Digital Marketing Lessons from the Obama Campaign
While political pundits and marketing strategists alike will be dissecting the many strength’s of Obama’s strategy for years, there are several fundamental themes that are important for any digital marketer to understand…

Under the Hood – Martin Sexton Gets Social
Like all great musicians, Martin Sexton has a passionately devoted group of fans around the country. But being an independent musician means going it alone in today’s already fractured music scene without any major label support to reach new fans. So to to help promote his new album, Solo, we worked with Martin to create a social media marketing strategy that helped Martin tell his story of life on the road and reach a new audience…

And finally, Google posted an awesome Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. And while I agree with Micah’s perspective on SEO, this guide covers the best practice principles everyone should employ when it comes to optimizing their web site for search.

From the Google Webmaster Blog:

Our Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide covers around a dozen common areas that webmasters might consider optimizing. We felt that these areas (like improving title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text, and more) would apply to webmasters of all experience levels and sites of all sizes and types. Throughout the guide, we also worked in many illustrations, pitfalls to avoid, and links to other resources that help expand our explanation of the topics. We plan on updating the guide at regular intervals with new optimization suggestions and to keep the technical advice current.

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Church and State – The role of religion in modern consumer culture
In ad and media circles, where “irreverent” is a common term of praise, it’s easy to forget a simple fact: Many Americans are decidedly reverent. Amid all that’s new in the Internet era, age-old religious belief still plays a significant role in people’s lives, often influencing their relationship with the consumer culture they inhabit. For marketers who pay minute attention to other aspects of people’s behavior, it would be a blunder, if not a sin, to overlook this large factor in American life.

Marketing And The Economy; Why America Needs Obama And Coca-Cola
The task for marketers therefore is to explore more efficient ways to connect and listen to their consumers in order to reduce costs, while still maintaining a presence in the marketplace and connection to their consumers. It’s possible that this economy will force marketers to innovate, and finally begin the shift of massive, high-waste, traditional media budgets into more engaging, measurable interactive marketing initiatives.

The Economist Sums up the Financial Crisis
If you feel at a loss for words to describe the now global financial cover, this spoof cover floating around the internet for September’s Economist says it all…

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Created by Justin DIllon, the film is a cutting-edge model of “open source activism,” with the goal of ending slavery once and for all. Qui Diaz has an excellent analysis of the social media marketing taking place to promote the film and address the slavery crisis. Additionally, the film’s site explains:

There is a sea of change happening in human rights activism. The world’s issues cannot be solved alone by governments and non-profits, but require community-based participation. As a feature film, CALL+RESPONSE has the unique position of being not only a ground-breaking genre-bending film, but due to the fact that this project was funded completely through donations, it operates as a powerful movement with 100% of profits going to fund global field projects on the front lines of this issue.

There are 27 million people kept captive in slavery today. Go see Call + Response when it hits theaters and decide for yourself how you will address their cry for help.

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“A 15-year veteran NBC cameraman, Jim follows the US President wherever he goes. In recent years that has included all continents except South America and perhaps Antarctica. He’s passionate and proud of his old media work, but he understands and accepts the world is changing. “I am quickly becoming a dinosaur,” he reflects in our interview, and for that reason he has become immersed in social media.

Not only does he believe his social media work benefits him, he talks about how his individual efforts are helping NBC. People see him through social media as a human representation of the network. He knows at least one person who has returned to watching NBC news because of Jim’s Social media activities.”

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Read the full story here.

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That’s why I want to embrace this freshly released outpouring of opinions, loves, hates, fears and desires under four pillars of discussion that are part of the DNA of my Company and myself: Social Rights, Hard Times, Well-being and Political Landscape.

However, as Liz Fuller writes, “The question is whether customers will accept a social-awareness site from a $500 million dollar commercial enterprise.”

While Cole’s blog seems to be a consistent extension of his personal beliefs, as a consumer I’d be more impressed if I knew the organization’s business practices were in line with the rhetoric espoused on the blog. Consumers are too savvy to associate the brand with a social cause if nothing but a slogan-filled blog connects the two. Hopefully this blog proves to be a vehicle that reveals Kenneth Cole as a company that practices what it preaches.

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Now they’ve taken it a step further and introduced two-way texting, allowing people to text questions to the Obama team. Sadly, as this US News story highlights, if you’re going to offer a service, make sure you’ve got someone on the other end to respond:

U.S. News from southwestern Pennsylvania at 1:27 p.m. on Aug. 13, 2007: Where is senator Obama Campaigning this week?
*OBAMA at 1:27 p.m.: Thanks for your submission to Obama Mobile. Text HELP for help, STOP to quit. Std charges may apply. More info at www.barackobama.com/mobile
OBAMA didn’t reply further.

U.S. News from southwestern Pennsylvania at 11:56 a.m. on Aug. 15, 2007: Are you still offering a two way text service where I can ask questions?
OBAMA at 1:06 p.m. on Aug. 15, 2007: Sorry for the wait—you can check out the Senator’s schedule at barackobama.com. He’ll be in Iowa until the 18th. Thanks for getting in touch! -Becky ! HQ

U.S. News from northwestern Pennsylvania at 1:38 p.m. on Aug. 13, 2007: What will you do to prevent outsourcing of american jobs?
OBAMA at 6:10 p.m.: Thanks for caring enough to get in touch with the campaign—you can find more information at answercenter.barackobama.com Thanks – Becky HQ

U.S. News from Maryland at 1:44 p.m. on Aug. 13, 2007: How does your health care plan differ from the other Democratic candidates?
OBAMA at 5:15 p.m.: Barack believes each American deserves affordable & quality healthcare & is committed to achieving this in his 1st term:barackobama.com/issues/healthcare

U.S. News from central Virginia at 1:53 p.m. on Aug. 13, 2007: Hi! I’m wondering what barack’s favorite flavor of ice cream is. Thx! This is cool
OBAMA never replied. [This is a trick question; the candidate actually doesn't like ice cream.]

U.S. News from eastern Virginia at 2:11 p.m. on Aug. 13, 2007: What foreign policy expertise does Mr. Obama have to back up his promises on global terrorism and communication with volatile countries like Iran?
OBAMA at 5:12 p.m.: Barack has always been strongly against this war. He urges politicians to move away frm partisanship&think constructively to end it: barackobama.com/issues/iraq

U.S. News from eastern Virginia at 2:20 p.m. on Aug. 13, 2007: What does Mr. Obama think of “Obama Girl?”
OBAMA never replied.

U.S. News from Michigan at 2:57 p.m. on Aug. 13, 2007: Will your policy on the war in iraq change if the surge is shown in September to have made progress? Would you consider staying the course?
OBAMA at 5:12 p.m.: Barack has always been strongly against the war. He urges politicians to move away frm partisanship&think constructively to end it: barackobama.com/issues/iraq

U.S. News from New Jersey at 9:38 a.m. on Aug. 14, 2007: If elected would u support the prosecution of former Administration officials?
U.S. News from New Jersey at 9:47 a.m. on Aug. 14, 2007: Under an Obama Administration, would it be ‘legal’ to intercept this text without a warrant?
OBAMA at 7:42 p.m.: Thanks for caring enough to get in touch with your questions— you can check out barackobama.com/issues & answercenter.barackobama.com throughout the campaign.

*This is the initial “Thank You” response that was texted to all queries.

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