The Advance Guard

2008 will be seen as the year Social Media hit the national headlines. With the growth of social networks and messaging applications such as Facebook and Twitter, the world seem to shrink a little more, enabling conversation between a global community through a new form of online connectivity.

At the same time , Verizon FiOS embarked on a marketing program that would test whether social media strategies could prove equaly effective at the other end of the spectrum - connecting fans, early adopters and potential customers of their services not only nationally, but also at a regional and local level.

My Home 2.0 is an ambitious marketing campaign created by Campfire that combines a TV program, local events and website to demonstrate the transformational effect that FiOS high speed network can have. Local families are “auditioned”, and a few are selected to receive a technology home makeover. A team of Techno-Gurus then get to work, transforming their home, and revealing the results at a local block party where the whole community is invited. Along the way, they demonstrate that technology - specifically high speed internet and TV services - are a means to end that can help reconnect families and enable them to lead richer lives.

Engaged to help plan and execute those parts of the campaign that connected with early adopters & influencers across social media and online networks, The Advance Guard realized that there was an opportunity to create campaign hooks that achieved three aims:

• Create national-level conversation that generated buzz across top blogs, websites and amongst influencers & authoritative voices
• Supplement regional penetration of the program with geo-targeted and niche interest social media initiatives
• Create opportunities for local bloggers and the community to get involved on a personal basis, either via social networks or actually on-site at the family’s home location.

To begin seeding the national story, a series of DIY videos featuring the Techno-Gurus were created. These segments were designed to form short, self-contained (and potentially viral) introductions to the TV show, while each targeting a specific niche audience, including music lovers, sports fans, parents, and kids.

One highlight was a DIY project that showed how to take an old animatronic teddy bear, and connect it with the online microblogging service, Twitter.

In a program that included viral videos, an ebay auction for charity, a live uStream video show and an interactive video feed, Twittering Teddy gained national prominence, featured on Gizmodo, Engadget, and BoingBoing, raising the interest of influencers such as Chris Pirillo, and provoking hundreds of Twitter comments.

At the same time a series of Blogads - and social media ads on Facebook - targeted potential FiOS subscribers by niche interest or region. Those who found FiOS on Facebook has the opportunity to join the My Home 2.0 Group to get updates on the latest build, and to accept an invitation to the local block party to see “the big reveal”.

On set activity was supplemented with a visit by Cali Lewis, the star of top technology podcast GeekBrief.TV. She visited the to the “lair” where many props and ideas for the show were made, and created several segments for her show.

And as the block parties grew nearer, local bloggers and podcasters in the Philadelphia were invited along, provided with Flip Cameras to record the event, and offered the use of a specially-provisioned “bloggers tent”, fully equipped with FiOS high speed connection.

A success both quantitatively and qualitatively, conversions gained across the entire program provided a cost per acquisition than rivaled direct response methods, while providing national coverage of the Verizon FiOS technology as it begins to roll out from state-to-state. The TV show averaged 100,000 households per episode, the block parties attracted a total of 6,000 guests, the Web site counted about 500,000 visitors and a 4.75 percent click-through rate to verizon.com, and the video series registered 100,000 online views and more than 200 blog entries.

What’s more, the program was to go on to win awards that recognized the work put in by the team - including one in the Best Social Marketing category at the 2008 Mixx Awards, and also a Buzz Award for Best Integrated Campaign.

“The lesson of all this” says Beth Mulhern, Verizon’s director of Go to Market for the Mid-Atlantic region, “is, do not be deceived and think that social media is all about widgets — and do not think it is about putting TV commercials online or running banners on networking sites.”

“In the end, social media shouldn’t rely on ‘hand me downs.’ You can’t create mass media or direct- response executions and shoehorn them into social-media spaces and expect success. Start with your vision, your target audience, your product and your partners — determine what people are saying vs. what you want them to say. And then build an experience across all tactics, leveraging your existing tactics, and deliver to the sweet spot.”

Twittering Teddy couldn’t agree more.

FURTHER READING

• Cali Lewis visits My Home 2.0 - a Flickr slideshow
• Scenes from a My Home 2.0 Block Party - a Flickr slideshow

When launching a new technology tool, using French Maids as your spokepersons may not seem the obvious choice. But as mDialog found out, in an increasing competitive landscape, getting noticed increasingly means taking an unconventional approach.

As a new startup in a growing field - mDialog’s problem was one faced by many new technology companies - how to convey a unique set of services to a target that is already inundated with messages and pitches.

mDialog offers much more than other competitive video hosting sites. With embedded surveys, private channels, opportunities for monetization, an integrated iPhone application and instant high resolution encoding for Apple TV and iPhone, mDialog has created a diverse toolbox specifically geared to new media content creators.

“mDialog had just returned from a successful Macworld Expo where our services and technology were very well received.” says mDialog President Greg Philpott. “But it was apparent that no one knew about us. In fact we had a lot of people asking ‘Why have I never heard of you folks before?’”

Faced with this challenge, The Advance Guard was selected to worked with the company and its partners to develop and implement an ongoing strategy to increase their profile, generate use of the service, and sign up new users.

The first challenge was to identify market segments that could benefit from mDialog’s unique offering, and among a sea of sticky notes and research, the brainstorm began. What resulted from the initial strategy phase was a program with multiple components, beginning with a push to introduce the mDialog brand to new media content creators who were already using online tools for video production. It was felt they could be told the mDialog story, quickly appreciate why it was different, and be used to evangelize that message.

The program began at the 2008 South By Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. This hot bed of influencers, filmmakers and musicians from every corner of the globe has become one of the must-attend events for online creators and video bloggers. The SXSW For Newbies Channel on mDialog was created, featuring The Advance Guard’s CC Chapman exploring the festival with online influencers such as Fast Company TV’s Managing Director Robert Scoble, wildly popular technology podcast hosts Cali Lewis and iJustine, and social media guru Chris Brogan.

Interviewing such high profile creators realized two goals - firstly it served as an introduction to the brand, giving each a personal demonstration of mDialog in action. Secondly, by offering online content to the followers of these creators, it increased the potential for the clips to spread virally across the Blogosphere.

After the success of this initial exposure, The Advance Guard planned a full program of attendance by representatives from mDialog at events targeting new media influencers. These growing gatherings were the perfect location to interact with mDialog’s target and sponsorships of both PodCamp Boston and PodCamp NY lead to exposure and new users of the service.

And to insure that all these people being introduced to the brand didn’t miss out on the growing list of improvements and new features, a custom newsletter was set up to be sent out monthly and keep the members up to date

With buzz growing around the brand, the next step was to was to expand the reach to other vertical markets. Key influencers and bloggers in politics, technology, pop culture and parenting were identified and targeted with a very unique outreach.

Engraved iPod Touches were loaded with the mDialog iPhone application, along with a personalized video message from President Greg Philpott, and sent out. This resulted in multiple blog posts, twitter mentions and even this extremely positive video post from technology guru and Gnomedex founder Chris Pirillo.

Which leads us to those French Maids, the stars of the wildly popular French Maid TV.

“Social media has changed the rules for advertising forever.” says Tim Street, creator and producer of the show. “Marketers and content creators need to understand the power of new social media tools and how they can take advantage of them by starting new conversations with their consumers before their competition starts conversing with them.”

Working with his team, a customized episode of the show was created, featuring mDialog technology, and viewed through the mDialog player.

The resulting episode received over half a million views alone, with double that across the French Maid channel, showcasing mDialog to a new mass audience, creating renewed buzz around the brand and delivering site visits, and - most importantly - a legion of new users to the service.

“The Advance Guard’s understanding of social marketing, and the enabling technologies that support the various social networks, are a key strength they brought to the table.” says Greg Philpott. “Today you need both, it is not enough to only understand social marketing, you need to be a practitioner too. And that is what The Advance Guard is.”

FURTHER READING

• Canadian Video Sharing Site Delivers Video Content to iPhone, Apple TV - Beet.TV
• mDialog: A Suite of Video Management Tools - Web Worker Daily
• mDialog goes hi-res, offers pay-per-download - Macworld

Once your music collection sat on a CD rack in the corner of a room. But since the invention of the the MP3, collections have become measured in gigabytes not wall space. As we bring more devices into our lives, the issue of where to store an ever-growing music collection - and how to synchronize it tracks across those devices - becomes increasingly complex.

A new startup - Didiom - aimed to tackle part of that problem with a unique place-shifting technology that allows you to stream an entire collection to your mobile phone, wherever you may be.Yet even with an award-winning technology, and an inked deal with CD Baby to bring over 2 million DRM free tracks to the Didiom store, the new startup was still faced with the problem of raising awareness amongst early-adopters.

“It was important for us to use social media to expand Didiom’s online presence beyond our website, and interact with beta users, music fans, social networkers, bloggers and podcasters.”says Didiom CEO, Ran Assaf.

Being a self-funded startup requires efficiency with both time & money, and so - when it came to creating buzz and generating new user signups, Didiom turned to The Advance Guard.

“The Advance Guard truly understands social media, with great entrepreneurial spirit and passion about early-stage startups and emerging technologies. We were definitely kindred spirits.” says Assaf.

The team took a professionally-produced overview video, and combined it with a Social Media Press Release to serve as the basis for an outreach. This unique form of fact sheet - created especially for the blogging and podcasting community - allows busy webmasters to quickly craft a blog story, with multimedia embeds, contact details, and all the relevant facts.

Once the release was crafted, the possible target for an outreach was assessed. Sometimes casting a wide net is the best solution, but for this first push a finely tuned scope of influence was chosen - technology sites, mobile software blogs and niche blogs that concentrated on both music and blackberry solutions were determined. Personalized e-mails were sent to each individual, introducing Didiom with a link to the SMPR, video and including a custom-designed offer for free tracks from the Didiom online music store.

The story instantly began to gain traction. In a world saturated with iPhone news, writers were excited to try something new on a different platform. What began as a bubble in the smaller blogs eventually led to coverage in the mainstream press, and on top technology blog, Gizmodo. During the four weeks of outreach, sign ups rose 670% and continued to rise as the long tail of blog posts introduced new people to the amazing place-shifting capabilities.

“The Advance Guard developed and implemented a great outreach program for us and helped us capture the attention of our target audience creatively and cost-effectively. Up until recently, Didiom has been a hidden gem, but thanks to The Advance Guard we are no longer hidden.” says Assaf.

With a New Year and continued focus on growing, Didiom and The Advance Guard are now planning the next wave of influence. Didiom not only allows placeshifting, but also has a unique marketplace that allows you to define what you pay for your music. Place-shifting has changed the way you listen to your music and now it is time to for everyone to realize why it will also change how you buy your music. Stay tuned.