Here’s a list of some things that have changed in the new version of Digg, so you can decide for yourself:

• Added the ability to “follow” your friends as well as brands/publishers
• Connected with Facebook, Twitter and Google so it’s easy for you to find your friends
• Included a suggested user list that makes it easier to find brands/publishers you want to follow
• Added a “My News” stream that shows the stories users you’re following digg
• Put a “Digg It” submission bar at the top of your homepage to make it easy to submit content
• Included new tools to make it easier to share content via Twitter, Facebook and email
• Added some new features, including one that lets you save a story for later

Plus, Digg is also working to improve its content by recruiting big brands, promising to “help publishers drive traffic and revenue, including improved analytics and reporting, additional incoming feed capabilities, and improving the discovery process to ensure all publishers are being found and followed on Digg.”

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So, what’s the verdict? Will you use Digg more? Less? Do you think Digg will be more successful overall?

We’ve been given the extreme opportunity to actually talk with our community

From my vantage point we, as marketers, need to embrace what it is we’ve been given… We’ve been given the extreme opportunity to actually talk with our community, converse with our customers, and build solid relationships that, if nurtured correctly, can turn into passionate advocates about our company, brand and products. This amazing phenomena doesn’t come without a pricetag. Not a monetary figure but one of time, understanding, and effort. We must pay this price to build the trust needed to develop lasting relationships and bonds that will only continue to grow stronger with each interaction.

Now that many companies are “dipping a toe” in social media, we continually hear, “How do I build trust within my community?”

eMarketer recently released some amazing facts and figures about what and how people trust in social media.

As we see above, trust from consumers depends on several variables; some that you may have control of, some that you may not. There is no magic charm for success in social media; however there is a simple formula to building passionate supporters:

1.    Build Trust
2.    Drive Loyalty
3.    Empower Advocates

1. A quick response can go a long way
2. You may have to respond as you, not your company
3. Give yourself more than 140 characters to respond
4. Let someone else respond for you (your fans for instance)
5. Know when to let it go

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The premise of the campaign is simple. Someone posts a comment, request, or question and the Old Spice man responds. The success and strategy however is complex. With a team of social, creative, and technical minds, coupled with complete freedom, the campaign was able to launch to new levels never seen in social media before.

By activating the already cultivated Old Spice community, distributing real time video content, and seeding responses to key influencers across the internet, Old Spice was able to take a simple conversation to new heights. The campaign itself is not a social phenomenon but a succession in an ongoing social strategy. Below is a summary of the campaign, how they got here, and why it was so popular.

What is it?

Old Spice has created a 2 day campaign that amassed over 180 videos in response to requests and questions from the Old Spice Social Community. Old Spice monitored internet comments to create a video response for as well as opened up for questions and requests from their fans, followers, and friends to have the “Old Spice Man” create a video response. Once the response was filmed, edited, and completed (which took a matter of minutes), the Old Spice Social Media team created strategies to distribute the response and video across the internet by activating their robust social media community.

How it Worked

The Old Spice Social, Creative, and Technical team worked together to develop, create, and distribute the content that has taken the social world by storm. They worked in concert on the following Tasks.

Social:
Identified comments to respond to: The social team scanned the internet as well as their own social and digital properties for relevant comments, questions, and requests that aligned with the brand/campaign positioning. A major influence for this strategy was identifying the influence of the commenter, friend, or follower. By identifying key influencers to respond to, they increased their chances for distribution success.

Distributed content where relevant: Once the comment was identified and the video response was ready for distribution, the social team created “real-time” strategies to distribute the video content where it had the most chance of being shared and distributed. By integrating the Old Spice social properties with the influencers and distribution channels, the social media team was able to create virility through multiple relevant touchpoints.

Creative:
Crafted branded responses: The popularity of the Old Spice man began before this campaign through other TVCs and online videos; the community knew who he was and what he stood for. With that being said, the creative team had to craft short responses that aligned, not only with the brand character, but also with the voice of the comment, request, or question.

Technical:
Fast turnaround: The success of this campaign relied heavily on the ability to find a comment, craft a response, shoot and edit the video, and distribute it in almost real time. The technical team worked consistently to edit the video and ensure it was shareable in a matter of minutes.

Why it worked

This Old Spice campaign worked for several different reasons. They have slowly built their brand to be in position to pull off such a huge viral and social success. The pieces were in place and the community was nurtured to a point for campaign activation. Below are the key factors for the tremendous success this campaign had:

Community: Old Spice has built a solid social following and community. With a robust Facebook page, an active Twitter account, and a highly trafficked YouTube channel, Old Spice has been able to create a culture of virility and conversation prior to the campaign.

The success was derived from the activation of those relationships to engage in the campaign and distribute the videos to and through their community.

Real Time: The video responses were practically distributed in real time. The social space has created a need for real time, individualized communication. This campaign fulfilled that need by having such a fast turnaround.

Format: It’s one thing to craft a text response in the voice of the Old Spice man; it’s another to create video responses. Video has long been the most shared format on social media. Allowing for more engagement and interaction, the Old Spice social team decided to use video to drive distribution.

Freedom: The social team was given a tremendous amount of flexibility from the brand to create the real time videos and distribute socially. This action displayed a level of bravery on the part of the brand to allow the social team full freedom for the success (or potential failure) of the campaign. However, the social team was provided with a set of guidelines and guardrails to stay inside while making the responses and distributing them.

Success

The campaign, although short-lived, showed tremendous results.

Twitter: Old Spice added tens of thousands of Followers

YouTube: The video responses amassed nearly 6 million total views within the first 24 hours (more than President Obama’s victory speech).

Comments: To date the campaign created over 25,000 comments across the internet.

What it Means For Marketers (Key Takeaways)

The combination of brand voice, video format, an active social community, and conversation created a tremendous amount of momentum for the campaign. This shift in what is possible creates some great learnings for marketers.

Community: Having such a large, engaged community was a driving success for the campaign. If Old Spice launched this campaign without this community, the campaign would not have been a success. Building our communities based on our brand voice, message, and mission, we can create trust, loyalty and advocacy for our brand. And as we build this community of loyalists, we can activate for future campaign success.

Conversation: Another driving factor for success is the fact of simple conversation. Consumers are continually needed two way dialog, whether from their peers or from brands. Building a culture of conversation and discussion in the correct tone and voice, we can begin to build lasting relationships and trust, ever driving toward loyalty.

Content: Building off the social success Old Spice has seen with their TVCs and branded videos, they created a campaign that was solely based on relevant content. Not only did they provide responses relevant to the conversation but the video format allowed for better engagement and interaction. By creating content that is timely and relevant based on what is being said we can solve problems and fulfill needs that arise.

Distribution: Not all of the campaign lived on the Old Spice owned properties; some of the content was seeded and distributed on other sites. The team went out and distributed the content where the conversation was happening. By integrating content and response to where the conversations are happening allow us to better fulfill the need and solve the problems; creating thought leadership and better positioning for the brand.

The Pew Research Center recently published a research paper titled “The Future of Social Relations.” In it there are some great facts and insight in how individuals are reacting to the impact that the social environment has had on their lives and the effect it will have in the coming decade. Some of the results are quite outstanding.

One of the most astounding outcomes of the research is the positive sentiment that social networking has had on our lives and relationships:

Some 85% agreed with the statement:

“In 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage and other relationships, I see that the internet has mostly been a positive force on my social world. And this will only grow more true in the future.

So what does this mean to brands? Simple; in social media, relationships matter. We may all get caught up in scale, community size, impressions, reach, and the bottom line for our brand, but the only thing that matters to me as a consumer, is the relationship you build with me. I don’t care about any of those things, I only care about what value you bring to my life.

Let’s take this amazing study about how social media has had a positive effect on our relationships as individuals and use it as a wake-up call. Social networking isn’t marketing; it’s a lifelong commitment to building a relationship with individuals.

By mapping out different customer journeys, we can better understand the experience of our social ecosystem from the consumer’s perspective; compounding the effects of any single campaign or message.  The true power of social media comes from the complete integration with two things:

The entirety of our other marketing – Communicating a consistent message across all touchpoints will only expound the message to ensure brand awareness, understanding, and expectations within the marketplace.

The day to day lifestyle of our customers – Understanding where, how, and why our consumers communicate, then communicating with them on their terms, taking them to the most relevant information for them as a customer or prospect will create a sense of trust and understanding between the customer and the brand.

Creating a holistic and a granular view of our customer journeys in the digital space, we can better serve our customers by providing more relevant information as well as better plan our marketing strategies to increase ROI in the digital space.

Map out the entire Global Ecosystem: Understand where subsidiaries sit in what markets. Identify key internal team members to perform and manage social strategies for those subs in those markets. Build solidified Roles & Responsibilities and Policies & Procedures for your team to follow when engaging online to ensure communication, engagement, and a proper content distribution model.

Identify your social rock star: I know the term “rock star” is overly used when discussing social media, however the persona around it is a great definition. We need to identify the individuals within the organization, within the subsidiaries, and within the local markets to monitor, manage, and maintain the social platforms. Simply having a platform set up for all locations and for all brands won’t equal success… However having a “rock star” leading the way to stardom will make it that much easier.

Cultivate your community: Empowering your social rock stars to facilitate a community within the roles and responsibilities of the global strategy, you can give more weight towards the actual engagement of the community. By allowing for two-way communication and having an active response and content plan, your rock star can cultivate the community towards a great level of trust within that community.

By mapping out the ecosystem and setting guidelines, parameters, and content creation and distribution plans will allow for a more streamlined system for social media. Give that to a local, brand advocate social rock star and you are on to something that leans towards success. Finally, giving power to the community to be engaged and excited for the cause, you can cultivate relationships and build the trust that is needed to create advocates and passionate followers.

Building a global strategy for social media may seem like a lost cause. But take a step back, think about the aforementioned ideas as it pertains to your organization and move closer to success. What are your thoughts? What strategies do you see working within multinational organizations?

Here I am, sitting in my hotel room in our Nation’s Capital putting the finishing touches on my presentation for tomorrow and staring 1:30 am in the face (with a crisp wake-up call off 5:30am). Tomorrow I’m presenting social media to the Cycling Industry advocates at the National Bike Summit 2010. I’m very excited and pleased to be a part of such a great cause, however I didn’t feel satisfied with my presentation. I felt there was something big missing. So i decided to take a step back and think, “Am I just presenting the same big numbers and mindless strategy that everyone in the industry is presenting? What is the meaning behind my message?”

While debating this and turning my mind off with the mindless humor of The Office I had a thought… everyone knows that social media is huge, everyone knows they need a strategy, but not everyone has the confidence to move forward with that strategy. Not everyone understands the “Do” part of social media… This is it… This is my differentiator, this is the thing that will get the attendees excited! This is what needs to be discussed now. Without the “Do” there is no success.

After looking through the presentation deck for the gazillionth time, with this new mindset, I entered a new slide after the numbers and strategy (which are still important), to simply say… “DO.” All of us in the industry can talk the talk, but there are only a few of us that are actually walking the walk… actually “Do”ing.

What a great epiphany… So I’ll leave you the same way I will leave my attendees tomorrow. Planning and strategy are essential to success, however without the “Do” there is nothing.

After talking about Twitter, Facebook, and all of the other buzz worthy services, we are often asked by our clients, “so what’s next?” While there are a lot of possible candidates as to the next big thing, the real answer is in talking about the larger trend.

For the first 15 years of the Internet we have mostly lived in a world divided between being online and offline. Those of us working in advertising know this all to well as we work to create “integrated” campaigns. Inevitably this is limited to delivering a consistent message and using similar visual elements across traditional and digital channels.

We are now seeing this invisible barrier starting to erode and make way for people to connect across channels in relevant and valuable ways. For clients asking what they should be focused on moving forward, the answer may be in how they lean into this trend and help connect to their customers between the physical and digital experiences.

Some areas to watch:

The Emergence of Mobile Computing:
With out a doubt the biggest factor in driving this evolution is in the fact that people can now connect to the larger digital world from their mobile device. No longer limited to being just a phone, we are seeing how people stay connected to each other and to information from anywhere and not just while in front of a computer.

Location Aware Social Networks:
While Foursquare is likely the most well known, there are a variety of location based social networks (see: BrightKite and Loopt) that allow users to share their location with friends in the digital space by “checking in” to physical locations. Assume that Facebook and others will either develop or purchase their way into this space soon.

Image Scanning:
Be it QR codes, bar codes, or images of everyday objects, we are starting to see a wide variety of services that allow users to scan a physical item with their mobile device’s camera and drive to a digital experience.

Augmented Reality:
Allowing the ability to begin to treat the physical world in ways that had previously only been reserved for digital. Two popular examples: subway map and baseball cards.

Interactive Displays:
While not exactly a new concept, there continues to be a lot of great examples (see: Microsoft’s Surface, IconNicholson’s Social Retailing, and Schematic’s Touchwall) Almost all of them are looking to meet the expectation set in the Minority Report.

Physical Platform Gaming:
From Nintendo’s Wii to Guitar Hero, we are seeing a shift in gaming from a solitary activity on the couch to a much more physical and engaging experience open to a broader audience. Microsoft is planning to push this to the next level with the launch of Xbox Natal.