I am going to be away next week at Social Media Malaysia 2012

It is easy to think of social media as a thing which happens in our own little world but going to Malaysia last year really open end my eyes to look out for what is happening around the world. Social media has given a voice to consumers but how long before it gives a much bigger voice to smaller countries around the world who take the lead in online conversation. Find out more at http://www.socialmediaweek.com.my

I am a big fan of LeadsCon Las Vegas and it is coming up soon.

This years LeadsCon is
February 28-29, 2012
at The Mirage Hotel & Casino

If you do not know already LeadsCon is the preeminent conference dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of those operating in the online lead generation industry. LeadsCon provides a unique and collaborative environment designed for networking and sharing. Meet the people, gather the knowledge, and get the tools to gain the edge in the ever evolving online lead generation space.

LeadsCon is different from Affiliate Summit. It is much more focused on the direct response industry and while there is some overlap if you are in the space it is worth while going to both if you can.

You can get your ticket at http://www.leadscon.com 

Last week’s Super Bowl game saw Audi try to use the vampire trend to their advantage. Audi ran a commercial for their new LED headlights, saying they were as close to daylight as you can get. The ad featured a cool, hip vampire arriving at a bonfire in his Audi and accidentally vaporizing a dozen of his friends. They got caught in the headlights, and we all know Vampires are destroyed in daylight. They pushed the messaging on Twitter through the #solongvampires tag. Here’s a look at what kind of a bite the video campaign took out of social media’s neck:

Highlights:

• Audi used #SoLongVampires to extend the campaign to Twitter, and pushed traffic to the USA Today Admeter where it became the #8 most popular Super Bowl ad.
• 4x increase in mentions during the week leading up to the Super Bowl.
• The commercial got more than 4.8 million views on YouTube by the Monday morning after the Super Bowl. Watch it here.

Mentions of Audi related to their Super Bowl #solongvampires campaign

Graph by Alerti social media monitoring and management

This is the first of the monthly LA Blog Club meetups and the topic of discussion is “How Bloggers Work With Major Chains” If you are an LA blogger then this is a chance both to be in on something at the start great and to learn more about how to work with Whole Foods as a company.

When:

Wednesday, February 15, 2012, 6:30 PM

Where:

Whole Foods Tarzana
18700 Ventura Boulevard, Tarzana, CA

The event sponsors ArabicaDabra Coffee put out a release saying

“ArabicaDabra’s “coffee with a conscience” business model comes from the passion of the company’s founder and CEO Jackie Mendelson – a lifelong non-profit advocate who has spent nearly three decades helping victims of homelessness and HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and in poverty-stricken regions in Rwanda, Kenya, Zambia, Honduras and India. ArabicaDabra Coffee Company makes it possible to purchase livestock, looms and other precious resources for the farmers growing coffee beans in the source countries.

Mendelson’s mission to support micro-enterprise development and fair trade mirrors Whole Foods Market’s core values – a “Whole Foods – Whole People – Whole Planet” philosophy. “We both have common goals when it comes to concern for the environment while providing the very best and freshest products,” Mendelson says. “When you purchase our fairly traded coffee you strengthen our passion to support the sustainability of coffee growers that use environmentally responsible farming methods around the globe. “

The choice to bring ArabicaDabra into Whole Foods Market was an easy one, according to Tarzana store manager, George Khoury. “We share the same beliefs and vision for good business practices and how to best serve the community and growers. We both care about sustainability and how to make a bigger impact on the world. It was a natural partnership.” ”

For more information about the blog club see http://www.meetup.com/Los-Angeles-Blog-Club/  

In today’s episode of Future Of Engagement, we meet Marketing and Communications Director of Meltwater Group Kimling Lam for a discussion about:

• Social media monitoring
• Listening to customers
• Social CRM
• And more!
 
Kimling has been at Meltwater since 2006 and is a leading industry professional in the world of marketing and social media monitoring. She comes from a journalistic background, as she produced and delivered news stories featuring live, on-air shots for KSBW, an NBC affiliate.
 

 
Future Of Engagement dives deep into the world of engagement from San Francisco, the IT hotspot of the world. The weekly series gives you the information—and the gossip—you need to know to keep you up-to-date with social engagement.
 
For more information:
• Adrants
• Influence People
• Meltwater
 

In a few weeks, I’m flying all the way out to Malaysia to speak at Social Media Week 2012!

Malaysia Social Media Week aims to link people together to discuss social media and figure out tomorrow’s social media landscape. SMW aims at people interested in marketing and social media, such as C-level executives, entrepreneurs, and bloggers. And if you can’t fly all the way to Malaysia, you can still watch it live streamed online. I’ll have a link up for that on this page as we get closer to February 13!

The awards will be held at the Putra World Trade Center in Kuala Lumpur from February 13^th to February 17^th.

Keep checking back here for the latest Social Media Week news!

VigLink CEO Oliver Roup and I are hosting the premiere of Future of Publishing. The show lasts will feature interviews of today’s movers and shakers in the marketing world. Today, we’re interviewing:

• Pirouz Nilforoush, President & Co-Founder NetShelter,

 

• Yulia Smirnova, SEO Manager, and

 

• Paul Edmondson, CEO of HubPages.

It starts at 12:00 noon Pacific Time so grab a chair and get comfortable!

Watch live video from futureofpublishing on www.justin.tv

This week only: Playkast is having a contest on the Future of Publishing Facebook page! After the show, viewers will be able to answer a series of questions which they will only know from watching the show. Viewers who score well will be entered into a random drawing to win an Amazon Kindle!

Future of Publishing is sponsored by VigLink.
Find out more at FutureOfPublishing.tv!

Despite plastering cigarette packets with pictures of diseased lungs, slapping substantially high rates of tax on their cost and even banning smoking in nearly every conceivable indoor environment, there remains an estimated 48.2 million smokers in the US and 10 million in the UK. Around 300 people in Britain die every day from smoking. If this isn’t stopping us, what will?

Our governments seem to believe that hiding smoking away in a deep dark corner, stigmatising the act and pricing it out of the market is the way forward.

According to Ecig.org, the premiere supplier of Green Smoke coupons, in Britain, the government are even in the process of hiding cigarettes from prying eyes, choosing instead to place them underneath the counters in shops and supermarkets.

Yet what do they hope to achieve with this?

Those that smoke will still know where to ask and what to ask for. Potential smokers (i.e. children and teenagers) will simply find the idea of the habit all the more appealing the more ‘forbidden’ that it becomes.

The problem is that the average person today doesn’t listen to or trust their government. The Internet has placed us in an age in which we’re freer to speak our minds and share thoughts and ideas with others than ever before.

Perhaps then it’s the Internet that holds the key to starting a worldwide trend for stopping smoking.

The ‘Meme’

An ‘Internet meme’ is something that spreads across the Internet. Something that goes viral: a video that everyone’s watching, a game everyone is playing, or even a song, picture, an infographic or an idea.

An Internet meme is something that the world today sits up and pays attention to.

The Meme and Smoking

The ‘meme’ is a reflection of society in the 21st Century. The reality is that most of us are more interested in viewing a video of a baby panda sneezing than we are in hearing what our politicians have to say or, perish the thought, becoming involved in politics ourselves.

It’s for this reason that perhaps the key to reducing the number of people that smoke today is not through government legislation; it’s through tapping into the hearts and minds of the 21st Century smoker. It’s by making not smoking a ‘trend’.

Successful memes of recent years have demonstrated how Internet trends can impact the way we think and act.

The 2010 British public information film ‘Embrace Life‘ was designed to emphasise the importance of wearing a seat belt, and it did so, to great success. The YouTube video had been viewed over a million times within two weeks. Less than a month after its release it was being watched in 129 different countries.

The film hasn’t even, to date, been shown on television. It was designed for the Internet and that is where it has enjoyed such success.

‘Embrace Life’ demonstrates how art can be used to tap into people’s emotions. If made in the right way, a video, song or image designed to change how we think doesn’t need to be cheesy. Messages such as ‘just say no’ have never worked because they undermine the intelligence of the listener.

You need to give us more than just a hollow message if you want to change the way we think.

The Truth

‘The Truth’ is a present day meme that cites the anti-smoking message.

Using videos, images and shock tactics, the truth is designed wholly about offering the truth to smokers and potential smokers-to-be.

Yet ‘The Truth’ doesn’t just talk at us. It gets us to play games, join in social networks and show our commitment to the cause with merchandise.

It doesn’t undermine us. It doesn’t tell lies. It tells us what it doesn’t always hurt us to know: the truth.

Will it Work?

Whether ‘The Truth’ itself is set to become the be-all and end-all of stopping smoking full stop remains to be seen. What can be seen though, is that this is the future of education.

‘Just say no’ has never worked and it never will. We need to know why we should say no. And when we’re told why, we need to be told the truth.

On Friday, January 27, the Wall Street Journal broke a story that Facebook could be filing their IPO as early as this week. The Future of Engagement takes a look at how this breaking news spread across the social media landscape.

Highlights:

• After the WSJ story broke, “Facebook IPO” was trending on Twitter within hours.
• More than 50% of the mentions were on Twitter, showing once again how important it is for breaking news.
• Overall 80x increase in 24 hours- while “Facebook IPO” saw a few mentions in recent weeks, on the 27th mentions skyrocketed to well over 800 posts.

Graph by Alerti

I interview founder of Spark Media Solutions David Spark in this episode of Future of Engagement.