News Feed Update: Facebook Favors Status Updates From Users – But Not From Pages

Facebook's at it again – changing up the News Feed algorithm that controls what users see and when they see it. In this case, it means more text status updates from friends and fewer from Pages. In the latest post from Facebook Newsroom, the social media giant explains:

Through testing, we have found that when people see more text status updates on Facebook they write more status updates themselves. In fact, in our initial test when we showed more status updates from friends it led to on average 9 million more status updates written each day...

Over time, we noticed that this effect wasn't true for text status updates from Pages. As a result, the latest update to News Feed ranking treats text status updates from Pages as a different category to text status updates from friends.

This makes sense, given that Facebook users certainly interact differently with their friends than they do with the brand and interest Pages they like and follow. This algorithm change will cater to that difference and show more text updates from friends and more visual content from Pages. But what does this mean for community managers, social media strategists, and brand managers?

1. Expect to see a drop in reach (and therefore, engagement) for text-only status updates from Pages. Armed with this knowledge, community managers and social strategists can help to educate clients and partners about the best kinds of content to post to ensure that overall reach and engagement metrics are not affected.
2. Use link-shares to add value to traditional status updates. According to Facebook, "The best way to share a link after this update will be to use a link-share.... We've found that, as compared to sharing links by embedding in status updates, these posts get more engagement (more likes, comments, shares and clicks) and they provide a more visual and compelling experience for people seeing them in their feeds."
3. Focus on delivering visual, valuable content. Whether it's a photo, video, or link, the content posted to Facebook should be attractive, relevant, and timely. Use Facebook Insights to determine the best kinds of posts for your Pages (historically) and consider adjusting future content to fit the timing, focus, and type of your best-performing posts.

Ultimately, the text-only status update will not go away for Pages – but it's clear that other types of posts must be a key part of the content strategy in order for brand content to stand out from user content in Facebook's News Feed.

Perspective Shift: From Work-Life Balance to Work-Life Integration

Let’s be honest: in the advertising industry, there are some who proudly wear the number of hours they’ve worked on their sleeves. I have friends and colleagues in agencies around the world who all seem to be having the same conversations:

Ugh, I’m so tired. I was here until 9:30 last night.

Oh, that’s nothing. I was here until 10pm, then I went home and worked some more.

These conversations happen every single day by the coffee machines, via Gchat, in Snapchat selfies that says “Still at work… lolz.” And though the reasons are different from person to person, from agency to agency, and from culture to culture, there’s still a conscious, continuous effort to rationalize why we’re killing ourselves – sometimes literally – to get the work done.

For some, it’s a staffing issue. If you don’t have the proper distribution of manpower to achieve your clients’ goals, it’s all too easy to find yourself at work long after the sun has gone down. For others, it’s a byproduct of being part of a culture of busy-ness. It can easily transform from “Look at how effectively I can do my job” to “Look at how busy I am.” Apparently, somewhere along the way, “busy” became synonymous with “important.” In the New York Times’ Opinionator, Tim Kreider calls this “The Busy Trap.” And in agencies, it’s all too common. In his commentary, Kreider writes that:

Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day. …[And yet,] if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary.

I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t be any Social Media Manager cats even in the most modern Busy World of Richard Scarry, but the fact is that we’re all part of this larger, flawed (but well-meaning) culture that considers overtime hours some kind of badge of honor. The advertising industry’s heart beats for brilliant relevancy and meaningful creativity and added-value, but its heartbeat is too often timed to the frantic tapping of keyboards and touchscreens.

The way to change this, however, is not through establishing clearer business hours. In the social media world, I can assure you that no one who wants to interact with your brand cares about your business hours. It’s one of many contributing factors to our “always-on” mentalities. The path forward is actually a shift from work-life balance to work-life integration. In her Huffington Post piece on her integrated life, Susan Sobbott explains that “Rather than a work life and a personal life, two separate entities, the goal should be to have one very full life and work consciously to integrate all of the things that make it meaningful.”

At first glance, this looks a lot like working at the dinner table. But the reality is that technology frees us from the confines of our offices, cubicles, tubicles, and workstations. And that freedom means doing meaningful work when and where we’re most prepared, contributing more value when we’re in the office, and still making time for our friends, families, significant others, and ourselves. That means that part of the transformation – the cultural part – has already begun.

Still, another part of this shift is on us, as individuals. Our responsibility is to choose a career that we love. Before we get too far, though, a disclaimer is absolutely essential: loving what you do does not and never will mean that you will never need to perform the most tedious of tasks, work with demanding clients, or fail in ways big or small. However, passion makes the mindless tasks, overbearing clients, slip-ups, and gargantuan errors a little more bearable. The tedious work can offer a time-out, a reset period to prepare your brain for the more mentally-stimulating tasks ahead. The tough clients can challenge you to conceptualize and create work that thrills them and you. The failures can be learning opportunities to make your future projects that much better.

Choosing a career that you love, of course, is easier said than done. After all, many of us are still just getting started in our careers, struggling to get our feet in the door, trying to find the right fit. But choosing a career for which you have a passion means a lot of things. It’s not only about having teammates that you lovingly high-five in the hallways or working with cool clients; it’s about doing work that inspires us and working with people who make us feel empowered, even (or especially) when it bleeds into our personal lives. This kind of active engagement means that when the line between our work and our personal lives blurs, we accept it because it’s meaningful to us.

Still, the most important element of this happy medium is forgetting about your “work self” and your “home self,” and forging ahead with one integrated self. This self combines the complexity of your character, variety of your professional and personal experience, and depth of your dynamic viewpoints to curate and create more meaning. Challenge yourself to be a unique, continuously evolving, personal-professional hybrid, whose adding true value in all elements of life.

Originally posted on the Advertising Week Social Club here

Learnings from the Social Media Leadership Awards #SMLA13

On an incredibly snowy December 10, I started my day with a little social media learning with a fellow LevLane-r, PR Account Manager Tracy Dabakis. Bundled up against the chilly precip, we trekked over to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania to hit up the last sessions of the Social Media Leadership Awards' Best Practices Conference. There, we learned from some of the industry's best and most innovative about using social strategies for customer service and community creation/management. Check out the top takeaways from the morning below. If you were in attendance at #SMLA13, let me know what you found most valuable in the comments below!

The Integration (and Separation) of Social Media and PR

The moderator of the morning's customer service panel, The Wharton School's Sr. Director of New Media Stefan Frank, pointed out that 50-75% of social media managers are still part of larger PR and communications teams. From proactive blogger relations to crisis management, PR and social media teams work collaboratively as close partners, even if they are not one intertwined team. Those who work with or serve as part of social media teams will not be surprised by this, but the fact of the matter is that this can be both an asset and a detriment to social media strategies, if not managed properly. While many PR strategies focus on specifically-worded answers to customer inquiries or problems, the canned response is met with disdain in the social sphere.

Still, that doesn't mean that elements of traditional PR fall by the wayside in a technologically modern world. As Bianca Buckridee, VP of Social Media Operations for JPMorgan Chase, explained during the panel, it's crucial for PR teams to communicate with social media teams regarding buzzworthy events (from both a content strategy perspective and community management perspective), as well as anticipating and planning for positive and negative reactions across different media. This doesn't mean latching onto one canned response for the duration of an event, however. Brian Monk, AVP Social Media at Barclaycard US, said that his team often crafts several different ways to communicate the same message, so that customers don't lash out upon being served the same response repeatedly. It seems like a no-brainer, but you might be shocked to see how few brands actually utilize this simple tactic. In fact, those varied and personalized responses are the primary way in which social media and PR strategies diverge when it comes to customer service. Buckridee emphasized that at JPMorgan Chase, they have (and use) brand and conversation guidelines for customer service issues, but the most important thing is that their team members' personalities shine through. They, after all, are the voice of the brand for each customer – and that voice needs to have a human touch. Personalized responses may sometimes require a little background research (and almost-daily coaching and education to determine which responses work best), but the pay-off of having a happy customer is so worth it.

In fact, The Wharton School's Frank pointed out that, "You can delight people the most in a crisis because they expect to be let down." But what do social teams need to do before and during crises in order to delight, rather than dismay? As Dennis Stoutenburgh, Co-Founder of Social Strategy1, explains, it's about using social media tools to anticipate reactions or issues and to communicate with the larger team to proactively reach out or to provide valuable reactions to those issues. "Social care can be the early warning system that helps to create a good coordinated effort." Once an issue has reached crisis-level, American Airlines' Sr. Analyst, Social Communications Katy Phillips, emphasizes three things: honesty about the situation and what it means for customers, delivering timely updates, and (perhaps most surprisingly) knowing when to let the crisis go.

As David Berkowitz, CMO at MRY, put it in a later panel on content and communities, "Real-time marketing [or response, for that matter] is too late." That's exactly what the day's #SMLA13 sessions were all about: the need to anticipate, predict, and respond in strategic, delightful ways for customers and stakeholders, alike.

What was your favorite part of the day? Did anything surprise you? Share your comments below!

Takeaways from PR News' #digitalpr Summit

On October 16, I joined two of my fellow LevLane-rs for a little learning about social media, reputation management, SEO, measurement, and leadership at PR News' Digital PR Summit in New York City. After searching the Grand Hyatt's digital agenda and map to find our conference location, we briefly considered trying to join the Super Bowl's planning meeting before grabbing a quick muffin and our seats in the ballroom. For the most part, the speakers had great experiences to share and insights from which we could all learn. The most important takeaways for me, as a Social Media Manager in an agency, can be found below, in both narrative and infographic. This conference recap is not exhaustive, obviously – I want to be "at the table, not on the menu," as American Traffic Solutions' SVP of Public Affairs and Marketing Communications Charlie Territo so eloquently put it. If you were in attendance for #digitalpr, I'd love to know what you found most valuable. Let me know in the comments!

How to Measure and Communicate Social Media ROI

In this session, EVP, BurrellesLuce Johna Burke cited a rather groundbreaking statistic from Nielsen: In the past, brands had to communicate messages 3-6 times in order for them to really sink in with consumers. Later, that number increased to 8 times. Today, with the message, platform, and product clutter that defines our lives, brands must reach millennials 23 times in order for brand messages to resonate. Whoa.

Get Your Messages in Front of the Right Followers on Twitter

One of my favorite quotes of the day came from Brooke Primero, SVP, PR & Marketing for the Academy of Country Music. She said, "The kiss of death in social media is being a 9-5, Monday-Friday brand." No matter what brand you're promoting, social activity doesn't sleep and it certainly doesn't stop because it's 6:30PM on a Tuesday. The Academy of Country Music's biggest push of the year is for a 3-hour awards event once a year. That's it. So they focused their efforts on building that brand during the rest of the year via social channels. In 2011, they announced their award nominees on TV, reaching 3 million people, according to CBS. In 2012, they took to Twitter to announce the nominees and reached 14.2 million people. Those are some pretty amazing statistics, but the Academy of Country Music didn't stop there. They engaged with key influencers to grow across Twitter and gave them behind the scenes access to content to take them from influencers to brand ambassadors.

How to Engage with the Internet's Passionate Communities

If there's one thing I learned during this session, it's this: some people just don't get reddit. Half of this session was spent listening to the great brand integration stories about reddit, and the other half of the session was spent trying to explain what reddit is. My life, in that moment, was r/reddit. Still, it was interesting to hear Marta Gossage, community operations manager, and Victoria Taylor, director of communications, distinguish reddit from other social platforms: Platforms like Facebook and Twitter show off your "frontstage behavior" (the way you want to portray yourself to the world), while platforms like reddit show off your "backstage behavior" (the way you think and feel when you're eating potato chips by the fistful in your sweatpants, reading the AMA with a guy who lost 300+ pounds through extreme starvation). reddit seems to be a much more authentic platform in that way – and redditors keep it that way. At the table we shared in the back, Gossage described reddit as having its own immune system. If there's a foreign body in there, the community reacts strongly to defend its territory (...er, place on the interwebz). Plus, if all else fails for you on reddit, you can always end a post with "...and here's a picture of my cat" to help you get your footing.

How to Use Instagram, Pinterest, and Vine for Digital Storytelling

If you've been trying to figure out how to build a brand presence on one of the more visual social platforms, this was a great session for you. Amanda Junker, digital director for Shape Magazine, spelled out how to drive better results and greater brand relevancy through SEO on Pinterest. Her tips? Display the "Pin It" button prominently on your web properties, verify brand accounts, complete the "About" profile section, name all pinned graphics appropriately, and create boards that capture long-tail searches. She also recommended infogr.am, which I used to create the infographic below. After her part was over, Allison Robins, Director of Global Public Relations at Zumba Fitness, stepped up to discuss Instagram's power and limits. According to Robins, Instagram is not the best platforms for brands focused on ROI, conversions, and sales. Instead, it's better for brand and relationship building. And if you've been wondering how to upload pre-recorded videos to Vine, Doug Simon, President & CEO, D S Simon Productions, was your guy. Simply edit your video in a program like Final Cut and convert it to an H.264 mp4 file, compress it, email it to yourself, then upload it to Instagram or Vine. It's that easy!

Building, Motivating, and Managing Your Digital Dream Team

Hands-down, this was the most valuable part of the day for me. Gemma Craven, EVP, NY group director, Social@Ogilvy, explained exactly how the growth of digital and social has shaped the creation and make-up of agency and client teams. Some of these teams may be as large as 20 people, handling digital and social creative, strategy, community management, analytics and listening, production, and more. More than metrics, more than C-suite buy-in, this is what I feel is the most important piece of the digital and social puzzle for agencies and brands today.

Did anything surprise you?

Graph Search Updates Could Help Facebook Compete with Twitter

In a move to help the largest social network compete with Twitter, Facebook announced an update to Graph Search that enables users to search status updates, comments, and posts shared with them by friends. While the new feature won't necessarily have people posting as feverishly about live events (like the Emmy's or the "Breaking Bad" finale) as they would on Twitter, this function will allow community managers to track  posts by users about their brands, especially TV shows that people are talking about in real-time. Posts made by private users will not be available for non-friends or brands to review.

The functionality isn't live for all users at this time, so here's an example to make it a little clearer: if you wanted to know what your friends thought of the "Breaking Bad" finale, you could search for "Posts about Breaking Bad by my friends" within the last week. Then, all status updates, comments made on status updates, photos and photo comments posted mentioning "Breaking Bad" would show up in your Facebook search results.

It's a good move on Facebook's part, seeing as their hashtags seem to have fallen a little flat. We'll see if this update can help them compete with Twitter's recently-announced ad partnerships with CBS and the NFL, which will put real-time video into your Twitter feed.

New Facebook Metric Helps Telecommunications Brands Better Measure ROI

Facebook just launched a new tool to help telecommunications companies (like mobile carriers and operators) measure success on their platform. It's been tough to track the correlation between ad impressions and mobile phone sales, as the transaction typically occurs in a store, rather than online. This, of course, is not unique to telecommunications brands, so Facebook may be rolling out similar metrics for other kinds of companies in the future. In their announcement, Facebook explains why they've created this new metric:

Though clicks can be an effective indicator of interaction with Facebook content, they are less useful for linking digital impressions to in-store sales. In fact, our measurement team found that in telecommunications campaigns, more than 90% of people who made a purchase after viewing an ad on Facebook had never clicked on that ad.

The new metric, called "Telco Outcome Measurement," relies on Facebook's mobile reach to correlate ad exposure to actual sales, and to provide more valuable insight into ROI for Facebook ads. It's an interesting metric and one that, if successful, could be applied or modified to provide better information to several other kinds of businesses – not just telecommunications.

Step-by-Step Success: The Career Bucket List

We’ve all seen the lists: “25 Before 25,” “30 Before 30,” and (of course) “The Bucket List.” These infamous lists are itemized reminders of goals to accomplish, things to see, adventures to take before a certain deadline, so to speak. (Haven’t seen them? A quick Tumblr search reveals that they’re real and they’re kind of a big deal.) For many of us, it takes a major life event – graduation, birth, death, tragedy, victory) to get us to start thinking about what we really want to do with our lives. Whether your sights are set on something short-term or you’re foreseeing your feats far off in the future, having an achievement map is undeniably helpful. And when it comes to your career, having a “bucket list” is essential. Here’s why.

“Bucket lists” offer a sense of direction and a reason to stay motivated and engaged. We all get stuck – caught up in internship anxiety, struggle to find post-grad jobs, find ourselves in companies or on teams that don’t let us shine. It’s easy to feel frustrated about not being where you envisioned you’d be at this stage of your life and career. But the beauty of the bucket list lies in its ability to keep you focused on moving forward, no matter where you are now.

Challenge yourself to find opportunities to connect your present day reality to your dreams. What will it take to get you to the level to which you aspire? Knowing and documenting what it takes to succeed – whether it’s more formal education, real-world experience, a better understanding of the industries, technologies, and companies in which you’re working, or something completely different – gives you the rudder to steer your career in the right direction.

Create your career “bucket list” by identifying three goals (an education/learning goal, a skill-building goal, and an achievement goal) for the short-term and long-term of your career.

• Educational goals expand your horizons and propel you to the next level through knowledge. Start with knowing your interests and what it takes to succeed and stand out, like an MBA or art degree, a thorough understanding of search engine optimization, or a knack for knowing what’s going on in the industry.

• Skill-building goals challenge you to apply what you’ve learned through academics and work experience. Start with knowing what makes the top performers in your field the best: working with or managing people, writing compelling content, translating their expertise to non-experts at conferences and events, being certified in Google AdWords, or understanding Adobe’s Creative Cloud.

• Achievement goals motivate you to reach farther to get to the next level. These goals often involve raises and promotions, but a job well done cannot always be measured in dollars and cents. For short-term goals, maybe you’re shooting for a positive year-end review or hoping to generate campaign results that make your client do a double-take. In the long-term, maybe you’re looking to establish yourself as a thought leader or land new client accounts. Professional accolades, CLIO Awards, new job titles, and bigger paychecks don’t show up overnight, but identifying achievement stepping stones on the way to the top can help you get there.

Career “bucket lists” don’t take long to create, but it’ll grow and evolve with you over time. New skills will become vital to success, as will new relationships, expertise, and accomplishments. When it comes to your career “bucket list,” start small, but start today.

Originally posted on the Advertising Week Social Club here

Moving On: What I Learned From My Desk Knick-Knacks

After three and a half years at Philadelphia’s largest advertising agency, Digitas Health, I’m joining another amazing Philadelphia agency, LevLane, as a Social Media Manager. As I transitioned projects to new owners and wrapped up loose ends, I realized that agency folk must have the strangest collections of desk accessories of any professional group. When I packed up my belongings from the past three years, I found the following:

• 12 notebooks, filled from spines to edges with checklists and notes and doodles

• 10 conference and event lanyards and name tags

• 6 No. 2 pencils emblazoned with Psych nicknames

• 4 gigantic tea cups, including one with brass knuckles for a handle

• 3 boxes of headphones (Skullcandy and UrbanEars)

• 2 neon sweatbands from the Razorfish Health (now Razorfish Healthware) launch party in March 2010

• 2 event t-shirts

• 2 NERF darts, shot lovingly my way by coworkers

• 1 copy of “The Rules of the Red Rubber Ball,” given to me by a great friend and creative director

• 1 flowchart on the criteria for the proper usage of “oh snap!”

• 1 Alaskan moose hat, given to me by another great friend and ACD, because antlers are the new black

• 1 sheet of Lisa Frank stickers

• A candy collection that included Pop Rocks, Ring Pops, and Jolly Ranchers

Despite the fact that this list could also easily be a listing of what an emotional preteen girl might find in her locker at the end of 8th grade, I think it’s safe to say that I grew up more in my first job out of college than I did in school. I learned about working well with other people, writing for different audiences, collaborating to come up with the best ideas, managing projects, copywriting, content strategy, PR, social media, and a million other things. I found friends that made me laugh and smile and think further outside the box.

And the best part is, all of that learning and discovery (and accumulation of ridiculous desk knick-knacks) doesn’t stop now that I’ve packed up my desk; it keeps moving forward with me with each new step. My career – and yours, too – is a lot like a snowball rolling down a hill. As it moves on and picks up speed, it’ll grow bigger and better and more powerful because of all the great things I learn along the way.

Originally posted on the Advertising Week Social Club by yours truly here

The Next Step: Social Media Management at LevLane

On September 3, the next phase of my career begins at LevLane, where I'll be a Social Media Manager. After spending three and a half years in Corporate Communications at Digitas Health, it's time to take the next step and embrace the next challenge. When I joined Digitas Health, I expected to work with some of the most talented people in the industry and to do work that made me proud. I didn't expect to make a brain in a jar, paint beautiful murals at Philadelphia schools, work with brilliant people across the globe, fall in love, be truly inspired, or meet some of my favorite people in the whole world... but I did. Digitas Health is leaving big shoes to fill, but I can't wait to utilize the skills I honed there and to learn even more at LevLane. Challenge accepted – let's do this!

Nike’s “Just Do It” Slogan Turns 25

I’ve just come to a startling realization: Nike’s iconic “Just Do It” slogan and I are the same age. That’s right. At 25 years young, the phrase “Just Do It” is part of our vernacular and culture, and clearly Nike shows no sign of slowing down. The brand’s latest spot – “Possibilities,” created by Wieden+Kennedy– issues a challenge to the masses: chase down your dreams, test your limits, set new goals, and take on the legends. Trust me: the fastest I’ve run in years was to a nearby buffet line. Even I was motivated to get out there by director  Nicolai Fuglsig’s beautiful and inspirational film. For the slogan’s 25th  anniversary, Nike really pulled out all the stops, as Sam  Thielman notes for AdWeek:

“The dance party, the marathon, the blacktop, the table-tennis room and  the football game all have a surprisingly large number of extras involved, and then there’s the use of actual sports stars to put the cherry on the whole  thing. It’s a massive undertaking by W+K, and director Nicolai Fuglsig manages to keep the whole thing fluid not merely by having the lead actors dress the  same way from fantasy to fantasy, but by editing the shots together so that they  switch over in the middle of a pan.”

See for yourself.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPkyPdubqDs&w=420&h=315]

While the average viewer and I may not be oozing with talent, the spot itself is. Bradley Cooper narrates over cameos by actor Chris Pine, world tennis #1  Serena Williams, footballer Gerard Piqué, boxer Andre Ward, and the NBA’s Most Valuable Player LeBron James.

“Possibilities” even extends the #justdoit mantra to the Nike+ digital ecosystem, where its 18  million global users can take part in a series of Nike+ Running and Nikefuel  challenges. Through these Nike+ challenges, which take place from now into  September, Nike+ users will be tasked with new goals, like running a marathon in a week or taking on Nike stars in various fitness activities.

For years, Nike has been building a brand on the idea that anyone can unlock his or her potential by getting out there and just doing it every day. If only we could all be so iconic at 25.

Originally posted on the Advertising Week Social Club by yours truly here

How Do I Get Started?

At the end of July, Pharyl Weiner wrote a great AWSC piece for soon-to-be and recent grads reaching out to adland for a chance to score a job in the industry. Before you ask for just any job, she advises, you have to ask yourself “What Do I Want?” Doing the necessary research on what’s out there and finding out what you want is a vital first step, but one that’s all too easy to misunderstand or skip altogether.

After all, there isn’t exactly an abundance of job opportunities for every college graduate. In fact, a few years ago one of my college professors actually advised that we should fail all of our classes. “Even if you graduate, you won’t find jobs anyway,” he said. Charming, right? So, if you want to have the best opportunity to earn a spot at a top agency, you’ve got to know the basics. It’s more than knowing the other players with whom you’re dealing. It’s about you, too.

What do you like to do?

If you’re going to spend at least one-third of your day doing something, please, for the love of Tom Hanks, let it be something that you enjoy. No, every day will not be sunshine and unicorns, even when you’re done interning. But if you can find an opportunity that lets you do what you like, chances are that  you’ll do great work. If you love working with people, find a job that relies on  that skill for success — work directly with clients as an account manager or  consider giving project management a try so that you can keep a team on task.

What are your strengths (and weaknesses)?

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses goes beyond basic interview questions.  There are very few people who would admit to not being a hard worker, but be  honest with yourself. Whether you’re a writer, designer, account manager, or janitor, knowing your own skillset is essential to success. Can you craft content like nobody’s business? Maybe you should get into copywriting. Do you doodle the way others only dream of? Consider design jobs. Do you have what it  takes to keep people in line and on time? Project management may be your calling. But it’s even more than that. It’s about your time management skills — for yourself and for anyone else with whom you might work. It’s about when and where and how you come up with your best ideas. Some people come up with their best ideas in 10-minute brainstorming sessions, but many more find inspiration after a night’s sleep, after a run, in the shower, after time alone, during time  with others on their team. How do you do your best work?

How can you find out what’s right for you?

At the end of the day, no amount of research on the interwebz is going to  tell you if you’re right for a particular role or a certain company. So do more than just read. There are local advertising, marketing, and public relations associations in presumably every market in the world. Find out what your local group is up to and get involved. Get to know the industry folks at local networking events, ask them about their jobs and how they got started. You might be surprised by what you hear. You’re probably not going to get a job offer at a networking event, but you’ll get to know more about the industry and what it takes to get in and succeed. Maybe you’ll find out about agencies and companies that weren’t even on your radar. Maybe you’ll realize you need to do something different to stand out — like build a social presence or volunteer your talents  to a local non-profit to expand your portfolio. Maybe you’ll make a friend that  will try to help you get your foot in the door. Getting offline and out into the  real world can work wonders.

Once you’ve done that, you might just find new opportunities even better aligned with what you want. It’s not about getting just any job; it’s about finding a way to combine your interests and skills in a way that gets you churning out great work before you apply.

Originally posted on the Advertising Week Social Club by yours truly here.

Real-Time Social Media: Art, Not Science

Since the early days of social media, brands have sought ways to connect their products and messages with the real-time interests of their audiences through “newsroom marketing.” These attempts to create timely, but tasteful brand content linked to cultural events have landed many brands in the spotlight. While some have clearly missed the mark, others have proven how powerful real-time responses can be.

When the lights went out during Super Bowl XLVIII, Twitter feeds were  suddenly overloaded with bad jokes and misdirected rage from football fans  across the U.S. Brand teams, however, strategically sprang into action. Oreo’s now-famous tweet perfectly placed the brand in the moment: “Power’s out? No problem. You can still dunk in the dark.” Other brands – including Audi, Tide,  NBC, and VW – capitalized  on the chance to connect themselves with an audience now craving both an explanation and Oreos, for some reason.

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

Since Oreo sparked the surging interest in “real-time marketing” at the Super  Bowl, we’ve learned a lot. The brand and its agency of record, 360i, collaborated to craft that tweet in just a few short minutes. And while some laughed when 13  people were listed in the creative credits for its Bronze Innovative Media CLIO Award, it proved that getting it right takes preparedness, a clear process for assessing and responding to opportunities, and great collaboration on all  levels.

Still, no brand has real-time social media marketing completely figured out. This week alone the birth of the Royal  Baby stymied some and elevated others. Clearly, real-time social media marketing is not a science, but an art – and one that will continue to change as our channels, technologies, and culture evolve. I’m just hoping I never see a branded twerking video.

Originally posted on the Advertising Week Social Club by yours truly here.