Twitter has brought a new phenomenon to the social media/micro blogging world. Companies, large and small, have been using Twitter and Facebook as marketing channels to run their campaigns. Some have greatly benefited from the use of these tools and others have destroyed the public’s opinion of their company. Loads of companies have made highly publicized mistakes, and here we will address three of them:

Just when you think you’ve seen it all…

If the idea of grown adults playing an online virtual farming game (and often shelling out real cash to do so) doesn’t surprise you, then check out FarmVille’s newest neighbor: Lady Gaga. Yup, the Pop Princess of Weird has partnered with online social gaming wizards Zynga to bring you the future of cross marketing. And it hurts so good.

Twitter is a great social channel to interact with your customers and followers. It empowers you to reach out to individuals directly as well as facilitates real-time customer service conversations. Your marketing team loves it because, like Facebook, its also an easy way for your followers to share your messages with their friends. Hosting a contest is a fun way to get your followers to do this, as well as reward them for their loyalty and attention.

There are a lot of different contests you can run on Twitter – giveaways being the most popular – you can offer prizes for tweeting a particular update (like a product launch), for following a particular user (to build your company’s following), or for posting updates with a specific hashtag (to advertise an upcoming event). (See Twitter Promoted Trends and Keurig’s Coffee and a Cruise Campaign for an example of a Twitter Contest) But before you jump in and arbitrarily start tossing ideas and prizes out, you’ll want to take a look at some of my and Twitter’s recommendations…

Toronto-based “Engagement Bar” company Visibli recently analyzed over 200 million Facebook Fans to determine their engagement habits across different Fan Page types. “By tracking the number of Likes and Comments that each post received over time, we studied the resiliency of each Facebook post as well as the overall activity.” They found some interesting statistics about how long before content goes stale and who gets the most attention on Facebook.

How do you generate buzz around your new line of booze from bees? Turn to social media. Famous Tennessee whiskey makers Jack Daniel’s have launched a new Honey Liqueur blended with their well known whiskey. To get the word out, they’ve turned to Twitter and Facebook. Let’s look at their campaign…

Author, Speaker, and Twist Image President Mitch Joel, the so-called “Rock Star of Digital Marketing”, gave the keynote at Radian6′s Social Media 2011 Conference in Boston, MA. You can watch the full 50 minute Ustream keynote here, but below I have taken some notes from it that I found particularly interesting.

“I believe whats presently happening in business and social media and how people are connecting is fundamentally changing everything we know about business.”

With the recent launch of Google’s Airship Advertising, famous tire makers “Goodyear” are scrambling to close sponsorship negotiations with existing contracts, terrified of being locked out in favor of what may be a more profitable money maker from Google.

“We tend to take our time signing deals with stadiums as there just isn’t really any competition in the blimp messaging business,” says Bill Pmilb, Director of Dirigible Marketing at Goodyear, “We just never saw this coming – especially from an internet-focused firm like Google. They really caught us with our pants down on this one.”

The latest marketer to embrace Twitter’s Promoted “Trending Topic” ad space (at the estimated/rumored cost of $200k a pop) is single-cup-of-coffee brewing magnate Keurig (or more precisely Green Mountain Coffee Roasters who owns Keurig and many other popular coffee brands)… Brew Over Ice K-Cups is the newest Keurig product and so to launch it, Keurig and Green Mountain turned to Twitter, trusting their rabid fans would be eager to spread the coffee love. And for non-keurig users, theres always the cruise. Yup. They are giving away an Alaskan cruise to one lucky winner.

Yesterday marked the inaugural “What’s Next DC – Your Marketing Communications Roadmap” Conference. Marketers, PR Specialists, Web Development Companies, Technology Experts, Associations, Government Organizations, Social Media Addicts, and more converged on George Washington University in Washington, DC to listen, learn, share, and network. Whats Next, the brainchild of Tod Plotkin of Green Buzz Agency in Arlington, VA, was born of Plotkin’s frustration with the fluff and sales pitch-iness of typical events, and so he set out to create something different. His goal was to keep people engaged constantly with good information and make sure they got any questions answered that day. While not quite an “unconference” like Nonprofit 2.0, it was a veritable assault of information lined up with no breaks (except for a quick lunch) in short bursts with scheduled “niche conversations” and “floating experts” on the side. Captico sent 3 emissaries: our Lead Developer, Todd Fisher; a Project Manager, Bob Wolfe; and New Media Coordinator, Corrie Davidson (me).

Yesterday I joined my fellow Captico mates on a trip down to DC to attend the What’s Next DC? Conference. Overall the event was a good one – my applause to Green Buzz Agency and other’s that helped to put the event together.