A lot of people are working hard to wrap their heads around social media these days. Each of the last two weeks, BOSSdev has hosted a social media webinar. We’ve had over two thousand people register for these events and nearly a thousand spend a full hour attending them. Thanks to everyone for sharing your valuable time with BOSSdev.

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The audience response to these webinars has been phenomenal to say the least. Both events trended in the top ten on Twitter for quite some time. Here’s what a few attendees had to say:

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@jwhof: “That was an awesome webinar – thanks, BossDev! #BDSocial”
@bobbygzus:

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#bdsocial “Thank you! My peers now “get it” ! GREAT breakdown of ROI using social nets!”
@MelyMello: “excellent seminar – great info! thanks for sharing! #BDSocial”
@gbentley

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: “#BDSocial attending amazing webinar from BossDev “Wrap Your Head Around Social Media” Best I’ve seen yet!” download Phone Booth

You can read the entire stream of Tweets about the event on Twitter

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We’re very pleased that so many people found our presentation useful for their work. Obviously, we’d love an opportunity to help you implement social media into your digital marketing mix. As promised, we’re sharing the full presentation.

I would like to personally thank my associates Cosmin Ghiurau, Ashley Lomas buy A Busy Day and Josh Yurich for going to great lengths to help make these online events successful. If anyone still doubts the impact social can have for business, just consider that the majority of our more than two thousand registrants found out about our webinar via LinkedIn, Facebook

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or Twitter.

Our next webinar presentation will cover the topic of how marketers are leveraging Branded Flash Games to drive engagement with consumers. BOSSdev’s own Grant Kravitz will share his considerable wit and extensive experience on the topic as the lead presenter. It’s sure to be both informative and entertaining. Don’t miss it!

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By Korye Logan

Thanks to all the people who attended our webinar on social media yesterday. The traffic for the event was strong; as was the social buzz. Our event hashtag of #BDsocial actually trended #2 on Twitter for over an hour. All feedback from attendees has been very positive so far. Our team is working diligently to follow-up via Twitter, email and here on the BOSS|talk blog.

Iowa rip Jade download Horror Hospital dvdrip You can access a recorded copy of the webinar here What Goes Up . The presentation deck can be accessed at the BOSSdev event portal site (registration required).

As mentioned during the webinar, we find it important to provide our audience with useful links. To that end, all resource links and referenced articles are cited in the presentation below.

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America’s Sweethearts buy Babylon 5: The River of Souls This webinar presentation was quite popular, so we are conducting it one more time next Thursday. If you missed the first one, please join us on April 2nd at 2pm EST. We encourage you to share this link with any friends or business associates that you believe would find it useful.
Wrapping Your Head Around Social Media: Discover your Audience in the World of Social Media

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Elf Yourself 2008 from OfficeMax

featured some important improvements over previous years’ editions, including a strong focus on ROI. While this deserves praise, a key to success in digital marketing is ongoing optimization. It is wise to conduct a post analysis on campaigns to rate efficacy, identify gaps and improve performance moving forward. So let’s take a look at this year’s Elf Yourself, identifying things done right as well as improvements to be made.

3 THINGS DONE RIGHT IN ELF YOURSELF 2008

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1. Minimal Investment: the media property was leveraged as a business asset

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OfficeMax selected JibJab Media as a partner. JibJab approached OfficeMax and offered to do the upfront development work as part of a business partnership. Clearly this was proposed due to the high traffic Elf Yourself garnered last season. While this disappointed the creators of the concept (EVB in San Francisco and Toy in New York), it was a prudent move considering the current economic climate.

2. Monetized Model: merchandising was a key component of the user experience
An Elf Yourself ornament hung on many trees this year, including the one in my home. Even more merchandise

was purchased (in the form of cards, photos, mousepads and cups) and given as gifts. Additionally, the customized video content is available to download for $4.99. While sales numbers have not been released, they certainly are an improvement on the lack of traceable sales for previous campaigns.

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3. Social & Viral Components:

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email, Facebook used to spread the word
OfficeMax and JibJab leveraged Facebook and personal emails to cost-effectively promote the campaign. Elf Yourself’s Facebook App has nearly a million fans to date, compared to almost none in mid-November. This year’s campaign featured a variety of electronic delivery methods, including email, embedding and downloads. A Google blog search of Elf Yourself (combined with ElfYourself) returns an inordinate number of results.

Note: It is unfortunate that the ElfYourself YouTube account went essentially untouched this year.

3 WAYS TO IMPROVE ELF YOURSELF IN 2009

1. Drive Retail Traffic: Reach for the Sky trailer increase visits to OfficeMax stores and .com
Traffic and stickiness for this year’s Elf Yourself campaign were strong, according to a December 17, 2008 MediaPost story. “The typical user so far has stayed on the site for 15 minutes–double the 7.5 minutes for last year’s total campaign–and has created 4.5 separate elf-centric videos, up from two a year ago.” The Omen trailer Attack of the 50 Foot Woman divx

This kind of engagement should be leveraged to drive retail traffic to stores and OfficeMax.com. The campaign does a fine job of capturing people’s attention, delivering value and building goodwill. It’s a small, but crucial step to take this momentum and convert it into real revenue. Even a simple coupon program could drive conversions. To get retail traffic, stores could set up an Elf Workshop. People could bring their kids or pets in to get a picture taken with elves.

2. Include Product Promotions: give visitors a reason to do some holiday shopping
Don’t let all those people come and go without offering specials, discounts and promotions. Serve up deals on digital photo frames, notebooks and gift cards. Elf Yourself 2008 featured ad banners, but not for OfficeMax. Missing out on this in the midst of the holiday shopping season is akin to putting short in golf – hard to forgive.

Elf Yourself gives OfficeMax a golden opportunity to promote products and drive revenue, especially online. This year, e-commerce was one of the few bright spots

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in a tough retail shopping season. The company should also leverage co-op funds from manufacturers such as HP, Microsoft and 3M.

3. A Year-Round Online Presence: leverage Elf Yourself into ongoing digital promotions

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Identify other opportunities to drive this kind of online interaction throughout the year. What do elves do in the off season? Could they be related to cupids (Valentine’s Day) or leprechauns (St. Patrick’s Day)? Do they go trick or treating on Halloween? Using the elf concept is just one creative approach to consider.

OfficeMax also has the affable Rubberband Man, who is featured in their popular television ad campaign. He could help people compile back-to-school shopping lists. He could offer periodic business tips about organization, filing and more. A long-term community model could be built around this creative. It could feature entertaining videos, useful articles and user discussion forums – all accompanied by subtle and relevant product merchandising.

A good online marketing campaign keeps getting better
It’s nice to see OfficeMax continue to improve Elf Yourself each year. Look at your online promotions with the same commitment to ongoing optimization. No campaign is perfect. And what works well this time could be irrelevant next quarter. Consider how you can leverage a variety of channels in your digital marketing mix: microsites, social networks, user generated content, etc. Also determine what off-line marketing components should be used, and how to integrate all assets effectively. Of course, it is imperative to establish how the campaign will be monitored and measured.

The most important thing you can do for any online campaign is to be keenly focused on business objectives. Les Luchter’s MediaPost article

about Elf Yourself cites “this year’s goals of deeper consumer engagement, higher retention, greater brand association and stronger social media presence.” I view these as strategies that should support the broader business objectives of higher share of mind, improved brand perception, increased traffic to OfficeMax.com and retail stores – resulting in more purchase considerations. This slight shift in focus can significantly improve a campaign’s ROI.

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A million channels for a million people converge at YouTube Live.

San Francisco & Computers Worldwide – The “New Tube” reigned supreme Saturday night as millions of people all over the world tuned their computers to YouTube Live to participate in an unprecedented Internet event. YouTube Live was an entertainment festival that featured hours of music, comedy, dance and performances by bonafide stars and online celebrities side by side. More importantly, YouTube Live was a celebration of the democratization of global media made possible by the ubiquity of the Internet and camcorders.

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The fifty plus performers at YouTube Live have videos on the site that have been viewed a combined two and a half billion times. The format of the three-hour event was a combination rock concert, awards show, behind-the-scenes interview and home video produced user-generated content (UGC). Diversity was a theme embraced by all as the event showcased the breadth and depth of the “next generation” to the world. Represented were a vast mix of musical genres, art forms, races, lifestyles and more.

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YouTube Live was surprisingly void of an overbearing sponsorship presence. Either YouTube preferred a sponsor-light model or the ad sales department was challenged by spending cutbacks due to the down economy. Companies that did sponsor YouTube Live included Lionsgate, Guitar Hero, Virgin America, Flip Video and HP.

Virgin America had a party plane with a VIP crowd watching the event at 35,000 feet to celebrate the premiere of Virgin’s in-flight Wi-Fi Internet service. People on the plane nicknamed it YouTube One. It was featured in, of course, a video.

Music, Dance, Comedy & a Spirit of Change Highlights YouTube Live
Social marketing was represented early in the night with an appearance by YouTube legend and Blendtec inventor Tom Dickson. This geeky and friendly business guy in a lab coat featured his classic “Will it blend?” series by blending stuff that included “Chad” Vader’s lunch. I’m sure somewhere Josh Bernoff is quite proud.

The night’s big rock jam began with a jumpstart from video game legend Freddie Wong on Guitar Hero. The real jams then kicked in with Joe Satriani accompanied by YouTube shredding legend and Korean guitar virtuoso Funtwo on the Satriani classic “Surfing with the Alien.” Funtwo’s guitar is quite an interesting piece of majestic artwork.

YouTube Live featured dozens of performances, some great and some not-so-great. True to the UGC spirit, YouTube Live included a live chat entitled “Channel Comments.” This space was prominently featured on the YouTube Live home page. It housed an ongoing dialogue of the global audience’s spur-of-the-moment opinions – the good, the bad and the ugly.

Tay Zonday is the man with the golden voice for the YouTube generation. He provided the rich voice over for the event and also posted a fun “Chocolate Rain” parody commercial. This classic YouTube song has millions of online views and has even spurred a remix edition featuring John Mayer.

James Kotecki presented a video montage of YouTube’s “Year in Politics.” The video blogger for Politico celebrated the power that YouTube helped extend to the masses in this year’s election. From Obama Girl to Joe the Plumber to Ron Paul’s Revolution to John Edward’s hair – nobody can deny the impact. This is something that would even impress our nation’s founding fathers.

The band Sick Puppies from Sydney, Australia turned in a solid performance of their hit song “All the Same.” Their breakthrough came from a video of sign holders at a mall that included Juan Mann, the Free Hugs guy, and lead singer / guitarist Shimon Moore. The band plays an emotion charged rock style reminiscent of Incubus or Staind. Postings in YouTube Live’s chat channel left many wondering what happened to Sick Puppies’ attractive female bass player Emma?

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Queen Rania of Jordan was honored during the event with the YouTube Visionary Award. Her acceptance speech was, most appropriately, a video top ten list of why she started her YouTube channel. It included such classic reasons as “Because I couldn’t get a camel on a skateboard.” The purpose of her YouTube channel is to build cultural bridges and encourage tolerance.

A young boy of about age seven initiated a dynamic performance by Jon M. Chu’s League of Extraordinary Dancers. The act was comprised of a large group of athletic performers engaged in a diverse mix of dance styles. It concluded with the boy busting out some serious break dancing moves. The boy’s name is Anjelo and he has his own YouTube channel Anjelo Little Demon.

Other performers included: Bo Burnham, Lisa Nova, MythBusters, William Sledd, Beardyman Beatboxes, Jason Latimer, Spinto Band, Four-Eyed Monsters, Charlie the Unicorn, Katy Perry, Fred, Katers 17, Michael Buckley, Planet B-Boy, Brandon Hardesty, Sports Stacking kids, Latimer the Magician, SF Parkour, Julia Nunes & the Ukulele Orchestra, DJ Mike Relm, Chad Latimer, Esmee Denters, Happy Tree Friends and Akon.

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YouTube Live – an epic experience for those who matter most: its audience.
A video montage of all the performances concluded this historic night in the evolution of the Internet. It will be interesting to hear the buzz in the blogosphere over the next few days. Yet the opinions of a bunch of old bloggers will ultimately take a backstage to how this event impacts the lives of millions of young people worldwide.

What Woodstock was to some, Live Aid was to others… what Lollapalooza was to me, YouTube Live is to millions of young people worldwide. Consider that people living practically anywhere on Earth were able to share this experience simultaneously. Importantly, YouTube Live included its audience. At the end of the show, viewers were encouraged to upload their own videos. These videos live online right next to the star performances from the event.

More than just a show, YouTube Live is a global conversation. It’s an amazing ongoing dialogue shared by millions. Some make videos, some watch, some critique – but everyone participates. You see, YouTube Live is about empowerment. It featured its own audience, because its audience and its stars are one in the same.

P.S. My YouTube Channel is MrLoggy.