“Nothing makes me want a cold beer more than a long day at church,” says one Church-going beer drinker who asked to remain anonymous.

The discovery that Church is negatively impacting the beer drinking habits of Facebook users is seen as a major indicator of things to come in the industry.  Spokespersons for the beer industry are expected to be meeting with representatives from the Pope and other religious leaders around the world in the coming days to discuss the implications of these findings.  Highlights from the Facebook Lexicon graph can be found below.  The full Facebook Lexicon findings can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/a7nku6

Facebook Lexicon, which launched earlier this year, allows users to view volume of specific keywords being posted as Wall Posts to Facebook pages over time.  The Wall Post function, which is being tracked by Facebook Lexicon, is one of the best ways to track trends or keyword buzz because its simple and straight forward usability, coupled with its visibility on friends’ profiles and in News Feeds, makes it highly viral.

Amid all this chaos and hubbub, a few entrepreneuring Brits are cashing in on the President Bush Iraqi shoe incident.  Enter Sock and Awe! - a very simple (like seriously simple), Flash video game in which the player tries to hit a ducking President Bush with his or her shoe.  Sounds like it was probably created by a couple of college kids skipping class during finals week, right?  Perhaps.  But more importantly, the destination is being used to promote a soon-to-be-launched website call PopJam.  Meanwhile, not only have the PopJam founders jumped on the Bush-Shoe bandwagon to promote their site to millions of people (over 21 million shoes have been thrown by nearly a million people in just two days), they are now selling their overnight sensation on eBay:

The auction is currently commanding nearly $2,000 with the bulk of the bidding undoubtedly being left to the final moments.  What’s the lesson here for those of us trying to market “legitimate” brands to “legitimate” audiences while juggling “pain in the ass” regulatory departments?

The entire online world is keyword-driven.  Period.  Everything is found by keywords, whether it’s in Google, YouTube, Technorati, or whatever other portal is used to access information.  In this case the terms “President Bush” “Iraq” and “Shoe” created an entirey new marketplace in a comically short period of time.  Keywords make up consumers’ search behavior, define the content they access, and allow us as marketers to direct what content they are landing on, so long as we understand our consumer well enough to know the secret combination that makes up their keyword-driven behavior.

Take this video for instance… I uploaded it at the time of posting this blog.  How many views do you think I can get - well after the newsworthiness of its content has died away, simply by optimizing it for the right keywords?  Let’s find out…

Chevys has launched their first ever holiday widget, embedded below, and are offering a $500 party to the three people who generate the most engagement.  The tactic is a way of incentivizing online users to not only play the Mexican Jumping Bean game, download recipes, or buy gift cards through the widget themselves, but to share the Compadre widget with as many of their friends as possible.  The more of their friends who interact with the widget, the greater chance they have of winning a $500 holiday party.

Check it out, but if you end up winning, I’d better be on the guest list.

Inviting early adopters and legacy participants of the Internet 1.0 and today’s digitally apt Internet 2.0 tube dwellers, the DFR creates the optimum conditions for these generations to synergize with one another and inspire opportunities that will serve our industries, our region, and our society at large.  The DFR is helping to advance the conversation between these like-minded, yet diverse communities by asking the question: “If we knew how connected we all are, how would that change everything?”

Join the conversation along with CarryOn!  The event takes place Thursday, December 11 from 5-10 p.m. at the Skirball.  Friends of CarryOn can enjoy a discounted ticket price by using the promotion code “DFR30.”

Cheers guys.

Heck, forget about ever wanting to slap your CEO, have you ever struggled to get your CEO to buy into a marketing plan or promotion?  Imagine the possibilities when the guy is willing to go this far…

More about Sweemo below.

Sweemo.com is eBay but cooler.  I mean come on, buying products at online auction is so 2004.  At Sweemo users bid on experiences (”Sweet Moments” = “Sweemo” = your “aha” moment for this post).  Things like learning to play the guitar, a date with a celebrity, skydiving, or whatever other sweet little moment your wicked heart can imagine.  Like slapping a poor guy in the face with a fish.

THAT said, there is an important kudos to be given to Ace Hardware here… At least their campaign is relevant.  Ask around - ask anyone… Who is responsible for the Elf Yourself campaign?  192 million Americans were touched by it and we’ve conducted Man on the Street questionaires, online polls, and good ol’ fashioned ask a friend quizzes and NOBODY correctly correlates the campaign with Office Max.

In that regard, while Ace Your Face may not reach the viral success of Elf Yourself, it will at least leave a branded impression on those people it does reach.  Oddly enough the campaign was promoted through Facebook Ads and yet Ace Hardware does not appear to own a Facebook fan page for interested consumers to become fans of…  *Sigh*.  I guess this is progress, right?

Definition and Purpose (Social Mashup):

When I originally developed the first Social Mashup I envisioned it as a portal. The portal would serve to consolidate a brand (Virgin Megastore) across all the social channels it had been scattered amongst. For large brands there is an organizational nightmare that pervades their social media presence as members of the advertising, marketing, PR, on-premise, sales, management, and all agencies involved, all launch efforts in various communities. As a result messaging is watered down and there is no cohesiveness among the brand’s MySpace and YouTube friends, for an example. Thus I launched the Social Mashup to be the connecting portal through which users could navigate all things Virgin.

Since launching VirginMegaMashup.com, we have leveraged the site to identify brand ambassadors, push content to our friends online, and launch highly successful contests like 2007’s Battle of the Bands and 2008’s Bird Thief campaign.

Virgin America - Evaluation:

Virgin America’s mashup has less variety of content than MegaMashup did/does but may be the better for it. Having just recently launched, Virgin America does not have the established presence that Virgin Megastore did when launching their MegaMashup. Targeting a few key communities and trying to make a stronger impact in each is a good strategy. One serious flaw in the Virgin America method is the persistence with web 1.0 method of hosting content on your own pages. Rather than mashing up content from various channels – which the front page appears to do, the content is instead hosted on subpages rather than linking to appropriate social channels. A good example that highlights this difference is the use of video – VirginMegaMashup effectively uses a Splashcast Media module to display all relevant video clips from YouTube in a user friendly, television channel-esque player. It then links users to YouTube to see more. The new Virgin America destination instead drives users to a variety of subpages where the video content happens to be hosted at YouTube. Very web 1.0.

From a design standpoint, VA went with a clean, simple interface that incorporates their e-retail portion… In this case e-retail is the ability to book flights from the left nav bar. For Virgin Megastore the Mashup was something we launched to drive community and engagement, without the clutter or distraction of e-retail. A year after launching we did eventually incorporate retail in the form of the top navigation bar which also married the Mashup to the homepage for VirginMega.com. My belief was then, and still is today, that a Social Mashup ought to be something that puts the user’s interests first. If users demonstrate an acceptance of your e-retail efforts THEN it is acceptable to fully integrate your mashup with your retail site.

Finally, launching with a contest is also a good strategy. For VirginMegaMashup.com, we launched via the many social channels Virgin Megastore already had in place – multiple MySpace pages, YouTube, the VIP member database, and VirginMegaSphere – the VP of Marketing’s blog. That way when we already had a strong user base when we decided to launch our online Battle of the Bands – a viral contest that generated over 500,000 views in the period of three weeks. For Virgin America, however, the contest can be a good way to build that initial user base.

42% of CEOs personally participate in social media = ASTUTE!

45% of CEOs believe social media “in not a relevant channel to reach stakeholders” = BANG HEAD AGAINST WALL

42% of CEOs believe WOM is an influential medium for their company’s reputation (second only to the WSJ) = ASTUTE!

26% of CEOs invest in market research for their PR activities = 74% of CEOs do NOT invest in market research for their PR activities = KEEP BANGING HEAD UNTIL SLOW TRICKLE OF BLOOD LEAVES YOUR NOSE

Returning to our initial finding, however, 67% of CEOs intend to increase the digital budgets of their PR teams in 2009.  This brings us to two interesting derivatives of the inevitable “Why?”

1.  Why would they increase their digital spending in times of an economic downturn?

2.  Why would the PR team be the department deserving of the additional digital dollars?

The first question is one I’ve been asked with increasing frequency as the economy takes on water… “Are you concerned about companies cutting their social media budgets?” I’m frequently asked.  Let me set the record straight here… NO.  I AM NOT.  Why?  For several reasons.

First, because social media is now widely accepted as the way of the future.  It’s not so much a question of IF anymore but rather WHEN a company will get involved in social media (heck - even a whopping 60% of the CEOs recognized that social media’s influence has increased in the past three years… So much for the “head under a rock” theory).

Second, because social media is without a doubt the MOST TRACKABLE communications channel available.  In times of economic downturn things like ad equivalencies, circs, reach, and their counterparts in sister disciplines pale quickly in the “what am I getting for my money” conversation.

Third, social media is CHEAP.  Yes, I said it.  It’s cheap!  For the vast majority of companies it’s still less than a couple percentage points of the overall marketing budget and yet THIS is where everyone’s attention is focused right now.

The latter half of the overarching question - “Why would the PR team be the department deserving of the additional digital dollars?” is answered by the CEOs’ thankfully astute recognition that social media is more effective for corporate reputation building than driving sales.  This bit deserves an entire post unto itself so I won’t go too deep down the rabbit hole here, but let’s quickly raise our glasses to this last recognition.

People don’t like to buy stuff in social media.  It doesn’t matter if your ad agency or your PR firm is running the campaign.  In fact, it’s probably better that your PR firm is running it because with your ad agency you might expect them to drive sales.  Social media is about branding, communication, reputation building and management, and all of the other wonderful things that ensure your company will continue to sell product despite the economic downturn, regardless of the newcomer to the market, and even when you have to cut back on your advertising budget.

Kudos to 67% of America’s CEOs for understanding this most critical component - your digital increase will not be wasted.

No on Prop 8 (in favor of gay marriage):

MySpace

Facebook

YouTube

Twitter

In fact, the “No on Prop 8″ social media campaign more than tripled its counterpart “Yes on Prop 8″ in the number of people it reached in these same channels.

Yes on Prop 8 (against gay marriage):

MySpace

Facebook

YouTube

Twitter

Not only did “No in Prop 8″ reach three times more people, it leveraged the tools in a much more masterful way.  Look at Twitter, for instance.  While “Yes on 8″ used Twitter to distribute random and repetitive reminders to support their cause, “No on 8″ empowered thousands of volunteers to use the same Twitter feed.  Their Twitter feed was a-buzz with things like “We need more fliers at Rosecrans and PCH!” and “Yes on Prop 8 supporters rallying at location X, need volunteers here asap!”.  The tactic was effective and not only worked to canvas the state with grassroots-level support at critical locations, it drew online subscribers into the fray as they watched what was going on in the field…

Why then did “Yes on Prop 8″ succeed in California?  Because traditional PR - the ability to craft the message, still prevails in social media.  Gay marriage supporters focused their campaign on getting people to vote “No on Prop 8″.  Gay marriage opponents focused their campaign on getting people to “Protect marriage”.  Can anyone guess which of these messages resonates more strongly with the public?  This is a lesson that was first learned when “Pro-life” came out and caused a dramatic swing in support for the anti-abortion movement.  “Pro-choice” was quickly launched to counterbalance that movement, however.  For Proposition 8, the message was eventually shifted to “Vote no on descrimination” but by that point it was too little too late.

Perhaps the most important messaging lesson from this example, however, is the most often overlooked.  Proposition 8 was a referendum to overturn a current law that allows same sex couples to be married.  Why then was it named the “Gay Marriage” proposition?  Because somebody was savvy enough to understand the confusion that would be caused by asking people to vote No to overturning gay marriage…  Did you follow that?  Correctly worded, Proposition 8 was a referendum to BAN Gay Marriage.  Gay marriage was legal in California.  This was an Anti-Gay Marriage bill that was worded as a “Gay Marriage” bill.  The result?  Total confusion on whether voting “Yes” was in favor of or against gay marriage.  No matter which way your opinions tend, the messaging genius behind “Yes on Prop 8″ was a case study for all of us.

UPDATE: See great article from PRWeek on Prop 8.