Tired of pointless, regurgitated viral debris? A convenient, painless way to expand your entrepreneurial mind in 2012 is to get a daily dose of TEDTalks, comprising more than 900 thought-provoking presentations on technology, entertainment, design, sciences, humanities, arts, NGOs, business and more. You’ll gain life-altering insight and inspiration from the globe’s leading thinkers and doers to better your life, your business and your world.

Here’s just a fragment of the wisdom you can gain from TED:

Schools Kill Creativity

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

The Thrilling Potential of SixthSense Technology

Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data, including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper “laptop.”

Why Are We Happy?

Author Dan Gilbert challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our “psychological immune system” lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.

How Great Leaders Inspire Action

Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership, all starting with a golden circle and the question “Why?” His cases include Apple, Martin Luther King and the Wright brothers.

Try Something New for 30 Days

Is there something you’ve always meant to do, wanted to do, but just haven’t? Matt Cutts suggests: Try it for 30 days. This short, lighthearted talk offers a clever way to think about setting and achieving goals.

Ideas Definitely Worth Sharing

Why not trade in the dancing pets and exercise your brain? While you’re at it, you can spread the good word to help make the world a better place.

As a copywriter and creative type in general, I’m a big fan of the Apple brand and its many polished products. But it hasn’t always been easy to be a member of the Apple faithful. In fact, my loyalty has been tested by two elements: fire and water.

Apple Flambé: What Happened to Compatibility?

About three years ago, my office decided to convert our web copywriting company into a full-fledged Apple operation, complete with MacBook Pros, doc stations, Airport wireless, servers — the whole bit. We made the switch from PC in the hopes of better reliability and to get more in sync with our web designer clients. At the same time, I decided to go ‘all Apple’ at home. Everything was going great until I decided to charge my iPod Shuffle via my new MacBook Pro.

“Daddy, maybe Apple and Apple things shouldn’t go together,” observed my young daughter after watching the iPod Shuffle disintegrate into a bubbling mass of flaming plastic 10 minutes after plugging it in.

Luckily, we were present when the iPod decided to iCombust and were able to quickly extinguish the flames. We tried not to think about what might have happened had the Shuffle decided to meltdown the night before, positioned on the dresser next to photos, brochures and other kindling. (And, fortunately, it wasn’t in anyone’s pocket — check out Hot Pants, another crazy scenario.)

The MacBook Pro seemed completely un-phased by the event (kudos to its aluminum casing), but we hesitated to plug in any other components without having a fire extinguisher handy.

This experience didn’t seem to support Apple’s core values of good design and compatibility.

iPod Shuffle Goes for a Swim

Fast-forward three years. Returning home from the gym, I stuck my current iPod Shuffle in my pocket so I wouldn’t forget to charge it. I got home, tossed my clothes in the wash, started the ‘standard’ 59-minute warm/cold water cycle, and headed to the kitchen to blend a protein shake.

A couple hours later, I realized my iPod was missing. I looked in my gym bag, my car, my home office — and then it hit me. Sure enough, I found the music player in the wash with my freshly cleaned track pants.

I sighed, removed the earphones, placed the player on my desk, and let it sit for a few hours. That night, I tried to turn it on. No light, no response. I tentatively plugged it in its dock to charge. The power light came on. I waited a few more minutes, plugged in the earphones and violà — Foster the People’s Pumped Up Kicks came through loud and clear.

Today, thanks to the wash cycle, my faith in Apple has been restored. I wouldn’t recommend dumping your Apple devices in the laundry, but by all means plug them into your laptop (maybe keep an eye out, just in case). Long live Apple.

Good marketers and copywriters alike know the more you understand your target audience, the better job you can do writing and delivering your message. Sure demographics help — age, location, marital status, ethnicity and religion. But you’ll have a much richer understanding of your ideal customer if you get to know their psychographics — their lifestyles, behaviors and attitudes.

In today’s insanely diverse and competitive climate, it’s good to know everything about the person you’re trying to engage:

• What turns them on
• What turns them off
• Which words catch their attention
• What keeps their attention
• What makes them tune things out

Ways to capture groups’ subjective preferences include in-person interviews, focus groups and surveys. Also, snooping around sites like Twitter and Facebook offers a quick, easy and inexpensive route to uncover streams of priceless insight.

As you gain greater awareness about your audience’s lifestyles, attitudes, beliefs, values and personalities, you’ll also better understand their buying motives and product usage. For instance, would they purchase the beautification product to look younger, attract a mate, or for general health, and would they use the beautification product at home, on trips, or only at a salon?

What Types of Psychographic Groups Are There?

There are common psychographic profiles that people fit into:

The Belonger — Family-orientated, and likes the feeling of belonging to a community. Much of their time is spent with friends and family. The way to tap into this group is to build rapport within their communities.

The Achiever — Mostly businesspeople (such as bankers and managers), who work long hours, but are always looking for more success. They are independent and respond well to individuality, power, money and profit.

The Wannabe — They strive to be an Achiever, but have yet to fit this profile. Most of the products they buy are knock-offs of those owned by the Achiever (think counterfeit sunglasses or watches). Wannabes can be insecure with a small amount of disposable income.

The Socially Conscious — They are concerned about the environment and the effect their spending has on it. This group recycles frequently, walks and cycles, and, not surprisingly, buys environmentally friendly products.

The Balanced — A combination of the Achiever and the Socially Conscious, the Balanced want to use their money and power to do something positive for the environment. They avoid purchasing products and services that exploit workers in poor countries.

The Needs Driven — They tend to be impulse buyers. You can often reach this group by appealing to their fear of being inadequate (consider late night shopping channels: “Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”).

Use Psychographics to Build the Right Message

The more you know about your target audiences, the more you’ll understand how they spend their money — and the better equipped you’ll be to fine-tune your marketing.

For additional information, check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychographic
http://www.northcrossing.com/PsychographicMarketing.html

Marketing is a critical lifeline for any business. It helps identify, attract, satisfy and keep customers. So we asked creative professionals in the marketing realm: What’s a key marketing element most businesses neglect?

Geoff Wilson
President/CEO, 352 Media Group

“Most businesses forget to share their ‘why’ — the reason why they exist, what they believe in, what they stand for and where they are going. Tell your story, share your personality, let your customers get to know what you are all about. If you’re fuzzy on your own company’s ‘why,’ then you need to fix that and reconnect with the reason why the company was started to begin with. Learn the story and tell it to the world. It gives your brand a personality and people who believe what you believe will love your company as a result.

“I highly recommend reading Simon Sinek’s book ‘Start With Why.’ He does an excellent job of explaining how some companies, like Apple and Harley Davidson, have had tremendous marketing success because their entire brand embodies what they believe in.”

Follow Geoff @Geoff352

Tim Wall
Director of Marketing, LightCMS

“Goal tracking. While many business engage in online advertising and track things like click-through rates and website visits, few take the time to establish measurable goals and evaluate their marketing efforts based on cost per conversion. Cost per conversion is much more important than cost per impression or cost per click. Cost per conversion accounts for all marketing variables and tells you exactly how effective your marketing efforts are.

“To measure cost-per-conversion, you have to have a trackable goal on your website. There has to be something measurable that you clearly want your website visitor to do and that action must represent real value to your business. The trick is setting up the right goals, but once that’s accomplished, measuring cost per conversion is easy and will help ensure your marketing dollars are spent in the most efficient means possible.”

Follow Tim @lightcms

Mark Hobbs
Partner, Denote

“I think a key element that people neglect when marketing is to think like your customer. It is extremely important to consider the impact of each marketing effort and when and where the customer will be when it impacts them.

“Many businesses neglect to start marketing, especially with things like search engine optimization, thinking that it can be started later. By the time they realize they should have started last month, so it could take effect by now, they already expect results. Set clear consistent marketing goals and walk through your own experience as if you were a customer.”

Follow Mark @denotecom

Mustafa Demir
Founder & Creative Director, Freshmark Design & Branding

“Most companies are aware of the importance of brand positioning, having fresh market research data and knowing their target audience. In terms of online marketing, however, usability testing and conversion optimization usually don’t get the recognition they deserve.

“As important as having an outstanding design, a unique value proposition, a relevant-to-source product/service offering with clear call-to-action items, testing efficiency and making adjustments based on findings usually brings far greater value than the initial investment.

“Looking at how intricate they can get might be exciting, however, collecting stats alone doesn’t help improving the bottom line. At the end, if you don’t perform tests and measure the results comparatively it’s impossible to know if you’re realizing the true potential of your brand.”

Follow Mustafa @freshmark

Bryan Stuart
Principal & Creative Director, Sprout Creative

“I think a key marketing element that is often overlooked is the ability of your employees to really nail down the elevator pitch. It’s important that the people who live and breath as a representation of your company can fully understand who you are and what it is that you do. Then be able to concisely and effectively deliver that message in a very short conversation. You never know where your next job can come from!

“We do a lot of online work and we often see a huge neglect in web content management. We’re approached by excited clients wanting a website that is a robust CMS with latest news updates and social media marketing opportunities, etc. They want it all but don’t have the resources to manage it. A year later, the site is stagnant and basically exactly how we left it. It’s important to have a long-term strategic plan for the management of this content in place to really capitalize on what you can do with it.”

Follow Bryan @bryanstuart

Jeromy Stallings
Internet Marketing Director, Ninthlink

“Marketing on the internet is a little bit like a game of cat and mouse. You are always chasing after new traffic sources and figuring out innovative ways of converting that traffic into a sale or lead. Yet, this is not where many businesses fail! They fail because they do not put in the proper tracking and reporting tools to give insight to what is working and not working.

“So many times I walk into a clients office and ask them for a breakdown website traffic sources and conversion rates by source. And many times I walk away empty handed. Don’t get me wrong here — setting up proper tracking and reporting for all your traffic and conversion points is not the easiest job in the world! But, once setup, the real fun begins!

Follow Jeromy @jeromystallings

Agree? Disagree? What do you feel are the key marketing elements most businesses neglect?

Adaptability, creativity and multiple delivery methods make two-time and reigning UFC Welterweight Champion Georges “Rush” St-Pierre (GSP) virtually unstoppable in the ring. Despite your weight class — make that your business size — marketers can take a page from this Canadian mixed martial arts master.

Mix it Up

“Georges St. Pierre is not an exceptional wrestler, nor is he an exceptional striker,” explained Sensei Ono Northey, Founder of Shinka Martial Arts. “But he’s a master of synergy and timing.”

St-Pierre makes his strikes look like takedowns, and his takedowns look like strikes, making him unpredictable. “His strikes land because people are afraid of his takedowns, and his takedowns succeed because they are afraid of his strikes,” said Northey. “He knows the timing of when to use each technique to its fullest, and the sum of GSP’s techniques exceed their individual worth.”

Marketing Lesson:
Don’t rely on just one marketing technique. Keep competitors on their heels and connect with prospects through multiple marketing avenues, including online and offline tools and techniques. Consider ‘push tactics’, such as packaging and trade shows, and ‘pull tactics’, including contests and discounts. Also, it’s important to add social media ‘embrace tactics’ to the mix so you can continuously listen, engage and interact.

Study Hard

St-Pierre devoured Josh Koscheck in UFC #124 with countless jabs. But what really won the fight, explained Northey, was his timing.

“GSP is a smart fighter,” said Northey. “He studied and recognized Koscheck’s three-rhythm count, and countered it with a quicker one-count strike.” As a result, almost every attack attempted by Koscheck was jammed by St-Pierre’s well-timed jab to the face.

Marketing Lesson:
Study what your competition does well — and not so well. Can you learn from their successes, fill voids, or identify ways to differentiate yourself? Likewise, get to know your desired audiences to understand their needs and wants, or industry cycles and trends. Doing so helps define people’s ‘trigger points’, which will help you connect with them emotionally and generate higher conversion rates. You can gain valuable insight by attending association events, picking up the phone, or scoping out comments in Twitter, Facebook or forums.

Evolve With the Times

Mixed martial arts (MMA) is young and fast-changing, and leading mixed martial artists like St-Pierre are constantly re-inventing themselves with new approaches and moves. In fact, it’s the wide variety of techniques and skills taken from other combat sports that make MMA fighters more effective than ‘traditional’ martial artists. “Mixed martial artists aren’t limited by convention or past customs,” said Northey. “We get to pick and choose and form an effective, practical, real-world arsenal.”

For instance, Taekwondo was developed centuries ago to kick soldiers off horses. Likewise, legendary tales have Karate masters punching through body armor. Several conventional martial arts don’t even have defenses against side strikes as such an attack would be “dishonorable.” But chances of a hooligan approaching you on a horse, wearing armor, or abiding by a code of ethics are probably pretty slim.

Marketing Lesson:
Don’t stand still. The speed of change is accelerating and if you haven’t reviewed, improved or refined your brand, marketing messages, customer relationship management, distribution, or products and services in the past year, you could become obsolete. One way to generate creative ideas and solutions is to benchmark yourself against other companies in other industries. Could you adopt any ideas or tactics from your favorite airline, coffee shop, auto manufacturer or fashion designer?

Conclusion: Don’t Market Like an Idiot

Consider the words of St-Pierre: “I don’t fight like an idiot. That’s what defines me. I’m (not the) champion because I’m the strongest guy in the division. It’s not because I’m the fastest guy. I’m not the best grappler. I’m not the best striker. I’m not the best wrestler. But why I’m champion is because I fight smart every single fight.”

Take St-Pierre’s lead: always market smart and go for the title.

Webcopyplus recently stole a moment from Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneurial legend, celebrated author and former chief evangelist of Apple (he was one of the employees originally responsible for marketing the Macintosh back in 1984 — enough said). We shot a few questions at him, and you might — or might not — be surprised to learn what brand he’d like to work with.

1. When did you first fall in love with the Internet?

My first exposure to anything online was CompuServe and AppleLink. Those were the days — email was simply magical. And CompuServe enabled people to connect with others around the world in a fast and free manner.

2. What buzz word should we kill? Why?

“Strategic.” Nothing is strategic. Everything is tactical. “Strategic” has come to mean “bull shiitake.” It would be very strategic to eliminate that word from our vernacular — see what I mean?

3. Which brand would you like to work with, and why?

You may find this astounding, but Apple is a brand I’d love to work with more. But, lucky for it, it doesn’t need me.

4. What book should every marketer read?

Forget books. Every marketer should see the movie Never Say Never. You’ll learn more about marketing in that movie than any book.

5. Who are your Twitter must-follows?

I follow about 300,000 people — basically, I follow anyone who follows me as an act of courtesy and so that they can “direct” me. But I never look at the timeline of the people I follow. I only react to “mentions” and “directs.” So in the spirit of what you’re asking, I don’t have any “must follows” that I’m sitting on the edge of my seat to see what they tweet.

6. The secret to your success?

I’m willing to grind it out. In fact, I enjoy grinding it out. I don’t consider myself particularly smart or insightful. I’m just willing to pay the price.

Guy Kawasaki is the author of Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions. He is also the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the Web, and a founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures.  Previously, he was the chief evangelist of Apple. Kawasaki is the author of nine other books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules For Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream and The MacIntosh Way. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

At a time when everyone with a smart phone and a Twitter account boasts social media genius, digital analyst Brian Solis renews our faith in the existence of intelligent discourse in that realm. Author of Engage!, a comprehensive guide for businesses vying for success in the social web, Solis offers practical advice on how to build a social media strategy and measure its effectiveness beyond the template follower-counting approaches.

Webcopyplus recently stole a few moments of his time to ask some pressing questions on the minds of most businesses trying to optimize their digital reach.

WCP: Is a social media strategy prudent for any kind of business or are some more suited to participate than others?

Solis: At the very least, every company should start with learning. The thing about social media is that it represents the ability to organize and study sentiment, perception, activity, impressions and experiences, and that’s pretty remarkable when we stop to think about it.

Social media didn’t invent conversations and opinions, but it allows us to have access to what people think and share—right now. Businesses and governments have had this in the form of focus groups and town halls, but the resources required to compile the information were archaic. And I’m not convinced that beneficiaries of this insight truly saw the value in its ability to change course. Now we can grab it at any moment.

The thing is that insights are different for each business but many take template approach—Twitter, Youtube, Facebook—but if you listen (not just monitor for name mentions) and extract insights and trends, that should dictate your strategy and what type of content, leadership and channels you use.  All of this is dictated by your community and is true for any kind of business. You have a choice… do you let it touch you to do something significant or do you stuff that information into a report to demonstrate a change in activity?

WCP: How much time should a company allocate to social media engagement?

Solis: This is the question of the moment—what is the right mix of budget, resources and time? The answer lies in what you see and also the position you want to take in social. Showing up is free and the time you invest in it only reflects what it is you sought to get out of it in the first place. But in order to build a dedicated and active community it takes a significant commitment.

Start with a pilot program where you set out to accomplish something and see how much time and resources it takes to make that happen. We see so many companies bypassing that step and they find it difficult to measure success because they’re not sure what they’re doing, or what customers are getting out of the experience.

WCP: Should a business have one employee dedicated to a social media campaign, or to spread the responsibility amongst everyone?

Solis: It’s all dependent on the goals. A business, at the very least, should have a community manager and/or a social strategist; someone who is responsible for the greater conversation, with their ear to the ground, but also connected internally to design and execute.

I’m a believer in this… when you study outside activity, it applies to many departments—from sales to customer service to marketing to HR. Any division that’s affected by outside activity should also have a counterpart for the social strategist internally and make sure they are engaged and they learn and stay connected.

WCP: How can you avoid falling victim to the time-sucking properties of social media while still using it effectively?

Solis: You can lose yourself in anything. But, everything starts with establishing goals and objectives. Many businesses aren’t really thinking about it on a deeper level. Businesses are looking at goals from the standpoint of number of followers, but in reality those are soft metrics that don’t really show or demonstrate whether we’re on the right track.

I’m a firm believer in tangible goals. Do we want to generate leads? Hire new employees? Set out with objectives and build programs around that to see the impact you’re having—then you can assign time, resources, and budgets to it. We find that over time businesses will be required to have a full-time person and at least part-time in different departments. Then, as you see the ability to meet goals and objectives, you can make the choice to expand.

WCP: What companies are doing it right? Can you provide an example?

Solis: Dell was famous for starting in social media for customer service to address negative sentiment. They used it to address customer complaints and over time they’ve completely socialized all of their departments. Through Idea Storm, for example, they built products based on what people were saying and built infrastructure across the organization to deal with this feedback. Then came Employee Storm—where employees can say what they want to learn, see and do, that they aren’t getting internally. Almost every aspect of Dell’s business is now built around the principles extracted from social media and corresponding behavior.

WCP: Where do you see social media engagement trends in business heading? How do you think it will change in the future?

Solis: Social media will become a lot smarter and at the same time it will become a lot more natural. Not everyone within the organization is using Facebook and Twitter everyday and certainly not to the point where they are proficient. It’s becoming like email—it’s how you engage with customers, coworkers and peers. What goes in those channels is what matters, not the channels individually.

The real power is less about the technology and more about the change in culture that is going to affect every business. Today, we have a permeating culture of command and control where you operationalize departments and tune them to be more efficient, dictating messages that are pushed into the market. This is counterintuitive to social media, which opens up the doors internally and externally, creating a culture of change and collaboration. A business becomes more social when it has value to add and something to learn and changes as a result.

WCP: How can a business prepare for its strategy to evolve with the quickly changing social media landscape?

Solis: Social media will have to cross over from social to the executive layer, which is the real challenge. Social won’t win by itself. It has to align with a broader initiative within the organization. Social media right now is in marketing or service only.  Recent Altimeter Group studies run by colleague Jeremiah Owyang found that 50% of SM is run out of marketing department. You can’t change a business if SM is already siloed in one department.

It takes a change agent to recognize what is taking place out there and translate that into executive speak. How do we apply all of this to sales or information that will directly or indirectly impact the bottom line. How will we specifically gain a competitive advantage? It becomes less about social media and more about becoming a better business overall. We need to translate this to the executive layer and demonstrate the business value.

Check out the recently released second version of Solis’ book Engage!, which offers a more succinct package for executives, strategists and “change agents,” who may have less time to spare but still require insight to lead.

A recent controversial documentary Game of Death reveals how TV game show participants knowingly inflicted pain and potential death on a fellow contestant in a bid to comply with authority. The shocking outcome reinforces the findings of another controversial experiment led by Yale University in the 1960s. It’s something marketers take advantage of, and consumers should be aware of.

Game of Death

Filmmaker Christophe Nick helped conduct the experiment in the form of a TV game show, where 80 participants were asked to follow explicit rules. On a real set in a television studio with a live audience, the host asked participants to pull levers to apply electric shocks to a fellow game show participant, which gradually increased from 20 to 460 volts. Neither the participants, nor the audiences, were aware the shocks were staged, and the recipient was an actor.

At 80 volts, the recipient began voicing his pain, and eventually went silent, suggesting he had passed out, or worse. However, despite the cries for the shocks to stop, or subsequent deathly silence, eight out of 10 participants continued to adhere to the host’s demands to continue, ultimately delivering what they believed was a massive 460-volt jolt.

The results were similar in a 1963 scientific experiment, led by Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram, where 65% of participants complied with a researcher’s request to deliver shocks to others right through to the 450-volt maximum.

Why Did They Do It?

Milgram concluded it has to do with the deep-seated sense of duty to authority. In neither study, were the participants deemed sadistic, cowardly or immoral — they never hurt people before. The researchers insist they merely submitted to authority.

As members of society, we’re taught to follow authority at the earliest stages in life, starting with complying to our parents’ orders. And, as adults, we carry on this path, presumably to avert anarchy.

Authority Influencers in Marketing

People are vulnerable to mere symbols of authority, not just substance, suggests author Dr. Robert Cialdini. For instance, he stated in his book, Influence: Science and Practice: “We can see that advertisers have frequently commissioned the respect accorded doctors in our culture by hiring actors to play the roles of doctors speaking on behalf of the product.”

He cited a commercial that featured actor Robert Young warning people against the dangers of caffeine and recommending caffeine-free Sanka coffee. The commercial was so successful that it was played in various forms for years. It worked because Americans associated him with Dr. Marcus Welby, a popular TV character.

Cialdini noted: “Objectively, it doesn’t make sense to be swayed by the comments of a man we know to be just an actor who used to play a doctor; but, practically, that man sold the Sanka.”

While doctors, accountants and lawyers — or actors portraying these professionals — can get consumers to take actions that go against their own preference, celebrities seem to carry similar clout.

Consider rapper 50 Cent getting youth to believe that Vitamin Water, loaded with chemicals, sugar and a trace of synthetic vitamins, is good for you. Or celebrities like game show host Alex Trebek providing advice on osteoporosis and calcium in a ‘got milk?’ campaign.

Three Highly Effective Symbols of Authority

These symbols, according to Cialdini, can “reliably trigger our compliance in the absence of the genuine substance of authority.”

Titles

Titles are both the most difficult and the easiest authority symbols to acquire. “To earn a title normally takes years of work and achievement,” noted Cialdini. He added, “Yet, it is possible for somebody who has put in none of this effort to adopt the mere label and receive a kind of automatic deference.”

It brings to mind a natural shampoo founder in Canada, who uses his first two initials, D.R., before his surname, perhaps to create a perception that he’s a doctor. Or certain ‘degrees’ that some radio guests use to impress listeners, which can be ordered online for a few dollars in just minutes. One site asks: “Are you looking to earn an accredited degree without having to study, take exams, attend classes, or pay a hefty fee?”

Clothes

Clothes can make the man, and the sale. Slick suits can be effective authority symbols, along with hospital whites, holy blacks, army green or police blue.

In separate experiments in 1974 and 1988, males and females went to the street and asked passer-bys to comply with odd requests, i.e. pick up trash. When they made the requests wearing regular street clothes, few subjects acted. However, when they wore guard-like costumes, many people complied.

In another study highlighted in Influence, researchers got a 31-year-old man to violate the law by crossing the street against the traffic light on several occasions. In half the cases, he was dressed in a freshly pressed business suit and tie; on the other occasions, he wore a work shirt and trousers. Cialdini reported three-and-a-half times as many people followed the suited jaywalker.

Trappings

While fancy titles and expensive clothes carry an aura of status and position, so do trappings, such as jewelry and cars.

In San Francisco, researchers found that most people would wait patiently behind a new, luxury car stopped at a green light. However, people were quick to lay on the horn — or even ram the rear bumper (it happened twice) — when an older, economy model was in the way.

A software company employee and Webcopyplus client once told a story about how several people flocked to him for business advice when he drove a late-model, cherry red Porche. “They asked me how to launch this product, or run a restaurant,” he said. “How the heck would I know about running a restaurant?” A few years later, when he swapped the sporty number for a more practical Honda Civic, the questions came to a grinding halt. He said, “No one asks me for business advice anymore.”

What Does the Future Hold?

As the Internet and smart phones continue to accelerate the pace of business and life, will this automatic ‘mindless’ compliance to authority — perceived or real — escalate?

It actually appears social media technology, like Twitter and Facebook, is curbing people’s willingness to blindly obey, by helping us gather broader knowledge, views and strength from peers, or ‘friends’.

One of the game show participants stated in a follow-up interview that he felt so alone and isolated during the ordeal as he continued to pull the levers to deliver increasingly powerful shocks. Perhaps if he had an iPhone and Twitter at hand he would have gained the courage to stand up to the host and disobey her orders.

Consider how consumers can now gang up on corporations and institutions and rapidly spread previously suppressed information. Or how social media is helping citizens in the Middle East connect and organize efforts to overthrow decade-old regimes.

By connecting people or peers, the new social phenomenon is weakening and undermining authorities’ once supreme control. Bit by bit, the power is shifting to the people.

In his book, “Then We Set His Hair on Fire,” copywriter and former chief creative officer of BBDO North America Phil Dusenberry revealed how powerful insights propelled his successful career in advertising. He told the story of how one insight helped his team land a $50 million-plus Pizza Hut account.

If You’re Going to Sell Pizza, You Need to Know Pizza

In 1987, coming off successful campaigns for Pepsi, Dupont, Gillette, Apple and FedEx, Dusenberry was given the opportunity to pitch the Pizza Hut account.

Dusenberry and his team hunkered into their offices and developed the pitch. When they presented it to executives, it flopped. The executives pointed out that Dusenberry and his team knew nothing about pizza or the company.

Pizza Hut: Makin’ It Great

Pizza Hut gave Dusenberry one more chance, and he decided on a new strategy. He and his staff would undertake a crash course in pizza. They had 10 days to “get smart about the industry and Pizza Hut.”

Dusenberry dispatched almost his entire staff to Pizza Hut locations across the U.S. They spoke with Pizza Hut employees at every level, in every department. BBDO staff found themselves elbow deep in pizza dough, working side by side with staff and serving customers.

From this came their crucial insight: they needed to sell the “pizza experience,” not just pizza. Dusenberry and his team realized that the communal nature of pizza differentiated Pizza Hut from its main competitors (burger and taco outlets). By nature of being shared from a common pan, pizza has a celebratory element, and that became its competitive advantage.

Dusenberry and his team developed the tag line “Makin’ It Great” and created commercials showcasing the pizza experience. The copywriter won the account and successfully managed it for many years.

Makin’ Your Marketing Great

1987 may seem ages ago in the marketing world, but lessons learned by Dusenberry and his team still hold today. It can be difficult to gain insight if you don’t know much about the product. Sometimes you need to put your hands in the dough and get some sauce on your sleeves.

On Saturday, Jan. 29, Sidetrek Productions presented a one-day conference in Vancouver on real world social media strategies and implementation. The speaker line-up included representatives from some of the biggest players in social media in Vancouver, the country and the world.

Following is our recap of the highlights.

Marty Yaskowitch, Managing Director for TribalDDB Canada

@martyyaskowich

‘The Most Powerful Strategy in Business Today’

Highlights:

• Your strategy need not be a social media strategy but an overall strategy that combines whatever channels can help you attain your business goals
• Compel people to share your story and give them the tools to do it, don’t just publish and broadcast your message — move them emotionally and then you can influence them to act: Engagement. Influence. Activation.
• Your number of fans or Twitter followers does not equal success if you are not activating those followers to do something
• The DDB Salty campaign for Knorr Sidekicks used video spots to get people emotionally connected to the out-of-work salt shaker (because Sidekicks now have less salt)
• Salty then appeared on Twitter, Facebook, and even Chat Roulette
• The videos got 375,000 views with $0 media spend and Sidekicks surpassed Uncle Ben’s as #1
• The tools don’t matter if you don’t have engagement
• Emotionally appealing ideas plus a media agnostic approach = engagement
• Increase your ‘Share Value’

Amielle Lake, CEO of Tagga Media Inc. (joined by Marketing Director Tiffany Chester)

@tagga

‘Integrating Social Media & Mobile Marketing’

Highlights:

• 72.5% of the world population is mobile
• Use mobile to make marketing campaigns more effective
• You can use mobile and social media to get people looking to spend money right now into your store
• For example, run a poll on your Facebook page, then get people to submit their phone number to receive a coupon by phone
• Text deals through SMS and include a link to your mobile site
• Go with a mobile site over an app because apps are more expensive to develop and usually don’t get used often unless you have very compelling content and ongoing engagement
• Sponsor popular apps instead
• People use their mobile phones to do two things: save time and kill time
• View their presentation on Slideshare

Rochelle Grayson, CEO of BookRiff Media Inc.

@RochelleGrayson

‘Show Me the Money! Rockin’ Social Media Business Models’

Highlights:

• How do you monetize your social media efforts? People will pay for things if they are compelled to do so
• Activation comes from: Convenience, comfort, self esteem, belonging, scarcity, health and wellbeing, success and status, entertainment, creative learning
• If you can tap into these feelings, people will pay for your service
• For example — the Starbucks mobile app makes it very convenient for you to come into their stores and spend money — find a location, choose your beverage and even pay with your phone!
• Or, people will pay for the comfort of removing ads from the service they’re using, which is where the concept of ‘freemium’ came from on sites like Spotify, and WordPress

Annalea Krebs, Founder and CEO of ethicalDeal.com

@AnnaleaKrebs

‘Best Practices for Social Commerce’

Highlights:

• Find a way to connect people with your cause in a meaningful way
• EthicalDeal used to be a directory of green businesses, but that wasn’t working, so they looked at the Groupon model and found that it would help them achieve their goal better — driving people to green businesses
• Integrate everything with the coupon emails — do a corresponding blog post to promote it
• Facebook pages that run contests often have more followers

Iman Biock Aghay, Founder of Vancouver Business Network and CEO of Success Road Enterprises

@ebizgrowth

‘How to Increase Your Sales Today with Facebook Advertising’

Highlights:

• Increase your sales with Facebook ads, which are very targeted and produce qualified leads
• A wedding photographer spent $600 on a Facebook ad campaign directed at engaged women aged 24-30, which resulted in $40,000 in sales!
• Ensure you use keywords like ‘wedding’ instead of ‘big day’, for example
• Connect either to your Facebook page with a coupon featured on it, or a landing page

Crystal Henrickson, Marketing Director of Yelp Canada

@yelpcanada

‘How to Engage Your Business Online’

Highlights:

• You can optimize your business profile on Yelp with a ton of free features
• Add a business description, photos, promotional offers, connect your manager’s Yelp profile
• Add a Yelp icon to your website to let people know you are on Yelp, rather than asking for reviews, which is not advised
• Recommend like-minded businesses
• Respond to comments and reviews privately or publicly

Elijah Van Der Giessen, Creative Services Lead for the David Suzuki Foundation

@elijah

‘Social Media Marketing for Change: How to grow a community and put them to work’

Highlights:

• Advocacy is a great way to build your email subscriber list
• DSF does it by creating petitions and asking petition participants who are already passionate about the cause to sign up to receive further communications
• Also, be shameless and relentless — ask people to share!
• Maximize the ways people can share your content — Facebook has been huge in that regard for DSF (‘like’ buttons and share buttons)
• Pay attention to data and monitor performance of multiple channels, see what works best
• Use social media in a support role — DSF is largely email-based but Facebook has brought a lot of traffic

Dave Olson, Marketing Director of HootSuite Media

@daveohoots

‘Creating a Sustainable Plan and Choosing the Right Social Media Tools’

Highlights:

• Social media concept is not new — CB radios could be compared to Chat Roulette, scrapbooks to Tumblr, telegrams to Twitter, etc.
• Listen — set up your dashboard to monitor all conversations about your company, learn what people are saying and how they are talking about your company and use their language to communicate with them
• Participate — reach out to critics, respond, monitor all mentions
• Ensure your story is compelling and interesting and give people the tools to share your story
• Go to where the people are and invite them to you, don’t just broadcast randomly
• Close the loop — when people create content about you, share it!
• MEASURE EVERYTHING!
• View his presentation on Slideshare

Attendees at the Social Media Unplugged conference also received a useful document for those looking to learn more about social media and its associated terms: Social Media From A to Z: A Glossary.

Photos from the event.

Did you get a chance to attend? What did you take away from the presentations?

By the way, if you’re interested in social media and design, check out How Is Social Media Affecting Web Design?.