will indirectly influence two friends within their network to join the Page via the suggestion box/highlight or news feeds of their friends pages.

Lode cash in on the indirect earned media 'Suggestions' spot

In my opinion Facebook is the only social platform that has an advertising model that is worth investing in. We are seeing some of the smart agencies in Australia pick up on this and really launch some big exciting campaigns through the platform Telstra Digital Mums (DDB), The Skinny Cow (Publicis Digital), 5 Seeds (Holler), and Lynx (SOAP).

Methodology: Since the upgrade to Facebook Ads in June 2009, they now give you action rates which is how many people become a fan directly from the ad. So subtracting this action rate number from your Page growth gives you the viral growth rate, I then made that number into a percentage (Grinspoon - 34%, Vanessa Amorosi - 39% and The Contender - 40%). I would love it if anyone else would like to share their stats

Case Study: Victoria's Secret Facebook Page and Monash Uni's Electronic Marketing Course

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Here is a great case study of Victoria's Secret Pink Social Marketing/Facebook Campaign

The video was created by students Mark and Natalie as part of the Electronic Marketing course which lecturer/legend Peter Wagstaff is teaching at Monash University.

Fellow student/blogger Rick Clarke and James Moran are also doing the subject so I asked them for a few words on the course.

'Instead of writing an essay, one of our tasks was to create a short instructional video, and share it with the class (and the world!) via YouTube. We made our video on the evolution of the web from Web 1.0 through to Web 2.0, and speculated what Web 3.0 might be like.'

In related news, Lode a graduate recruiting company have a great little Facebook promotion going on at the moment. They are giving graduates the chance to score one of three summer internships at Lonely Planet, Thiess or PWC. All you have to do is explain in 100 words or less, why you think you are the best candidate for the job.

Speaking in October

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:07:00 +0000

I am pretty sure Sydney is getting sick of hearing me speak however I have a few more speaking engagements coming up in October.

1. Networx Marketers – Online Marketing event on Tuesday 20th October
I will be on a panel with Nic Hodges and Ben Phillips talking about the latest trends in online communication, developing digital strategies and blogger outreach.

Key blogs posts on this topic;
Blogger Outreach - Dosh Wallets Case Study
Facebook Pages vs. Groups
Six Practical Tips to getting your video onto Youtube Honour Board

2. AIMIA event ‘Getting inside Gen Y’ on Thursday October 22nd
I will be talking about the trends that are occurring online for Gen Y also on the panel will be Jye Smith.

Key blogs posts on this topic;
Marketing to Melbourne Hipsters – Nelson Beer Case Study
I party farkin hard wif me mates and I got photos to prove it
7 traits of cool kids online

3. Australian Marketing Institute Annual Conference on Thursday October 29th
I will be speaking about the key leanings marketers can take away from how the music industry has evolved with social media.

Key blogs posts on this topic;
Grinspoon Case Study
15 Australia Musicians using social media
5 practical learnings from working in social media

Case Study: Dosh Wallets – Blogger Outreach

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:03:00 +0000

Problemo: Dosh Wallets were releasing their second range of wallets but no one knew about it. Online had worked great in the past to build awareness.

Strategy: Get the top male fashion and design sites to write about the new product.

Implementation:
Step 1: Identifying Bloggers
We used Google Blog Search to identify bloggers who had already talked about Modern Designed Wallets (Dosh & competitors). We then used Technorati to find bloggers who were writing on the topic of design and male fashion.

We took this list of thirty potential bloggers and ranked them in terms of importance using Alexa and Technorati. This helped us to clarify who we would offer product to for a review and who we would just inform about the launch.

Step 2: Creating the outreach
We tried to keep the first email to one paragraph. More than a paragraph and the respondent would lose interest. Once we received a response we told them about the product. We also set up an Easter Egg/30% Discount for all the bloggers to tell their readers about. It was hidden in the ‘O’ of Dosh on the website (still live).

Result:
Sales: For the eight weeks that we were involved with the blogger outreach we were able to double the number of online sales of the product.

Traffic: We brought in over 4,000 interested punters from 30+ external linking sites. Including the top International style blogs of Kanye West, Yanko Design, Like Cool and Australian blogs Lost at E Minor and Gizmodo.

SEO: We were also able to get their site to number one in the search results from the strength of all the in-links that we provided through these sites.

Learnings:
Just go for the big boys
When we hit the big blogs we noticed that about four or five other blogs would follow suit and write about the wallets. Which suggests you only need to target the ones at the top to have the biggest effect.

Straight to the point
Our initial email started out with three paragraphs of copy we ended up writing just one paragraph. You also need a direct call to action in the subject header.

The Facebook Tattoo story

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:14:00 +0000

February - Mardi Gras
In 2050, I will sit my grandchildren down and I will tell them the following story of how I had the chance to join Corey Delaney and ChkChkBoom girl in the ranks of Australia’s biggest online idiots… and I blew it!

So this whole idea started with Zoe Scaman. She is a colleague who works as a Digital Strategist for The Population but she is also the only one with Media Trading experience in our team.

Unfortunately, she is now tasked with the labourious job of trafficking all the media we book - one of the most boring tasks going around. Being the nice co-worker I am, I have reveled in her disdain for this task and poked fun at her at every chance I have got.

So when Cate came back from a client meeting and re-told the story of how she told the client that ‘Julian loves Facebook so much that he has a tattoo of it on his bum.’ This was Zoe time to strike ‘That is a great idea, Can we start a Facebook Page to get 500 fans and then will you get one?’

My fateful words ‘Yeah, whatever and then when it gets to a 1,000 I will get a tattoo on my face.’

With those words she was off creating a Facebook Page. Her media skills would come back to haunt me, as she got in touch with Carat, MediaCom, Allure Media, Fairfax Media, Media Smart, Tongue, Ninemsn, Facebook Sales Team (Australia and International) Mumbrella, B&T and pleaded that they send it around as a group email to their workforces of around 2,000+ people. It was pretty much sealed on Thursday when Mumbrella wrote a post on it.

I could tell the 500 fans were like a pack of starving wolves they wanted to see blood/ink so seeing as though I am not completely immune to the idiot strain, I decided to get a 2 month semi permanent tattoo.

Thanks to the awesome photographer/art directing combo of Jye Smith and Michelle Carter, I now have a full calendar worth of photos.
May - Mothers Day

It will be the perfect Christmas present for your Facebook addicted friends. I will write a personalised message in every calendar so that your friend will never look at Facebook the same way again. It will probably cost around $20 and I will donate all the profits to Bowel Cancer Research. More details and photos to come.

With the request for photos of the tattoo, I thought I would give people more than they can handle. I decided to make a calendar to help Facebook Addicts.

So the moral of this story don’t piss off english people or you may get stuck with a Facebook tattoo on your bum for the whole of summer.

If you are disappointed or angry and wish to protest simply unfan the Page.

January - Summer

Social Media Advertising - SM integration.

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:05:00 +0000

I really like this new campaign from Soap for the Lynx Superfresh range – Party across the Internet. I think it shows the evolution of where social media can sit within digital advertising.

Soap have created an amazing interactive banners on the QuicksilverPro, Ralph Magazine, Myspace and Heavy sites which then all link through to the Lynx Facebook Page.

They have Facebook acting as a net to catch all the fans of the banners. Facebook currently offers the best direct marketing recruitment vehicle online.

Is the Digital Strategist/Producer team, the new Art Director/Copywriter?

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:09:00 +0000

In the future, I could quite easily see myself being set up in a Digital Strategist/Producer team similar to the dynamic of an Art Director/Copywriter team of a traditional Ad Agency.

Media is the creative in so many circumstances in Digital and without a gun Producer being able to work out the feasibility of your ideas, you’re really nothing.

I was lucky enough to be paired up with Cate Mathers for a number of projects over the last six months. She was in a producers role at The Population even know she was clearly more of a strategist. I found as a team we were able to produce some great strategies that we were then able to translate into ideas and turn around and implement.

Unfortunately, Cate is onto bigger and better things moving over to OMD as a Integrations Strategist. However, I am looking forward to the future of the Strategist/Producer team. It comes as no surprise that there is currently a high demand in Sydney for good digital producers.

Case Study: Running a branded Facebook Page on small to no budget (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:11:00 +0000

This is Part 2 of a guest blog post from Kevin Lippy who has successfully run a branded Facebook Page aimed at Backpackers travelling through Australia. He has used the great analogy of the Big Lebowski to show the lesson learnt from this.

5. “I don't roll on Shabbos!” – Walter Sobchak
Actually, with your company’s name at stake and by giving our fans free reign to post links, pictures and videos on our wall, you kind of have to roll (or at least check on it) always. Yes even Saturdays. Also, we knew that by opening ourselves up in this way, meant it was inevitable that other third parties would use the page to promote themselves. Like ‘El Duderino’ himself, we have taken the pacifist approach, and have decided to do absolutely nothing about this (so far), because:
a. While their content hasn’t been cool, so far it has been harmless
b. They have never been our direct competitors
c. It would be hypocritical - as we had seeded info on other pages
And...

6. “This is what happens….” – Walter Sobchak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCcKBcZzGdA - (censorship on purpose)

7. “Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o'clock this afternoon, with nail polish. Those…. amateurs!” – Walter Sobchak
In order to meet our objectives we had to generate interest. We went about this by opening up to other people in the industry by grouping together a prize that included 15 Nights accommodation, a 2000km bus pass, a Skydive and a Surf Camp. Being inclusive, also made our Page sexier as all of a sudden we had hip content to post like skydives, surf safaris and nightclubs. To enter we couldn’t have made it simpler. All someone had to do was:
1. Become our fan
2. Write on our wall “The best thing about backpacking Oz is…”

We promoted the Page in 3 main ways:
1. A Launch party - we co-hosted a night at a Backpacker Bar and had a door prize draw for anyone who became a fan on the night.
2. We created some signage and asked Hostel managers to promote it.
3. We created in Facebook ads. These are the shizzle! One of my core objectives is to get to my customers before they have even left their country! Please tell me another way I could do this for the price I have with Facebook ads?

8. “Where’s the F***ing money Lebowski?” – The Dude
Laugh if you will… but I believe that I have evidence that this campaign has been monetized in some ways.

Exhibit A:

This was a question, posted on a spin off ‘group’ created by one of our fans, with the purpose of asking other fans whether they were going to be staying at one of our Hostels this New Years Eve. From this I see two good news stories:
1. A random fan created a Facebook “group”, unprompted by us, positively talking about our brand.
2. By the time I had even seen this, Carolyn’s question had been answered by another fan, the situation had been resolved, and as a consequence she was able to book with us (= revenue $). This had all occurred on the Group’s wall!

My all time favourite part of Facebook pages is “Interactions.”
I find it strangely exciting to know that exactly 39% of my Fans are Females between the ages 18-24. More importantly, I can monitor the amount of page views, fans, user-generated content uploaded, fan interactions and even how many photos have been looked at.

We launched www.facebook.com/backpackingmate just over 3 weeks ago (oh yeah... make sure you get a vanity URL… you just need 100 fans). After all is said and done we are a bed… not a band, and are not something that many people already have an existing emotional connection to. I am stoked with the amount of fans we have, and even more with how they have interacted with the page. I am still deciding whether it is something that should be evaluated within the context of a brief campaign, or something that will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

Case Study: Running a branded Facebook Page on small to no budget (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:04:00 +0000

This is a guest blog post from Kevin Lippy who has successfully ran a branded Facebook Page (Backpacking Mate) aimed at backpackers travelling through Australia. He has used the great analogy of The Big Lebowski to describe the lessons learnt.

“Smokey, this is not 'Nam…. There are rules” – Walter Sobchak

With a budget of "as close to zero as possible" and with the experience in running a Facebook campaign to match, it was pretty obvious that I was never going to create “The Dude” of Pages. I needed to shoot from the hip… like a ‘gun-toting Jewish-convert with post traumatic Stress Disorder’ such as Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) in ‘The Big Lebowski.’ But before I could roll… I needed to learn the rules.

1. “Donny you’re out of your element” – Walter Sobchak
I was naive, impressionable and amped to do a campaign exclusively on Twitter because I thought it would be a great way of reaching my core market, 18-34 yr old international backpackers. In my defence this was at a time where I was attending Tweet breakfasts, helping Ashton to his1,000,000 followers and refusing to speak to people unless it involved less than 140 characters! It was the future after all and pretty much a no brainer ! Then one day whilst asking myself “What are you doing now?” I had an epiphany: “@KevLippy Do some #Analysis 4 the campaign!”

Incredibly, what I found was that only 50% of my target market even knew what Twitter was at the time… and only 14% were on it, let alone the ones that were actually ‘active’ users. My own intuition told me that 99% were more likely to have a box of goon in their hand than a mobile device, which is pretty much required to handle the immediacy of Tweets. Conversely, 83% are on Facebook, and not just passively. For example 70% of backpackers use Facebook to upload their photos. I also quickly learned that Facebook ‘Pages’ were the way forward, and that Facebook groups were dead. while I created a Facebook page campaign, I did end up incorporating Twitter, primarily to facilitate messages to others in the travel industry.

2: “The Dude abides” – The Dude
In building my page I scoped out my favourite pages and tried to model my page on theirs. This proved difficult as ‘The Dude(s)’ of Pages, such as Discovery Channel and Red Bull often had purpose built apps. This was out of the question for my budget. So I specialised in finding the coolest free apps (there were plenty!). My favourite is “FBML” which is essentially a box that you can have HTML on your side-wall.

3. “I’m not Mr Lebowski. You’re Mr Lebowski. I’m The Dude” – The Dude
The average backpacker probably perceives us as just ‘a bed.’ It’s not like many people would actively look to become a fan of our brand ‘just because.’ So I decided to create the campaign based around a character called “Backpacking Mate” which;
a. Humanised us – this opened the door to us joining the conversation. It allows us to talk with (not to) our fans. We try not to push-market but are still able to get key messages across subtly.

b. Allowed us to be everywhere - We can send Backpacking Mate from Broome - Byron - Belgrade in a matter of minutes, being that he is an animated fictional character, and that his preferred mode of transport is Photoshop. This also keeps him interesting.

4. “Nobody F***s with The Jesus” – Jesus Quintana
In this regard I consider “The Jesus” to be our “Fans”. Whenever I post anything I ask myself “If I was a backpacker would I want to see this?” I try my best to only speak when I have a significant deal, discount, or a valuable piece of information that I believe will benefit them. Company agendas, inevitably get in the way… but I do try.

Part 2 will be delivered on Wednesday

Advertising's Young Minds: The top 27 blogs of people under 27 (September Update)

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:03:00 +0000

As promised here is the update of the Advertising Young Minds list: The Top 27 (53) blogs of advertising bloggers under 27. I will do the next update in December, if you are eligible for the list, drop me your URL, country and age in the comments.

Blog Name		Country	Google Reader	Tech Authority Score	Tech Reactions 10	Total
1	Jack Cheng (25)	US	1021	167	209	1397
2	Noah Brier (27)	US	729	309	87	1125
3	Young PR (25)	AUS	751	174	63	988
4	Digital Buzz (24)	AUS	612	111	63	786
5	Adspace Pioneers (24)	AUS	244	337	82	663
6	The Lost Jacket	USA	237	55	144	436
7	Jye Smith (23)	AUS	56	260	27	343
8	Heron Preston (26)	US	238	51	13	302
9	Selective Amnesia (27)	IND	222	33	11	266
10	Yaybia (22-24)	USA	179	58	19	256
11	Ryan Stephens Marketing	USA	146	92	0	238
12	Cellar Door (27)	US	122	63	28	213
13	The-Ad-Pit (27)	UK	120	53	21	194
14	Confessions of a Wannabe Adman (25)	UK	112	61	17	190
15	Creative in London (26)	UK	140	13	28	181
16	Pigs Don’t Fly (20)	AUS	52	95	24	171
17	The Spinks Blog(21)	USA	80	64	21	165
18	Adgrads (25)	UK	103	14	20	137
19	Way Cool Jnr (25)	AUS	86	50	0	136
20	Everything's Better With Brentter	USA	60	48	17	125
21	Nicola Davies (25)	UK	73	36	13	122
22	Advertising Pawn (26)	FRA	29	19	48	96
23	Trend Planner (24)	UK	46	16	9	71
24	Nil Desperandum (27)	HK	19	34	7	60
25	Don´t go dizzy (?)	ROM	42	7	9	58
26	More Stupid than the others (20)	UK	50	5	2	57
27	Lexy Klain (25)	AUS	33	14	6	53
28	Michael Karnjanaprakorn (27)	US	32	11	5	48
29	OMG With Emily (?)	AUS	26	13	4	43
30	CIIMS (25)	AUS	27	8	5	40
31	Who is in control of your brand (25)	AUS	5	8	25	38
32	Quintessentially Digital (25)	AUS	22	9	2	33
33	Lauren Fernandez (?)	USA	23	9	0	32
34	Stuff That Is Relevant	?	31	1	0	32
35	Joely Righteous (23)	AUS	11	11	8	30
36	I hate Ads	AUS	22	5	1	28
37	Refined Geek (24)	AUS	15	7	1	23
38	Digestion (?)	US	10	8	4	22
39	Gruen Transfer (21)	AUS	11	6	1	18
40	Who put the devil in you? (?)	AUS	12	4	0	16
41	Love number two (	AUS	9	5	0	14
42	Maloney on marketing (26)	AUS	6	4	4	14
43	Post Modern PR	UK	4	5	4	13
44	Kruppy Rants (27)	AUS	9	3	0	12
45	Michael Allison	CAN	9	3	0	12
46	Simon Says (20)	AUS	3	4	4	11
47	Accidental Thinking (26)	US	9	0	0	9
48	The Bottom Rung (22)	CAN	2	4	2	8
49	Frank, Hayley and the circus (22)	AUS	4	3	1	8
50	Another Advertising Wanker (26)	AUS	2	3	0	5
51	Chris Kamen (26)	?	4	0	1	5
52	Think Chimp	AUS	2	0	0	2
53	AMC Guy (21)	USA	0	0	0	0
54	Sidere (26)	SPA	0	0	0	0

Requirements to be on the list
1. Your blog must be written in english 
2. Your blog must have been active for the past 3 months 
3. Your blog must show some original thinking, it´s not enough to have a blog with ads to be in this list. 
4. You must be 27 years old or under 
5. You must work or want to work in advertising or any other marketing communications specialty, it doesn´t matter if you´re a planner, copywriter, art director, account executive or else. 
6. You can only have one blog in the rank.

How grassroots band Short Stack used online to go to No.1 on the ARIAs

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:30:00 +0000

This is a guest post by Emily Copeland who is the Strategic Integrations Manager for Channel V (MCN - Music) and writes the music marketing blog, OMG with Emily which also has a radio segment on FBi 94.5 - Thursdays at 8.15am.

This week will forever be remembered in musical history. After 7 weeks at number one on the ARIA album charts, we saw Michael Jackson’s reign toppled by an Australian emo band from Budgewoi called Short Stack.

Not only did Short Stack push Michael Jackson into second place, but this release was their very first album, and it debuted at #1!

So how did a group of kids from the coast overthrow the King of Pop?

Back in the 80s, before the members of Short Stack were born, bands kicked off their careers playing in pubs. But in 2005 Short Stack were still too young to tour the pub circuit, so they began placing their tracks on MySpace and entering band competitions such as Youthrock.

As their popularity on MySpace began to grow, the band extended their online presence to include Short Stack TV on YouTube, Facebook fan pages, Bebo, Absolute Punk and Twitter to name just a few.

Short Stack now have almost 60,000 friends on MySpace, and over 10,000 followers on Twitter. They have fan pages for not just the band, but for each individual band member. And back in 2008 they had so many views of their videos on YouTube that they beat Britney Spears to have the number one video of the day.

But lots of bands use social media to promote themselves… how have Short Stack managed to become one of the most popular Australian bands on MySpace, without having released an album until this week? What have they done differently to garner so much support online? How have they turned fans into fanatics?

Graph source

Short Stack used the power of community, credibility and accessibility. And they used their link to a geographic community to strengthen their online community presence.

Community - Embrace Multiple Communities, Real World and Virtual
Short Stack’s home town of Budgewoi, is on the NSW Central Coast. It’s not a large place, but there are a lot of teenagers living nearby – and not a huge amount for them to entertain themselves with. Short Stack used the power of geographic community to initially harness this local young and somewhat-isolated crowd, and make them feel a part of something bigger. They tapped them into the emerging Short Stack online community, and gave them something to get behind when there wasn’t much else for a teenage emo to do. And from it's beginnings on the Central Coast, Short Stack’s music began to spread via online communities around Australia.

Credibility, Credibility, Credibility
The typical emo fashion is to go against the grain, disobey parents, ignore mainstream media, and not get sucked in by large commercial corporations – so Short Stack’s low budget marketing and the fact that they weren’t backed by a major record label at first, made them even more attractive to their fans. The band never discouraged illegal downloading of their tracks – understanding that getting large numbers of people to hear the music was more important initially than trying to push a small number of sales. They boys seemed ‘real’ and relatable which all added to their credibility.

Accessibility - Identify, Understand and Interact with your Audience
Short Stack were lucky that with their long hair and somber emo looks, they appealed directly to teenage girls. The band put their efforts into online communities where their demographic were already spending a lot of time, and tailored their messages directly to this audience. Short Stack have also made themselves accessible – and their fans love them for it! Fans can see the effort that Short Stack go to in responding to comments online, posting regular videos, and releasing free tracks, and they are happy to reciprocate.

It was this reciprocity that saw Short Stack take out Channel [V]’s Oz Artist of the Year 2008. According to lead singer, Shaun Diviney "Our fans are very, very rabid and really into what we do. If we ask them to vote for us they'll do it furiously and really get behind us," (source). Those fans got behind them in 2008 to the tune of 400,000 votes – to see them beat Silverchair and The Presets for the award. Those aren't just fans... they're fanatics. And it is fanatics you need if you want your debut release to topple the King of Pop.

10 historical moments in Youtube Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:15:00 +0000

After my post a year ago on 12 historical Social Media Marketing moments, I thought I would follow it up with historical moments of Youtube.

1. LonelyGirl15 and Heshey’s (June 2006)

In the Lonelygirl15 episode "Truckstop Reunion" the first branded integration on Youtube happened, it featured the characters eating and displaying Hershey's Icebreaker's Sours Gum.

2. Introduce Brand Channels (August 2006)
Companies were given the opportunity to create their own programming. One of the most renowned branded Youtube accounts BlendTec is actually not a branded channel, proving that a sponsored channel is not always needed. Blendtec was set up as just a normal account. Recently Ford Fiesta and Blendtec teamed up to create the monster which is an ad within an ad.

3. Youtube acquired by Google (October 2006)
Google Inc. announces that it had acquired YouTube for US$1.65 billion in Google stock. Advertisers get excited that Google will be able to put a good advertising back end into Youtube.

4. Dove Evolution Video launched (October 2006)

5. Youtube creates the Partners Program (May 2007)
Youtube starts paying their best content creators. A number of top 100 most subscribed now get paid a percentage of the earnings of money made from advertising sold next to their content.

This week they have come out and announced special Partnerships for content creators that go viral, so the JK wedding dance video would now theoretically make money for the newly married.

6. Burger King sponsor the Youtube only ‘Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy’ (August 2008)
It becomes the third most successful b randed channel on Youtube

7. Fred cracks a million subscribers (April 2009)
"Fred" has been sponsored since its inception by the Zipit Wireless Messenger (Z2). He has generated in excess of $100,000 from ad revenue and sponsorship.

8. Youtube puts a halt to third party ads (May 2009)
YouTube put a halt to brand placement advertising in YouTube videos, as they were advertisements that didn’t bring YouTube any revenue. Any partner who was found to do brand placement would lose their contract. This puts an end to Vloggers dealing directly with brands. Example of Vlogger direct deal - starring Lisa Nova

9. Ugly Carl Jnr Burger Deal (June 2009)
Google brokered a deal with Carls Jnr Burger where they would get more than 10 of the top 50 subscribed vloggers to create videos about how they eat their burger. It was a cluttered mess, which made most people resent the stars and Carls Jnr.

10. Still waiting…
I’ve been waiting three years for a proper advertising model which doesn’t require a minimum media spend of $20,000! Take a note from Facebook’s Advertising Model. Get your shit together.

Is there any moments I have missed?

Facebook Pages the new EDM solution.

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:04:00 +0000

Using a mixture of Facebook Advertising and a solid content schedule is making Facebook Pages the new killer electronic direct marketing solution for a number of brands. I have just been working on growing the Grinspoon Facebook Page. Using a smart advertising and content schedule, I was able to grow the Page by 8,000 fans in 20 days.

The following are four reasons why most brands should change to a Facebook Page EDM strategy on the proviso their target market are there.

1. Recruitment
The recent Facebook Advertising Page upgrade have made it a very effective recruitment model, they now allow you to create Facebook Ads, with a ‘one click become a fan button’ functionality.

2. News Feed
Pages have now been upgraded so that you can update straight to fans news feed via a status updates.

3. Insights
When were you able to pull insights off the back end of your email database which gave you breakdowns of your audience like Facebook Insights?

4. One click subscription
If you did get insights like this, then you probably made them enter a number of fields and not just a one click subscribe button.

Ashley Chang

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:40:00 +0000

Ashley Chang has achieved a lot in 22 years. He has run the successful club night WolfGang in Bribane, has been a contributor for Dazed and Confused and a DJ (Audio Arrest). Currently he is the full time Editorial Co-Ordinator for PedestrianTV and in his spare time he's Co Producing the Sydney Bicycle Film Festival.

What makes for entertaining content online? Examples?
As a general rule of thumb any content that I view should either entertain or educate when stripped of all auxiliary marketing messages.
Video content is preferable because (in our time-starved starved society) it’s easy to digest and even easier to pass on.

Do you have a method for selecting what you publish/produce on Pedestrian?
Relevance. If the content will appeal to our audience I will post it.
Timeliness. Fresh content includes things such as new music videos, new film trailers or new fashion collections.
Visual Appeal. People digest information visually

Nuggets of gold that you have learnt from your post analysis
Posts with skin appeal to both men and women, are susceptible to re-blogging, rank highly
Video content also increases onsite time because people can’t “skim”.
Branded content stuff a major learning from the Sprite Truth Hunters video content was to target existing sub-cultures eg. Clubbing culture, skateboarding culture.

Conversations from the gutter

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:25:00 +0000

Every week I go along to Gutter Club, it is a group of young people who work in Music, Media and Marketing who catch up for breakfast. I recently interviewed Ashley and Claire from GC for a presentation on ‘Creating Kick Arse Content Online’. They both have amazing insights into creating content online, as their day jobs consists of choosing what content will get published on Myspace and PedestrianTV.

So I have decided to create a weekly series interviewing people from GC. Tomorrow I will share the interview with Ashley Chang who is the editorial co-ordinator at PedestrianTV. If you work at a Ad/PR Agency that looks after brands that are targeting Gen Y opinion leaders this interview is pure gold.

How does an independent musician spend $1,000 online?

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:43:00 +0000

Tomorrow, I am speaking at the Music Marketing in the Digital Age workshop (thanks to Nick Crocker), I have been thrown the question; If you were an independent musician how would you spend $1000 online?

When creating a successful online advertising campaigns, I believe there needs to be a social idea that sits at the centre of the campaign. This idea must spark conversation online.

In terms of money allocation, I would spend $400 coming up with the idea and producing it. Then spend $600 supporting it with advertising (most likely Facebook Advertising pushing to a Fanpage and other parts of the idea). I would then follow up with outreach to relevant music news portals/blogs.

Examples of Social Ideas

Artist: Snobscrilla
Big Idea: For the ‘Farewell Monkey Tour’, Snobscrilla gave fans the chance to hang backstage with him by destroying something they USED to love. Best destruction got to hang with the big man!
Sparking conversation: Received a quarter page write up in local street press The Brag.

Artist: Lost Valentinos
Big Idea: For the launch of the Lost Cities of Gold album, Lost Valentinos hid gold coins at their shows, one lucky punter got the chance to win a trip for two to Peru.
Sparking conversation: Coverage on Pedestrian

Artist: BlueJuice
Big Idea: For the launch of the song “Broken Leg”, Bluejuice created a mockumentary around the 2009 Skipping Championship.
Sparking conversation: Coverage on Who the bloody hell are they?

Also watch out for Mark Catanzariti blog, this guy is 100% legend and it will only be a matter of time before one of the big music news portals picks him up.

More examples of Australian Musicians using Social Media

One sentence diary #rabpday

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Cole) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 05:57:00 +0000

When I went on my trip to South America last year I kept a diary. It wasn’t like any other diary though. I restricted myself to writing one line a day. It got really addictive and when I got back I decided to keep writing it.

I really wanted to keep it because I feel one of the things I hate most about my memory is that a lot of the chapters in my life just seem to merge into one scene. My whole trip to Thailand is just one big meal of PadThai while dancing on the beach drinking a Tiger Beer. The beer may have had something to do with that!

The diary acts as a great memory trigger for stories that before I would have forgotten.

I still keep the diary and love reading back on it. This was part of the Recycle A Blog Post Day #rabpday, it was originally posted on 22nd June 2008 when no one really read my blog.

Here are some other good hidden posts

-20 friends who changed my life
-Meet Cam Hill - Melbourne's biggest social media channel
-Are you Timberlaking your blog
-Souljah Boy Vs. Ice T (Platform Creation vs. Idea Propagation)