For better or worse, we have become slaves to technology and in many cases have reached connectivity overload. Think about the times you have caught yourself at family or social functions discretely sneaking glances at the messages pouring into your smartphone. Is the smartphone outsmarting us or making us smarter and more efficient?

Recently a colleague was lamenting the fact that he can no longer escape work because whenever there is trouble, he gets the call. It doesn’t matter that protocol has been put into place to have others handle after-hours situations. My colleague is still most often the only one who is called.

Why? Because everyone knows he always has his phone with him and he always picks up. My colleague’s constant connectivity has completely obliterated any work-life balance he and his family once had.

Conversely, recently I visited my daughter’s school for parents’ day. As much as I try to balance my connectivity, I was thankful that I had chosen to have my iPhone with me.  Our office Internet and e-mail provider had a hardware glitch that knocked out connectivity at my office. Thanks to technology, an employee texted me about the problem. Had I not been connected, I would have been paying for 15 people to sit around, unable to work. Within minutes of my office plugging in my mobile hotspot, everyone was back to work and reconnected.

So what’s the perfect balance? As businesses owners, CEOs and managers, we need the connectivity to know what’s going on and to be able to respond instantly when needed. That connection and ability to immediately respond can be the difference between winning a customer, contract or losing one. It can help you troubleshoot when there is a problem from wherever you may be. It allows you to take advantage of situations where work and productivity would be lost as you wait in reception areas for appointments, airports for planes, or, in my case, even car lines as I pick up my children from school.

But it can also cause us to miss out on so many things in our lives that we sometimes deem more important that work. To determine if you’re too tethered to technology, consider the following questions:

1. Even after you unplug, do you crave the stimulation you get from your electronic gadgets?

2. Does the distraction of technology cause you to forget things such as dinner plans, birthdays and special occasions?

3. Do you have trouble focusing on family and friends because you’re more focused on your electronics device?

4. When you’re with friends and family do they often comment that it seems like you can no longer be fully in the moment?

5. Are you carrying around multiple devices to help you stay connected?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you may be addicted to connectivity. In recent studies, scientists say that juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information. The scientists go on to explain that these bursts of information play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. The stimulation causes an increased production of dopamine that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored.

Next time you reach for your gadgets to plug in after hours, ask yourself: are you the boss or is your smartphone?

Adrienne Lenhoff is president and CEO of Buzzphoria Social Media, Shazaaam PR and Marketing Communications, and Promo Marketing Team, which conducts product sampling, mobile tours and events. She can be reached at alenhoff@shazaaam.com.

A study by Just Ask and Crowd Science has shown that one of Facebook users’ least favorite activities is “Liking” branded pages.

It does show, however, that they are more likely to “Like” non-branded pages, but a small percentage of users (9 percent) have a tendency to “Like” officially branded pages.

Further detail from the study shows that it is mostly the younger users (under 17 years old) are the one who “Like” pages, with 23 percent doing so. But the percentage decreases as the age increases.

This does not signify bad news, however, much like market research isn’t bad news. Just take this as market research.

If your audience is teenagers, this is the avenue to pursue.

However, just not liking a branded page does not mean all hope is lost on that brand.

The study continues by saying that on these branded pages (the ones most people refuse to “Like”) there are still other elements that garner “Likes” and interaction on the page.

Photos, comments and wall posts are all elements that have been shown to create interaction by people creating and impression on it and “Liking” it.

There are always going to be people who “refuse to ‘Like’ anything” just by their nature. There are too many people with too many opinions and 9 percent of the population many be the biggest representation, but in real numbers, is still very impressive given the popularity of Facebook.

At Buzzphoria, we routinely study the trends of the current social media to better guide our clients so they can achieve their overall goal from their social media campaign.

Much like movement on the stock market, the “Blog Bubble” is waiting to pop with the number of bloggers and unique visitors to blogging sites have dwindled in the recent years, with the number of social media users continuing to steadily rise.

And with this trend of Internet community and connection, the focus of industries have shifted as well based on the level of trust people now have in their social media contacts.

Blogs were once the biggest buzz word to the point to where it was designated Word of the Year in 2004 by Merriam-Webster, however a recent study by the America Life Project showed the number of active bloggers in the age group 12 to 17 reduced by half to 14 percent from 2006 through 2009. The trend continued for the group 18 to 33, dropping 7 percent over two years.

In the years since the blogging boom hit the Internet, what started as traditional blogging has not splintered into small, heavily opinionated, single-person operations or has grown into something resembling a media outlet (such as The Huffington Post). People, too, have found it too long and are too busy to sit and write lengthy blog posts when social media platforms have made it easier and less time consuming to create and read. (They were also deterred by the lack of readers.)

However, the trend will play an advantage to companies and businesses moving into the Internet ad space and various platforms—studies have shown that consumers are more likely to trust social media contacts rather than bloggers and more traditional mediums like newspapers and television.

With the human element still very prominent, word-of-mouth is still heavily depended upon for product recommendations. And with hundreds of millions connected through social media, the natural progression would be a move in that direction, in that people trust who they know and this is who they know.

The numbers confirm this notion with a 50 percent increase of trust in social media contacts. There was also an increase of 21 percent in microblogs.

Company and product pages provide a useful platform to interact with consumers, but the same studies show the main focus of their presence on social media is for distribution of information This information, in turn, will filter throughout the vast network, gaining “Likes” on Facebook and retweets on Twitter, essentially building trust and recommendations. This likelihood does not even depend on if the distributed information is professionally created (which some might make the argument that this makes it feel like a sales pitch).

Social media marketers at Buzzphoria are aware of these trends and hold the knowledge that would drive the right traffic to the right social media pages which would disseminate that information along and give it the best possible chance to gain maximum exposure and pass along as many recommendations as possible.

Adrienne Lenhoff, founder and president of Novi-based Shazaaam! Public Relations and Buzzphoria LLC, will be speaking on the current effects social media is having on communications. Lenhoff will be joined by Scott Monty, Ford Motor Company’s global digital and multimedia communications manager, at the event sponsored by the Detroit Chapter of the Association of Women in Communication (AWC).

Lenhoff and Monty will discuss and examine the positive and negative effects of social media and how it will shape the future of communications and online marketing strategies. With social media marketing growing exponentially over the past decade, many businesses have begun to turn to social media as a avenue to communicate with their audience and reach new customers.

Lenhoff brings her own fresh perspective to the subject. An expert in communications, Lenhoff previously established businesses in Boston and New York and launched her first electronic marketing campaign in 1989, a pioneer in online marketing strategies. She has just finished work on a book on the social management of online reputation.

The conference will take place at the Go Comedy! Improv Theatre in Ferndale on Monday, January 31 beginning at 6 p.m. The cost of $25 for AWC Members ($35 for nonmembers) includes a light dinner. Tickets can be purchased at www.womcomdetroit.org or by calling 866-385-1784.

Companies and other businesses who have shown interest in pursuing social media marketing must be made aware of certain developments at the federal level before going through on that front.

Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, says the efforts of online marketers have “fallen short” to create a do-not-track mechanism, through a 120-plus page report. The efforts, the report describes, have been overly-complicated for consumers to opt-out of being tracked for marketing information, as well as other self-regulatory efforts.

On the night before he is scheduled to testify before a congressional hearing, Leibowitz and the FTC have called for markets to voluntarily create a user-friendly mechanism that would allow consumers to easily opt-out of data collection.

The reports detailed the marketers efforts to self-regulate and described them as being slow and failing to “provide adequate and meaningful protection.”

It has been over two years since FTC first called for online marketers to provide a clear and concise way for consumers to opt out of data collection, and as it would appear, those calls have fallen by the wayside. Now, the congressional hearings are being called in.

Before being called in from of a congressional committee. Leibowitz expressed his dissatisfaction with the marketers self-regulatory initiative and said, however, that he and the FTC are not calling for privacy regulations, but are not opposed to supporting legislation in the future should it come to that.

In a roundabout way, an ultimatum has been set by the FTC, that it’s been too long and things need to change.

If you are a business or company moving towards online marketing, the FTC is looking for two things – an opt-out mechanism, and that that mechanism is user-friendly.

Some companies have responded and have gotten out ahead of any prospective legislation, most notably Mircosoft, which has included an opt-out function for its latest version of Internet Explorer.

Buzzphoria passionately believes that companies must carefully monitor where and when their messages appear online. We adhere strictly to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s (WOMMA) Code of Ethics along with those set fourth by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), as well as our own sense of keeping our clients’ best interests in mind.

Businesses that wish to take advantage of the social media space in their marketing strategies should be aware of recent developments in the courts with regards to the privacy and confidentiality in online sites. In these cases, unsuspecting site users have had their private conversations violated by site owners, who furthered their own interests by passing along valuable user information, navigation habits etc. to outside marketers.

In March of this year, judgment was handed down in the Facebook privacy lawsuit – the “Beacon Settlement,” in which user information was leaked to advertisers via banner ads – which resulted in Facebook being levied a $9.5 million fine. Furthermore, the court stipulated that Facebook set aside $6 million for the purpose of setting up a foundation, to be headed by a three-person board, tasked with ensuring the privacy of information for Facebook users.

It would appear that the online privacy issues have been resolved with social media users free to Twitter and post at will without fear of private conversations being violated.

However, the judgment which was levied down brings with it its own liabilities. The Facebook privacy foundation will be helmed by Tim Sparapani, the current Facebook director of public policy, which has led critics to call this a conflict of interests. In fact Ginger McCall, a lawyer for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, filed an appeal in the U.S. 9^th Circuit Court, calling the settlement “deficient and illusory.”

In addition, lawsuits have been filed against social media networking sites MySpace and Google Buzz for similar lapses in user privacy. MySpace applications – including TagMe, GreenSpot and RockYou Pets – have allegedly been passing user information to its advertisers.

Buzz – Google’s social networking service – has been charged with passing along personal information that might be held in a user’s Gmail account, making it public, and releasing what was confidential information if users did not specifically change the default settings. Google was recently forced to pay $8.5 million in damages.

Critics like McCall have lampooned the courts decisions, saying the penalty award amounts are misleading with only a small percentage of the damages go to the individual users who filed the lawsuits with the bulk going toward watchdog foundations.

Google admitted the February launch of Buzz was premature. But critics knew about these allegations beforehand and called Google out on its services deficiencies, but they continued with the launch anyway. This brings into question the security of social media more than ever. It is one thing when sites are passing consumer information to advertisers, but it is quite another when the safety of your confidential and personal information is jeopardized.

Even though a precedent has stemmed from these cases, McCall and others are left unsatisfied, even with millions of dollars made in settlements. They wish to go further and set additional legal precedents that will protect the privacy of social network users by having the site that violates those laws face serious penalties.

Buzzphoria believe that companies must carefully monitor where and when their messages appear online. We adhere strictly to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s (WOMMA) Code of Ethics along with those set fourth by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), as well as our own sense of keeping our clients’ best interests in mind.

Microsoft announced recently a partnership with Facebook that would take the first step of a long-sought after goal to integrate social media and Internet search. Microsoft Bing will allow users to enter search terms and view responses as well as feedback from matches to those searched items from their Facebook “community.” For example, if someone should entering their Bing a search for a steakhouse, they might find several names of places in the area, but they will also find that a number of their friends have “liked” a specific steakhouse on their Facebook page. This has been a goal of search engines for some time and this marks the first step being taken in a new front of social media marketing.

You better believe that companies are taking that front very very seriously. Crown Imports EVP, which brings in Corona Beers, has launched a campaign centered around Corona Light to make it the most “Liked” beer on Facebook. Crown has purchased a large electronic display in New York’s Time Square urging people to “Make Us The Most Liked.” Not to buy Corona Light or drink Corona Light, but to make them the most liked on Facebook. To sink serious money into an advertising program such as that adds to the validity of the social market. Corona Light ranks eighth among light beer sales, but has risen in consumer sales since August while its competitors – Bud Light, Miller Light, Coors Light etc. – have declined in sales. And this is something that for certain will continue. If an average conusmer is sitting at home some night and is going to look for a movie to go see, he or she might go on Bing and check show times. If that person sees that 15 of their friends have seen and “liked” The Social Network, then they might be inclined to go see that.

Of course this brings into question the protection of personal information displayed on Facebook and other social media site – something which already has brought into question in the past. However, Mircosoft and Facebook, both, of course, have stated that personal information will not be taken or pulled or pirated or used. But with all that aside, this major push from a top company brings to the forefront the importance advertiser and companies alike are putting on social mediums, and how that is now paying off. Now, however, it will become on more important on more of a micro level with seeking after “likes.”

Buzzphoria will take that initiative and plan with the companies from the start to create a plan – a social media marketing strategy – whether it be gather “likes” on face to increase search engine optimization. Do you want your company to come up on the first page of a Google or Bing search? Who doesn’t? Of course an increase in exposure will get you company’s name on the mind of the consumer, but just where is that consumer located?

From early 2010 until the beginning of the summer, two Facebook users allege that the social networking site leaked users’ personal information to advertisers and marketers. David Gould and Mike Robertson claim that from February to May, Facebook leaked a generous amount of information about users who clicked on ads via refer headers. The clicks transmitted enough data to marketers that they could specifically identify the people (through their Facebook account) who arrive on the advertisers’ site after clicking on ads on Facebook. The pair claim that this violates federal and state privacy laws, as well as Facebook’s own privacy policy it ensures to all its users.

This is not the first time Facebook – or other social networking sites – have been accused of privacy violations. Just last year, two computer scientists published the report, “On the Leakage of Personally Identifiable Information via Online Social Networks,” which focused on how networking sites could be leaking personally identifiable information to marketers. One example given in an article published on MediaPost.com, if a gay Facebook users was struggling to come out of the closet, he or she might be view a Facebook gay support group page. If they should click on one of the ads on the page, the advertiser would then know that person was on a gay support group page, as well as their personal information given on their personal profile.

With just the click of the mouse, this person’s personal information – as well as the information from all the pervious pages they have visited – have been made available to advertisers and marketers, and what’s to stop the marketers from blindly soliciting these people? The truth – nothing. And what’s to stop these marketers from sharing information? Nothing. There exists no checks and balance system in online social media and marketing. Privacy laws exist, but it’s readily apparent how well those are followed if these allegations turn out to be true and Facebook glitches pass this information to its advertisers. Even so, nothing exists to check and see where these marketers obtained this information – it’s a roundabout way of “Everybody gets what they get,” and they will all use what they get.

Information needs to be protected, whether it be on a social media networking site or directly given to advertisers and marketers. For instance, when people sign up for Google Alerts and receive emails throughout the day because they want to monitor particular terms or information, they are trusting Google that they don’t need to worry about what else Google might do with that information or that they’ll have to deal with unsolicited, marketing emails. Much the same way they sign up for Google Alerts or other updates, people will sign up with marketers to receive emails about their products so they can be advertised to as opposed to a blind solicitation and are forced to wonder how a marketer got their information and what else they might be doing with it.

At Buzzphoria, we strictly adhere to WOMMA’s (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) Code of Ethics http://womma.org/ethics/code/intro/ and those of PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) http://www.prsa.org/AboutPRSA/Ethics/?utm_source=prsa_website&utm_medium=top_nav_intelligence&utm_campaign=ethics_nav. It is our feeling that as marketers, we need to provide consumers with a level of confidence when dealing with brands and companies not only to be transparent and authentic but to also protect the trust a consumer places in our hands when they provide us with personal information.

In a time when it seems to be a no-brainer for most companies to make the switch from analog to digital marketing initiatives, marketing strategists are making important decisions not only about which digital markets to reach out to, but also how much time and money could and should be allotted to digital expansion.

Enter a new study from the CMO Council and Accenture shows that not all Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are gung-ho about investing company funds into digital outlets.

According to the study, most CMOs agree that digitization is important — 78 percent agreed with the survey statement, “digital channels are important to their organization.” Also, half of those that were surveyed agreed that “Technology now underpins and shapes the entire customer experience.”

However, when asked if they’re “heavily committed and invested” in interactive digital marketing strategies, only one-third of the respondents agreed that they are prepared. Which begs the question: If so many marketing professionals feel that bridging the gap from analog to digital is essential to the future of their company, why haven’t they invested the necessary time and funds to do so?

(Un)Preparedness — Of the CMOs that were polled in the study, only 38 percent said they “believed their organization was prepared to exploit the opportunities presented by digital marketing channels.” So what about the other 62 percent who say they don’t feel that they’re ready to take advantage of the growing digital climate?

· 59 percent say they feel that they don’t have the funding for digital upgrades.

· 46 percent say that there is a disconnect between how digital marketing operates, and general understanding among senior management that curbs digital marketing investments.

(Lack of) Confidence — Perhaps even more daunting is the number of CMOs that agreed that they know how their customers utilize digital outlets. Only 27 percent concurred, “We know what we need to know about customers’ usage of our digital channels.”

Here at Buzzphoria, we understand that it takes a multi-layered approach when it comes to understanding the ins and outs of digital marketing. We help our clients find ways to bridge the gap that stands between companies who understand how important digital marketing has become, and what it takes to effectively understand and tap those essential resources. In an ever-increasing digitized business climate we believe that it is absolutely essential for companies to understand which trends their target audience is most likely to follow, and finally how to effectively meld digital with traditional marketing.

Has your company decided to go head-first into what it takes to meet the needs of your digital consumer? Tell us about it!

The Michigan Business and Professional Association (MBPA) has named Shazaaam!/Buzzphoria LLC as one of Metropolitan Detroit’s “101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For,” marking the fourth year in a row that the agency has been named.

“We are proud to receive this high honor once again,” said Adrienne Lenhoff, Shazaaam!/Buzzphoria founder and president. “We take special care in making our workplace a creative and fun place to work for our employees,” she added, “and the results show in both our work for clients and the dedication that our staff shows every day in accomplishing their goals.”

Shazaaam!/Buzzphoria and 100 other businesses in greater Michigan will be honored at an awards luncheon on Wednesday, September 22, 2010, at The Dearborn Inn, a Marriott hotel located in Dearborn, Mich.

Shazaaam!/Buzzphoria, Novi, Mich.-based businesses, have also received numerous recognitions from Crain’s Detroit Business named as a “Cool Place to Work.” The selection of Shazaaam!/Buzzphoria, along with other winning companies, affirms to its employees, clients, vendors, and to the business community at large, that it is committed to being one of the Best and Brightest companies to work for.

MBPA qualifies companies using independent research that evaluates company communication, community initiatives, compensation and benefits. The organization also reviews other categories such as diversity and multiculturalism, employee education and development, employee engagement and commitment, and work-life balance.

“Because the companies selected have created impressive organizational value and business results through their policies and best practices in human resource management, we believe it is important to recognize their accomplishments, especially at a time when all businesses are being challenged in ways never before seen,” said Jennifer Kluge, MBPA executive vice president and chief operating officer.

Metro Detroit’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For is sponsored by AT&T Michigan, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Corp!, Magazine, Davenport University, DTE Energy, Pepsi Bottling Group, Douglas Marketing, The Designate, Strategic Staffing Solutions, WJBK Fox 2, HRAGD, the Detroit Athletic Club and McGraw Wentworth.
About Shazaaam!/Buzzphoria

Founded in 2001, Shazaaam! (shazaaam.com) is an award-winning, independently owned, group of affiliated communications companies headquartered in Novi, Mich. Shazaaam! Public Relations, Social Media Marketing Agency Buzzphoria (buzzphoria.com) and experiential marketing company Promo Marketing Team (promomarketingteam.com) specialize in traditional public relations, social media marketing, product sampling and street-level marketing promotions and events, respectively, on a national level. Specialties include media and public relations, guerilla marketing, online viral marketing, electronic and new media development, mobile tours, product samplings, social networking and event coordination and management.

Since the beginning of the Internet, a wild-west mentality has prevailed with people anonymously blasting articles and blogs with caustic comments. The authors and bloggers are stunned and left shaking their heads wondering about the anger and venom they’ve suffered.

For decades the Internet hasn’t held users accountable for reckless comments. But that may be changing in two ways. First, social networking sites, such as Facebook, are requiring participants to use their real names. In addition, lawsuits are also being filed against anonymous Internet users for slanderous comments or posting vital information about crimes.

Many would (and still do) argue that online anonymity will not fade away. Just imagine the sound of keyboards declaring that Internet users deserve their first amendment rights- FREEDOM OF SPEECH. So, the question is, does the first amendment cover a person who hides behind a false name only to harm others or add fuel to the fire? The answer is NO.

Consequences: It’s widely known that unruly or harsh comments associated with a person’s real persona could cost them a prospective job, clients and reputation. Hiding behind a fictitious name does not provide real protection, as digital fingerprints are easy to track.

Take for example the non-ethical behavior of companies who have asked their employees to provide glowing third party comments to impact stock price or sales. The courts have simply called this type of corporate behavior, fraud.

Here at Buzzphoria (www.buzzphoria.com), we respect the disclosure of identity standards from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, WOMMA, which requires members to disclose their relationships or identities with consumers when they may influence a customer’s buying-decision. Our rules of the worldwide-web begin with an introduction of who we are, the name of client we represent and our purpose for responding to the blog or article. That is just the way we do business.

Telling the truth –It’s not only the right thing to do- it takes courage. For example Activision Blizzard Inc., one of the world’s largest videogame companies, boldly set guidelines for users’ online posts.

The company placed a requirement that gamers list their real names to post messages in online forums, just in time for the change to be applied to its first forums of the company’s highly anticipated “StarCraft II,” which was released in late July.  The purpose of the policy was to deflate the sometimes-nasty discussions amongst gamers.

Sadly, the policy collapsed after a widespread backlash from game users. The service is based on paid-subscriptions, and the company was concerned a revolt from consumers could mean a drop in sales.

But what is to be said about online sites that are not held at the mercy of consumers’ demand? Are they more willing to allow users to post factitious names without being held accountable for any wrong doings? A growing number of legal decisions are making it easier for lawyers to use legal proceedings to have online users’ names disclose. A move that hints the guidelines for Internet postings may shift for safety reasons, and to control unruly and malicious users.

One infamous case, the Lori Drew MySpace trial, made international headlines as the court reviewed evidence that a St. Louis suburb mom established a fake online identity to bully her daughter’s rival, who eventually committed suicide. Although the court eventually threw out the case, the judge threatened to criminalize the act of creating a fake persona online. The publicity surrounding the case echoed through the Internet community.

For now, users still have the right to their online anonymity. But based on the string of legal cases and Internet company reactions, there may soon be a major change to Internet users rights. In the meantime, users should be careful about their content, and the possible damage it may cause.

The simplest rule to follow is- use your name and stand behind your words. Why would so many users fight this?

While those types of emails are considered by most of us a nuisance or spam, how aware are you of whether YOU, your brand or company has ever violated CAN-SPAM laws?

To make it easier, Buzzphoria (www.buzzphoria.com) has put together a list of the 10 essential things you need to know about CAN-SPAM compliance.

1.  What is CAN-SPAM?  Written into law in 2003, CAN-SPAM is a United States federal government measure to ensure that all email adequately identifies its origin, allows a user to remove themselves from future mailings and provides the government and ISPs a right to action against anyone not following CAN-SPAM requirements.

2.  Did you know that CAN-SPAM is only applicable to email that is sent and received in the United States? It also overrides any state level spam laws.

3.  If you have specific CAN-SPAM questions, you’ll want to refer to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).  They’re the governing body in legal prosecutions and also update CAN-SPAM’s core compliance requirements.  The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is also involved when it comes to emails that are sent to cell devices.

4. Under CAN-SPAM once a recipient has opted out of receiving your email, you may not contact them again for further marketing opportunities. An email unsubscribe operates similar to a Do-Not-Call list with telephone numbers.

5. In terms of opt-out function, landing and links CAN-SPAM requirements keep things simple for the recipient. Senders are allowed to only have the recipient take one action after landing on the unsubscribe page from an opt-out click-thru.  At that point, the recipient can click on a confirm button, check a box, etc. Senders cannot require recipients to sign into an account and perform other actions to be removed from the list or require a fee.  You must support the unsubscribe link and the resulting landing page for at least 30 days to ensure that recipients have enough time to unsubscribe. This helps avoid senders from having confusing or complicated opt out mechanisms.

6. CAN-SPAM mandates that you must remove a recipient from mailing lists or suppress sending to them within 10 days of receipt of their opt-out request.

7. Transactional email is exempt from CAN-SPAM since it is mandated by the FTC. CAN-SPAM defines transactional email as one which “facilitates an agreed-upon transaction or updates a customer in an existing business relationship.”  This definition prohibits marketing messages from being labeled as transactional although it does allow for marketing content in a transactional email. It is advised that a sender get input from someone who’s an expert in email law to certify that the content does apply to the
transactional definition.

8. CAN-SPAM requires that headers accurately reflect the originator of the email message. Failure to do so is considered fraudulent and in direct conflict of the transparency spirit of the law.

9. CAN-SPAM has no volume thresholds for enforcement.  Any amount of email sent, even if it’s just to a single recipient, is covered by CAN-SPAM.

10.  Violation of CAN-SPAM can result in monetary fines and jail time depending on the number of offenses and the sender’s intent.  Also, a sender in violation can face civil damages from private ISPs.

At the end of the day, any campaign, whether it be in the social or traditional marketing space lives, breathes and dies based on how well it ultimately moves the sales meter.  While from an analytic standpoint, it’s nice to have cost per impressions and reach costs, we also need to understand that today’s consumer has “constant partial attention”.  So, while you may be reaching them with impressions, or having them click on a like button or a follow button - are you really reaching through the clutter of marketing messages and noise that are competing for that consumer’s attention?

In reality, many consumers will click a like button or a follow button because a friend of a friend of a friend of the marketer reached the consumer and told them to click.  They’ll click and never look back.  So, at the end of the day, you’ve got a false population of fans/likes/followers who could care less about the messages they’re being blasted via Twitter, Facebook and the other platforms in which the brand is trying to engage their attention.

From our standpoint, the real measurement of both traditional and social media marketing success is multi-layered and lies between the actual engagement of those consumers — are they becoming evangelists?, are they engaging with your brand or company?, are you having viable dialogues that bring value to the consumer (and to the brand)?, and - most importantly - is there a positive impact to your brand or company’s bottom line???

How are you measuring your current campaign success?  We’d love to hear your thoughts…

One of the things we’re always asked is, “What are the rules of etiquette for the social media and online world?” It can be a confusing question because each online venue is unique in its form and functionality. Conduct deemed perfectly acceptable within Twitter can be construed quite differently on say Facebook.

There is a Wild West attitude held by many Internet users that would make the first lady of manners and etiquette Emily Post say SMH-shaking my head! Anonymous postings are often down right nasty, rude, embarrassing – and, for a brand or company, can be devastating to an otherwise sterling reputation.

There are however, certain rules of the road that apply universally. Whether you’re in cyberspace or not manners count, and just because someone can’t see you doesn’t mean they can’t hurt you.

The following is the I.R.E.S.P.E.C.T. system for online interaction. This list is intended to be a guideline that everyone can easily use when interacting online, but it is by no means comprehensive. Every situation is different and poses its own unique set of challenges. But hopefully, by keeping in mind these simple rules, we can make the web a friendlier and more productive environment for everyone.

I.R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

I - Introductions Matter
Don’t jump on the friendship bandwagon without an introduction first.
If you’re looking to make friends, telling them your name and how you might know them is the least you can do.

R- Reciprocity
The rule of reciprocity is as old humanity itself- If you want to get something, you have to give first.
So before you ask for a favor online make sure you’ve done something first to merit a positive response.

E-Engage
The reason it’s called “social media” is messages can be both sent and received.
One-way traditional communication will never be as effective as authentic human engagement and it isn’t much appreciated anyways.

S-Second Guess
Ask yourself this question before submitting anything, “Is this providing relevant content or is it just self-promotion and ego?”
A little bit of self-promotion is fine, but posting unrelated content to blogs or forums with specific topics and never contributing anything but promotional materials is annoying and not really what “social media” is about.

P- Provide Content
Less than 30% of everyone online is a power-content creator (i.e has their own blog, uploads video, owns a website and updates regularly etc) ,and the other 70% can be categorized as passive viewers or light-content creators (i.e. email and limited instant messaging)
People follow content creators because they are the ones posting answers, writing how-to articles, commenting in blogs etc. - essentially providing solutions for everyday life.
They are the thought leaders and the respect they get as such can be measured in dollars. New business deals, jobs and enhanced reputation are the rewards of a power-content creator. Source- Pew Internet & American Life Project

E- End Bad Relationships
Users who spam and provide nothing to communities aren’t the people you want to associate with. Save yourself and everyone else time in the long run by un-friending them now.

C- Control Your Image
People say things every day online that they would never utter in public or face-to-face with real individuals. What you say online though is even more important than what is said in person because there’s the potential for millions to hear your words.

T-Try to Listen More than You Speak
This might be the most important rule of them all. Listening to what people are saying, whether it be about your brand, your company or just you personally, is key to managing healthy online relationships and heading off potential problems.

While internet users are diverse in everyway, bringing varied backgrounds, customs and beliefs to their online conversations, respect for people sharing cyberspace should be the common rule. Following this simple guide would certainly make the Internet a kinder place to visit and could get the Emily Post J.

A recent survey conducted by MarketingProfs in September 2009 of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers found that the marketing tactics most often used on social media sites aren’t necessarily the best.

Simply friending customers and attempting to drive traffic to corporate websites with status updates on Facebook, ranked among the most common tactics. But brands cannot expect to gain traction with these simplistic one-way communications.

Looking at MarketingProf’s survey of B2B and B2C marketers, the most effective tactic for consumer-oriented companies was creating a Facebook application. However, less than 25 percent of the total number of those surveyed used this approach. A close second for both B2C and B2B marketers were fan surveys, although ranked as the third most-common tactic attempted.

Coming in dead-last as effective were Facebook ads. Even targeted ads, using Facebook’s improved ad targeting package came up short.

Not a surprise really when you recognize that social media users, especially those savvy to traditional communication techniques, expect companies to provide value, interactivity and ultimately open up a human dialogue.

Twitter is another application where the goals don’t match the approach most marketers’ take.

Because of Twitter’s features, brevity and fairly recent entrance into the web its user base is different from Facebook’s and so is its utility to marketers. Those who used Twitter as a tool for monitoring and person-to-person communication, instead of as a sales channel, reported 40 percent or higher success rates.

Buzzphoria knows that success in social media means going that extra mile down the road less traveled to interact with customers and clients in a dynamic way. One-way traditional communications aren’t how real people talk to one another and it shouldn’t be how companies going forward address their consumers.

Has your company embraced social media’s human communication?

For those not tuning in to the stats, Facebook is currently leading in terms of users. On September 15, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, posted a message stating that Facebook “now serves 300 million people across the world.” To put some perspective on that number, there are just three countries with a 300 million+ population: China @ 1.3 billion, India @ 1.2 billion and America @ 307 million. Simply said, your consumers and potential customers are out there… and they are talking.

So how is social media changing business strategy?

1. Social Media Gives Candid Feedback:

Last time I took a restaurant phone survey, there was no option along the lines of ‘push 7 if your waiter should have been fired on the spot for the horrific service you received.’ However, many consumers will express this frustration in the medium most commonly at their fingertips. Before a company is even aware that someone has dropped their name in cyberspace, their brand is smeared all over Twitter within hours. Or the total opposite may be occurring and users are mentioning how much they love your product. Either way, it’s up to the company to react and create dialogue or to be totally absent from the conversation.

2. Social Media Creates B2C Dialogues:

One of most influential factors in a company’s choice to plug in to these networks is the opportunity for consumer dialogue. Instead of buying ad space to talk AT your target market, we now have the option to talk WITH them. Time to phase out the little feedback cards and mini pencils; the answers are right in front of us! Using social media gives companies a perfect opportunity to show personality and character 24/7 rather than trying to cram feeling into a :30 or :60 second ad slot. As for ROI, your success is solely dependent on the effort you put into your accounts. Dell has around 40 Twitter accounts, each personalized to a different target group of consumers. Definitely a lot of work to maintain correctly, but the end result is an estimated $3 million in sales attributed to Twitter.

3. Social Media Allows Personalized Service:

Of course, so does a customer help phone line. Here’s the difference: a recent Mashable poll showed that people spend an average of 68 hours per week on the internet. Social media-savvy companies are reaching out to their customers in a place they know they can find them. This is proactive approach can save a lot of problems down the road. For example, when a user tweets about their negative experience with Comcast, Frank Eliason (@comcastcares) responds with tips or offers to help. Eliason’s efforts were highlighted last year in a NYTimes article that shows how effectively social media works to allow companies to help consumers… and hopefully quiet the consumer’s negative postings!

Buzzphoria stays connected to the web, constantly seeking out conversations involving or affecting our clients. From there, when a company really sees how consumers are reacting to their brand, they can respond in an honest and helpful way.

Has your company gotten in to social media? Why or why not?

We’ve been seeing repeated patterns among employees of companies, both publicly traded and privately held…Does your company fall into this pattern?

At Buzzphoria, we use proprietary software to measure what’s being said about companies, brands and their competitors across all social media and web-based communications channels.  When we first begin working with clients, we run historic searches to provide a benchmark for where they are in social electronic conversations - who’s talking about them, what’s being said, where it’s being said, what’s the tone, sentiment, relevancy of the conversation (ie., how many people are monitoring that particular conversation and what is the level of influence of the sites, platforms and individuals who are having those conversations, etc).  This Social Media Reality Check, as we call it, provides valuable insights that shape our recommendations, strategy and implementation of our clients’ core social media outreach.

In addition to consumer/customer communications, we also spend a great deal of time working with our clients to identify the social media discussions that are taking place by stake holders within their organizations.

From an internal corporate communications standpoint the pattern that we’ve been seeing:

1.  Most of the clients we’re called in to work with (both private and public companies) do not have a blog/twitter/social media strategy policy related to employee communications.  Many have been calling us in to a) see if they need a policy, b) run a baseline to see what’s being said and c) craft a policy for them that is easy for employees to understand, is easy to monitor and enforce and is respectful of protecting proprietary corporate information while also being respectful of the employees’ personal rights…

2.  It has been more of the rule, rather than the exception, that we’ve found multiple employee run groups on social networking sites (not just business sites such as LinkedIn and Plaxo; but also more generalized personal sites such as Facebook).  The groups and pages we’ve uncovered have by and large been using the corporate logo, have identified themselves by the corporate name and have encouraged and have been populated by both present and past employees.  In nearly every instance, the corporation hiring us was unaware that these groups existed.

3.  In addition, for each of the corporations that we’ve done this for, we have also uncovered both employee blogs and Twitter accounts.  While the bulk of the Twitter accounts and blogs we’ve found have been for personal use, we have found that in nearly all instances, the employee with these accounts is also sprinkling their personal conversations and communications with corporate information.

Since one of Twitter’s best uses is as a content aggregator, we’ve found that most Twitter accounts held by corporate employees has also been programmed to aggregate Twitter communications onto multiple social networking and blog platforms the employee possesses (for example - they send a Tweet on Twitter and the tweet is updated to their Facebook, Linkedin and Blog pages).

Some specific examples of information we’ve seen that can be damaging to the corporation:

-   employees conversing about new clients they’re going after

-   employees conversing about job and company dissatisfaction

-   employees conversing about looking for new jobs

-   employees conversing about problems (product failures, forthcoming earnings statements, possible recalls)

-   employees conversing about product development initiatives

Most of the time, the employees are not even aware that their conversations could potentially be having a negative impact on the corporation.

4.  For the majority of publicly traded companies we’re working with, we’ve found that both media and analysts are conversing on multiple platforms (Twitter, blogs, discussion groups, social media pages, etc) and that our clients were unaware these conversations were taking place.

Do you know what your employees and stake holders are saying about your company and or brand?

As we discussed last time, there are unscrupulous individuals and groups who are hijacking brands for both sport and profit.  In our case, a hijacker registered and began impersonating the Buzzphoria brand on Twitter.

The first step in defending your company and brand when a hijacker hits it to verse yourself on your rights within terms of service for the social media platform or site in which your brand has been compromised.

Below is a screen shot from Twitter’s Terms of Service:

Twitter Terms of Service

Notice that the Terms of Service clearly state that:

1. You must not abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other Twitter users.
2. You may not use the Twitter.com service for any illegal or unauthorized purpose. International users agree to comply with all local laws regarding online conduct and acceptable content.
3. You must not, in the use of Twitter, violate any laws in your jurisdiction (including but not limited to copyright laws).

Twitter General Conditions - Terms of Service

Please note the following:

1. We may, but have no obligation to, remove Content and accounts containing Content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party’s intellectual property or these Terms of Use.
2. We reserve the right to reclaim usernames on behalf of businesses or individuals that hold legal claim or trademark on those usernames.

Below, we’ve share the final section of Twitter’s Terms of Service - Copyright (What’s Yours is Yours):

Twitter Terms of Service - Copyright

Please note the following:

Twitter undertakes to obey all relevant copyright laws. We will review all claims of copyright infringement received and remove content deemed to have been posted or distributed in violation of any such laws. To make a claim, please provide us with the following:

1. A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or the person authorized to act on its behalf;
2. A description of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed;
3. A description of the infringing material and information reasonably sufficient to permit Twitter to locate the material;
4. Your contact information, including your address, telephone number, and email;
5. A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
6. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and, under the pains and penalties of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

At the beginning of the .com boom, it was squatters grabbing brand names they felt were valuable and holding them for ransom to corporations.  In the past weeks and months, it was employees at a Dominoes who disparaged the brand by posting YouTube videos, causing the company to go into crisis communications mode.  It hasn’t just happened to Dominos:  with the rise of user generated content, comes the crush of corporations being impersonated and spoofed across user-generated mediums, creating more publicity nightmares, crisis communications situations and expensive legal battles.

Equally as deadly and dangerous to brands, are imposters who grab brand names within popular social media platforms such as Twitter, MySpace and Facebook, to name a few…

Thus, the Buzzphoria case study continues… We too were a victim of brand high-jacking and the retrieval process to gain our brand back.

Within Scott Allen’s original blog post about Buzzphoria, he essentially posed a call to action for someone to high-jack the Buzzphoria name and identity within multiple social media sites.  Someone took him up on it and immediately grabbed the Twitter identity @buzzphoria.  The individual(s) then took elements of artwork from the Buzzphoria website and set up a branded page, representing themselves as our brand.  From our tracking, we witnessed the individual(s) populating the page with tweets representing themselves as us, sent to the followers the culprit(s) had begun amassing.

When we spoke to Scott Allen, he told us that the culprit(s) had reached out to him and had let him know that they would give us our brand back…if we asked.

Unfortunately, most corporations don’t see that level of generosity and kindness (I’m being facetious here…).  No…brand high-jackers do not usually reach out to a blogger or journalist to say - “hey, if you do talk to that company let them know I’d be happy to hand them back their brand…”

So, what’s the journey for a corporation or brand to retrieve its identity?  (without an expensive and protracted legal battle?)

Our next few posts will show you step by step how we were able to retrieve our identity from Twitter.

In our last post we covered To Blog or Not to Blog. In that post we mentioned that too many brands and corporations take a Field of Dreams approach to creating a blog believing that just because they build it the audience will come.

A report in the Wall Street Journal, noted the effect of adding a blog to a web site: unique site visitors increased from 100 per month to 150,000 per month; total sales increased 18 percent; web-site generated sales increased to 25 percent of referrals, up from a mere one percent.

The Wall Street Journal article also suggested that a blog can be more important than having a web site.

While we agree that blogs can be an important component of a brand’s marketing mix, we feel that it would be reckless for a brand or company to depend solely on the blog as their online marketing initiative. A blog is a great tool if properly planned and executed, however, if there is no voice, no plan and no audience it can also fall into the proverbial tree falling in the forest argument…

Creating a blog can be inexpensive when free blog sites such as Google’s Blogger.com (www.blogger.com). And while no one can promise that using Google’s blog site will get your blog a better listing in a Google search, it just seems like common sense that it would be a plus.

Other free blog sites include Wordpress.org (www.wordpress.org), LiveJournal.com (www.livejournal.com), and . . . we’ll stop here, because any list will be sure to omit the one blog site that someone thinks is the best blog site on the web. But that’s one of the great things about a blog: readers add value by posting comments. So, let the debate begin over the best place to be blogging. Or whether Blogger.com earns better positioning in a Google search.

But back to business . . . your business.
 
Why Blog?

A blog is alive.

A web site is static.

A blog is fresh, it’s now: content with a “born on” date.

A web site is like . . . that jar of peanut butter of an unknown vintage, lost in the back of the pantry.  Contaminated with salmonella? Who knows how long it has been sitting.
 
A blog engages the reader by empowering each reader to post comments.

A web site is mere dictation . . . dictatorially delivered.

A blog collects consumer feedback . . . in a place where your business can respond, especially to show the world you care about satisfying any unhappy customer.
 
A web site may invite an email or phone call, but can fail miserably at enabling you to show the world you care and do deliver excellence in customer service.

Updating a blog is as easy as posting your latest text, pics, or video to the blog.

Updating a web site? Unless you’re technically savvy, you’ll be writing text and a check with every little update.

A blog allows you to show your expertise. With this blog, Buzzphoria aims to illustrate details about our being our own best case study while at the same time showing how your business can use digital marketing strategies to enhance your bottom line.

To help stimulate the discussion, Buzzphoria will continue, intentionally, to do some things wrong, while unfolding all the elements of endgame and “we are our own best case study” illustration . . . and, we invite readers to demonstrate their informed opinions on the better way to achieve marketing success in this space. Uncensored.

Coming soon: What is a social media reality check? and What happens when your brand gets hijacked.