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1. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis had more success in 2013 than pretty much anyone in the music business. At the start of the year, I had a conversation with Mack and Ryan’s manager Zach Quillen that was featured on Hypebot. I’ve heard from countless independent artists that the insights from the conversations were helpful to them.

2. I tweeted from the Twitter offices, checked-in at the Foursquare offices, and googled my name at the Google offices, all in one year.

3. My uncle, Joe Franco, was one of the original ESPN employees. This year he retired from ESPN after a successful career, and he was nice enough to invite me to the retirement party in Bristol. The next day another one of the original ESPN employees, Jeff Israel, gave me a full tour of the ESPN Campus while Joe closed out things in his office.

4. The Franco family is a boxing family. My grandpa was a Golden Gloves fighter back in the day, and my dad coached boxing at one point in his life. I grew up watching the fights with my dad — and had a few of my own — but never went to see a title fight in person. That changed in 2013 when I went to the Barclay Center to see Zab Judah challenge Danny Garcia for his Super Lightweight titles.

5. Speaking of the Franco family, Mike Malbon (of Frank 151 and Franks Chop Shop) introduced me to hardcore legend Skam Dust. Within seconds of shaking hands, Skam and I discovered that we were part of the #FrancoGang.

5. I met Magic Johnson.

6. I became a Godfather to my one year-old niece Elise.

7. I made motion pictures like this with my niece Eva.

8. I spent my first year in NYC living by myself in a studio apartment, but in April I upgraded to a two bedroom in a better neighborhood. Obviously I don’t need both bedrooms for myself; I have a roommate. While some people have to find roommates on Craigslist, I am sharing an apartment with my good friend, Frank Locascio, who I’ve known since 7th grade. A big shout out to him for putting up with my me.

9. The first hip-hop song I fell in love with was “Hypnotize” by Notorious BIG, a record released by Bad Boy Records. This year I had the biggest presentation of my life at the Bad Boy Worldwide headquarters. Pretty surreal. It couldn’t have gone better, btw.

10. Things were going really well for me in corporate America. I was being fast-tracked at Carat, which was named the #1 media agency in the country by all the major trade publications in 2013, and I was really loving working there. But in July I quit my job to join the founding team of a new social app. I can’t go into a lot of details yet, but to make a long story short, it is a dream job for me, and it will lead to lots of great moments in 2014.

Wishing everybody nothing but the best in 2014!

The post My Favorite Memories From 2013 appeared first on Chris Franco.

Also, the fact that the data will include photos is of even more value since smartphone photos are worth big bucks.

Why relationship connections? If you’re a consumer goods manufacturer (think Toyota, Nike, Nabisco, Sony), a retailer (think Wal-Mart, Macy’s, Target, Amazon) or a marketing firm (think Genghis Kahn, Idi Amin, Mussolini), how much is it worth to you to know which consumers are close friends or close relatives with other specific consumers? As a major gift-giving occasion comes up for one consumer, how would you like to be able to send highly customized pitches to his or her close friends and relatives?

“Hey, we know that you’re good friends with Suzy and it’s her birthday next week. As it happens, we also know that she’s been looking at a certain item on our site. Here’s a link to purchase and send it to her. Her address has already been filled in, along with instructions to the shipper that it must arrive on her birthday and not before. If you’re as good a friend as Suzy thinks you are, all you have to do is type in your credit card data.”

You can read the full article here.

Instagram Direct will provide clean, optimized data that will make Snapchat worth more than the $3 billion Facebook offered. I’ll be interested to see what Instagram Direct usage is like after a month or two. None of my friends use it, but maybe our behavior will change over time? Time will tell…

The post Instagram Direct: Why Private Messaging is Worth Big Bucks to Instagram appeared first on Chris Franco.

With 2014 right around the corner, I’ve been reflecting a bit about modern marketing, specifically what the future of social media marketing looks like. The more I think about it, the more I realize that there has never been a more exciting time to be in marketing.

Whether you’re a marketing professional or the brand that relies on marketers to get the word out about your product, 2014 is the year to step your game up and start creating experiences. We have consumers who are willing to be engaged, and unlimited ways we can engage them. Unfortunately most marketing professionals are blowing it.

Instead of real desire to engage their audience and make a lasting impression, the majority of modern marketers are more focused on the volume of impressions. They are stuck in the cycle of creating slightly-above-average content, promoting it, and optimizing for maximum ROI.

How many more “7 Killer Social Media Tips Every Blogger Ought To Know” posts does the Internet really need? How many more ‘social media secrets’ are there left to reveal?

When I was a little kid I told my mom and dad that I wanted to be an inventor when I grew up. To succeed in the world of marketing in the 21st century, you need to embrace your inner inventor. After all, marketing in the 2014 means having the opportunity to do things that have never been done. That’s not fluff speak, it’s the truth. It should make you excited.

Even more exciting than the new technology is the new kind of consumer that we have the privilege to address. As Fjord illustrates, this is the era of consumer self-realization and this new kind of consumer — which includes you and I — does not want to be sold to, but rather engaged. As marketers we will win when we provide consumers with an experience, not ad-copy. Think about making a memory before making a sale.

To the content creators and marketers: We have this endless digital landscape that allows us to publish and promote anything our minds can imagine. It is being filled with soul-less content that gets impressions without making an impression. If we only harvest our most inspired work, we will get results, and that’s what marketing is all about, isn’t it?

The post Marketing In 2014: Why It’s All About Creating Experiences appeared first on Chris Franco.