Do you use Twitter? I guess you could say I am a fair weather friend. It’s tough at times for me to keep a steady stream of fresh blog posts going, never mind updating Twitter with every move, thought, inspiration, etc. But I do love the concept – I dabble from time to time – and I have a serious respect for what it has done to ignite conversation. I do attempt to read the tweets of the people I follow, primarily those in the industry, as there’s a lot to learn from their daily ramblings. But what I find most inspiring and exciting, is that more and more brands are starting to embrace Twitter as part of their experimentations with social media! There are two in particular I have decided to follow:

First up, Tablet Hotels, a stellar online resource for finding the the most unique, non-commercialized, hidden gems of hotels, globally. I’ve stayed at a couple, and they rock. There’s a lot of other cool bells and whistles on the site too that you should check out, but that’s for a separate post. So, the guys over at Tablet Hotels, who I just discovered are former agency guys so this now makes more sense to me, have started to use Twitter recently to distribute some great information, such as deals at hotels, new hotels added to their exclusive list, newsletter announcements, etc. I’d be curious to learn if they have seen an increase in site visits, conversions, etc. since incorporating Twitter into their digital marketing strategy. I would be willing to bet they have.

Next up, one of my favorite brands, Zappos. And aside from the fact that I have a total shoe addiction and shoes in general just make me elated, I really think Zappos is a top-notch brand run buy some authentic and pretty amazing people. Remember this story? Anyway, Tony, the CEO of Zappos, is quite the Twitterer. I think he is a junkie (positive twist to that comment); check out Zappos’ new biz cards. Tony’s strategy is a little different than Tablet Hotels’. He has chosen to use Twitter as a vehicle to provide a behind the scenes look into the brand from his perspective, and a glimpse at his life as the CEO and the lives of the employees of probably the most effective online shoe sales business around. He also encourages his employees to use Twitter – 250+ of them are – and there’s even a Beginner’s Quick Start Guide and Tutorial to Using Twitter that he assembled.

I love emerging media, and following the trends, and I just think it’s so great to see brands, and employees of those brands, leveraging some of the simplest social media tools to connect with one another internally, engage their users, and reach their audience in a new way with a different content angle. If you follow any brands on Twitter, let me know how they are using the tool and your thoughts on their strategies.

The golden question in mobile: what’s the next big thing? Is it who can develop the coolest and most useful iPhone application? Is it something relating to Android? What about m-commerce and mobile banking? It’s clear that mobile marketing and technology are the new “in” things to do when it comes to planning marketing strategies, but they’re also a bit of a mystery. Because so many brands and agencies do not understand the complexities, and question the ROI, it’s often added into the marketing mix when there’s money left over after interactive budgets are spent. Or, it’s added to a larger campaign, as an upsell and often an afterthought. And all too often, brands and agencies add mobile in just to say, “we do mobile!”. So many agencies want to break through the ubiquitous SMS clutter, and do something “cool” and “cutting-edge” and something that’s never been done before. I have put some thought into what’s next in mobile marketing, and have a quite a few predictions; some ideas I think have legs more than others.

One concept that keeps coming up and that hasn’t quite found its place in the space is the use of QR Codes, those black & white images that look a lot like barcodes on a product scanned at checkout. Brands and technology vendors are trying and experimenting, but no one has been completely successful yet with bringing these 2D barcodes to the US market. Sure, Japan and Korea are scanning QR codes with their mobile phones already; but, because of the varying US carrier rules and regulations, and the void of one standard code that I am aware of yet that will translate cross-carrier and cross-device, we are a step or two behind (or a lot more), with just a few “betas” testing things out. Plus, the question of consumer adoption – “will people use this?” – is another big TBD. It will be interesting to see where all this plays out, but the power that I see behind this coming to market – if done correctly and carefully with common standards – is huge. It’s not about a mobile coupon that can be scanned at checkout for a discount off a burger or a pair of shoes; that’s not too cutting edge from my perspective. Where this concept of scanning a barcode becomes really interesting is when we dive into the idea of connecting the physical world with the digital world. These little codes can be the means to instantly link say a print ad, a newspaper ad, an OOH ad, or literally anything in the physical world, and once scanned provide additional information immediately, link to more info on the web, download content and even make an immediate purchase of an item. Now that’s pretty cool.

So I have my own reservations on whether or not QR codes will make the cut, and it comes full circle to the complexities of the carrier, device, and content provider relationship in the US. But, I think the outcome could be pretty awesome, and I look forward to watching it all unfold. Want to read more on QR codes? Here are a few links:

• Google, QVC Attempt to Revive QR Codes
  
• Why QR Codes Will Be Big Business in the U.S.
  
• Code Scanning Goes To School
  
• Paper Is Out, Cellphones Are In
  

I have been an avid and experimental blogger now for over 2 years, and recently friends, family, and complete strangers have approached me asking for tips and advice on how to get started. So, in the spirit of being a newbie (I’m going on week four at TBG!), I decided perhaps it’s time to share some of my ideas on how individuals should start to think about blogging and join the community. Many of these points may seem rudimentary and pronounced to us folks in the digital marketing industry, but to those who are not, I understand blogging can be a pretty intimidating endeavor. So, here are a few steps that may help to guide newcomers navigating through the blogosphere:

Familiarize and Educate
Like any other new life trial, the first step individuals interested in blogging should take is to get familiar with exactly what a blog is and its role on the internet. Sure, anyone can hit-up Wikipedia and find that a “blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.” But that sounds so text book, and most importantly, very one-way, eh? The absolute most important function of a blog from my perspective is that it is, in most cases, not just a website and should not be treated as a repository for forcing a message, but rather it is a two-way communication tool, a very Web 2.0 concept. No longer are people and brands allowed to market via “shouting” their message at consumers (one-way); but now consumers and individuals interested in the same or parallel topics can take part in the conversation by commenting on a post, or writing a post on their own blog to communicate a message or idea to spark the conversation. It is this two-way conversation that I think is the most powerful aspect of blogging and a critical piece to grasp when dabbling with blogging, even on the individual level.

Experiment and Participate
Next up, get out there and start participating in the conversation (sorry to sound very Joseph Jaffe but it is true!). Bloggers-to-be should add a few RSS feeds of their favorite blogs to their feed aggregator (mine is Netvibes), start reading on a regular basis, and start commenting. Take that one step further, and start an experimental blog just to get your feet wet using one of the many friendly and easy to use platforms out there that are available at little or not cost, such as TypePad, Blogger, and Wordpress this is what I did to experiment with blogging (I am on my 3rd personal blog!), and there are a some valuable lessons that I learned – which may be obvious – but are excellent rules of thumb for newbies:

• Be transparent and honest. If not, readers are going to see right through you, and either stop reading, or worse, call you out on it


• Do research before writing. Nothing worse than presenting your POV based on mis-information or hearsay


• Be yourself, write in your own voice


• Encourage people to comment and provide their opinion on a given topic


• Don’t spend hours writing and re-writing posts. Blog entries don’t have to be perfect

Evaluate
Once educated and actively participating, if still interested in blogging, it’s important to see what other people are saying about you or your brand/company before you officially launch your blog, and evaluate whether or not it makes sense to start a blog. Set up Google Alerts for your name or brand, and run a search on Technorati or the like. If there’s anything negative circulating in the blogosphere, you need to be prepared. Blogging is risky at times, as people are going to inevitably disagree with you and rebut your ideas, conversations may get heated, and you need to have thick skin from time to time. And finally, if you are still sold on blogging, make sure you define the goals and objectives of your blog, stick to ‘em, and remember to post often to keep people engaged.

So again, here at TBG it’s clear that everyone “gets” how to blog, as I have watched all my colleagues get involved and this space grow exponentially over the last few days since the site launch; but, to all those blog-curious folks out there, it can be intimidating. Take a deep breath and give it a shot!

Rick gave a shout out to the new Goldfrapp album in one of his Twitter tweets the other day and I rushed to buy it… it rocks!

If you love the melodic, subtle side of Goldfrapp, then you’re going to love their Seventh Tree album, just released this past February. It’s their fourth studio album and a bit of a break from their typical synthpop and glamrock that you find in Black Cherry and Supernature. A few critics are calling it “too lazy”, but I just love the tranquility, the harp and acoustic guitar that give it a folky aura, and of course Alison’s totally spine-tingling voice and kick ass lyrics. A&E has become my absolute favorite track, though all the tracks are pretty amazing. Give Seventh Tree a listen, and let me know what you think!