Influential Marketing Blog

This post is part of Make A Referral Week - an innovative project from John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses.

If I were to ask you what the secret was to getting someone to recommend and refer your business, what would you say? Perhaps you might focus on the experience that you provide. Or you might believe that this is a behaviour that you should focus on illiciting from only your best customers. Now what if I told you that the single biggest reason someone chooses whether or not to refer your business has very little to do with their experience with you? That seems counter intuitive. Yet if this were false, then everyone who had a positive experience would share it with someone else. And everyone who had a negative one would do the same.

The point is, people don’t inherently share positive or negative experiences – they need an incentive to do it. The main problem is that anger or frustration IS an incentive. That’s why you hear the often repeated adage that it is much easier to get a customer to post a negative review than it is to post a positive one. Satisfaction, apparently, is not as powerful of a motivator as dissatisfaction. Yet despite this behaviour, there are ways to stack the odds in your favor. You probably already know that online opinions make a difference for your business. So the question you need to ask yourself (especially for Referral Week) is how you can make YOUR business easier for someone to share with a friend, family member or colleague. In other words, you need to be easier to recommend!

Here are 5 tips you should consider to help you achieve that:

1. Ask at the right moment. There is one moment when your customer is likely to be happiest of all, and that is the moment right after they buy something. The decision has been made, and anticipation is likely to follow. Why not ask them to share their experience with a friend right in that moment? Use a post-purchase survey online or encourage your customer to write a review or even take some extra business cards with them as they walk out of your retail location. The more you can do to get someone to recommend your business right after purchase, the more referrals you can generate.
2. Create different levels. It is tempting to think of recommendations and referrals in strict terms. Say online review, and your mind probably goes straight to the sort of review you might find on Amazon or TripAdvisor. In reality, there are many different levels of engagement when it comes to online reviews, and hand written experiences are the most extreme. A much simpler style is what you may have seen on Facebook … the simple thumbs up or thumbs down. Star ratings are another easy method. The lesson is simple … to create more likely situations where people will share their opinion, try to accommodate for different levels of effort and complexity.
3. Let them save your details. The magnet for your fridge that your real estate agent always gives you is the prime example of this idea. The opposing idea to #1, the philosophy behind letting your customers save your details easily is that you want to be there in the moment when they do get asked by someone to refer a business or service. Aside from fridge magnets, for the growing digital savvy customer, another way you may be able to stand out is to always include important keywords in your email communications (and always send email receipts). Then your customer can search their email account and even if they don’t remember your business name or have your card handy, you’re just a simple email search away.
4. Have a personality. The basic fact is that people don’t generally remember businesses, they remember other people. For this reason, having a personality is of paramount importance. When you can foster a personal connections with your business, you give them a reason to remember and recommend you to others. This is the power of word of mouth referrals, that we will remember working with someone who we respected and will be more likely to actively recommend that person and their business in any relevant situation.
5. Admit failure. This last tip will seem like an odd addition to the list. After all, we are generally taught to hide (or at least never admit) our failures for fear that it may make us or our businesses appear vulnerable. The surprising fact is that admitting a mistake can be one of the unintentionally best ways to humanize your business. We all make mistakes, but how you deal with them is the real question. Nothing can endear your business more to a customer than making a mistake an going overboard to correct it (and not making the same mistake again, of course). So the next time you or one of your employees makes a mistake, own up to it and actively fix it. You may find that in the process you converted an unhappy customer into a brand evangelist for life.

NOTE: This post was originally published on the AMEX Open Forum website, where I write a weekly piece on marketing advice for small business owners.

Whether you believe in karma or not, using social media successfully for your small business often has a lot to do with a series of seemingly disconnected events.  Every comment you post online, every person you contact and every piece of content you upload adds to the sum total of your efforts in the blogosphere.  Building relationships is important in any industry, but social media karma is the idea that what you do and how you behave will ultimately have an effect on you directly or indirectly. 

Social media karma is not often written about, but very often spoken about by bloggers, especially successful ones.  Here are 10 ways you can improve your social media karma:  

1. Be real.  This is the first and foremost principle of furthering your social media karma that I could think of.  Being real involves not lying, being transparent about who you are and what you believe, and sharing an honest voice.  People trust others that have an authentic voice, and are more likely to refer them to others or help when asked. 
2. Respond to emails. This is tough when you have a high volume of unsolicited emails, but the idea that someone took time to write directly to you should make it enough of a priority to respond.  Obviously, this applies to personally written messages, and not to email blasts of press releases.  Those are rarely worth a response.
3. Offer exclusives.  Maybe you aren't breaking "news" online, but the idea of exclusives is not limited to that.  If you are going to write about or post something interesting, whether related to your business or not, offer a preview to others in your network.  Share ideas as they happen and offer the chance for others to say it first.  Exclusives are gold in the blogosphere ... everyone wants them.
4. Make connections. In social settings, the gold standard for making connections is introducing two people to one another who later get married.  Social media is no different.  If you can be the person making these connections between individuals that may not have met otherwise, you will be remembered by both for your efforts.
5. Join networks.  This is not just about publishing networks, but about social networks of people who are interested in the same things you are.  Joining groups like this, and actively participating adds value to the group.  As a member, it probably won't be long before you take something useful from the group – and hopefully add something useful as well.
6. Avoid snark. Snarkiness is the enemy of good karma.  Being rude, uselessly opinionated or arrogant are all rising behaviours from people in social media that add to the sea of needless commentary online.  The price for this may not be apparent, as unfortunately, snarkiness does sometimes result in conversation sometimes (who can't avoid watching a car crash?) -- but eventually the snark will catch up to you.
7. Forgive mistakes. Most bloggers or others in social media are not journalists and don't have the time or necessity for checking every fact or argument before making it.  This does result in mistakes, and people do screw up.  Correcting them without holding a grudge is a big deal.  Mistakes are made, people are sorry.  If they fixed the error, then get over it.
8. Post to contact. Email is not the only way to get in touch with someone.  Posting about something they have written and linking to their blog offers an indirect route to contact, as most bloggers pay attention to who is linking to them.  Writing about one of my posts is still the best way to get onto my radar, and I suspect most bloggers are the same way.  Communicating in this way avoids the email filter and starts the dialogue.
9. Comment and participate.  This may be part of earlier suggestions, however the idea that you need to be a participant online rather than just an observer is key to this belief.  If you expect others to communicate and add comments to your blog, you need to be online doing the same for others.  Without participation, it is difficult to belong to a community online or build relationships with others.
10. Show gratitude. Often mentioned as an important factor in connecting with users, showing gratitude for someone interacting with some content you have posted or a comment you have shared, linking to you, or offering some other effort on your behalf is vital.  Appreciation makes someone more likely to believe that you think their efforts are significant and as a result, connect more strongly with you and your blog.

NOTE: This post is part of Small Business Friday (SBF) - a weekly feature to share marketing ideas for small businesses and was originally published on the Amex Open Forum site.

Posted via email from rohitbhargava's posterous

I used to hate slideshows. Not Powerpoint as many people call slideshows today, but the old style of slideshow. The one where you set up a carousel projector to show lots of little negatives encased in small cardboard frames to unwilling family and friends. If you are under a certain age, you probably won't know what I'm talking about - but that moment of having to sit through someone's vacation photos with the narration of "and this is us in front of the <insert random place name here>" is unfortunately familiar. The problem isn't that the trip itself was boring, or that you're a cold unfeeling person because you struggle to sit through the shared holiday experience of someone you usually care about. The real problem is that the way the story was told left much to be desired. A trip is something no one cares about except the people who took it.

A journey, on the other hand is more significant. It is something that invites you to take part. Something that has a destination or vision in mind for where someone is headed or what they are trying to do. A journey is a story that matters. This was my thought when I came across Monisha and Harald's journey. They are travelling across India on 80 trains in 3 months and are in the midst of their journey right now. As their site describes,the chaotically efficient Indian railway system is "the largest civilian employer in the world, featuring luxury trains, toy trains, a hospital on wheels, the steepest, the slowest, and the second longest train journeys in the world." Chances are, you're already intrigued by their journey as I was when I first read about it. 

Yet, I don't actually know Monisha or Harald. They aren't personal contacts of mine, and though I might hear back from them if they read this - it is not necessarily about having a personal connection. You might watch a slide show from a family member who you love and find it difficult to get involved in their story, yet reading Monish and Harald's journey is interesting. You can follow them in real time on Twitter at @80trains and share it with others. That is the power of having a journey - it lets others get involved. How many travel brands could inspire this kind of content? Or what about small businesses sharing the story of the evolution of their business? When someone cares about the outcome of any story, they are more likely to try to help and be part of it. So what journey are you taking?

Credit: Thanks to Arun Rajagopal for sharing this link to the 80 Trains Project.

I used to hate slideshows. Not Powerpoint as many people call slideshows today, but the old style of slideshow. The one where you set up a carousel projector to show lots of little negatives encased in small cardboard frames to... Rohit

Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Bangalore for a Brand Summit event that featured many marketers, communicators and even a Bollywood star talking about the future of marketing in India as country goes through what the conference... Rohit

Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Bangalore for a Brand Summit event that featured many marketers, communicators and even a Bollywood star talking about the future of marketing in India as country goes through what the conference termed as the "era of discontinuity." With a ballooning population, growing Internet penetration, arguably the largest mobile phone market on earth and an entrepreneurial culture - India is at once a bewildering and maturing market for all things social. On the streets of India, word of mouth marketing and old school lessons are actively driving commerce. In businesses, the hot topics are similar to what they are in the US or elsewhere ... how can your brand reach consumers who are increasingly placing their attention elsewhere and getting progressively better at ignoring you.

On answer that has risen to some level of prominence in India is the use of celebrities in marketing. You could argue that celebrities are popular everywhere in the world, but in a country that release more films in an average week than most countries do in an entire year, the rules are slightly different. In India it is not uncommon to see a Bollywood star's face on everything from facial tissues to pens. Celebrity is used to connote trust, and in a culture with many different socio-economic classes (they even have names), the only way that marketers can often reach across these levels is with celebrities that many people recognize.

In an illuminating panel filled with journalists, filmmakers, marketers, creative directors and one celebrity (Bollywood Actor Vivek Oberoi) the conversation turned to a in-depth discussion of the role of celebrity in marketing in India and whether it was indeed a necessity, or whether it has become a "crutch" for the lazy marketer who doesn't want to do any real work so they just hire a celebrity and consider their marketing efforts complete. Here were some of the biggest takeaways that the conversation raised for me:

1. Understand the difference between talent and celebrity. When you hire an actor to play a part in an ad, you are hiring them as "talent." When you get a celebrity, you are hiring them to bring their personal brand to your product or service and serve as a spokesperson of sorts. The first key is to know the difference and not confuse the two.
2. Start with an idea, not a celebrity. Often a marketing strategy starts by selecting the celebrity the team will work with and then an idea is built around that choice. This method is backwards and results in marketing that lacks strategic vision and often fails to resonate. To do better, you need to have a strong creative idea ... then find the celebrity that best fits that idea.
3. Build on a celebrities' personal brand. Vivek Oberoi raised many intelligent points about the celebrity point of view when it comes to marketing (something we don't often hear). He understands his personal brand and what resonates positively or negatively with it. As a result, he chooses personally not to do tobacco or alcohol related advertising. Many other celebrities lack those same principles and simply go where the biggest dollars tempt them. The best marketing will be something builds on the personal brand that a celebrity has built, instead of ignoring or countering it.
4. Use real people too. Thankfully, the point did emerge from the panel that there may be times where you don't NEED a celebrity. There is a power of real people to connect with one another that can be missing with celebrity focused campaigns and for a growing number of brands in India taking this real approach is working well and shouldn't be discounted.

Note: This post was originally published on the Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence blog.

Perhaps you've managed to catch some coverage of the Winter Olympic sport of Curling over the last two weeks during the Vancouver Games? The sport has been covered almost nonstop on CNBC here in the US and been enough of... Rohit

Perhaps you've managed to catch some coverage of the Winter Olympic sport of Curling over the last two weeks during the Vancouver Games? The sport has been covered almost nonstop on CNBC here in the US and been enough of a sensation to even have an entire episode of The Simpsons (arguably America's most popular TV show) dedicated entirely to it. Even more impressive is that the sport has managed to accumulate all this attention in spite of three relatively big strikes against it:

1. It's not intrinsically exciting.
2. America has no hope of a medal.
3. No one you know plays it (and you probably haven't either).

This is quite a mystery if you were to consider it in marketing terms (which, of course, I can't help doing). A sport that no one has grown up playing, with little inherent tension or excitement and a national team that is lacking (at current count, they have played 9 games and lost 7 of them) still manages to be among the most popular Winter Olympic sports in the US. Why?

The answer, I believe, comes from an interesting phenomenon that was profiled in another popular American television show - Seinfeld. In one episode, the character George Costanza talked about his ability to be initially annoying and irritating, but to grow on you until eventually you can't stop thinking about him. A similar phenomenon accounts for that moment we have all had where we can't get that awful song out of our heads, but eventually start singing it and even (on some level) liking it.

Your first reaction to curling was probably one of misunderstanding, or ridicule. Let's face it, it's an easy sport to make fun of. But as you see those guys (or girls) furiously sweeping the ice in front of that granite stone - you can't help watching. Yes, sweeping is actually an Olympic sport and as the ratings will show, it's one of our favourites here in the US. The marketing lesson here is simple: Sometimes being sillier than anything else can actually make you the most memorable (and successful). Need more proof? Just look at the success of the Snuggy.

NOTE: This post was originally published on the AMEX Open Forum website, where I write a weekly piece on marketing advice for small business owners. Whether you believe in karma or not, using social media successfully for your small business... Rohit

Social media is not a robot. In fact, there could hardly be a more opposing idea to social media than that of robotic automation. I start this post by sharing that because the idea that any job could be "replaced"... Rohit

Social media is not a robot. In fact, there could hardly be a more opposing idea to social media than that of robotic automation. I start this post by sharing that because the idea that any job could be "replaced" by social media is contentious idea. There are plenty of market forces displacing people from jobs ... do we really need to add social media to the list? Actually, the truth is that social media is already supplanting many jobs. Marketers, politicians, government officials, athletes and librarians are all using social media to varying levels to add context to what they do every day. Social media is a part of their new roles and will continue to be moving forward.

There are a smaller number of jobs, however, that I believe will very shortly REQUIRE SOCIAL MEDIA in order to be done effectively. These are not jobs where logging in online can help to add dimension or offer a useful outlet. In this category of social media enabled jobs, the people doing those jobs who are NOT using social media will find themselves falling behind. Here are a few of these types of jobs that come to mind for me:

1. Customer Service Representative: It is already a part of many customer service groups to allow people to interact with a company by email. More and more, social networks and social media tools are offering a chance for companies to offer proactive customer service. In some cases, like Comcast, there is an entire channel of customer service professionals who are responding to customers. In others, a company may be using a social media community through a service such as Get Satisfaction to offer this type of service. People are talking about their experiences online, and increasingly they will expect companies to be listening to them there. We are at the beginning of a large trend that in the next few years may become as ordinary and expected as being able to call a phone number to receive customer service.

2. Concierge. The sad fact of many hotels (even 5 star properties) is that the individuals they have sitting behind the concierge desk are little more than glorified order takers and bellman (or women). Think I'm being unfair? Unfortunately, my consistent travel schedule (more than 100 days a year) has led me to the truth that a good concierge who actually is an expert at knowing their own city and how to get just about anything done is few and far between. There are, of course, those concierges still available on occasion and nothing can replace their expertise. But for 95% of hotels in America (and perhaps even that percentage is too low), social media can offer the one thing that those concierges alone cannot. Through social media, you can have instant access to real restaurant reviews, shopping recommendations, direct connections with small businesses and more. All the things that a great concierge would spend years learning are now available through social media to the savvy web user.

Any other jobs come to mind that should make this list?

Posted via email from rohitbhargava's posterous

If you are not Indian, chances are when I say Chacha you will think of a type of latin dance. Although it is technically called the "cha-cha-cha" it's the more widespread meaning. If you WERE Indian, however, you would know... Rohit

If you are not Indian, chances are when I say Chacha you will think of a type of latin dance. Although it is technically called the "cha-cha-cha" it's the more widespread meaning. If you WERE Indian, however, you would know that Chacha means Uncle. Actually, it means a lot more than Uncle. When I call someone Chacha, anyone who heard me would know not only that that person was my Uncle, but that my relation to him was on my father's side, and that he was younger than my father. All that information is transferred in a single word. Tau or Tauji is similar, but used as the word for what to call the same Uncle if he is older than my father.  Similar names exist on the mother's side and for the older generation of grandparents. Even siblings use the words "bhaiyya" (for older brother) and "didi" (for older sister).

Sound like a foreign and confusing system? Consider that the next time you walk into a Starbucks and order a Grande instead of a medium or a Venti instead of a small. Starbucks is one retail outlet that has their own lingo. Sit down at any Waffle House in a Southern US state and you can order your hash browns "scattered, smothered, and covered." If you've been there, you'll know what that means. 

The point is, there is a power in creating your own language that relates deeply to having your own culture. Countries and cultures have their own words that exist as a part their cultural identity. They signify a shared knowledge and basis for communication. Starbucks, on a smaller scale, has created the same thing.  What types of words does your company use that are unique to it? More importantly, are those used as a part of your company's culture internally or are they used to share an insider's language with your customers as well? Only brands with loyal and passionate customers come close to having their own language. What are you doing to create yours?

Posted via email from rohitbhargava's posterous

For many marketers, considering mobile marketing year after year is the same story. The year starts off with lots of hype about it finally being the "year of mobile marketing" ... and after a month or two, the excitement dies... Rohit

For many marketers, considering mobile marketing year after year is the same story. The year starts off with lots of hype about it finally being the "year of mobile marketing" ... and after a month or two, the excitement dies down and reality hits. Most teams realize that they lack the experience or knowledge on what type of messages people will actually engage with and bow to the fear that only a fraction of the people they care about will respond to advertising or marketing in a mobile environment. Predictably, their attention turns elsewhere and mobile marketing initiatives stall. Is this year really going to be any different?

It's hard to predict, but I can say that this year does represent a unique moment where all the different aspects of mobile marketing that have long been preached by believers as signifying a cultural shift that matters to marketers are coming together. There are five concepts in particular that signify this evolution in my mind, and paying attention to their rise is the strongest indicator that mobile marketing may be reaching a new stage of reality:

1. The Shortcode - Similar to the URL system that has allowed brands to have specific destinations online, the shortcode is giving brands a way to allow direct messaging from their consumers in an easily memorable way. Simply send a single word or a message to a five digit code from your mobile phone and you will get something in return. The simplicity of this format is an important prerequisite to make it truly likely that people will actually use it as it offers a memorable syntax that enables an actionable message to be memorable enough to stick in the minds of consumers on the go.
2. LBS (Location Based Services) - One of the biggest new abilities that new phones are offering is the ability for your phone to know specifically where in the world you are. The potential of a personal GPS in your pocket, so to speak, ofers up all sorts of localized marketing possiblities. Of course, the potential for location based advertising could certainly backfire if people start to get inundated, but used right LBS can be a boon - and offer an important basic capability that enables all sorts of innovation in mobile device tools and marketing.
3. APP(lications) - By now you have probably formed an opinion about Apps, and whether or not you feel like they will save the world, there is no denying that letting someone download a branded tool to enhance their experience of your brand offers great potential for engagement, lead generation and even direct sales. The App revolution, more than anything else, is fueled by a new level of utility in content for mobile devices. The popular tagline "there's an app for that" is based on this ubiquitous utility. When you can find an app to enhance just about anything you are doing, the net effect becomes transformative. Marketing can now do that too.
4. AR (Augmented Reality) - You see a lot of hype about the potential for augmented reality these days, as it finally evolves beyond the realm of science fiction. Whether it is a service like Yelp's Monocle or more practical computer-based effort from USPS that I blogged about some time ago and referred to as "holocam marketing" at the time. Through your mobile device, you can now add a new layer to your interactions that offers more knowledge, more opinions and more suggestions - all live.
5. DMPs (Direct MobilePayments) - Underpinning all these advances is the simple question of how people will be able to move money around. The potential for micropayments has always vastly outsized the reality. The only environment that has ever come close is Apple with iTunes, where you have a linked account and can easily click a button on a device to trigger a micropayment from your own account without having to re-enter or re-confirm credit card details. As the recent text-to-donate campaign for Haiti from the Red Cross showed the world, trying these payments to user's phone bills may offer another solution. If the behaviour of using these direct micropayments can be extended for consumers beyond donations, it would fuel many other marketing efforts.

Photo Credit: Mobile Marketing Watch

If you believe some pundits and fanboys, the coming of the iPad and the new market for Tablet PCs that it is expected to open up will revolutionize how I use a computer. It will change the way I browse the Internet, do email and make coffee in the mornings. Here are a few choice marketing promises from the Apple website about the iPad:

"See and touch your email in ways you never could before."
"Lets you see web pages as they were meant to be seen."
"Feel completely immersed in whatever you’re watching."

Now take a deep breath and let's take a look at reality. The iPad is not a mobile device, it's too large for that. And it's not meant to be used at a desk (ie - at work for most people) since it would be too awkward for that (or you could get the external keyboard and mouse, but then it's just a glorified monitor). So if it's not good on the go and not good in the office, what does that leave? Two places: the couch and the bed.

What does this mean for how the iPad and tablets may change the way we use the computer then? Actually, not much - but that's not to say they won't matter or have an impact. Ironically, I believe that it will be "mainstream" media that realizes the biggest transformation. Here are three of the biggest shifts in media that I believe the iPad and Tablet PCs will bring as they hit the market in the next several months:

1. Digital Magazines - For years now magazines have struggled to create digital versions and hardly any have found a profitable model to charge people to access them. Premium content, archived articles, or niche content are all micropayment models that have been tried, but it's just not a powerful enough reason for someone to pay extra. With the full interactive touch screen tablet PC, you can finally create an immersive magazine experience that duplicates the quality and design of the magazine layout. Full page images, unique text layout and most importantly ... you can even go beyond by incorporating video or interactivity right into the story. If the story mentions a YouTube video, you can embed it right there and let someone watch it. Chris Anderson shared the vision for Wired's new iPad version of the magazine last week at the TED conference and it demonstrates the vast potential of this new type of device for magazines.
2. Interactive Television - One of the behaviours that we know is growing is the idea that people are multitasking while watching TV. When ads come on, they go to the laptop sitting on their lap to do something else. The iPad and other tablet PCs have the potential to completely transform your TV watching experience. Now you can add complete interactivity to any program. Everything from live voting on a reality show to managing your Fantasy Football team, to interacting with an ad as it is being shown on screen, to watching extended bonus scenes during or after the show. There are limitless possiblities for how you could enhance programming through delivering extended content onto a device that is in your watcher's hands while they are watching TV. More than that, you could build in the programming controls so the tablet would also become your remote control. You could argue that some of this is already possible with a laptop, but the intuitive nature of a touch screen will make it far easier for programmers and advertisers to make the tablet experience part of the live experience of watching a program.
3. eBooks & Social Reading - The one prediction I have heard that I do agree with is how the tablet could change the way that we read books. Everything from integrated links and images to live notetaking, to sharing notes with others in your community are all major shifts in behaviour when it comes to reading books. For students, the other major benefit (in time) could be that finally you don't need to lug tons and tons of books around with you for any class, you can just load them up on a tablet or iPad device. Even more importantly, the ease of sharing notes around a particular book will make reading and studying much more informed and perhaps lead to a next generation version of Cliffs Notes where you can get the context of a certain piece by how others have described it.
   

If you believe some pundits and fanboys, the coming of the iPad and the new market for Tablet PCs that it is expected to open up will revolutionize how I use a computer. It will change the way I browse... Rohit

Let me go on the record to say that if you happen to be a vendor of some type of social networking solution or software that would be useful for an agency like Ogilvy, hands down one of your most... Rohit

Let me go on the record to say that if you happen to be a vendor of some type of social networking solution or software that would be useful for an agency like Ogilvy, hands down one of your most effective methods of advertising has to be to target the Ogilvy network on Facebook with a customized ad. I have seen several ads like this for solutions and find myself always clicking on them - not because they say Ogilvy but because I presume that someone has done their homework and identified that whatever they are promoting is particularly relevant for someone who works at an agency like ours. So I'll give the the benefit of the doubt and click further. That's how I found Twiangulate.

Though I could just as easily have gotten an email from Henry about it, the fact that the ads were properly targeted already tells you something about the thinking about creating and promoting the site. Recently a few influential folks whose opinions I respect, like Sree Sreenivasan also profiled the site and talked about their own experience of finding it highly useful. So that initial ad coupled with the validation that comes from seeing someone in my network using it was enough to get me to try the site ... and now I'm hooked. I've tried lots of similar Twitter-Finding-Following-Ranking type applications. They always seem to spit out a number or list at the end with relatively little context and everything is ranked by volume. More Twitter followers equals a higher influence in general.

Twiangulate (a brilliantly named site) is from the folks behind BlogAds, and features similar smarts to help make simple sense of a big problem ... who you should actually care about reading on Twitter. It's not a sexy site, just as BlogAds isn't - but there are at least three reasons why you'll love Twiangulate:

1. Uses the most common sense metric for influence. In life, as the saying goes, it's not who you know but who knows you. Twiangulate uses this principle to help you find out how influential someone's follower base is. If they command a large number of followers who have high influence, chances are they will to. This is a page from Google's book about how they rank web pages as well, but for some reason has been notably missing from many Twitter apps designed to help judge influence.
2. Designed to spotlight intersections. It's not hard to find a list of the top marketers on Twitter, or the top fashion bloggers, but it can be tough to narrow down the list of bloggers who also talk often about fashion. You can do it with Twiangulate if can find one Twitter username for each category and then just highlight the people they commonly follow. Finally you have a way to find new people on Twitter that doesn't rely either on their username or them putting an accurate description into their bio.
3. Lets you focus on the small too. As Sree noted in his piece, there is much insight you can gain by looking at the opposite end of the spectrum for Twitter followers ... who are the followers with the lowest influence that those with the highest follow. This method would likely help you uncover people like Kim Kardashian's aunt, who have relatively small accounts but may be important to the influencers you might be interested in reaching as a marketer.

Chances are I'll uncover a few more interesting ways that the site could be used to help find the most interesting and influential people to pay attention to on Twitter. In the meantime, good luck doing your own twiangulating!

For several years now, I've taken the slightly different approach to doing a recap post of Super Bowl ads and instead of focusing on which ones I thought were the best or most entertaining, I try to break them down from a marketing point of view to share some lessons for anyone in marketing who may not have been able to afford the $2+ million dollar price tag to experiment on the Super Bowl on their own (ie - most of us!). This year, there were lots of examples of what NOT to do, as there usually are. So to start, here are a few major themes across this year's Super Bowl ads, including a roundup of some of the best strategic ads.

1. The Emasculated Man - For the first time in many years, the running gag of the subservient man who's life is controlled by the woman he is with appeared over and over. Flo TV showed him holding bras in a store and described him as "having his spine surgically removed." Dodge showed a montage of defeated faces with taglines like "I carry your lip balm," to justify the Dodge Charger as their "last stand." Doritos even showed a guy who apparently was so desperate to just watch his game and eat Doritos that he pretended to die so he could lie in a casket filled with Doritos and a TV. While it's funny to see this portrayal of the backbone-less man, the theme that these marketers are counting on is that they can motivate him to buy their product by positioning it as the sorely needed rebellion that can make you a man again.
2. The Glorified Past - Thanks to Janet Jackson's malfunctioning boob - glorifying the past is something that just about every Super Bowl halftime show gives permission to do because of their feature on bringing in aging rock bands to perform. This year, this focus was used by Boost Mobile to show a reperformance of the 1985 Chicago Bears Super Bowl Shuffle, which managed to be both confusing and sad. In contrast, Flo TV had a spot using The Who song "My Generation" and offered a great montage of all of history's biggest TV moments - bringing home the message that our recent history is defined by moments shared on television, so make sure you always have your TV with you. Hyundai also used the tagline of "classical" to describe their new Sonata, Homeaway used a re-enacted scene from the movie classic National Lampoon's Vacation with Chevy Chase, and VW even brought back the "punch buggy" game.
   
3. The Direct Offer - One of the most underutilized types of ads at the Super Bowl are the ones that focus more on direct response through some type of special offer. This year, we saw two - the first from Dockers inviting America to go online to the URL www.dockers.com/freepants to presumably get a free pair (though it was actually just a sweepstakes). Then Denny's invited America to have a free breakfast on Tuesday morning. Surprisingly, these were the only two spots this year that focused as heavily on a direct response type of special offer - something that other advertisers like Teleflora, Taco Bell, Monster and several others could have easily added to their spots to make it more likely someone would actually take the next step and contact them.
4. The Unbranded Ad - This is the last theme I'll point to only because it seems so prevalent in Super Bowl ads. If you are in the world of Pharma and Healthcare, or a handful of other industries, you realize the potential power of an unbranded effort to reach an audience who may have an adverse reaction to a marketing effort that is overtly branded. Unfortunately, the Super Bowl is the one place where many brands focus so much on being entertaining that they forget entirely about how their brand is integrated into the message, which leads to a bunch of ads that may as well be unbranded because no one remembers what brand they were for anyway. This year, many of the Budweiser ads fell in this category, as did many of the more ordinary car ads such as the Acura ZDX ad or the Kia ads.

Taking these themes into account, the best spots of the Super Bowl were the ones that felt entirely unique, used memorable creative and actually drove home a strategic message. Here were some of my choices for the 5 Best Strategic Ads From Super Bowl XLIV:

1. Dove for Men* - In stark contrast to the theme of the emasculated man, Dove managed to do something entirely unheard of in an ad focused on men ... offer what could be considered a "girly" product by appealing to the man who is actually happy with exactly who he is. Using the tagline of being "comfortable in your own skin" - not only did they manage to use the creative to stand out, but the ad was powerful enough to remember for the women watching the game who may actually be the ones to buy the Dove products for him anyway.
   Dove Men+Care 2010 Super Bowl Ad @ Yahoo! Video
2. Cars.com - Another anti-take on the emasculated man, this ad featured the prodigy Timothy Richman knowing everything ... except for how to buy a car. The clear message behind the ad was that Cars.com has everything you need to know about buying a car, no matter how smart you think you are about everything else. Perfect appeal to the ego of a guy who thinks he knows it all, but needs somewhere to go to make sure he prove it when buying a car.
   Timothy Richman - Cars.com 2010 Super Bowl Ad @ Yahoo! Video
3. Audi Green Police - Having a car ad that stands apart from all the others is a tall order, but Audi managed to do it by taking a growing cultural trend and poking some fun at it. Everyone knows someone who is part of this "geen police" - the ones who demand that you recycle and be more responsible about how green you are. It is the ideal cultural background from which to position their new Audi A3 TDI as the "get out of jail free card" for being green. Great positioning for a car and ability to use a cultural lens of behaviour that is already happening today (ie - green police) to make it more impactful.
   Audi: Green Car @ Yahoo! Video
4. Homeaway - I had heard of this ad before it aired, but the execution was funny and took square aim at all the things people hate about hotels - the lack of space and the extra charges. In contrast, Homeaway offers to rent you an entire hom instead of just a room for your next vacation ... an area of travel that noone has established ownership over. The result was that they introduced themselves as the biggest player in a new area of travel accomodation that many Americans may not have considered before. A great use of the Super Bowl to launch a business with low awareness.
   HomeAway's "Hotel Hell Vacation" Trailer (featuring the Griswolds!) @ Yahoo! Video
5. Google - Lauded by many marketing pros as one of the best of the Super Bowl, it was not just the simplicity of Google's ad that had me paying attention. Through search after search, the ad managed to tell a story of a couple meeting in Paris, getting married and having a kid, but did it in a way that delivered Google's main message (and answer to its many critics as well as Microsoft's Bing who are promoting the idea of too many search results being back). Google's clear message - we may give you 10 million results, but we're damn good at giving you the one you really want first in that list, so who cares about the others. Pity we had to wait this long to hear Google's response, but when it finally came it was worth it.
   Google - Paris @ Yahoo! Video

*NOTE: Dove is an Ogilvy account and a current client, however I had nothing to do with this ad or with the Dove campaign and do not currently work with Dove in any way.