Social media makes it socially acceptable to be super-intense about our favorite things—I’m talking singing-with-our-eyes-closed passionate about our favorite foods, pictures of dogs frolicking in leaves, workout routines, limited edition action figure collections, and especially TV shows. 

People are watching more TV than ever—35.6 hours per week according to a Nielsen estimate.  That’s an average of 5 hours per day.   Yikes. Recently, a spate of sites similar to Foursquare have cropped up in response to our ravenous entertainment appetites allowing users to “check in” to their fave shows.  Like checking into a restaurant or bar on Foursquare, these sites—Miso, Getglue, Philo, Comcast’s Tunerfish, and IntoNow—enable users to let friends know what show their boob tube is dialed into in real time. The Intonow app, kind of like Foursquare and Shazam’s love child, lets users check into a specific episode by having their Smartphone listen to the program on TV.   The goal of all these sites, of course, is creating connections—connecting show watchers to each other and to new content.

Another way to up the ante on our favorite shows is through social viewing.  At Adweek’s Targetcast-hosted discussion Phoenix Rising: How Technology is Transforming Foundational Media, panelists presaged that social viewing would be the next big thing.  Gabbing to your best friend on the phone after the show’s over? So archaic—nostalgic as a Rockwell painting!   Social Viewing sites like Paltalk enable people in different locations to watch the same video at the same time AND chat about it.   Paltalk offers video chat rooms, which they refer to as screening rooms.  The screening room streams the same video to all attendees and enables them to chat.  With social viewing sites, there’s no need to mentally file away that witty commentary for later—viewers can share their shock, outrage, laughter, sadness, and elation in real time too.

This is very interesting. France has officially banned the names of the top two social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter, from being mentioned on radio or television…UNLESS, they are part of a news story. Dating back to a 1992 decree that says, “mentioning services by name is an act of advertising,” France has taken a stand against both of the social giants.

As described by Christine Kelly, a spokesperson for France’s Counseil Superieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA), “Why give preference to Facebook, which is worth billions of dollars, when there are many other social networks that are struggling for recognition. This would be a distortion of competition. If we allow Facebook and Twitter to be cited on air, it’s opening a Pandora’s Box– other social networks will complain to us saying, ‘why not us?’”

TechCrunch sums this up nicely, “Instead of referring to specific social networking pages, like saying ‘Find us at Facebook.com/Audi’ or follow us on ‘Twitter.com/Pepsi’ brands will have to skirt around the issue, saying things like ‘Find us on social networking sites!,’ or directing viewers to their community pages and hoping that viewers will just pick up on where to go.”

France has a history of trying to regulate language used on air. According to the Toubon Law,  the French government can mandate the use of the French language in official government publications, in all advertisements, and in all broadcast audiovisual programs, with some exceptions (most notably, private non-commercial communications).

Some say the French government is going overboard in terms of restricting “the spread of American culture” which some bloggers attribute to traditional French protectionism, similar to how in 2003, the French banned the use of the word “email” in all government communications and publications.

In all, the true nature of the ban is not clear, but Facebook and Twitter are certainly making their way across the globe. Think about the earned media the two companies get every day, in every advertisement featuring one of their “brand pages.”

You never know, maybe France does support smaller social networks…or better yet, maybe France is launching their own social network (unlikely), where you have to be French to partake. Didn’t Facebook start with the promise of exclusivity?

Is the world obsessed with Facebook? Thank you to OnlineSchools for this infographic, check it out:

Via: Online Schools

Over the past week, Google execs and Sales representatives alike have been speaking agency to agency touting their most recent SEM development, the +1. Google is finally taking a leap into the “socialsphere” and a shot at taking share away from Facebook. Ultimately, the +1 is Google’s version of a “like” button on Facebook. If you click the +1 and are linked to your friends via the Google Profile network, then your friends will see your Search Results recommendations, or your +1’s.

By introducing this type of technology, advertisers question what impact this will have on targetability – can I now target ads on the Google Display Network to those that +1 a certain topic? How about deliver keyword to those that have a +1 threshold? Lot’s of questions.

Think of it this way- does getting a +1 on your listing drive up your organic ranking? If so, will there be a click fraud issue?

I’m curious to see how this plays out in the future, but I applaud Google’s new addition…for now.

Lady Gaga is the biggest artist in the world. With over 8 million people following her Tweets and over 11,000,000 fans on Facebook, she has built herself an army of little monsters through the power of social media. So what’s left when you have built such an impressive army? The answer is simple: harness them. Today, Lady Gaga made an announcement via Facebook to all of her little monster all over the world to join a new facet of her social media onslaught – The Official Lady Gaga Street Team.

The goal of this newly formed Street Team with Fancrops, which promotes social media with a purpose, is a brilliant idea that enables the legions of voracious Lady Gaga fans to take her message and brand even further, faster into the social media stratosphere. After you sign up to be a member of the Street Team, using your existing social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, and Itunes, a new team member can choose to complete the tasks assigned.

Tasks include simple things like posting your favorite lyrics from her new single, Born This Way, on Facebook and tagging it via Gaga. Then you simply submit a screen capture of your completed task through the Lady Gaga Street Team website and earn points towards the purchase of Gaga merchandise. Each task is assigned a different value of points (i.e. posting her interview with Jay Leno on Facebook will earn you 50 points, and simply reviewing and rating “Born This Way” on Itunes will earn her little monsters 200 points). It’s really that simple, but this goes way beyond the promise of essentially free merchandise. The true power here, which is yet to be measured, is the ability to not only make your fan base feel more included in your world, but also to pick specific things you want promoted about your brand/message and unleash them into every major form of social media. Paws up everyone! For Lady Gaga, this is only the beginning of her total global domination via all forms of media.

We’re excited to announce the launch of our client Hotels.com’s new “Clay Yourself” contest! 

TargetCast tcm worked with Y&R Chicago and claymation masters Aardman–of Wallace & Gromit fame–to bring the Clay Yourself idea to life…and spread the seeds of awareness that we hope will grow into a viral success story.

With a look and feel similar to Hotels.com’s “Smart” advertising campaign, the Clay Yourself contest enables consumers can create hilarious claymation avatars of themselves and their friends.  Consumers can then upload their characters to social media sites and encourage their friends to vote and create their very own clay avatars. 

That’s not all!  Those consumers who enter their character to the Clay Yourself contest will be eligible to win amazing prizes taboot.  The Grand Prize winner will receive a 3 day/2 night trip to Los Angeles and have their clay character featured in an upcoming Hotels.com commercial, starring alongside the Hotels.com animated spokesperson, Smart!  Additionally, for each week leading up to the finale of the contest, Hotels.com will award the leading vote-getter with a $200 Hotels.com gift certificate.

The road to claymation Hollywood begins here:

http://www.clayyourself.com/

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Here’s a creative look at the current state of Social Media by Flowtown.

Flowtown is a marketing platform designed as a web application tool that gives organizations insight as to which social media platforms users are signed up for. This tool can also be very useful to individuals who need to monitor their own social media connections.

Social Media at it’s finest!