How can you start a morning off better than with with pastries, coffee and a great conversation about social media? Since Digital Operative has taken over Social Media Breakfast San Diego, once a month we do just that.  It’s been a really neat experience so far with lots of great feedback, insight and general comments from group members and speakers surrounding this new buzz word.  Since social media is, well, pretty much the greatest thing since sliced bread these days, being given the opportunity to be part of this organization I feel extremely fortunate and have learned quit a bit.

Every month for part of the breakfast we go over a top 10 list about the latest and greatest going on in social media.  I’m always surprised when doing my research.  Every month trumps the one prior.  From Oprah to Ashton Kutcher Vs. CNN to Dominos pizza hiring someone whose sole purpose is to Twitter.  People and companies everywhere are integrating some form of social media into their marketing plan, but it is interesting to see how if used a certain way, it can either make you or break you, and developing the right strategies is as significant as any other part of your marketing.

Being a part of this organization I’ve been able to hear about some of the struggles and road blocks people face in their marketing strategies and it’s always fascinating to hear what members come up with regarding how to tackle those issues using social media.  Listening to members discuss the problems they’re faced with and the tactics they used to solve those problems has been an incredible chance to learn about the newest strategies out there and to see where it’s working, when it’s working and why it’s working.

Since we have taken over this organization, our group has grown by over 40 people. That’s new people! We are excited to see these new faces and hope to continue growing over the coming months.

BJ sent me a link to PhoneGap yesterday and asked me to take a peek at it, here are my two cents on it.

PhoneGap as a whole is extremely impressive, but it’s probably more ambitious than functional at this point. The main selling point for the platform is that there is practically no barrier to entry for web developers. You develop applications on it using css, html and javascript, which is going to be a welcome alternative to objective-c / Java for most of us. Another immediate advantage to this is that it makes creating a seamless experience between a website and an iPhone app pretty easy, you can just copy the css from your website to keep the same look and feel. PhoneGap extends portions of the APIs for Android, iPhone and Blackberry devices and abstracts them into a javascript framework, the key here is that it abstracts them all into the same javascript framework, so your code will run on all three devices in more or less the same fashion.

All of this needs to be taken with a grain of salt though, there is still a lot of functionality you lose out on, the PhoneGap wiki has a nice chart that lets you see what you can accomplish so far. Needless to say, the lack of support for features like the camera or the local filesystem is a little disappointing. The other main gripe I have with the platform is that it kills the efficiency of your applications, I made up a little chart to give an idea of what is going on when you create a PhoneGap app, we’ll focus on the iPhone since it’s the best supported platform so far:

Basic structure of a PhoneGap application on the iPhone

Normally when you write an iPhone application, your code executes directly on top of a “sandbox” area that is kind of like a sequestered portion of the operating system which the iPhone gives limited access to. It’s not a terribly efficient process to begin with, but it gets the job done. For PhoneGap applications, they run their framework in that sandbox, which in turn runs safari, and then safari’s javascript interpreter (webkit) which itself is a virtual platform, executes your code. The entire process decreases the efficiency of your application by quite a bit. Aside from efficiency, there is other baggage that comes with writing your applications on top of a javascript interpreter: you’re at its mercy. If at some point in the future there is an update to webkit which doesn’t jive with the code you have written, your entire application is hosed and you’ll need to release an update for it.

In any case, despite its shortcomings, PhoneGap is a promising platform for simple iPhone applications, the project is well documented due to an active and knowledgeable community, and that’s a good sign of it maturing as time goes on.

So someone passed me a link for the new Dell “Della” campaign website. Since I wasn’t the target audience, I passed around to some of my female colleagues, searched for conversations around Twitter, read some blogs by female bloggers who know their stuff and figured I’d introduce “Stella” from Comedy Central all at the same time. Are you wondering who is Stella?

Stella is a satire on Comedy Central that features Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter and David Wain. They always find themselves in strange situations, play to the far side of the spectrum and wear suits. At the end of the day, they always find ways to be smart and sophomoric. Can these two qualities exist within a campaign that is supposed to focused on women, yet seems to have dropped the ball in so many ways? As I’m writing this post, there are bloggers chattering, Dell says they’ve adjusted their direction based on feedback, but I still see holes. Let’s help Dell plug them before they go down trying to rap and dressed in suits.

Join the conversation - where is the link to the Marketing & Advertising section in Ideastorm.com? Isn’t this primarily where most of the conversations are? Why fragment them around the web, which takes more work to then reel all that data back in, run through some text analytics technology and categorise for internal team. I remember hearing from being at Customer Feedback Week that Dell had an 8-person “feedback” division. Maybe it’s bigger, but someone still has to distill all that feedback, right?

Aesthetics - I’m not the target audience, but still … are men so bad to include? It feels like I’m shopping on Pottery Barn. I’m gonna guess, but most professional, busy women who are 18-34 like technical data, power and yes style. Does shrinking (hiding) the products and focusing on the woman only the best use of imagery?

Messaging - Green tips and pink ribbons? Seems pretty played out based on what other brands are doing. My wife is a stay-at-home, professional mom who needs a laptop. Maybe speak to her lifestage, tell her how it can help her run the kid around, get her stuff done and not lug around some 5 lbs laptop. And Gina Q is on every section with templated, “Share your thoughts on the topic above.” Really?

But, what do I know. I’m a guy.

See what some other folks are saying:

Shelley Dolley - “Let’s hope the lessons they’re learning will be shared across industries.”

Andrea Learned - “Della Disaster: What Makes A Computer ‘For Women’?”

Twittersphere - “Ladies, do you find the Della site offensive? Della: Dell’s Modest Proposal For Women. Women will buy a computer, having no idea what it does, just because it’s cute, according to Dell’s Della”

Well it seems like Dell is doing their best to respond which I give them propos for and hopefully they connect with some real women consumers and not just stock photography models to gain insight how to market to them today in this world fo 360 degree touchpoints.

So I just got an email from AdAge. Figured is was about some big agency launching the next best social media campaign, viral Flash microsite or how someone jumped ship from CPB that used to work for JWT and is now dating someone from TBWA. Whew …

What I found was the Small Agency Awards brought to you by AdAge.

• $150 per entry
• Agency must have 75 employees or less
• Two categories: “Small Agency of the Year” or “Campaign of the Year“
• Final entry deadline is May 22nd

I was reviewing the categories trying to see where DO would best fall. We’re too new for the Agency of the Year, but consider this my virtual nomination. We do have a great campaign, that unfortunately, we can’t talk about due to this legal, acronymed document and others.

To all those little guys out there, go on with your badselves and submit your work, be proud to be small and keep doing big things! Madison Avenue isn’t looking so good these days. But here in San Diego, things are thriving and I’ve noticed many little agencies popping up all over around here. Best of luck!

Whenever you see something for the first time there’s this glitz and glamor associated with it. In this case, I opened my email from Nike like any other day and this time I found a cornucopia of tools embedded into one section in the lower right corner. Nike was trying to enable their customers to “share” their email within their own network of friends, family and co-workers. You can see in the image below that they’ve adopted the ShareThis button and chose to display Facebook, Myspace, Email and Digg. Assuming those are the most popular in terms of social media market share; Nike was on the right path.

So like any curious customer who also happens to have co-founded a digital marketing agency; I clicked on one of the little icons. I was then brought to the following page below, which is simply a static version of the original email. There’s one catch. There is the ShareThis window overlayed so you can scroll through to your favorite social media bookmarking websites and social networking websites or email to all your friends.

I figured why not. I tried a couple scenarios and here is what happened …

Twitter -Their link for Twitter went to a 404 page.

Facebook - The link they were enabling me to post didn’t work and the whole Facebook experience was horrible. Why not just use Facebook connect guys? (See one of my previous posts about how Nike could use Facebook Connect)

Email - The email I received was poorly structured and again, the link didn’t work.

Conclusion: If you’re going to jump with both feet in the water, make sure you can swim. Nike’s attempt is valiant, but it lacks the planning and execution that is required when you start integrating email marketing with social media. Yeah you have to hard code in the sharing buttons and links, but at least test them. In this case, I would recommend that Nike use something like Facebook connect if they really want people to syndicate things there, their own custom email form for sending via email and Twitthis for sharing on Twitter. One of things we feel is our duty at Digital Operative is to ensure that our clients are using the right technologies and tools. If you are planning to mix email marketing and social media, make sure you plan it out, test everything out and then track to see if your audience is even using these tools.

I realize that when you first view the title you might think, hmm … vague much? Well that’s a little on purpose and little experimental. Back in November of 2007, I posted a question to my LinkedIn network asking, “What is the best advice you can give a fresh, young marketer right out of school about how to get ahead quickly?” And I was presented with 22 responses, some public, some private, from folks I highly respected and was connected to for one reason or another. I want this post to be living, organic, self-sustaining and a resource for young people who are stuck in the poorly-structured programs around the country who want to get into digital marketing, interactive marketing, social media marketing, online marketing … whatever buzzword you wanna add to the beginning.

Here are some of my favorite pieces of advice for young marketers followed by some of my own.

Rick Corteville, Head of Digital Media, EMEA at Universal McCann said …

1. Never call or consider yourself an expert in your field. There is always something more to learn.
2. Don’t get comfortable at your job. Keep your hunger to go the extra mile.
3. Be a pioneer. It is better to ask for forgiveness than to beg for permission.

Amanda Wichard, Marketing Director at LJG Partners, Inc. said …

“My best advice is to network. It sounds cliche, but it really is all about who you know, not what you know. There are so many opportunities you don’t even know about when you are fresh out of school. Meet and talk to as many people as possible.”

Craig Peters, Founder, CKPcreative said …

“Take the long view. Be ethical. Never burn a bridge. Network. Keep your word. Under promise and over deliver. Eschew arrogance. Know something about everything and everything about something. Keep an open mind. Now that you’ve learned the rules in school, realize that in the real world the rules often don’t apply. Take your work seriously, but yourself less so. Keep your sense of humor. Remember that in the end it’s only a job. Be the kind of person you’d want to work with. Always give it your best, no matter how small the task.”

Steve Yin, Internet Marketing Professional said …

“Be a vacuum cleaner of information and trends. Discuss issues and industry topics with coworkers.

Be patient. Your career is a marathon. You’ll be working for at least 30-40 years (or more). Even those rich enough to “retire” continue to work. So I wouldn’t use “getting ahead quickly” as the ultimate goal. Create 1 year, 5 year, 10 year, and 20 year visions, and adjust them regularly.”

Günther lie, director interactive marketing said …

“forget everything you learned in school. never stop learning - be a sponge for knowledge. get out and meet people in all areas of marketing. bone up on your analytics.”

Vipin Gulian, Business Head said …

“The best thing is to read, socialise, research, understand market, Find a good mentor and be on top of new things market pulse.”

Danny Hsia, Product Development, Fool.com said …

“I’d tell that person to be open to taking on all sorts of responsibilities in the organization, even if it doesn’t seem to fit w/in his/her job profile. Also, be as social as possible. Get to really know the folks you’re working with - unless you’re a big jerk, it’s not going to hurt you and will likely help as you look to move up in your organization or elsewhere.

From a marketing standpoint, I’d say the newbie could generate ideas by thinking about his/her own experiences as a consumer. Although the newbie won’t have much actual marketing work experience, s/he has been a consumer for many years already - what better place to generate some ideas?”

Tom Young, Vice President of Marketing at Entrepreneurs’ Organization said …

“I would recommend looking for a position where you can get broad exposure to a variety of marketing challenges in different industries and speak/work directly with the individuals responsible for solving them. I know consulting can be a dirty word, but that’s the way I started out and there was nothing like talking to a variety of executives up and down the food chain about challenges as varied as making a utility’s rate hike palatable to inventing a new category in consumer appliances. I considered it to be an MBA-in-a-box type exposure, and it really reinforces the variety of ways that a marketer can approach a problem once you look to forge your career. Of course, there are other ways to gain this experience; there are companies that do a really good job with executive training, GE and P&G for example.”

Danny Flamberg, Managing Partner, Booster Rocket said …

“Take a job and dedicate yourself to learning it well. Invest your time and focus your talent in learning the tasks and watching the politics, the people and the internal plumbing of your organization. Keep your head down and your mouth shut. Watch closely and absorb what’s going on around you. Don’t expect to move up the ladder quickly but make yourself valuable by being there and knowing what you are doing. Ask often and assume nothing.”

This last one is from a good friend and was sent as a private answer, but I’m gonna help him get a little more social and share some of his great insights with you …

Ryan B, Entrepreneurial Business Development Executive said …

The education isn’t over it’s just beginning. Schools tend to be a few steps behind in marketing practices and trends. So, though it seems that you are coming out ready to take over the marketing world…you quickly learn that you are far behind.

School teaches you how to learn, so use that knowledge to constantly learn about the latest techniques, avenues, etc….

Secondarily, your first job should be considered based on:

• The quality of leadership you will receive
• The amount of learning and training you will have access to
• The level of involvement you will have

If you think about it majority of these folks who have anywhere between 5-35 years of experience in marketing focus on being a sponge, leveraging your network, going out and being social, using what you learned as a framework and putting yourself in the consumer’s shoes. So get involved within the community of people who have the role you want to grow into, read about their experiences, figure out where you’re going by doing it. No matter how many books you read, you’ve got to do the work.

For all you young marketers looking to get ahead listen to those around you who’ve been there, experiment and remember that your education is a core foundation; be social.

I live in a town called Carmel Valley, which is a little suburb just north of San Diego. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a little, quiet, family oriented town.  This week I got a recorded phone call saying, please do not use the water until otherwise notified. There had been a water pipe breakage and health officials were concerned with water contamination. No problem, I’ll just go buy some clean and safe water to drink and use for other purposes, for example brushing my teeth. Easy fix.  This went on for what seemed to be 2 long days. Now, imagine for a moment living somewhere without any access to clean water. Unfortunately millions of kids are dying everyday because they don’t have access.

Digital Operative has been given the privilege this year to help the TAP Project raise money to help bring clean and safe drinking water to those in need. World Water Week 09 Started March 22 and will end on March 28.  Restaurants nation wide are participating by charging 1 dollar for tap water during that week.  That $1 will help provide one child clean and safe drinking water for 40 days.

There have been many gracious people helping to support this campaign. Some of the bloggers we’ve reached have helped create awareness for the TAP Project campaign and they are:

• From Melissa’s Desk
• Oh hey. What’s up?
  
• aGreatChef.com
• San Diego Mommy Spot
  
• San Diego Momma
  
• San Diego Foodstuff
  

As I mentioned before, this is a nation wide campaign. Cities all over the country have put on events to promote this cause:

• San Diego
  • The Thirsty For Change event was a fun way to raise awareness and get people excited about the campaign.
  • Drink For A Good Cause Happy Hour Event also had a successful turnout.
  • The San Diego Online Society hosted a pool party this year and the donation bowl definitely filled up.
• Los Angeles has kicked their campaign off this year with Tap Project Radio. Musicians and Celebrities are featured guests to help raise money and awareness.
• Washington DC: President of UNICEF joined with businesses, government and academia in endorsing the declaration on US Policy and the Global Challenge of Water. It pushes for the US to make access to clean water a priority.
• New York: Where this campaign was born. They kick started World Water Week with a water walk starting in Battery Park. Close to 1500 supports attended.

Many more cities around the country have joined in to help this cause.  It’s not too late for you to be a part of this campaign. Any support you can give, no matter how little is a big help, so take your loved ones out for dinner this weekend and buy some tap water for a dollar.  Check for participating restaurants in your city here.

The Tap Project began in New York City with a simple basic concept and that concept has become a powerful cause. World Water Week 09 is a campaign helping to bring clean and safe drinking water to millions of children in need all around the world.  Since 2007, this campaign has grown into a national cause.  The goal of this project is to raise awareness and funds that will help UNICEF’s efforts to save millions of children’s lives. Beginning March 22-28, restaurants nation wide will ask their customers to donate $1 for tap water that would ordinarily be free when they dine out. That $1 will provide 1 child with safe and clean drinking water for 40 days.

San Diego TAP - This year Fishtank Brand Advertising, founders of the San Diego campaign, has given Digital Operative the privilege to help drive awareness and engagement for the campaign in San Diego through all digital marketing channels including mobile with Txt4TAP and social media with Facebook, Twitter, local/national bloggers and even creating offline events. Here are the many ways you can support SDTAP and get involved:

Restaurants:

• Sign up by March 15
• Find participating restaurants

Events:

• Thirsty for Change Benefit - March 22 at the Belly Up
• Follow the Thirsty for Change Benefit on Facebook
• SANDIOS - Holiday Happy Hour Event-March 25

Donate

• Text in your donation from your cell phone: Text4Tap
• Donate online:

Campaign Info:

• Join SDTAP group on Facebook
• SDTAP site
• Follow SDTAP on Twitter

Endorsements: Sam the cooking guy

• Sam will be making announcements on his site
• Visit Sam on Facebook
• If you’d like to meet Sam in person, join us at the Belly Up March 22.

Any contribution is a step forward and We hope to see you at some of the events!

On Wednesday I had the earliest start to my day yet this year. It was one of those days where you realize that “business attire” means pulling out the leather shoes, suit pants, button down and yes; the suit jacket. And like any event you volunteer at; you’re running late and really have no idea what building you’re supposed to be in. Luckily my intuition guided me to USD and in the right direction. The 11th Annual AMA Cause Conference was buzzing with NPO’s (non-profit organizations), corporations, students, speakers, marketers and vendors. You could tell passionate people were there to talk and get things done. I was there to do what I could to ensure the day went smoothly.

Since I only got to sit in on the first keynotes and the social media marketing session, I only was able to fire out some tweets around those. If you’re interested in reading some of the little gold nuggest I captured from the inspirational speakers that were there, head over to this link where I used CAUSECON09 as my hashtag. If you don’t get the chance to head over to my tweets, here are some that I think are worth sharing in this post.

AMA Cause Conference Top 10 Tweets tagged with #CAUSECON09:

• “Over 1/3 of respondents use internet to donate”
• “The key to corporate giving growth in San Diego is in the small to medium businesses”
• “Amidst a perfect storm. Not all will survive, but new ways to do things to be discovered - overall reset“
• “Scott Silverman up… Holds up chapstick and says, We’re gonna be kissing a lot of ass this year“
• “80% of American workers don’t believe that their company would fulfill CSR if it affected profitability”
• “CSR really needs to be Corporate Social Opportunity”
• “Business Education is flawed within the US - ebita, leverage assets, public relations”
• “San Diego 2050 - population will double, dry season lasts til november, sea level rise 6-12 in, more congestion, degraded health”
• “60% of Americans use social media”
• “Good to think about for companies and NPOs considering social media is limiting the tools to have focus”

Lastly, Becky Carroll, @bcarroll7, did a fantastic job of leading the day and making sure everything ran like a well-oiled machine. I had a great time and would definitely volunteer again for next year. If you’re considering cause marketing campaigns or ways to shift your business model to align with people, planet, profit … this is the conference you should be at. If you didn’t get to be there, here are all the conference presentations!

Optimizing your site using the right approach,
Is the subject I’m going to broach.
There are certain things you should implement during this process
If you follow these basic steps, you should expect nothing less.
Your site will optimize without a doubt,
If you follow this route.

Keywords and phrases is where you want to start.
If you don’t do your research, this is where you and I should part.
Pick the ones that focus on your niche.
General phrases will probably make a glitch
Pick specific words that compete with fewer sites,
Eventually you’ll stop beating your head like you do most nights.

Title Tags, Meta Tags and content should be a priority on your list.
Whoever manages these things, you should threaten with your fist.
Probably the most important factor in organic SEO.
Pay no attention to this and I’m certain your site will be a no go.
Keyword density should be between 3-5%.
Avoid Keyword stuffing, that’s what I meant.
Your content should have a natural flow.
Make sure you’ve added enough keywords though.
Each page of your site should have its own Title Tag.
This is not an area you want to treat like an old rag.
Tags should be built around keywords specific to a page.
Even Meta Tags count, even though it’s not all the rage.

Inbound link development is an important step.
Don’t fight this. It’s something you should just accept.
This is probably the most difficult and time consuming technique,
But it’s a good long term strategy. Wink, wink!
Factors that influence your rankings are,
Relevancy of the site linking back to you shouldn’t be sub-par,
And the anchor text to your sites link,
Can surely make you sink.
Do your research to partner with sites that will benefit you.
You’ll thank me once you realize this is not just a rue.

Your goal is to increase the number of visitors and leads,
By giving Google’s bot what it needs.
The search engines top 10 ranking is where you want to be.
It won’t happen by begging on your knees.
Getting pages indexed in each major search engine is tough,
But if you follow my steps, it might just be enough.