As new media channels continue to emerge at such a fast pace, consumers are getting product information from more and more sources. Some remain traditional news sources like newspaper or TV, yet specialty and peer sources are becoming more important. How important? In the new world of editorial marketing, unbiased, third-party endorsement can be three to seven times more valuable than paid advertising. And with today’s analytics, we can even be more specific in our goals.

In the Web 2.0 landscape, editorial marketing dovetails perfectly into the world of social media. Earned media can come from a variety of sources: professional news sources, specialty blogs, user-generated social media sites. The new goal is to use this influencer media to promote a product or service. The key is to push customers to social media to engage in a dialogue about the product/service benefits. The combination of product promotion by a credible source, followed by peer engagement, produces increased likelihood for acceptance.

We know an editorial marketing strategy is more than the “regularly scheduled press release” method. It requires ongoing partnerships with a variety of media to introduce the product/service and educate them. We must fashion a compelling story about the product/service and engage consumers to build loyalty.

The successful strategy must include:

* Identification of the business opportunity or challenge the campaign addresses. The more specific, the better.
* A campaign goal. The more measurable, the more successful it will be (product awareness, event attendance, friend building, relationship management, sales conversion).
* Alignment of goals with the marketing strategy, creative campaign and messaging to reach the audience.
* Implementation of proper editorial engagement and consumer response tactics
* Analysis and appropriate adjustment

Success from editorial marketing can be determined in myriad fashions. The goal may be a huge profile in a major association publication. It might be a simple as 20 event mentions in various area blogs. Or a coordinated deployment of message across traditional and social media channels, as in the case of a major client of ours.

Last year, we launched a new creative platform for the $100 million company using a unique tagline.

We recruited the company’s fans to be a part of the message development through a series of open “casting calls.”  Through carefully timed release and follow-up with local broadcast and newspaper writers, the story found its way to the front page of the Features section of the Courier-Journal and on 5:30p, 6p and 11p network-affiliate newscasts.  On-premise marketing materials at area locations directed potential participants to a micro-site for details, times and location.  The result was more than 200 people waited in line to tell their story on the two designated shoot days.

The segments gathered were immediately uploaded to a YouTube channel developed specifically for the campaign, allowing participants to share their segments with friends and family.  The YouTube site received move than 3,000 views in the week following.

We recently held a social media etiquette session with the account service team here at CM and thought we'd share our insights!

Basic Rule of Thumb:
If you wouldn’t say it at a cocktail party in front of 35 people, don’t say it on Facebook or Twitter.

• Our clients may see your updates. It’s okay to show your personality, but remember who’s reading!
• CurrentMarketing is an aspect of your personality; you may think what you write is your personal thought, but it reflects on your CurrentMarketing identity as well.
• No typos or incorrect grammar PLEASE! This is very important, especially if you are administering a group or tweeting.
• Use proper capitalization and punctuation.
• Don’t use abbreviations like L8 and 4U. Those are for texting.
• If you can’t say it in 140 characters, don’t use Twitter. Write a blog entry.
• Be transparent. When you use your personal Twitter or Facebook account to tweet about a client’s product, make your relationship to the product clear.
• Come up for air! Pause between updates. You shouldn’t tweet more than once every fifteen minutes, unless you are replying to another tweet. And, most of us should not tweet more than 2-3 times PER DAY. You shouldn’t update your Facebook status more than once during the workday hours – after hours, have at it.
• Post something at least 2 times per week. You don’t want a client to look you up, only to find that you have 
never tweeted, or your last tweet was more than a month ago. Same goes with Facebook.
• Keep small conversations private. If you know someone well enough to have their mobile number, text them or send them an instant message through Google chat. A good rule here – if your conversation requires more than 2 messages back and forth, move it to a more direct and one-to-one method of messaging.
• Limit the use of emoticons – most people find them annoying. ;)
• Type your post, then read it twice before hitting submit.
• Avoid posts like “waiting for 5:00” or “just working for the weekend.” It impacts our culture negatively and makes our clients think we don’t enjoy working at CurrentMarketing (and we all love it here!).
• Never “poke” a client. Never.
• Choose your profile picture carefully. The general thinking among social media discussions is that if you wouldn’t be proud to show your picture to your mom and dad, you shouldn’t post it.
• Be careful about using our client’s names when discussing the work we are doing. “Working on a pitch” is good. “Working on a pitch for Papa Johns, who just issued an RFP” is not so good.
• Don’t post something personal unless you want to be asked about it...by everyone. Airing grievances is generally a no-no on Facebook and Twitter - save disagreements for phone, email or a nice meal on your patio.

  Got any others we should consider?

As Geek In Charge at CurrentMarketing, I'm a tough boss -- a veritable taskmaster.

For the past few months in our new suite upstairs, I've denied the other geeks a conference table to meet at next to our monolithic white board. They've been forced to huddle near it standing!  I know, I'm horrible, but at least it amused me for a time.

However, even I tired of their incessant whining and mewing, so I finally bought our new table.  I tried to find one that would be as ugly, uncomfortable and torturous as possible.  I think I succeeded:

Pay no attention to the whiteboard, that is our secret programming language. It might look like:

A skull
A submarine
E=MC2 ---> Web 2.0

But don't ask, your mind couldn't even handle it.  Seriously.

Other than the new table, I've also forced upon them two hideously devious chores:

First of all, once every few weeks, someone in the Geek Suite needs to give a post-lunch presentation.  It can be on anything they've learned, discovered, taught, read or so on.  In a few weeks, I'll be hosting an advanced SQL presentation to talk about some neat tricks I've been using in a recent project.  And just today we had our first volunteer.  Jonathan brought in his Arduino/Flex/Nintendo Nunchuck kit he's been hacking on and shared his code and app via a projector onto the whiteboard (and using our new table!)

Secondly, everyone can use a small part of every week to work on their own personal project that benefits CurrentMarketing.  If it is personal, how does it benefit CurrentMarketing?  Well, there are lots of cool ideas floating around that we don't always have time to work on, or that are necessarily billable work.  Flash/Flex apps we want to make.  Widgets for websites that are drop-ins.  Process automators that we've always meant to do, but haven't.  Without deadline, without a project manager hanging over you, bounded only by their imagination.

Sickening right?  I know I'm evil ...

... but sometimes when I'm not looking, I think they might be enjoying all this.

Masochists I say.

For those of you who think in pictures, have I got a treat for you. Cooliris (ver. 1.10) is a free browser plug-in that lets you search the web visually.

Looking for an image on Google, Yahoo, Flickr, Picasa, deviantArt or video clip on YouTube? It all can be viewed on a gorgeous 3-D wall that in most cases seems to go on forever. After installing, your browser will be equipped with an icon that launches this 3D wall in full screen mode. You can also browse by category (new, entertainment, shopping, etc.) all within the same window.

But it doesn't stop there - you can view your iPhoto library or any other folder of images on your computer in Cooliris. Controlling the wall with the scroll ball on your mouse is not only very fluid, but also pretty dang fun too.

Even cooler - its available for iPhone. The recent update (ver. 1.4) adds Twitter integration and with the creation of a Cooliris account, the ability to save favorites, subscribe via RSS and much more. As Macworld put it in this article, "Cover Flow for Web browsers with a little Quick Look thrown in for good measure? Yep, that’s the gist."

Give it a look, words can't describe the cool factor here. And that's the point - no one reads words anyway, right?

We were back at again this year at Run for the Rose with a kick butt team, light rain, toy horses and of course the bottles of wine! Best part, no one on our team fell.

Thanks to the CurrentMarketing players who took part in the race while the rest of us stayed back at the office:   Allison, Nick, Brandon, Lindsay, Megan, Jonathan, Rob, Jacky, Donovan, Dennis, Mel, Cathy and Luke!

We have a red-headed copywriter. His name is Chris. He likes Jaws. And making enemies. We decided he was worthy of our interview process.

CurrentMarketing: What are you doing?
Chris Haberman: Working

CM: What else?
CH: Working on working on something else until I finish what I am working on.

CM: What's your favorite website?
CH: Currentmarketing.com

CM: [Eye roll] Now, really, what's your favorite site?
CH: Jesus

CM: Jesus is not a website, Chris.
CH: Okay! Retrojunk.com, which you should check out. 80s nostalgic junk.

CM: Where is your dock located?
CH: My doctor?

CM: Oh, you have a PC.
Luke (from afar): What a loser!

CM: What icon do you click most?
CH: Um.....Mozilla.

CM: What is the prettiest icon, in your opinion?
CH: Word

CM: MySpace? Facebook? LinkedIn? Eons?
CH: I have a Myspace page. I have a Facebook page, but I hardly ever go on.

CM: What's your problem?
CH: People keep asking me questions all day and I can't get anything done.

There are many things that signify the arrival of Spring at CurrentMarketing – Kentucky Derby Festival, open-toed shoes (Luke does love his Jimmy Choo's), tulips in the courtyard, the anticipation of Mustache June...

Nothing tells us it's spring more than our furry friends in the flower beds, though. Check it out.

Most people that work at the Derby Festival office (including my husband) are either counting days to Thunder (11 days away) or Derby (25 days away), but around CurrentMarketing, we count down the days to April 28th.

You may ask: "What is April 28th?"

To some, it is the day of the Run for the Rosé or the Pegasus Parade Preview. These are both exciting events that I personally attend, but still are not the reason for the countdown. We have a ton of hard-working crew members who put in countless hours leading up to the exalted day. April 28th is the day the agency sends off the final project out of 300 that get completed in a 3-month span in our shop. This day marks the weight that lifts from these tired but proud bodies and suddenly a burst of energy happens - just enough to lift one aching arm to suck down an ice-cold tequila shot, followed by a juicy lime squeeze and a celebratory toast and to the wonderful accomplishments of this amazing team.

There is still much more that needs to be done. 21 days is only three weeks away - a Lifetime in the Festival world.

I am so thankful for this great team that includes the Print Diva (Mel), the famous Dono-Wand (Donovan), our beloved Traffic Pixie (Laura), the Awesome Editor and Voice Talent (Rob), the Media Darlings (Katy, Ashley and Lindsay), the Phenomenal Creative Crew (Cathy, Dennis, Jim and Luke), our Incomparable Power Plant (Lisa), our Fearless Leader (Rick) and last, but certainly not least, my Co-pilot and Leader of the Pack, Jacky-of-all Trades (Jacky).

We have a metric pantload of new CurrentMarketing rank and file in our shop and it only makes sense to start showing them off to our followers. First up is Lindsay Trombatore, the unflappable bassist in the rock band that is the media department. Yeah, we have groupies. You know you love us, Jimmy D.

CurrentMarketing: What are you doing?
Lindsay: Cracking up in the media office.

CM: What's your favorite website?
LT: Oooh...www.hast.net. Just kidding! I love Facebook, obviously. I'm addicted to it. And someecards.com.

CM: Where is your dock located?
LT: It's on the left, right? Wait, I don't know.

CM: Move your mouse and find where the icons come up.
LT: Oh. Okay. It's on the bottom left.

CM: [Huge laughter as "bottom left" is not a choice for dock location]

CM: What dock icon do you click most?
LT: Toss up between iTunes and Firefox.

CM: What dock icon is the prettiest?
LT: Firefox. I like Firefox.

CM: MySpace? Facebook? Plaxo? LinkedIn?
LT: Facebook, hands down.

CM: What do you like about Facebook?
LT: Oh my god, it connects personal, professional, cultural...it's all forms of social media.

CM: And, finally, what's your problem?
LT: [Laughter] Um, my problem? It is that I am so random. And I can't find a house to live in.

I had a great time at SXSW:Interactive 2009 and I think going back next year is a definite. I'm no party goer like some of my other Louisville comrades, but I did get to meet a lot of people and get a great pulse on where all things interactive and social media-esque are going.

I do have a few notes to share though:

• Holy crap, you have to walk a lot.  Especially if you're on the other side of the bridge from downtown.  On the plus side, I had lunch with a bat in the hotel and got to check out the SoCo (Southern Congress) side of town.  Which means I got to see Leslie Cochran -- the link speaks for itself.
• How to talk to programmers and the developer/designer divide are big topics to be solved.  Katy Miller and I took part in a core conversation that turned into a complaint-fest.  So after saying our peace about how we approach the topic, we ditched out.  However, we impressed several people apparently, because we were sought out for additional comments for the next several days!
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a still a big "huh?" to a lot of people, as well as being a dirty word to others.  I had a great session that went over everything CurrentMarketing already preaches, and learned a bit here and there as well.
• Tony Hsieh is an awesome, humble speaker.  He talks the talk and walks the walk of Zappos culture and his presence on stage isn't dominating, it is subdued and personable.  Gave us plenty to think about concerning our own culture.  Always great to see how the big boys do it.
• A few too many of the panels I attended were more on the salesy side (I'm looking at you Adobe and Hulu). But overall I'd say 75% of the sessions I attended were either reinforcing what I already knew/thought or gave me plenty to think about for days after.
• iPhone development appears as I had surmised from looking at the outside:  painful.  I sat in on a iPhone programming for web developers (like me) session and came away with lots of "We don't know why you have to do X" and "Yeah, it is confusing, but you sometimes have to do Y".  That and Objective-C is ugly.  The Interface Builder is sweet though.
• There is plenty of free beer to be had.  Nothing much more to say about that.  Just lots of free, beautiful beer.
• Giveaways were a big thing.  Both Zappos and Adobe had similar Match 5 Cards type of games.  And in one session, Adobe gave away a Master Collection of their suite of software.  Plus, I came home with about 10 new tshirts, not all of which fit me, but still.
• The Austin Convention Center was designed by a madman.  You can take an escalator from the 1st to the 3rd floor, but if you want to get to the 4th floor you have to go to a completely different escalator on the other side of the building -- and it doesn't connect to the 3rd floor.  One SXSW volunteer tried to convince me that I was already on the 4th floor, not the 3rd, when I went asking for directions.
• And finally:  SXSW Interactive is the place to be to stay on top of the curve and to check signals that you're going in the right direction.  It is also the place to be to see a bunch of social media nerds getting drunk and socializing outside of Twitter and Facebook, their natural habitat.