After a Facebook campaign emerged asking for Betty White to host an episode of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”, the network is said to be considering the option. The Facebook page called “Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!”, now with over 400,000 fans, materialized after the 88-year-old actress appeared in a popular Super Bowl spot. “SNL” is thinking about teaming White with other comediennes (said possibilities include SNL alums Molly Shannon, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler). This just shows how influential social media can be! I think it definitely makes sense for NBC to follow through with this – they can broaden their appeal to a new audience and draw some excellent press attention in the process. Really, how can you go wrong with Betty White?? See the Entertainment Weekly article here: SNL Close to Land Betty White

It appears that Google has really missed a rare mark with their new attempt at social media, Google Buzz. Why all the uproar? Google has taken the liberty of synchronizing everyone’s Gmail account with Buzz, a twitter-like program that is supposed to let your contacts see changes in your status while letting you view theirs in a constant stream. Sure this sounds like a smart sync, but it is getting absolutely hammered on as a violation of privacy. As part of their plans for this integration, buzz takes the liberty of automatically ‘friending’ your top 40 Gmail contacts to your profile, regardless of your real world affiliation. This means that anyone can automatically be integrated into your email account, regardless if it’s someone who you may have e-mailed once or twice, an old acquaintance, or someone who you would like a discreet relationship with that isn’t broadcasted over Google space.

I have opted out of Buzz because I heard about this integration close upon its launch shortly after seeing who my ‘top contacts’ were. I don’t particularly want to connect my mother, aunts, and brother with ex-girlfriends and old frat buddies (This is why we’re not Facebook friends, mom). I’m sure my personal life isn’t the only one that would benefit from keeping certain social areas separate.

However, I can see the wisdom behind Google’s move…well maybe not the wisdom, but the reasoning behind it. In order to compete with long established social media sites like Facebook and Twitter where long time users already have friends in the hundreds, Google had to assume that people wouldn’t want to ‘start fresh’ with a third, fourth, or fifth social site, and starting out with a base set of followers would really expedite the connection process. These social media communities can take a long time to set up because finding people you know and want to connect to can be found much more quickly searching your 2nd degree connections rather then searching for people individually.

The launch of Google Buzz is equivalent to launching a new NFL, NBA, or MLB overnight, and expecting everyone to wake up with their jerseys on. Google has made incredible strides in providing fast, free, and accurate information to nearly everyone, unless of course you’re in China or looking for Donald Rumsfeld’s house on Google Earth (Go head, try it), but needs to take more consideration into the privacy of its customers. Providing information is one thing, shining spotlights on people’s personal lives is another.

From time to time, I’ll see some marketing ideas that just absolutely blow my mind. I can remember some commercials from my childhood that were cutting edge at the time, but compared to today’s technology, are just being blown away graphically. However, the essence of the creativity still doesn’t change, but evolves with our technology, and we’re getting really, really good at it.

I’m talking about interactive marketing, the hybrid between different media all working together (hopefully) seamlessly. There are many different ‘forms’ of interactive marketing, but it all revolves around the same point: spreading a brand massively by word of mouth. While the every day marketer is becoming more and more adept at using new technology, there are a few small gimmicks that I’ve stumbled upon that have really struck as ingenious.

The Travel Channel: In an effort to gain a younger audience, the Travel Channel decided to the hit 18-35’s right where it hurts; their Facebook. The Travel Channel unleashed a Facebook app titled ‘kidnap’ where users can kidnap their friends and take them to different cities and earn points by answering geographical trivia questions. If you think this might not be a great way to reach your audience, about 2 million Facebook users would disagree. In its first 6 weeks of inception, over 1,700,000 requests were sent, coming out to just over 40,000 requests to friends, by friends, a day.

Pepsi: While Pepsi has always been a heavily promoted brand, they have seen their successes on the big name, big budget advertising methods saved for only the largest of industry powerhouses. However, Pepsi has taken an incredible new step with their big budget Super Bowl ad; refusing to make it. Pepsi has instead launched www.refresheverything.com, an outreach project that invites users to submit ideas for a grant to improve their communities. This site allows anyone to submit an idea for a project, and then allows the site’s users to vote on who is awarded the grant, ranging anywhere from 5 to 250k, awarded monthly. To date, Pepsi has 729 submitted proposals and over 1.3 million in available funding. This project launched under the basis that Pepsi wanted to do something with its advertising that could help a down economy and directly improve people’s lives rather then put on one thirty-second Super Bowl spot.

Lost: ABC’s hit show has always used its fan base to help spread the message and used its web following to create a culture around the show. That’s why this first gimmick could very well be the work of some guy messing around at work instead of a corporate viral team, but the effect is still the same. www.kayak.com, a travel search engine, is either a victim of a fanboy employee gone rogue or a stroke of genius. Because I’m a nice guy, I did this for you, but if you search for flights originating from Sydney, Australia to LAX on September 22nd, you will see a flight advertised that doesn’t exist. For those of you not familiar with the show, this is the flight and fictitious airline whose crash is the basis of the show. Whether or not anyone ‘officially’ knows its there is a mystery to me, but this little gimmick has received a huge praise from people even outside of Lost-nerd circles.

These examples reflect the creative, interactive, and community oriented vibe that viral marketers crave to design. Even if they are doing little more then talking about their brands, these ideas have exposed themselves to their target audiences a great deal with relatively low cost, quality creative ideas. Viral marketing is beginning to show up everywhere and, as the name suggests, is going to keep spreading and spreading, keeping people like me up all night thinking of the next great way to do it big.

Remember when we would watch the Super bowl and the ads would just pop up and we would not know what was coming? Well I am afraid that has all changed now we know everything there is to know about the spot before it airs. We know everything from how much they paid for it to what people think about it before the coin toss happens.

I like to be surprised. Good creative and a good message doesn’t have to be set up like a joke or explained to me. I see a spot and either like it or don’t. The internet and all the social and viral marketing has changed the way we see ads now, especially when it comes to the Super Bowl ads.

Personally, I miss Mean Joe Green tossing the jersey to that little boy in the tunnel and the warm fuzzy feeling that I had when I 1^st saw it. Wow and I still remember it. Funny I don’t remember any of last years ads, I wonder what I won’t remember this year…

Why does a company have a blog? Why would a company pay someone thousands of dollars to publish random articles with no traditional ‘call-to-action’? What is the point of taking money away from straightforward advertising?

The one thing that is common between anyone who uses the internet is that they desire content relevant to their interests. People who are interested in something as simple as finding a new camping spot, for example, generally have to sift through a sea of distractions to get what they want: information. Let’s say that a group of friends and I are going on our yearly camping trip, and want to find a new spot to explore. I want to find out a little information about some spots first, so I start searching around. I Google the word camping, and my first results are advertisements from REI on buying a new tent, offers to register to some anonymous newsletter about American camping, or I’m looking at the hottest RV lodges in town. Not exactly what I’m looking for, and I dismiss this entire search as clutter. This doesn’t mean that I might not be in the market for some new camping gear from REI, but that isn’t the content I’m trying to find RIGHT NOW.

This presents a window of opportunity for any company that’s willing to go after someone in this stage of planning their trip. Let’s say I get a little more creative with my searching, and Google great camping spots in Flagstaff, Arizona. Here we find the websites to a few national park websites and locally ran niche sites that will champion one of their spots as the best. Once again, I don’t want to be advertised too, and I still cannot find the content I need. Hmm…I smell an opportunity.

Obviously, this is the kind of consumer that an on-line camping supply company (henceforth referred to as Jim’s) would salivate over. Unfortunately, Jim’s only exposure is in the first Google search, and it’s screaming through the monitor BUY! BUY! BUY!, not exactly attractive unless a person is only looking to buy. This is where Jim’s has the opportunity to provide a customer actual value. What if Jim’s publishes a blog about 10 great local campgrounds, and invites site users a chance to write about their favorite camping spots, comparing and sharing memorable experiences worth writing about? This opens a dialogue between Jim’s online marketer and his consumers about a common interest, and is directing traffic to his website via blog. As Jim’s blog gains readership and people start hosting links through their comments, suddenly Jim’s store is becoming a hotspot for the best camping information around.

This is a great way for Jim’s to provide another level of service to their customers by not only providing the tools for their trip, but a place to reminisce, explore and connect with others interested in the same thing. Jim’s on-line shoppers are going to start subscribing to their blog and probably shoot some of the articles over to their camping buddies at work. Slowly more and more people are being exposed to this conversation, and thanks to new blog posts have something else to discuss every couple of weeks. Jim’s has started to create an on-line community about common, genuine, interests; common interests that have serious buying power in Jim’s niche.

Let’s say I start my search again, and this time, Jim’s blog about the top ten local camping spots pops up on my search. After scanning through the article and looking at the comments people left about these particular camping spots, I have access to an open discussion on a topic that I’m actually interested in. Holy relevant search content, Batman, I’ve finally found something worth clicking on! I’ve also happened to land on Jim’s website, which not only has provided me the value of some riveting camping content, but has me visualizing my next camping experience, and now I’m getting excited about it. Here’s where new readers are going to think about the details of their trip and remember their past experiences, and luckily for Jim’s, I just remembered my tent falling out of my truck coming home from last year’s trip. Looks like I’m going to have to pick up some new gear for this year. Good thing this blog I’m reading has a store less than an inch away from it, let’s see what they got…