Over the summer, my friends and I loved using Foursquare. When we started checking-in, it was so fun to unlock badges and claim mayorships. It was a game that we played against each other. On very rare occasions, we actually received special treatment for being mayors and using the location-based service. It was super fun. But it’s not so fun anymore.

There’s a plateau. If you’re in a city like Madison, Wisconsin, there are only so many rewards you can get and so many things to do. Once you unlock these 10 or so badges, you can’t go any further. Location-based social media needs to evolve past mayorships to fight off Foursquare fatigue.

Go Local

It’ time for Foursquare to become more localized. They’re heading in the right direction with Foursquare for Universities, which was just launched last week. Essentially, Foursquare is selecting ambassadors to create a more personal, local connection with the college towns. This could be used in so many cool ways. It’s already being used for university tours, which helps smartphone clutching freshmen navigate a new campus (kids these days….).

Schools are able to create specialized badges for different campus hot-spots. I bet that students will love this. Anyone from Madison would appreciate getting a “Badger Badge” for attending a certain amount of UW sporting events, for example. Increasing the relevancy of badges for each University would keep college kids (and the adults that hang out on campus) more interested.

Even in the suburbs, there are interesting, badge-worthy things to do. I currently live within biking distance of the Minnesota Zoo, for example….it’s easy enough to make an “In the Wild” badge. The point is this: the more personal and specialized Foursquare feels to the user, the more a person is likely to use it.

Beyond Mayorships

It’s time to look beyond specials for just the mayor. Foursquare 2.0 for the iPhone was released this week, and it emphasizes the “Tips” and “To-Do” sections of the app. On the old interface, the hope was that people would leave friendly tips and comments about the place. Foursquare 2.0 also allows you to find to-do’s on the internet and add them to your Foursquare account as a reminder to go to that place or accomplish that to-do. Here, the possibilities for use are endless.

Businesses can create Tips/To-Dos that entice a patron to do something in exchange for a deal. Think about how word-of-mouth would spread if someone had to do a dance in the middle of a restaurant for a free meal, or you received a free appetizer if you brought in a crowd of 10. It will be cool to read a positive restaurant review online and then be able to “tag” that place, so you know where to go. Or, a business could put the “Add this to Foursquare” button on their website and create quick, mobile coupons. The “Add to Foursquare” button could be a really great tool for businesses to increase new visits and return customers.

Quick ideas

There are a ton of other things Foursquare can do to make sure its service stays fun and relevant to users. Here’s a quick list of ideas I’m stealing from other LBS services that would heighten the Foursquare experience:

• Like Facebook Places, integrate other information about the venue. Link directly to the place’s webpage, put reviews up, and tie in the venue’s social media, if applicable.
• Like SCVNGR, integrate “games” and “tasks.” Create scavenger hunts and other fun things to do. Give the user an incentive (even if it is just “fun”) to continue to use the service.
• Allow users to pin photographs to the places.
• Continue to partner with businesses, and work with group-buying companies like Groupon.
• Foursquare is beginning to recommend places to go to. This one is a little touchy because people don’t like being told what to do, but imagine how useful this could be to travelers or people moving to new cities.

So, what does the future look like?

Like I said in a previous post, the possibilities for Foursquare are really endless. What we’re continuing to see in today’s world is a shift to a cross-platform experience; something you do or look at on the internet can be transferred seamlessly to your mobile phone. This is what Foursquare 2.0 is doing with its “Add this to Foursquare” buttons. It will be really cool to see how technology like this continues to grow in the future to create a better experience for consumers.

As location-based social media continues to become more mainstream and the options for which service to use become more numerous, Foursquare is going to have to continue to evolve in order to cater to the users’ needs. Hopefully, Foursquare and other services like it keep listening to what the consumers want so that location-based social media is still fun and relevant. I’ll keep checking-in as long as it remains fun and I get something out of it.

Tired of Foursquare too? How else could they keep it fun?

Everybody has one: the party-pooper relative at family gatherings. While the “cool” relatives are playing touch football with the rest of the family in the backyard or telling funny, slightly-inappropriate stories to the kids, the party-pooper is sitting around talking about synergy, fluctuations in the stock market, and cash flow. He’s important to talk to if you’re in business, but not very much fun. Say hello to LinkedIn, the uncool uncle of the social media family.

LinkedIn is all about business. It’s a social network devoted to business networking. So before you dismiss LinkedIn because it isn’t all that fun, remember that it is a very crucial part of your social media toolkit.

Get Recommended

LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to give and get recommendations, which are sort of like virtual referrals. Getting a recommendation from someone on LinkedIn shows that you were once a valuable member of a team (or you know the right people to bribe) and gives others the opportunity to write nice things about you.  Of course, this also means that you’ll have to write recommendations for others, too. It’s a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” sort of situation, and it is something you should embrace (and I should get working on!).

Select which tweets you send to LinkedIn

LinkedIn gives you the option to connect your Twitter account to your profile; this will put all of your tweets into your LinkedIn feed. Avoid this option like it was a cast member of Jersey Shore.  Not everything you tweet about is going to be relevant to your LinkedIn connections. A lot of it, like the aforementioned cast of Jersey Shore, is trash to them; they simply don’t care about what you had for dinner or what you thought about the most recent episode of (you guessed it) Jersey Shore. They’ll end up being turned off by your updates.

LinkedIn gives you the option to select which tweets go into your LinkedIn feed, which is what I do. When I want to broadcast a new blog post to my LinkedIn connections, I simply add the hashtag #in to the end of the tweet. It’s a good way of keeping my irrelevant tweets out of my LinkedIn feed, while still letting my connections know that I’m active on the service and have valuable things to say.

LinkedIn will also let you connect with your blog (if you have one). Especially if your blog is industry-related, you should definitely make your blog as visible as possible.

Join Groups

I don’t have a whole lot of experience with groups on LinkedIn, but I know that you should consider joining them. Join groups relevant to your industry and participate in discussions. Join college alumni groups; these will be filled with members of your alma mater, so you will already have something in common. Use groups on LinkedIn to try to create connections with people in your industry that you would never meet in person. It never hurts to put yourself out there and see if you can get yourself noticed.

Follow Companies You Want to Work For

You can “follow” companies on LinkedIn. This means that you’re able to see new hires, new departures, and new job openings that the company has. You can also use this feature to find someone within the company and send a message to them asking about job openings and what it’s like working for that company. You may not get a response, but it never hurts to try. Connecting with a company on social media lets them know that you’re active on social media (duh), which is good for any industry except Amish gift shop management.

Let’s face it; we’re in an age where prospective employers will use any and all tools at their disposal to check out applicants. LinkedIn is designed to help you find a job. What makes it so boring also makes it useful: it is all business, all the time. This means that professionals are probably more apt to check LinkedIn before they look at your Twitter stream or your Facebook page. It may not be as fun as Facebook or as interesting as Twitter, but it’ll come in handy once you’re trying to get into the professional world. Do yourself a favor and make a profile, keep it up to date, and use LinkedIn to your advantage. And be sure to be nice to your uncool uncle the next time you see him.

I’d be a little dull if I wrote an entire post about LinkedIn and didn’t  pimp my profile: Connect with me on LinkedIn, will ya?

Are you active on LinkedIn? Is it helpful to you?

Epiphanies, small moments of clarity that change your life, often occur when someone “finds God” or hits rock bottom and struggles back up. Mad Men’s episode this week, “The Summer Man,” more or less dealt with that, as Don was trying to “wake up.” And as I was watching, it got me thinking about a very simple idea that took me 22 years to learn. “Epiphany” isn’t the right word for it, but it’s the first one that comes to mind.

Even though I double-majored in four years at a great business school, I coasted through college. It was easy enough for me to get good grades and succeed. And I never got involved in anything academic. Joining student orgs seemed fake to me, like I would only be doing it so I could put something on my résumé and “network.” It took social media to wake me up from this half-asleep, paralyzing notion that participating meant selling-out.

Participating is NOT selling-out

I learned that once you start participating, you’ll want to try harder. To work more. To learn as much as you possibly can. To stop half-assing it and throw every ounce of effort into everything you do. Social media sparked a passion in me that really hadn’t been lit before.

Once I joined Twitter and started reading blogs, I realized how much I liked advertising, marketing, media. It’s genuinely interesting to me; every stat I encounter, every ad I look at, and every article I read reinforces my desire to soak up more knowledge, to participate more, and to get my opinion out there. Before I participated in social media, I had no idea what I actually wanted to do with my life.

Social media makes you a part of the community

I found other people who, like me, were interested in every single facet of advertising. People who shared my love for pop culture, tech, and media. Because I wasn’t a part of student orgs and my friends were dispersed throughout other majors, I hadn’t really connected with anyone who was passionate about the same career that I was. I was blind to that community before I got involved in social media.

I saw all these people my age writing blogs that were interesting and filled with useful information. I decided that I could write too. I could provide my own insights into this world, and people might read what I have been writing and learn something. So I started writing more about those things on a blog (this one, genius), and I joined The Next Great Generation. Social media (more or less) gave me a voice.

You can learn from this community

I saw that amidst all the junk, there were people all over Twitter with interesting, witty, insightful things to say. I saw that there were a ton of people within the industry that would be willing to give great advice. There were even some C-Level employees that were friendly and social. I learned that I could talk to them and learn something was somewhat of a revelation too; I thought CEO’s were supposed to be stodgy, cranky, unapproachable people surrounded by yes-men (yep, just like Mr Burns). Social media blew that idea to smithereens.

I’m lucky that I picked up on this passion when I did; I may have missed out on a lot of opportunities during school, but I’m giving it my best shot to make up for it.  I’m not going to ever regret how I spent my time in college; I got to spend a ton of time with my friends and, as the great prophet Tracy Jordan notes, “Regrets are for horseshoes and handbags.” But I am pretty glad I figured this out early on, and I give social media some credit for my tiny “epiphany.”

Ok, two somewhat-personal posts in a row is more than enough. Back to your regularly-scheduled snarky look at advertising and pop culture next time.

Anyone have a similar moment?

(photo via)

Sad Don Draper has a personal branding problem

A few years ago, “personal branding” was one of those phrases that made me hate that I was in Business School. I always saw it as a gimmick to avoid, a game I wouldn’t play along with, and an idea I could never believe in. I don’t want to be a person with a catchphrase, and I’m not the type of person to rely on some false trait in order to advance my career. However, I’ve learned that personal branding isn’t so bad as long as you remember that you can be yourself and still succeed.

You’re the product

Whether you’re going for a job, or trying to get in a relationship, or applying for school, you’re essentially selling yourself. That’s what personal branding is about. Whether you like it or not, you are a product, and your attributes and abilities have to be attractive to the company you are trying to work for (the “buyer”). You do this by finding out how to differentiate yourself from all of the other brands out there vying for the buyer’s attention, and by promoting the best aspects of your “brand.”  Hopefully, you do this well enough that someone wants to hire you, or go on a date, or accept you into their school program. If this sounds impersonal, good. It’s supposed to. This is where you can inject some of your personality.

Blend personal and professional

One of the questions I come across fairly frequently as I’m reading things online is “should I have separate Twitter accounts for my friends and professional life?” I don’t believe that you have to separate your personal and professional identity to get a job. The way I see it, my personality is one of the most identifiable differentiators my personal brand has; I WANT people to see more than my “professional side.” There are hundreds of college grads from UW-Madison that have my credentials, but there’s only one person like me (and this is coming from someone who has an identical twin). If an employer has an issue with me tweeting about anything “off-topic” or showing off my personal side, then I probably wouldn’t be a good fit in their company anyways, and I sure as hell don’t want to work in a place where I don’t fit. Simple as that.

Of course, there are limits. You have to be mindful of the things you post online and the pictures you show up in. This doesn’t mean you have to untag every picture of you with a red Solo cup, or take every damn, hell, and ass out of your online lexicon.  Have fun online. Just understand that the internet is a public forum, and be careful.  As long as you’re comfortable with whatever you’re posting, you’ll probably be alright.

Oh, Lord. Networking

Networking is a word that evokes fire and brimstone to me. A place of slick hair and slicker pitches. A world of opportunistic people exchanging firm handshakes and elevator speeches. People donning their best suits and going to events solely to lie and pass out business cards. The opposite of authentic, the perpetual job fair.  My own personal hell. But networking doesn’t have to be so bad.

It helps to remember that people aren’t usually that cold, and many actually feel the same way about networking. If you like having conversations with people, just think of networking as talking with a bunch of people interested in having a conversation. Pretend you’re at a bar; even though you’re at a business event, you can still talk about other things like popular culture, sports, and music. Try to make some new friends, and who knows, maybe they’ll be good people to know in the business world too. Maybe your personal brand is attractive to a recruiter simply because you’re not all business, all the time. Maybe, just maybe, being yourself will land you a job.

In the end, just be yourself

“Personal branding” was such a strange concept to me because I didn’t understand how easy it is. You don’t have to buy in to all of the gimmicks, or be fake, or pretend to be something you’re not. All you have to do is be yourself, and your personality will become your “personal brand.” Some people may not like your brand and they may not want to buy your product, but that’s alright. That’s why you don’t see a 40 year-old businessman browsing through the Slayer tees at Hot Topic and why you don’t see Donald Trump at Walmart.  Square pegs don’t fit into round holes, so don’t waste your time chasing an employer who doesn’t like you for who you are.

(Photo via)

What do you think about personal branding? How about networking?

Life is increasingly mobile. My entire life is connected to a tiny rectangle in my pocket. I’m always “on” and connected to Twitter, Facebook, email, and a slew of other useful apps. Smartphones are projected to account for over half of the US cell phone market in 2011. The number of tablets and iPads is steadily increasing too. For the first time ever, e-books are outselling hardcover versions. This trend has incredible implications for the future of, well, everything. This post is an awesome wake-up call to everyone who is stuck talking about social media when mobile is truly the future. Mobile technology is going to change how we think about the world and interact with it. In short, the future is mobile.

Advertising On-The-Go

We’ll soon be getting ads sent directly to our mobile devices based on our location. Recently, this article highlighted the partnership between two companies that allows brands to send you SMS (text) ads, as long as you opt in. This means that even if you don’t have a smartphone yet, you can still join in on the fun. You only get the ads when you are around certain “geo-fences” that the stores set up (hence the location aspect). This sounds horrendously intrusive, but fear not: these ads are opt-in. You have to choose to receive the ads. Mobile advertising is going to be a hit because it allows for targeted messages that are more relevant to the consumer than the giant blasts sent out over the TV or radio.

Foursquare and other location-based services also provide you with special promotions based upon where you visit. I’ve talked about that before, so go ahead and check that out. While I’m not too hot on Facebook Places right yet, I will admit that it is a very powerful tool for businesses. Imagine having Foursquare, Yelp, and Facebook Fan pages all integrated together. Businesses will be able to have reviews, pictures, coupons, check-in information, and its own information all on one page that is accessible on-the-go.

You control when and where you want to access content

Technology is increasingly able to fit content around your schedule instead of content dictating it. “Timeshifting now” is a phrase I heard Faris Yakob use, and it’s an interesting concept. Timeshifting already has changed how we watch TV, and over half of the US has timeshifted a TV show. Now extend this idea to your phone or other mobile device; you can choose to watch content (on Hulu, on Youtube, etc) on your phone whenever you want. I can’t explain it as well as him, and I might have misinterpreted the idea, but the concept led me to another conclusion:  You’re able to control when and where you want to access media because your mobile device is stuck in a constant present tense defined as your “now.” When something is being broadcast and where you are during this broadcast no longer matters (save for some events like the Superbowl, awards shows, that sort of stuff). Mobile devices allow you to timeshift content to your “now” instead of dictating when your “now” is. Watch the video on the link. You’ll be smarter because of it.

Content is going to become more and more interactive

Here’s where everything gets really interesting. Imagine what a school armed with iPads would be like. All content would be up-to-date, textbooks would be interactive, and kids wouldn’t have to lug around 30-lb backpacks. Kids would want to learn if they could click on a video and watch it, or if they could learn a subject through an interactive game right on their iPad.  They would also learn to interact with the digital world at an early age, something that will be enormously beneficial in the future. If colleges embraced digital textbooks, the books would be a LOT less expensive than purchasing hardcovers; anyone who went to college knows how expensive books are. (this iPad-as-textbook idea came from a brief Twitter conversation with Olivier Blanchard. He has a lot of great ideas).

Imagine what a hospital would be like with the interactive capabilities of new mobile technology. Doctors wouldn’t have to worry about losing papers and every patient’s information could be transferred instantly between doctors and hospitals. Mobile technology will bring forth a revolution in nearly every industry, from education to healthcare to media and everywhere in between.

Mobile will change how we talk to each other and how we pay for things

I’m not going to touch on this very much, because we all know about mobile social interaction. We text a lot. Teens 12-17 use texting as their main mode of communication; they text more than they send email, call on the phone, or have face-to-face conversations. We have been able to connect with our online social networks via mobile device for a few years now. This isn’t really new, but this mobile social interaction will certainly grow with the number of smartphones being used. Mobile technology is definitely changing the way we interact with our social networks.

Mobile technology is going to change the way we pay for things too. PayPal has an app out that allows you to “bump” phones to complete a transaction. Soon, we could be paying with our phones like we do with credit cards and cash. This idea, while still in its infancy, could turn smartphones into wallets. Obviously, there are many issues that need to be worked out, but I definitely see this concept becoming a reality in the future.

So here we are, in the brave new world of mobile. It’s a technology that will cause a permanent shift in the way we interact with the rest of the world. Mobile is a technological advance that is probably the most important thing since the internet, and I can’t wait to see what happens with it in the future.

What do you think? Is mobile really as important as I think? What other mobile technology is going to freak the world out? Leave your ideas in the comments.

(Image via)

Realtors have a mantra: Location, location, location. That might as well be 2010’s official slogan, because every social network is getting on the LBS-train. Now, Facebook has entered the ring with its “Facebook Places” application. At the moment, it’s sort of like Foursquare with a few more bells and whistles.

Look, Zuckerberg, I get it. You want to play with the other cool kids in the location arena. It’s new, it’s fun, and it’s eventually going to be lucrative. But I’m not sold on Facebook’s foray into location-based services yet. Here are a few reasons why:

Foursquare was opt-in

I have 356 friends on Facebook. I maybe care where 10% of them are at any given moment. I don’t need to know where that-girl-I-met-once-in-college is eating lunch and I don’t care where anyone from my high-school is partying. They don’t care where I am, either. I joined Foursquare and chose my friends on that platform because I do care where they are. I chose them specifically because their location might interest me. I joined Facebook and friended people for different reasons.

I think Facebook would have been better off if they had created Places as an opt-in service within someone’s existing Facebook profile. In this service, you would have to choose to join Places, and then you would have to invite people  from your existing pool of Facebook friends to accept your “Places Friend Request.” This way, users would have the decision to share their location and they would be able to share their whereabouts with a limited number of people. I imagine Facebook didn’t go this route because they wanted location-based services to become more mainstream; by creating an opt-in service, less people would be interested, and they’d essentially just be creating a Foursquare clone.

Caveat: I’m sure Facebook will allow me to fiddle with the privacy settings of this application so I only see the location of people I choose, but I already did that on Foursquare. It seems a little redundant.

Clutter

Remember when Farmville became popular and everyone’s newsfeed was clogged-up with annoying notifications? Remember how angry everyone was because they didn’t want to see every update about lonely cows and awesome crops? It’ll happen again with Facebook Places, and it won’t be pretty.

Caveat: Again, I’m sure they’ve already thought this through and will allow you to block/hide location updates. Still, I’m haunted by memories of homeless animals and crop-growing updates littering my feed.

Counterpoint

Here’s the sad but realistic news: Facebook Places will probably be a hit. According to Facebook, “there are more than 150 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.” Obviously, not every mobile user will be checking-in, but the number is pretty astounding when you consider that as of today, Foursquare is approaching 3 million users. If even a tiny fraction of Facebook Mobile users begin to check-in , the number of Places users will surpass Foursquare. Having Facebook Places will open up the world of location-based services to many, many people, which is good in the long-run.

Not only that, but it’ll be much easier for businesses to give out coupons and special deals. Since businesses can link their pages to the Places application, it’ll be a nicer integration than Foursquare can currently offer. You will be able to learn a lot more about the place of business when you use Facebook. This means that for businesses, Facebook Places may be more lucrative than Foursquare.

Our new time capsule?

At last night’s Places introduction, VP of Product Chris Cox channeled Don Draper and made a bigger point about location-based services: It’s not just something cool to do now, it’s a time capsule:

“Cox is really making a higher level argument for Facebook Places and location-based services in general. He’s talking about how Facebook Places will be a collective archive of our memories of what we experienced at a specific location or event, such as Lollapalooza. The company sees it as an evolution of the scrapbook or the photo album — now those stories will get more attention, those stories will be pinned to a physical location.”

As cheesy as it is, I think that’s a pretty cool. Whether we completely understand it or not, everything we put on the internet leaves a mark in time, and eventually they’ll become our society’s cave paintings. Yikes.

Obviously, it’s too early to tell if Facebook Places will be more like Google Wave or, well, Facebook. Right now, I think they have a lot of things to iron-out before I become a gung-ho user. Whether or not Places takes off, having Facebook enter the ring means location-based services have hit the mainstream public, which is think is a great thing for transparency, technology, and innovation.

What do you think? Are you going to join Facebook Places?

(Image via)

Over the summer I’ve been managing the social media accounts of clients in a wide range of industries, from restaurants to spokes-rappers (seriously) to professional organizers. I’ve learned some things along the way, and since I’ve written about using social media as a business before, I think I’ll make some observations about how it works in reality. I’ve been on the frontlines of the social media landscape, and from my trials and tribulations come the following lessons.

Read more…

| Why your business should embrace location-based social media |

The other day, an article came out with the title “Study Says Most Marketers Should Forgo Foursquare.” Naturally, a title like that is going to entice me to a read it. It explains that only 4% of adults use the location-based social media service, and 80% of the users are male. It also stated that 70% of users are in between ages 19-35, and 70% have college degrees or higher. Now, do these stats sound like a dead zone for marketers? Of course not! If anything, these stats are conducive to huge growth in the future, as the millennial generation grows older and Foursquare becomes more popular.

Think about it; what Foursquare does is entice consumers into your place of business, restaurant, or bar. It creates competition to see who can visit your venue the most. I’ve talked about Foursquare before, but this time I want to talk about how businesses can use it to increase their revenues. I recently read an article about how you can use Foursquare as a marketing tool, and it gave me some ideas. In the article, Danny Brown mentioned that you can use it as a cross-platform tool (enticing people to go to a bar after a movie, for example). Here are some other ideas on how to monetize Foursquare for your business, beyond just having specials for the mayor.

Loyalty Program: Use it as a reward for stopping by more than once. Make a special that says you’ll get something for free (or a discount) on the tenth time you go in. Entice the customer to continue to come in, and reward them for frequency. This allows more than one person to be incentivized for frequency, while still letting one person continue to be mayor (regardless of the prize, it IS fun to dethrone a mayor).

Swarm Party: Believe it or not, one of the more innovative Foursquare ideas I’ve heard of came out of Milwaukee. AJ Bomber’s has used Foursquare very well, and more restaurants should take notice. Bomber’s had an idea to host a “Swarm Party” on a Sunday. Basically, they offered the possibility of a coveted Swarm Badge (for those not in the know, you get one for checking-in to a venue with more than 50 other Foursquare users). 161 people showed up, and everyone got their swarm badge. Additionally, this stunt increased sales by 110%. Your business could go further and say that everyone in the building gets a free drink if you get enough people for a swarm badge. Even if less than 50 people check in, you’ll still have a decent-sized crowd ready to spend money. This is just a case of people lusting after something with no inherent value; consumers will gladly spend money if they get a chance at a swarm badge.

Check-in With a Friend: Have a special that rewards bringing new customers in. If you can show them that you’re bringing a friend in and it’s their first time checking in, reward the word-of-mouth with a special. This is easy enough to prove (and, I’m assuming that as the software becomes more advanced you’ll be able to track the number of people checking-in to your business), and it promotes new business.

Obviously, there’s a very large space for innovation and creativity when it comes to using Foursquare as a marketing tool. As the stats say, very few people currently use it, but that number is growing. The great thing about technology like this is that the possibilities for using it are endless; all your business has to do is embrace Foursquare and get to work counting your money. Let’s hear it: What are some other ways you think businesses can use Foursquare as a marketing tool?

(photo via The Dog & Pony Show and ThinkGeek)

As one of my loyal readers (all fourteen of you, and that’s being optimistic), you probably know that I like Twitter. Quite a bit. I’ve written about it before. Twitter is a portal to the collective thoughts of the world. I recently commented about it on a post about why I love Twitter:

I think Twitter can fundamentally change the way those with little industry experience look for work. Connecting with the right people, posting high-quality information, and making insightful observations on Twitter could potentially catch the eye of employers. It’s an interesting new way to think about job hunting for my generation.

Twitter can change how you find a job. See, I spent a good chunk of my senior year in college sending in resumes, writing cover letter after cover letter, attending job fairs, and occasionally landing an interview because of it. This method I’m going to call the “push” method of job hunting. This is how those with little-to-no experience have been doing it for quite some time. In my case, this was (and continues to be) like shoving a boulder up a hill or getting Zooey Deschanel to marry me.

Already Married? Rats

But here we are in the digital age, where mere mortals like me can have real conversations with C-Level employees and thought leaders in the industry using Twitter. This is enough to make me think that perhaps there is a better way to find a job. I’m going to call it the “pull” method.

Read more…

By this point, you’d have to be under a very large rock for a very long time to have missed the Old Spice ads. The campaign went viral when it began and continues to garner a lot of attention with each new ad. The campaign managed to get star Isaiah Mustafa a deal with NBC. It also won the Grand Prix Award at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, which is sort of like the Best Picture Oscar. Additionally, the ad was recently nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Commercial, and will most likely win (with their momentum, none of the others can really compare). So, what makes this ad campaign so special? Why does it connect with us, and why did it go viral?

Awe-Inspiring

The New York Times ran an article that says we share things that inspire awe. It states that in order for something to inspire awe, “Its scale is large, and it requires ‘mental accommodation’ by forcing the reader to view the world in a different way.” Now let’s look at the Old Spice ads. They definitely have that “how did they do it?” quality that many viral ads have. Curiosity piques interest. However, the ads aren’t doctored. They are well-known to be authentic and shot in one sequence. It was all done without CGI or any digital funny-business. This is certainly awe inspiring, because it makes us view the world of commercials (in today’s digital age) in a different way; we’re so used to over-the-top CGI effects (thanks, Michael Bay and James Cameron) that a spectacle like these commercials (without the help of CGI) is certainly interesting. The scale of the commercials is definitely large enough: TV ads reach a huge chunk of the population.

They’re Actually Funny

I don’t know a single person who doesn’t smile every time they see the commercials. I’ve seen most of them many, many times and I still laugh. The commercials are so over-the-top ridiculous that they’re incredibly funny. They take every Fabio-esque stereotype of male masculinity (including an un-ironic love of mustaches and riding on a white horse topless) and throw it in your face. It would be annoying, but Old Spice is aware of the stereotypes and understands the ridiculous nature of them, so it is able to make fun of itself. This sort of humor connects directly with our generation; we love satire, and we love to see big corporations not take themselves so seriously.

Sharable: These ads are inherently sharable. Just from personal experience, it had a TON of morning-after watercooler buzz in real life, and it went viral on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, and the rest of the internet. They’re short enough that anyone (even those of you at the office) can view it without getting into any real trouble. The Old Spice phenomenon got so big that if you didn’t know about it, you felt left out.

They Listen and Respond

Old Spice has a Twitter account (@OldSpice, naturally), and they LISTEN to us. We know this because the account tweets back at individual users. The brand has even started to respond via personalized YouTube videos. The takeaway here is that if you want to get and KEEP our attention, you have to listen to us and respond within a reasonable time. If you do, your brand will seem more personal and authentic. We like that. It also helps that the replies are pretty hilarious.

Of course, as with any cultural phenomenon, the ads have their detractors who say the campaign is good for quick laughs but may hurt the brand in the long-term. Others cite that all the awards and buzz doesn’t always translate into sales. Even if it hasn’t exactly rose sales yet, ask anyone which brand of deodorant first pops into his or her head and I would bet Old Spice is it. Many companies would kill for that top-of-mind brand recall and awareness. Whatever the case, these ads have bored a vuvuzela-sized hole in the zeitgeist and have made advertising a little more fun. Well done, Old Spice.

Update: 8/25/2010

After the social media blitzkrieg, Old Spice’s sales soared. Mustafa eventually won the Emmy, and everything about this campaign was deemed a success. There have already been a number of copycats, but none have matched up to the original. This campaign is sure to ride off on its white horse (in only a towel, of course) into the annals of advertising history.

(Photo via Urlesque)