iSuperBowl

Along with 97 million other people, I watched the Super Bowl last Sunday evening. Along with over 200 other people, I tweeted during the Super Bowl about the game and of course the ads.

On the Friday before the Super Bowl, Robert Rosenthal invited all members of the facebook group, What I Saw at the Direct Marketing Revolution,
to join him on Twitter to comment about the game.

Our family had opted out of Super Bowl parties this year, so Rosenthal's invite was a great way for my family to be part of a virtual party and still squeeze in toddler baths, homework and make little one's bedtimes.

So a little before kick-off, I logged into Twitter and saw this tweet from Jeremiah Owyang:



Jeremiah created an easy ad critic rating system and dubbed his experiment “the twitterbowl”.

So my family and I found ourselves evaluating ads on a 1-5 scale. Our kids took turns sitting in my lap or near me watching the Super Bowl conversation unfold on twitter.com. Our 4 yr old asked me to change my twitter profile picture from “a cartoon” (an avatar) to “real” (a photograph.) I’d read them comments and we’d debate other people’s ratings.



I was truly surprised with how engaged I stayed with the twitterbowl. I didn’t venture off, multi-task online (do bills, catch up on email, etc.) as I thought I would. I was glued to the twitterbowl and occasionally looking up at the TV to check out the game and watch the ads. Occasionally, I’d venture to the URL posted with the ad, such as Tide’s mytalkingstain.com (Loved it!), but everything I did online during the game was about the game. For someone with adult ADD, this is a feat.

As posts came in literally seconds apart, I was amazed at the variance in ranking. Commercials I loved, others absolutely hated. Also, during halftime as I was doing laundry, helping kiddos with baths, etc, I carried my mobile phone with me to keep tabs on the twitterati pulse via m.twitter.com on the half time entertainment and ads.

The reason I titled this iSuperBowl is because, this was the most interactive Super Bowl I’ve experienced. Where the pulse was immediate, compelling and twitterati controlled. Of course, I went to the Super Bowl spot’s microsites when there was a call-to-action (did I say how much I loved Tide's ;>); however the true online buzz, from my perspective, was pure community commentary – again another example of
community sourcing, twitterati-style.



To view the results of Jeremiah’s experiment, please see his recap post.

Follow me on Twitter, twitter.com/zenaweist.

Jeremiah's post: Defining Online Community

As I have become more entrenched in social media over the last few months, I have experienced some fairly impressive social networking moments. Most of events have been wide-sweeping with major buzz to boot, others have been...I guess what you would call little online whispers - very little conversations but the content is extremely important to me.

Some of my non-work related social networking highlights include: receiving an endearing "pay it forward" compliment on facebook; being part of Beth Kanter's amazing efforts with the help of Chris Brogan to raise enough money ($10/contributor) within 24 hours to send a Cambodian woman, Leng Sopharath, to college; helping the fight against breast cancer through Frozen Pea Fridays: experiencing bumrushing the charts for Joseph Jaffe's Join The Conversation; having my nieces and nephew choose to friend me on MySpace and Facebook, being interviewed by Kim Dushinski for her soon-to-be released mobile marketing book; and, yet another moment today with Jeremiah.

This morning Jeremiah set out to define "online community" through a posting on his Web Strategy blog, followed up with twitter dialogue and blog conversation. He is asking the community to hone in on its self-defined term until the definiton "online community" melds into that which it is...real-time.

Community sourcing at its finest.

I'm looking forward to this community-made and endorsed "online community" definition to be posted on wikipedia.

Social Media Buzzwords and Twitter WOM

Ah, it's days like today that make me so happy to be part of the everchanging social media landscape.

This morning through Pete Blackshaw's Facebook group, Consumer-Generated Media, Pete directed me to his ClickZ article, "Official 2008 Buzzword Forecast."

Pete is a passionate, enthusiastic speaker; a cutting-edge marketer; and, IMHO a social media guru. He calls it like he sees it (and 9 out of 10 times, he nails the trend at hand) and he is personable, meaning he let's people in - so he's authentic regarding work, play and family.

Yep, and there's no kick back for me on this...I only know Pete through webinars, his blogs, and facebook. I'm touting him only because his blog is relevant to my work and he writes relevant, conversational posts in a way that helps me educate through out my organization without overwhelming.

Anyway, Pete's Buzzword Forecast is a must read and share. He has a pulse on socnet subjects marketers are dealing with, terms we will be using and his defensive brand strategies are spot on.

And another great post of Pete's is his post on Peter Kim's Top 20 Marketing Blogs.

And here's the other 12/11 social media occurrence that I had to write about, Jeremiah Owyang's post on Twitter. Jeremiah's current gig is a Forrester senior analyst and he is best known for his blog, Web Strategist.

In his blog post today, Jeremiah talks about the changes he is experiencing with Twitter. Those that follow me know I'm all about this microblogging utility. Twitter has changed the way I consume media as with many others as well.



Jeremiah tweeted about his post and low and behold, look how many people have commented. Over 200 the last time I checked. It appears his post is so popular his host server is down at this time. Twitter is lagging today as well, maybe it has to do with the Jeremiah buzz as well. WOM is going strong on Twitter today.

On Twitter:
Follow Pete Blackshaw: http://www.twitter.com/pblackshaw
Follow Jeremiah Owyang: http://www.twitter.com/jowyang
Follow me: http://www.twitter.com/zenaweist

Social Media Snack Done Right

I follow some social media strategist on Twitter as their tweets typically provide snippets of industry commentary. These 140 character cliff notes help me quickly shift through the vast about of social media information out there and find what's relevant to me - *right* now.

This morning, it was Jeremiah Owyang's tweet that caught my eye:




The middle tweet in particular, given that I'm in web marketing. I clicked on the link to Jeremiah's blog and proceeded to read the specific posts that he recommended.

It was quick, simple and really h e l p f u l.

Twitter Utility - yes, there is real value in this app

If you don't have any idea what Twitter is all about, Wikipedia's definition and this quick Twitter 101 video from Nick Danforth should get you up-to-speed.

Ok, I have to admit the first time I checked Twitter out I couldn't make heads or tails of it. What was all the buzz about? It looked random and a little self absorbing. Really, who cares what I'm doing in 140 characters or less????

Then an online savvy friend, Melinda, who is a usability guru told me her twitter hooked story - the twitter event that made Melinda a tweet lover.

She followed a close friend from the first pangs of labor through child birth. This friend was across the country, and Melinda received updates instantaneously on the labor and birth event. Melinda was overjoyed to virtually hold her friend's hand through labor. And her friend has the history of her labor, in her own words - one 140 character message at a time.

This hook made sense to me.

I could stay up-to-date with friends that I didn't keep in daily or weekly touch with by following them on twitter. So I thought I'd give it a shot.

I hit an immediate roadblock. None of my friends, even my online friends, n o n e of them were using twitter, except for Melinda, who is always 3 steps ahead of trend :). I felt bleeding edge and a little scared. It reminded me of when I bought Broadvision stock back in '95. What the hell was I doing?

So, as I had done with BVSN, I went looking for business friends. In this case instead of stock counsel, I was looking for business-related friends that might be twittering.

They were easy to find...my facebook counterparts and socnet savvy thought leaders were out there twittering away such as Seth Godin, Chris Broganand Jeremiah Owyang. These master bloggers whom I gleam extremely valuable cutting edge information from daily - were of course all twittering.

With twitter, I immediately started getting 140 character golden nuggets - cliff notes of their blogs or random bouts of knowledge. These business-related tweets made twitter an instant utility for me and a multi-checkpoint daily ritual.

Then came my twitter hook. My mom was diagnosed with brain cancer a couple of weeks ago. This wasn't too much of a shock as she had survived stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer 6 years ago. My siblings, father, mother and I were headed to Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis to tackle this tumor (which ended up being a 3x4 mass) with the cancer team.

I knew once I got to Barnes, I wouldn't have time to check work, home email nor text all my extended family, friends, and co-workers regarding status. You would think we'd have plenty of time, but we had been through this before and the Barnes staff swarms. There is NO downtime and we knew that 24/7 resolution was what we were in for.

So I sent out a few mass emails (work, friends, fb friends) and notified people via a few blogs. I let everyone know to follow me on twitter/zenaweist or go to my fb profile to view my latest twitter update.

I was surprised at how many not online savvy folks just winged it, signing up to follow me without issue, and how a few online zealots didn't take me up on my twitter request.

Anyway, I started twittering Sunday night before we left for STL. I kept updating my tweets through the entire week of testing, testing, seeing 25 drs and residents in 48 hours, testing, surgery, ICU, recovery - YES,
R E C O V E R Y! WAHOO!

The tweets helped keep me calm through the whole, stressful ordeal. Having to post in 140 characters or less, it helped me to focus, not be hysterical. Just knowing 20 or so people were following me and my family, giving Mom their support - it was powerful. Knowing those 20 were updating countless other people, it took the update burden off my family.

People sent us words of encouragement through twittering back, calling, posting on my fb wall, and emails. This circle of followers kept my family positive. Being positive helped me, my family, and especially my mom.

And I'll continue with updates as "Miracle Mom" heads into radiation next week.

And news on the followers that signed up to get updates from me, they aren't just lurking. They are creating their own hooks as well. This is a fantastic app with utility. My hook is just 1 of 1000s that happen everyday.

Share your twitter hook with me, I'd love to read about it.

UPDATE: Here's Jeremiah Owyang's insightful Twitter post.