Blogs

A few weeks back, I participated on a panel at the Digital Hollywood conference in Santa Monica. Digital Hollywood sounds like something out of an episode of Entourage, but it's actually a great event for digital marketers to come together and learn what's new across a range of hot topics -- from search to email to display. The quality of discourse is high, the discussions and panels are informative and engaging, and the weather in Santa Monica is always a treat.

Our panel focused on "non-traditional" forms of digital marketing: presumably, anything but banners, email and search. The conference guide was more specific, defining non-traditional advertising as word of mouth, blogs, guerilla marketing, social media experiences and events.

Joining me on the panel was a great cross section of non-traditional media types. Rebecca Weeks Watson, the director of business development for Real Girls Media brought her perspective on innovative ways brands are working with publishers to deliver high-impact, non-traditional campaigns aimed at women. Ted Murphy, founder and CEO of IZEA -- which works with 265,000 bloggers and 25,000 advertisers to develop "sponsored conversations" -- joined the panel as well. Kitty Holding, CEO of House Party, brought her perspective on integrating "house party" events into the marketing mix.

I was there to share my perspective in working with marketers for the last six years in the emerging social media space, and make observations on how social is intersecting with direct response and brand initiatives.

Seems like an eclectic mix of perspectives, right? What was fascinating to hear is that we all felt like something had changed within the last 6-9 months for each of our businesses. Budgets were being allocated beyond search, beyond email, and beyond the banner into much more complex, strategic, and integrated campaigns. Brands were committing real, hard dollars to programs that 12-18 months ago were a tough sell. Microsoft looked to House Party to sponsor tens of thousands of Windows 7 "house parties" across the globe to support the operating system's new release and shift people's attitudes toward the brand. Real Girls Media used StrongMail's Influencer solution to produce "You Propelled?" -- a highly successful, interactive, social, Twitter-like micro-blogging campaign for Pepsi. Disney, American Greetings, Dial, Levi's and other great brands have embraced IZEA's sponsored blogging platform.

Big brands are now incorporating social media elements not only into their sites, but into their cross-media marketing campaigns. They're engaging communities of Twitterers, bloggers, and fans across the web to talk about topics or share ideas that are strategic to their brands. Their comments are compiled, curated, mashed up and fed into streams not only shared with the connections these people keep -- these conversations are repurposed into "feeds" that get pumped into interactive flash elements that can be posted around the Web -- replacing their crusty banner forbears with buzz and opinions straight from the mouths (keyboards) of people you can somehow relate to. Clicks convert into Twitter followers, Facebook fans, and opt-ins that brands can engage over time to create even more content that gets distributed around the Web.

The world of integrated, strategic digital marketing is very different than it was 12 to 18 months ago. Big companies have had a taste, and they're now diving in head first.

Is yours one of them? How is your company integrating social media into your campaigns? Please comment below. I'd love to hear what you're seeing these days -- and if it matches the perception of the folks on our "non-traditional" advertising panel.