Clamoring for more info? Tired of regretting those embarrassing drunken texts with nary a solution in sight? Never mind those texts where you might’ve been accidentally trash talking your boss, your client, your mother-in-law or someone else, who, on second (read that “rational”) thought, that you’d rather not have privy to your thoughts, in perpetuity. Rest assured, your problems have been solved.

TigerText is an iPhone app that allows you to send your messages through the company’s servers, thus, reserving the right to later log in to your account, retrieve a sent message and delete it, thereby covering your tracks. Can you say “deniability” 17 times, real quick like?

The company claims that the name of the handy dandy app is not at all related to Tiger Woods and his cheating ways, but rather attributable to the fact that this is the Year of the Tiger. Whatever. I’m no stranger to the concept of taking advantage of the serendipitous confluence of events and putting them to good personal use, so I’m not buying that one, folks.

These lovely TigerText messages can’t be saved, copied or forwarded by recipients. They can be deleted at will or, even cooler, and oh-so-James Bondish, programmed to be deleted immediately after being read. Ha! Love it!!! Cheaters and impulsive people with quick tempers and even quicker fingers the world over, rejoice!

Settle down all you BlackBerry and Android users, word is that TigerText versions for those smartphones are coming by the end of March. The service isn’t free, but who cares? I see this as being a popular app – what about you?

Starbucks Twitter Page

I was having yet another conversation with a friend today who was questioning the efficacy of social media as anything other than an advertising platform. Having realized it was “free marketing” he has, naturally, already jumped all over it (his words, not mine) by creating the ubiquitous fan page on Facebook and using it to broadcast his message to the masses. But his point was that he didn’t see social media as anything BUT an advertising channel and he was lamenting about the “narcissistic bullshit” that he had to wade through in that milieu and how pointless it all seemed.

When I asked for a definition of “narcissistic bullshit,” he promptly replied that he was bored to tears reading through posts that mentioned “little Johnny was standing in line with me at Starbucks picking his nose.” However, when pressed, he admitted that he did care about maybe being able to sell his products to the mom who was so narcissistically sharing the fact that Johnny had a little nose-picking problem. And making a joke of it via some social media channel. Funny that it didn’t occur to him that the broadcasting of his message, his “sales pitch,” might be equally as annoying to people.

On the heels of that conversation, I read this week’s Ad Age, which featured an article about Starbucks and how they’ve managed to get their business brewing again via social media and integration of social media into their marketing efforts. Their success can be largely attributable to the fact that they were smart enough to realize that the opportunity presented by social media was the chance to build customer relationships, engage and interact with customers and make them a part of the brand itself. Ding, Ding, Ding.

Now back to my friend’s comments. The thing he is missing is this: while she was in line at Starbucks, making that comment on Twitter or Facebook, and maybe even also using Foursquare to check in, in the process that mom might’ve also forged a connection – virtual or not – with other moms. Moms who are or have been dealing with the same toddler-based craziness and who then see the brand – in this case, Starbucks – as an oasis from which to momentarily step off the merry-go-round, if just for a few moments, and enjoy a lovely Skinny Triple Shot Latte with Non-fat Vanilla. Let’s just call that a little bit of “brand image gold” for Starbucks.

My point is this – people (like my friend) need to get over themselves. Brands need to get over themselves. And they need to quit trying to shove marketing messages down consumers’ throats via Facebook, Twitter, etc., just because they think “it’s free.” It’s not about free – it’s about the conversation. And by the way, that’s largely what’s made Starbucks so successful – the genuine effort that they invested in engaging and interacting with the customers. It’s not really that hard. To quote my friend Molly Cantrell-Kraig in a recent blog post she guest wrote for us, “Perfection is not expected. Participation is.”

And social media is NOT, I repeat NOT free. It takes a passion for it, a strategy and a commitment to participate. Starbucks’ Twitter success came about because a former barista named Brad Nelson believed in social media. He approached the powers that be in the content and online departments and presented them with the idea of opening a Twitter account in 2008. And I’m sure that to describe their reaction as “skeptical” is an understatement. But Nelson did his homework, he was passionate and he pitched it by saying “It’s a lot like being a barista on the Internet.” Now that was something they could relate to. Despite their misgivings, they let him loose and today the brand has some 775,000 Twitter followers. Just knowing the story actually makes me want to follow them – and get to know Brad a little better, don’t you?

But, more importantly, Starbucks uses social media as a part of an integrated marketing strategy. It’s a tool, a channel, a place to reach out to customers, listen to them and engage with them, but it is, most definitely, NOT free. It requires strategy, experience, a huge investment of time and energy and it requires regular and consistent participation. If anyone tries to tell you anything to the contrary, they are probably one of the new breed of social media charlatans, trying to make a quick buck and an even quicker getaway once they’ve managed to get your money.

The lovely and extraordinary @extraordmommy

This is a social media success story. This is for all those doubters out there who look down their noses at the apparent ridicularity that is social media. The time suck whiners. The “how do I monetize this” sharks. The questioners. The doubters. You know who you are.

Social media is like moving to a new town. You get there, you get your stuff put away, and you venture out and meet your neighbors. You find a dry cleaner, a grocery store, a gym. You set out to build a life for yourself, get to know people and make connections in this new town.

That’s exactly what happened to my friend, Danielle Smith. A few years ago, with two little ones at home and a career as a TV anchor and reporter in the distant past, she began noticing all the conversations going on between moms about how difficult it is – this job of mommyhood. And she wanted to remind them all that they were all extraordinary women, doing extraordinary things, so she developed a website intended to do just that. Nothing if not sharper than a tack, Danielle quickly realized that a static website wasn’t an engaging one, and engagement is what she was after. So, she changed paths, learned yet another skill set between the relatively quiet hours of midnight and 2am, (which is when she often does her best work) and started blogging. Her following quickly took off and she built a community of moms within the “walls” of her blog.

Danielle began dabbling on Twitter and quickly found many amazing people there – some moms with young children, some with grown children, and many people who aren’t parents at all – but who are just great people. She started to get more serious about this new career of hers and investing in herself and growing her skill set by attending various blogging-related conferences. In 2009, she attended Blissdom, BlogHer and then the Type-A Mom Conference. She found that she was making great connections online, but when she was able to add networking in person to the mix, it really helped to further the relationships and the community that she was building via social mediums.

One of the people Danielle met and interacted with on Twitter early on was Stephanie Smirnov, a savvy PR exec, principal at DeVries PR who also happens to be a mom and a blogger – (and, as an aside, if you’re a professional woman who is not reading her blog, you’re missing out). They had the chance to meet IRL at the Type-A Mom conference and found they had great synergy. When Stephanie’s company decided to become a major sponsor of the 140Characters Conference in Los Angeles, she knew instantly that Danielle had the type of on-camera skills that she wanted to help make the most out of that sponsorship opportunity. And so, the camera, once again, swung back to Danielle. Via the path of social media and the time she invested there, and the friendships she made and fostered.

Fast forward a few months later, and when it was time for P&G (one of Smirnov’s clients) to send a team of bloggers to Vancouver to represent the brand at the Olympics, the selection of the lovely and talented Danielle Smith as part of that team was, quite simply, a no-brainer. The brand loves her, people love her and now Olympics junkies the world over know and love her, too. All because of a time suck like Twitter.

I told you before – it’s just like moving to a new town. If you don’t invest of yourself in exploring, experimenting with new friends and new places and new experiences, you’ll never like that new town. And the same is true with Twitter and any other form of social media. Invest yourself. Invest yourself in a genuine and transparent manner. Be prepared for it to take time, effort and energy. And then more time, effort and energy. But once you do, you can also reap some pretty amazing rewards. Just ask Danielle.

“Write what you know.” Advice I can recall as early as first grade, when my earnest little fingers wrapped themselves around the wood-and-graphite device which served as the conduit from my brain to the paper.
When considering social media, I can’t fully deconstruct analytics or measurement tools. I respect them and recognize them as the valuable indicators of aggregate human behavior that they are, but I don’t *know* data. What I do know is that social media is not advertising.
Rather, it’s a litmus test to individuals, organizations and companies across strata: how do you handle change? How do you adapt? How flexible are you? How secure are you?

Again, historically speaking, I was a seven year old who was CONVINCED that the Chuck Wagon horses lived under my mom’s sink. During commercial breaks, I used to watch the spokesmodel’s fingernails to see what color they were. If they were painted, I understood that I was to notice her hand. If they were neutral, I was to pay attention to what she was holding. I noticed when the Eternity fragrance for men ads started featuring a wedding band on the guy in the hammock. Advertising is message. Advertising is community. Arbiter or reflection? Both.
This unnatural fascination with the science and psychology of advertising is significant for me now, because I am lucky enough to live in a time when advertising is undergoing a seismic change. Social media constitutes a foundational, systemic and symbiotic upending of what traditional broadcast media has represented up to now. It’s exhilarating! …and just a little bit scary. Loss of control is a real hang up for about 99% of the people currently walking the planet, including Yours Truly.

Much as Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso redefined the power shift in the world of art (what was art; what was of value and how it was determined?), today, consumers influence the manufacturing and marketing process in a way that is unprecedented. Transparency and response time are 24/7. There is no more man behind the curtain. Before I devolve too far into Jargonland, we *do* live in a 360 society. And unlike a Don Draper world where next season’s splash blinds The Masses to What Went Before, social media is F-O-R-E-V-E-R. Again, scary stuff.

We live in a world where people with purchasing power grew up in a world where their vote not only counted, but was courted. They have never known any other reality. Who stays on the island? Who moves on to the next round? The pseudo celebrity that brought us the Kardashians and is reinforced by every kid who uploads a video to YouTube is driving the bus now. If everyone gets his or her 15 minutes of fame, social media makes sure that it goes viral, suspending those minutes in limbo.
So we’re back to the litmus test. Companies that step into the living, evolving stream that is social media stand a chance of survival.

Perfection is not expected. Participation is. Companies who choose to continue cranking out traditional broadcast messaging will find themselves shouting into an echoing, cheeseless room. Count me among those who are willing to get their feet wet.

You can find Molly at TAG Communications in Davenport, IA, where she is the Social Media Liaison in Web Services. This newly-created branch of an established midwest advertising and marketing firm provide her with an opportunity to practice what she preaches as regards social media strategies. Her decades-long experience across media in various capacities inform her perspective (media buyer, production and account management – in print, outdoor, television, radio, online). A true media and advertising junkie, she is endlessly fascinated by the evolutionary nature of how people communicate with each other. Their website is a work in progress, so be gentle, but check them out if you would like. Whatever you do, be sure and follow @mckra1g on Twitter – she’s terrific.

The story here isn’t really as much about the people involved in the creation of this great campaign (although they’re talented, that’s for sure) as it is about why social media – and video in particular – is such a perfect fit for causes and not-for-profit groups like MADD – and especially groups who target teens.

Part of the reason for the success of the campaign is the fact that they supplemented a traditional posters-in-schools campaign with video. Captivating, can’t look away from, in your face video. Props here to Esparza, as well as to the Wade Brothers, Realfake, Back Alley Films and their sister company, T2, as well as to Bazillion Pictures for the great music. They produced just the kind of not-messing-around-here message that teens need to see, again and again, in order to have any impact. Especially when the message is about teenage drinking and what it can do to your brain. Drinking is fun, brain damage, not so much.

Video is, without question, an effective tactic. And even more effective when you’re targeting a young audience. From a strategic standpoint, with the integration of a video component, they complemented the school poster campaign with a message that could be broadcast in local movie theatres, thus ensuring that it would not only be seen by the teens who were the original target, but by their parents as well. And NM MADD noticed a measurable spike in web traffic to the BrokenTeens.org site, especially during weekend days, a/k/a prime movie-viewing days. The feedback has been terrific, from parents and kids alike – which is not all that common for a public service message. In fact, the campaign has been so successful that they’re now exploring opportunities to roll it out into other markets.

So, take note not-for-profit groups – using video in innovative ways and then working with knowledgeable social media pros who can help your video message go viral is, most definitely, a strategy worth integrating into your marketing mix.

I pity the fool who doesn’t laugh at Mr. ET! The ability to share my immature sense of humor is just of the reasons I love the Internet.

Twilight Saga star Kellan Lutz has created quite a stir with his recent Calvin Klein underwear ads. If you don’t know what Twilight is or you don’t know Kellan Lutz, just ask any 14-year-old girl to fill you in.

Here’s my point: I love the web because I can watch the YouTube clip of Kellan Lutz’s latest Calvin Klein TV promo in peace. Without my teen daughter rolling her eyes at me or my husband making fun of me.

The web allows me to share stupid jokes, LOL Cats and Mr. ET.  The web lets me watch TV commercials of Kellan Lutz in his Calvin Kleins.  I realize I am way too old for Kellan but if I want to watch, I can.

There are many noble uses for the web. But laughter is in short supply these days. When I get a chance to laugh (or smile at Kellan Lutz) it’s a good thing.

It’s easy – here’s what you do:

On your home page, top right hand side, select “most recent” and it will bring up all the most recent updates. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select “options.” From there, change the setting from 250 to 3000 (or any “big” number like that).

That’s it, you’re done. And, if you want more information and terrific tips about maximizing your Facebook pages, Mashable’s Facebook Guide is hard to beat – and worth every minute of the read.

Kevin, who is, without question, a large man, apparently was asked to deplane a SWA flight on Saturday because he is too big to fit into one seat, and two seats, on this particular flight, weren’t available.

The issue, in a nutshell, is that they allowed him to board, be seated, and then made the brilliant decision to say “ummmm, you’re too fat” cleverly masked by “security risk” lingo, and asked him to take a hike. He had been booked on a later flight – with two seats reserved in his name – so it wasn’t like it was a surprise when he wanted to get on an earlier flight that he was a big man. But, instead of identifying a potential problem at the gate, before boarding, SWA dropped the ball, let him board, and then chose to publicly humiliate him.

Ask yourself an honest question – how would you feel if that happened to you? Fat or not fat, I imagine you would be pretty humiliated. I know I would be.

Southwest Air has addressed this “issue” via their latest blog post – which has drawn so much traffic that the site may be down as of this writing. If that’s the case, you can check out the post on their press site. I read the post before their site went down, and assume it makes them feel justified – and absolved of any wrongdoing, simply because they have a policy and they were following it. I don’t fault at all their policy regarding oversized travelers, I do, however, find fault with the way this particular situation was handled.

But, even more importantly, what a great example of how critical it is to have a social media crisis policy in place and to have the highest levels of management and customer service involved, at the onset of a situation like this one. People make noise when they feel they are treated poorly. And when you factor social media into the equation, making noise can soon be a really big deal. And turn into lots and lots and lots of noise. Factor a celebrity into the equation and it could be a nightmare. Ask Southwest Air – I’m sure they would agree. Brands need to be adequately prepared to handle situations like this and minimize exposure – and damage – whenever possible.

Still think your brand doesn’t need a crisis plan? Better think again. Better yet, go back and read Kevin Smith’s Twitter stream, supplied here via a recent post by Mashable’s @petecashmore How would your company have handled this situation?

@BKMacdaddy

This is a guest post, written by my great friend Brian McDaniel, a designer, social media upstart and all around terrific guy. In addition, he’s prolific in the writing department and one of the people whose content I actively seek out. Read on, you’ll see why …….,

Let me start out by saying I am a Google fan. I use Google Reader for my RSS feeds. I utilize Google Analytics, Gmail, Google Apps, and pretty much anything else they offer. I am in love with my Android phone and all its cool apps. I thought the Google Superbowl ad was brilliant. And the Google Nexus One phone is on my list of geek gadgets I am salivating over. So understand that this post is written by someone who is firmly and happily planted in the ever-expanding Google nation, not your typical hater who jumps at the chance to rip apart the “next big thing.”

Yesterday Google announced their new foray into social media, Google Buzz, which they will be rolling out to Gmail account holders over the next few days. By all reports – and there are quite a few already – Google’s latest release has a lot of features that could make it useful for many. Of course, it also has a lot of similarities to current social media powerhouses Twitter and Facebook. It appears that Google is attempting to take some of the best elements from these two and enhance them with some of their own. One that I am particularly interested in is the geo-tagging ability of your status updates and its integration with Google Maps layers, which could have the potential for more real-life applications and networking. You can read more about all that Google Buzz has to offer by clicking here.

But here is my issue: a few months back Google burst onto the social media scene with Google Wave. It was going to change the way we communicate and possibly replace email altogether. The real-time collaborative functionality was heralded as revolutionary, and anyone who pays attention to these types of things (translation: geek) began impatiently looking for ways to get our Google Wave invite so we could experience the revolution firsthand. Invites were given away as prizes for contests on blogs and social networks, and the mad rush to get yours seemed to consume the online airwaves.

Google chose to roll out this next big thing in, well, waves, sending invitations via Gmail to the chosen few and giving them the ability to invite a few they choose to join them. When I finally got mine, I spent a day or two marveling at the technology and trying to find ways to interact with others in the fresh and exciting frontier. I read everything I could about it, wrote a review or two of my own, participated in discussions and then began waiting for more people to receive their invites.

This is when the problems began.

Although Google Wave had its own functionality problems, crashing on occasion as they worked out the bugs and missing some seemingly obvious capabilities that were added later, the biggest issue was that so few people had received invitations. Yes, they started out giving invitations to a million or so people, but I certainly didn’t know many of them.How do you use an interactive platform when no one you know has access?

Soon the outcry came. Users were wondering when everyone else would be allowed to experience Wave, and those who had yet to receive invitations felt ignored or left out. As the buzz (pun intended) died down, the demand for invitations shifted to a point where people couldn’t give them away. It wasn’t long before I had over 20 invites that I still haven’t passed along because no one is interested anymore!

The media backlash rose to a dull roar and what was once hailed as revolutionary was relegated to a fad that never caught on. Still today I see occasional tweets asking if anyone is still using Wave. I know I’m not.

Not long after the Wave hubbub, Google sprang the Nexus One on us, and the gadget geek world went into a flurry again. The exciting new phone was dubbed a potential iPhone killer, but soon there were complaints about the lack of support, confusing marketing and availability, and outrageous pricing. Yes, I want one. But my own Wave experience combined with the reports I’ve read – not about the phone itself, but regarding surrounding problems – have made me cautious about diving in.

The failure on Google’s part to unveil their golden children in ways that catch on seems to me to be a lesson they are not learning from. Now they are releasing Buzz, and the apathetic response I have witnessed proves this failure to be true. Articles are being published left and right about Google Buzz, touting its cool features and predicting its success or failure. Any way you look at it, success or failure of Buzz could be riding on Google’s past mistakes rather than the technology and its implementation.

Just this morning I checked to see if I had received my invitation to try it out, only to feel that same disappointment when it was not there. I also used my phone to try Buzz Mobile, which is readily available for anyone, but I was shocked to find out that it only works on iPhones and Android 2.0 operating systems, which my T-Mobile myTouch 3G has yet to have the ability to be upgraded to! The inability of Google to take into account the effect its rollout methodology has on the mindset of the consumer is a glaring oversight. I’ve spoken with others who have expressed their desire to try out Buzz and the consensus is one of feeling “left out”. Inferior. Overlooked. What does this do to the consumer base that Google hopes to build?

Lately it is almost impossible to spend any time online without hearing about something that Google is doing. The search giant’s attempts at world domination – search, email, telecommunications, operating systems and now social media – could be resulting in an online oversaturation that backfires, crippling their desire to make everything Google.

Google is already a household word. It’s one of the few organizations whose name has become a common verb (“Just Google it!”) Is it really necessary for them to become everything to everyone?

As I said, I am a Google fan, and will continue to be. But I have lost a little respect for what seems to me to be a somewhat desperate attempt to conquer the world of all things geeky. I am not going to walk away from Twitter or Facebook to give my attention to Google’s next plaything, nor do I believe the masses will choose to do so. Perhaps Google should slow down a little bit and focus on what they do really well, while taking some time to learn from their mistakes. The products are fantastic, and I believe could be very revolutionary if handled correctly. But I fear they may become victims of their own hype and we will miss out on what could have been.

Are you using Google Buzz? Is anyone else you know? Do you plan to try it out, or pass it off due to recent other Google experiences? Please share your thoughts on this latest development in the comments below.

You can check out the brilliance that is @bkmacdaddy by visiting him here. And, for the record, I agree with absolutely everything Brian has said here – his experiences mirror my own. As such, I am not at all interested in exploring Google Buzz. For me, Twitter and Facebook work just fine.

I’m headed off to Nashville to the amazing Blissdom conference tomorrow and am already impressed by the smarts exhibited by ConAgra, one of the conference sponsors. The folks at ConAgra were savvy enough to give a group of techie, blogging, busy as all get out women some swag that we can really use.  I mean, swag is, in general, nice. And it’s swag, so it’s free – and I’m not going to complain. But there’s a gigantic difference between nice free stuff and really rocking, amazing, stuff that I will use a LOT free stuff.

Please meet my new BFF, the Poken – an ultra cool gadget that is essentially your social business card. Poken is inexpensive, easy to use and a terrific way for a group of people to get and stay connected.

In a nutshell, you buy your Poken, plug it into your computer, enter all the information that you’d like people to have about you, and stash it in your handbag, put it on your keychain, or slip it into your jeans pocket. It’s small and easy to carry around and instead of fumbling around for business cards and collecting them from people you meet and want to stay in touch with, you can simply touch Pokens and, voila, your information is exchanged.

There are so many cool features about Poken – truly, the more I learn the more I love it. What a brilliant idea!! Why don’t I think of these things, darnit??

Since receiving my Poken (I’m a conference speaker, so I got my goodies in advance of the event, while the other attendees will get theirs upon arrival) I’ve told every friend I know – at least twice – how stinking cool this thing is. In fact, I’ve sent at least a handful of them directly to my friend, Coree Silvera’s site, to buy them. Coree is a Poken affiliate and an amazing woman, and when I buy things, I like to buy from friends. Check it out, find the Poken that’s right for you and you’ll be on your way to loving it as much as I do.

Even more brilliant is the move by ConAgra, purchasing such a clever gadget, branding it with their logo, and distributing it as part of the swag at the Blissdom event. Love my gadget, love the peeps who gave it to me. That’s how it works, you know. And for a pretty minimal investment, ConAgra has already endeared me to their brand – they gave me something super cool, that I love, that I will routinely use, which will make my life easier. Oh, and their brand is right there, front and center, for all to see.

Smart, smart, smart. In fact, I’m such an evangelist now – for both ConAgra and for Poken, they should both sponsor my upcoming trip to SXSW and let me recruit some new customers for them. And give me some really cool tee shirts to wear while I’m doing it (hehe).