I am quite sure that if you are like me, always monitoring what is going on with Social Media and new online marketing trends, then you have seen already the Old Spice Media Campaign that basically exploded some days ago and it is now considered as one of the most popular viral campaigns in history.

What is this campaign about?

Well, Old Spice and its marketing agency Wieden + Kennedy hired Isaiah Mustafa, an ex football player and actor, to be the “ridiculously handsome” Old Spice Guy.  He appeared in a Super Bowl ad this year and continued the campaign by appearing in around 180 online videos answering directly to the users that have been posting or commenting about him in many social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Digg and Reddit.  Within the persons he responds to, there are celebrities and reporters.

The Old Spice guy recorded his video responses in rapid succession. His answers were a key mix of coolness and the stuff Internet memes are made of.

How it was done?

A team of “creatives, tech geeks, marketers and writers” gathered in an undisclosed location in Portland, Oregon to produce the videos. Organized by Wieden + Kennedy, the group tracked the questions that came after Old Spice solicited them.

Iain Tait, Global Interactive Creative Director at Wieden credits the close work between the technical and social media specialists and the creative team. “In the room there are two social media guys and a tech guy who built a system pulling in comments from around the web all together in real time,” he told Read Write Web.

“The social media guys and script writers are collaborating to make that call in real time. We have people shooting and we’re editing it as it happens. Then the social media guys are looking at how to get that back out around the web…in real time.”

The numbers

According to Mashable, up to this Tuesday the numbers are:

* Number of videos made: 180+
* Number of video views: 5.9 million
* Number of comments: 22,500

Experts say that Wieden + Kennedy have set a standard marketing experts will admire and follow in the years to come. “This is the future of marketing”

More here:

http://mashable.com/2010/07/15/old-spice-social-media-campaign/
http://www.marketingvox.com/behind-the-scenes-of-the-old-spice-guy-campaign-047345
http://mashable.com/2010/07/15/old-spice-stats/

A great thing happening around Social Media is that people can get with ease a lot of information about their interests.  In the Social Media era, people can -finally- get rid of all the Noise and grab the Signal.

One of the most interesting uses of social networks such as Facebook or Twitter is the approach given by the sector of Arts and Culture.  It is still quite impressive how many digital marketing or social media agencies have not realized this great opportunity, and are letting Museums or Galleries go by their own in the use of social networks.

Browsing across the Internet I found an interesting blog, called “Museum Marketing“, written by Jim Richardson, who posted an interesting article about how Museums can start working on Twitter.

Despite the specific objective of teaching Museums how to start using the social network, the tips might be useful for companies or organizations too.  So, if you are running a museum, or a company, who wants to start with Social Media, you should first read this.

If you have a Facebook fan page I am sure that you want to have some statistics and metrics about it.  To add Google Analytics to your fan page you just have to follow these steps:

1. Setup Google Analytics Account.
2. Create your custom img tag for each of your pages you like to track. For that purpose you can use this tool.
3. Add the custom image html tag to the bottom of each page that you need to track.

If you need additional information or want the solution for advanced users, then you should definitely read the WebDigi blog.

Is there something PR professionals can learn from dating sites? Sure! Those websites have been very successful because they commit to transparency and simplicity, in other words, users get what the site is offering, in a clear an expedited way.

This week Conversation Agent posted around this topic and highlighted 8 things PR people can learn from dating sites:

1. Clarity of intent – Dating sites are efficient and honest.
2. It is about people, not numbers – There is no “follower” count.
3. Simplicity rules – There are no complications, just easy steps.

For the rest, click here.

Earlier this week it was shared on Twitter the way Facebook measures happiness of its users, by analyzing the status updates and counting the positive words people use they got into some interesting conclusions:

• People who do not disclose their relationship status on FB are about 50% more negative than everyone else.
• People who are in a relationship or marriage do seem to be happier than everyone else.

If you are interested, you should read the rest.

Take a look at this great presentation by Shiv Singh from Razorfish about the importance of Social Media as part of the marketing mix. Explore how some companies have evolved from the Brand voice, to the Social voice and even to the Social Brand.  The point is that you’re never going to buy again anything alone, now you are influencing and been influenced by others, everyday.

Via Online Media Gazette

Trendstream published last November an interesting Infographic about Social Web Involvement to visualize in a map the number of active bloggers, social networkers, video sharers, photo uploaders and microbloggers in each of the most important markets in the World.

In the case of Mexico the numbers are:

• 52.9% upload photos online
• 40.2% manage a social network profile
• 25.6% write own blog
• 22.1% upload a video online
• 13.7% use a micro-blogging service

See the rest.

So you have done everything but your Social Media Marketing is still not working? Maybe:

1. You Chose the Wrong Channels
2. You Used the Wrong People
3. Your Content Sucked
4. Your Team Didn’t Believe in the Project

For knowing what else you might did wrong click here, you will even find how to fix it.

Ever wondered what people is tweeting about your presentation?
You can incorporate Twitter within your PowerPoint presentation both to be an active participant as well as to gather feedback from the audience.

See how it works in MakeUseof

Facebook released some statistics yesterday: 350 million users, 1.6 billion messages sent by day, 2000 photos are uploaded per second…  and btw, FarmVille (69 million) has more users than Twitter (18 million expected for 2009).

Via Download Squad

So, How Social Media, Public Relations and Advertising fit together? Todd Defren proposes The Awareness Scale:

Read the full idea in PR².

Google recently announced  “Sidewiki“, a new feature that lets users leave comments about any website they visit. With this feature, of course, you will also be able to read the comments other people have left before you.

“The impacts are far reaching, now every web page on the internet is social and can have consumer opinion –both positive and negative.”

Read the full article at WebStrategist

Just as in Twitter:

“Now, when you are writing a status update and want to add a friend’s name to something you are posting, just include the “@” symbol beforehand”.

More here

Via SEW

• 93.6% of users have less than 100 followers
• 21% of users have never posted a Tweet
• New York has the most Twitters users
• 85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day

Want more?  Read this.

Via Econsultancy

If Twitter was a Village formed by 100 people,  5 of them would be known as loud mouths who create 75% of all the Twitter conversations. Twenty people would be dead because they have not tweeted at all, and 50 users would be lazy, whereby they have not tweeted at all in the past week.

Moreover, from the average 100 tweets, 40% would be pointless babble…

See the full study at Information is Beautiful

Via CMSWire