Getting “iced”…It sounds illicit, slightly illegal and definitely uncomfortable. Actually, it is the most recent viral interactive phenomenon sweeping the nation’s post-grads.
Icing is the alcoholic equivalent to putting a whoopee cushion on somebody’s chair. I have heard tales of both friends and strangers getting iced. It runs so rampant among my circle that I can expect at least one person to get iced per gathering. The inspiration for this blog post came as I [...]

“[Brands] need to realize that the conversation will extend beyond their control, so they should have a strong point of view and good, engaging content.” –Russ Lidstone, CEO of Euro RSCG London, in an article on UTalkMarketing
All the changes social media is bringing about now are accelerating, creating new ways for consumers and brands to interact with each other, based on these key characteristics: trust, transparency and humility.

“How Consumers Interact with Brands on Social Networks” on eMarketer
“Fickle [...]

What is the value of an ad not seen? Worse yet, the value of an ad seen but not acted upon? For years marketers have worked hard to turn the Internet into a place where ads are proactively blocked, filtered and ignored. Agencies are paid to increase list size, not list quality. Rather than put time into properly segmenting our prospects and compiling relevant offerings, we collect information in any way possible and blast e-mails to everyone. We choose quantity over quality, thinking we’re [...]

The other day someone asked me where I think the future of social media in marketing is for 2010 and beyond. What an interesting question. Here’s my answer.
Accept and Embrace
As we enter 2010, I look around at budgetary predictions and the first thing I see is something awesome—social media has real money behind it. In 2010 eMarketer.com estimates 35 percent growth in conversational marketing spending over 2009, leading it to break the $1 billion mark for the first time. The [...]

First it was bra colors, now it’s celebrity look-alikes, and coming up might be Urban Dictionary. What’s next?
Last week, Facebook became star-studded as people changed their profile pictures and filled in their status to read: “Change your profile picture to someone famous (actor, musician, athlete, etc.) you have been told you look like. After you update your profile with your twin or switched at birth photo then cut/paste this to your status.”
It was Facebook’s newest status update trend: Doppelgänger Week. [...]

Originally posted on lifestory2010.com.
In November, I represented Euro RSCG Life at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s public hearing on promotion of FDA-regulated medical products using the Internet and social media tools. In preparation, we conducted new research leveraging various social media tools and resources to ensure that the voice of the consumer was represented in testimony. Our survey went to more than 1,700 social media users, analyzing various inputs and conversations across leading health portals and other social media [...]

This is the first in a series of three.
We just finished conducting one-on-one interviews with some of the brightest minds in the social Web. Here are some of their insights, which we shared with our general managers yesterday in Paris. Check in tomorrow for more of what these leaders have to say.
B.L. Ochman, president, Whatsnextonline.com:
“For big corporations, this stuff is still very scary…. Anyone who is a consultant must tackle fear.”
“A lot of companies should take their websites down, because [...]