In 2007 Anheuser Busch created a commercial called “The Swear Jar” that they housed on bud.tv (see above). That video went viral and got reuploaded all over Youtube.  And who can forget the Snickers “Do Something Manly” commercial? A commercial that made it to TV and then got removed.

Banned television commercials are some of the most viral videos on the internet and they save a lot of money in the marketing budget.

Too Much For TV

The majority of banned commercials will get taken off television or never make it to television because their content is too inappropriate. The Snickers commercial, “Do Something Manly,” is the perfect example. It was named one of the top 10 best Super Bowl ads that year, but was considered to be homophobic by several humanities groups. The ad got kicked off of television, uploaded to the internet and has now been remade, remixed and re-uploaded over and over again; easily quadrupling the original viewership.

Never Too Much For The Internet

Thats right, some brands intentionally make their commercials too inappropriate for television, but just shy of explicit to keep them on YouTube. PETA and Budweiser have frequently released commercials digitally that are almost too inappropriate for YouTube with intentions of getting their brand recognized on social media and the blogosphere.

Not only brands, but activist groups that can’t afford to have a television advertising buy will take the risk just to get recognized.

Who wins?

These banned commercials and risque digital videos are getting shared via social media and reposted on blogs at an exponential rate. The consumer wins, right? Of course they do, they get social clout when their friends enjoy the video. They get traffic when their blog is linked to for posting the videos. Everyone wins, especially the brand.

The people are getting what they want (traffic and laughs) but the brands are the ones who are cashing in. Brand’s save tens of thousands of media dollars by using viral distribution. The viewers do all the marketing work for them by sharing these videos within small contained communities.

How Does It Happen

Not every video on the internet has the potential to go viral. The content in the video has to be able to grab the attention of a certain group of people in order for them to want to share it.

In an interview with Lucas Watson, the Vice President of global video sales at Youtube, Watson brings up three key ingredients that can help a video reach viral ad success. According to Watson a viral video requires either human insight, conversation ignition or emotional connection. He says that brands that understand how to connect with their audience or create tension are more successful when it comes to video advertising.

What’s the Secret Ingredient?

A Study done by the website Buzzfeed suggests that friends are the most common influencers in content that goes viral. Viral content starts within small groups of friends rather than content shared by large influencers. Large influencers may be able to reach a larger range of people, but their content  usually doesn’t last long.

Two very similar, but different forms of sharing. When a user shares content on social media it is like they are using a bullhorn, putting the content out there for everyone to hear. In real life users do not do that. They share ideas in one-on-one conversations or group discussions. Imagine if users shared content in real life the same way they shared content online. Some people would listen, others would walk past wondering who is this kid with the bullhorn?

Effective viral video content online needs to be something that people can engage with on a human level. The amount of social media shares only get’s content so far. The secret ingredient is making content powerful enough to elicit an actual conversation between two individuals.

1) Hi, we’re Digital Surgeons, and we’re addicted to meetings. We’re currently 90 days clean of pointless meetings, but sometimes we still think about sending calendar invites to co-workers for no real reason. Harvard Business Review helped us, and maybe it can help you, overcome your addiction to meetings.

2) Stressing about an upcoming design interview? Trying to land your first job? Or maybe you’re a freelancer trying to get back into the stable employment game. The design team at Digital Surgeons has been in all of the above situations at some point in their career. Some of them have even been on the other side of the table doing the hiring. It’s through these collective experiences we were able to put together a comprehensive list of tips for Design Instruct on how to ace a design interview.

3) Until we are all replaced by robots (could be sooner rather than later), humans will only be able to perform one task at a time. So what happens when you need a designer to do a website for one client and a logo for another? Enter the moral dilema of resource thievery that project managers face daily, as evidenced in this Dilbert comic. Also, you should take time to poke around the rest of the blog. It has some really great writing on the topic of digital project management.

4) We’re never too proud to tip our hat to great digital campaigns even if we may not have been behind them. This campaign from Ray-Ban is one of those examples. It is perfectly on brand and combines mobile, social, digital and experiential. Everything we like to see.

5) Have you met our Tech Director, Chris Fidao? If not, you should. On top of being relentlessly hilarious, he is also incredibly skilled at his craft and always willing to teach. He demonstrates that passion for teaching with his tutorial on creating restful APIs in Laravel4 for Net Tuts.

6) Where does the future of E-commerce lie? For those in the know, they realize there is a land of opportunity in digital video. Making videos “shoppable” drastically increases the chances of a sale and it is still in it’s infancy. Here’s a look at a few of the technologies available and where the industry is going in this Agency Post article.

7) Our mad scientist and director of interactive, Aaron Sherrill, offers some tips on how to not overuse Jquery in your development projects.

8) Fast Company shows us what a startup needs to be successful in 2013… A couple of internet famous tweens talking about it. How much does it cost to buy children these days?

9) The devil is always in the details, and here are some great details on how to prepare your images for the web. Why design something beautiful only to have the images look subpar?

10) Pete Sena spends the small amount of time he isn’t working or sleeping combing the internet for new tools and resources. He forgoes a normal social life and sleep cycle for the benefit of others; a digital Mother Teresa if you will. Here are the resources Pete found for designers and front-end developers last month. The man is a saint, and all he asks for in return is a quick follow on Twitter.

What the hell is SnapChat you ask? It is a mobile application that allows for real time picture/video chatting with friends. It is also the most demonized youth fad since…whatever the last thing was. It is widely accepted that Snapchat serves but one purpose: for millennials to spam pictures of their genitals to each other. Or so major media and blogging outlets would lead you to believe. Why are we even talking about this; is the team Digital Surgeons actually just a bunch of degenerate Snapchat sexting enthusiasts? Yes, but that’s not the only reason we are talking about Snapchat. Snapchat is not actually based around sexting. Snapchat is a force to be reckoned with in the social sphere and it is only a matter of time before brands begin utilizing it to create unique consumer experiences.

Why SnapChat?

After only a year of existence, SnapChat processes over 50 million images and videos. Every single day. Yeah, give yourself a second to wrap your head around that statistic. For comparison, Instagram has 5 million photos uploaded to it daily. And since we are name dropping other social platforms, we might as well make mention of the David vs. Goliath battle that Snapchat recently came out ahead on. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Snapchat should be blushing at how much Facebook admires their platform. Zuckerberg himself took 12 days to copy Snapchat’s entire platform and release it as “Poke”. The best part of the Poke application? What a failure it is. Snapchat remains in the top 5 free apps while Poke doesn’t crack the top 100. Yikes.

A Sense of Intimacy

Is there any greater connection in the world than a one-on-one face-to-face relationship? Is there anything more powerful than staring deeply into someone’s eyes? We have long believed that the best way for a brand to succeed is to form these relationships with consumers. Social media allows brands to easily become personal again. Marketers have often lauded the public nature of traditional social platforms; rallying around cries of “virality” and “earned impressions” from brands on social media. Snapchat is not designed to be socially shared or accessible to all. The interactions are one-on-one and fleeting, you know, like real human interactions. A platform such as Snapchat lets brands not only get personal, but have that real face-to-face contact. A campaign will prove definitively how engaged a brand’s fans really are. Are they engaged enough to hold a private conversation to unlock content?

MMMMmmMillennials

If there’s one word that get’s marketers drooling, it’s the mention of the oh-so-sought after millenial consumer. That rambunctious 13-21 year old consumer that is full of disposable income and also thinks your brand sucks. They hate your banner ads and hate your email blasts even more. They aren’t even watching your commercials on TV… they’re too busy taking pictures of themselves and sending it to their friends on Snapchat. What’s a brand to do? Keep buying the same old ineffective ad units but infuse them with “wacky humor”? Snapchat is an untouched platform inhabited almost entirely by millennials; the next move is obvious.

Why we like Snapchat

We like Snapchat for same reasons we liked Facebook and Twitter when they came onto the scene: they’re cool and possibilities are endless. Snapchat provides marketers and brands a platform for interacting with consumers in humorous and personal way. Imagine if you got a SnapChat from the Burger King King or the Michelin Man? It’s funny. It’s slightly unsettling. It’s a great brand experience.

The Facebook Poke platform was recently utilized by an Israeli Lingerie brand; sending a ten second titillating video of a model putting on the brand’s tights. Clearly there is the safety of the Facebook name behind Poke but we believe the real success will be using the SnapChat platform. For a platform that has gained notoriety for being exclusively for sexting, wouldn’t it be interesting to see brand’s push the envelope?  We hope 2013 brings us a brand that is brave enough to connect with their customers in a bold, visual and 10-second manner.

Historically as an agency, we have always believed that social media should be handled in-house. We recommend that if an in-house social media team is possible, brands should pursue that option. It now seems that brands are finally catching on as Nike has recently moved all of its social media activity in-house and there are rumblings that other iconic brands are poised to do the same. We don’t believe there is any black and white definitive answer to the social media question such as “All brands should do social media in-house” or “All brands should hire agencies to handle every aspect of their social media strategy” or “social media is the devil”. We will, however, try to shine some light on the facts to making the decision to bring social in-house vs. hiring an agency.

Reasons why social media might not be possible to accomplish in-house

There are two kinds of brands that cannot have internal social media teams: Brands that are too big for it to make sense and brands that are too small. Holding companies that have multiple and, in some cases, conflicting brands within their portfolios will always find it hard to act in real-time while being creative, conversational, and innovative. They are simply too big and often too corporate to pivot quickly, take on resources/risk internally and, more often then not, won’t have the core competencies to direct/manage social media teams. It makes more sense for them to just manage a roster of qualified agencies that ooze with communications prowess.

Small brands are a different story. Smaller brands are typically either short-handed or not willing to risk adding a head or two to their staff budget in order to bring social media in-house.  Time is usually their enemy in this case and they lack truly qualified experts or utility players that can set content strategy and goals, read and analyze data, gain insights, write, design, and manage multiple platforms and tools. In this scenario it becomes a much smarter investment to just find a strategic agency partnership.

There is also a big technology layer to social media so both big and small brands will need to have a firm understanding of how these platforms work, forecast how they will change and put the brand on the right track for sustained success.

Five tips for bringing social media in house

1. Clear cut goals should be established beforehand: Think of the internet as the Sahara desert. Large, unknown, and unforgiving. Without setting clear goals for your social media activities, you might as well be hiking across the Sahara and hoping for the best. YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE A BAD TIME. You need to figure out which metrics are important and why. Do you want to increase followers? Why? What value will both parties obtain and how can you align your strategies to that. If you want to increase interactions volume may most likely not be the answer. Maybe the goal of these efforts is to drive traffic or media impressions to your brand or site. Figure these out ahead of time so you don’t end up in a situation where you need to kill and eat a co-worker to survive the oppressive desert conditions.

2. Get the right people on the bus: If you’re going to keep social media in-house, you need to have the right dedicated resources for the job. It’s not an interns job, nor the job of a secretary part-time. Asking your already inundated brand manager to do it is not going to cut it either. Try to hire and match the credentials against capabilities within a communications agency. This person should be accustomed to writing within your brand voice and essence. They should be have a fundamental understanding of all social media platforms: the technology that powers them, the different ways in which users interact on them and how to track all of these activities. These hires should have a strategy on how to translate your brand style into a theme based on each platform (i.e What is the visual theme of your Instagram feed?).

Be forewarned, upon posting the social media position to the internet you will be inundated with responses from recent college grads who fancy themselves as “social media experts.” The sad truth is that just because someone reposts Mashable articles for their 200 followers to enjoy does not make them an expert. Likewise, steer clear of people that call themselves gurus (just because we hate that word here). Lastly, and most important, are the numbers. Just because a person has 10,000 followers or likes doesn’t mean they are popular or know social media. They could have easily bought the followers or joined a #followback club in an effort to boost their profile for people like you! Look at engagement metrics, look through their connections (likes, followers, etc) to make sure they are real and that their connections are real as well.

3. Social media is not a “set it and forget it” solution: Why is social media popular? Because this generation is made up of sad, shut-in mole people who prefer digital friendship? Maybe, but also because it is entertaining, constantly fresh and easily digestible. We live in a real-time society. Whether it be research, reviews, feedback, whatever, you have to be prepared for anything and everything. An unexpected cultural event can be a great platform to pivot off of. Your brand’s content needs to be realtime. Tune in 24/7 because your consumers are. No brand that posts on Facebook and thinks “Phew, that should be good for the month,” will be successful.

4. Proper tools should be purchased: Agencies don’t provide social media services powered by magic. Behind the curtain is a myriad of software solutions for listening, engagement, analytics, development, promotions and reporting. It generally won’t make financial sense for you to purchase all of these softwares for your in-house efforts, but you will certainly need to pick and choose the strongest offerings. Some platforms do more then others. Some integrate with other software like CRMs, marketing automation platforms or email systems. Do your research, go through the demos, and then do more research. Oh, there goes that time thing again.

5. There needs to be buy-in at every level: Social media is the constant and public voice of your brand. For that reason, there needs to be input from every level, especially the highest level; yes, we’re talking about the Wizard of Oz him/herself. The CEO might understand why social media is important to a brand, but they also need to understand how valuable their input is. The biggest asset of having an in-house team is the close proximity to leadership; make sure you’re taking advantage of that close proximity to accurately disseminate the brand’s voice and to take the real-time value you’re getting from your consumers and turn them into actions. That is the magic and that will turn you into a truly social brand.

Remember, whichever approach you are taking or planning to take isn’t going to happen over night. There is no silver bullet to solving the social-media “problem” or everyone would be awesome at it. Social media is a constantly evolving communications landscape which requires dedication, expertise and a wide array of skills that cannot be done by one single person. In most cases, a mixture of in-house and partnerships with agencies, consultants or production houses end up being the lions share of how brands are resourcing this problem today.

We’d love to get your thoughts and philosophies on social media and how you are currently resourcing that.

Digital Surgeons offers social media services at every level… from consulting and building in-house teams and strategies to full content creation and community management services. See us in action or give us a shout. Either way thanks for stopping by.

Marketing:

Video will get bigger as a medium

People aren’t getting any less lazy in 2013. Why read a blog post when the same information can be conveyed to you in a 30 second video? With streaming quality increasing and camera prices decreasing, in 2013 it will be easier than ever to produce and then distribute content.

Inbound marketing will grow within brands and businesses

The role of the content strategist will rise in conjunction. Strategic content will drive inbound marketing efforts and increase the need for full-time employees to curate that content.

International will be the new domestic, for many

The internet has made our very large world navigable from the comfort of our couches. The same will be said about ecommerce in 2013. With exciting young companies such as FiftyOne making American brands easily attainable all over the world, the term “foreign markets” might begin to seem a bit dated in 2013.

The idea of thinking global and acting local will be turned on its side with businesses thinking local and acting global.

Experiential and brand experiences will be the new website

The standard HTML homepage will increasingly be blown out of the water by interactive elements and experiences that surpass digital.

Mobile will finally start to be a real concern for marketers

This will force us to be better at delivering better mobile experiences (responsive, adaptive, context driven): This 2013 prediction is nearing the ranking of “Broken Record” in the marketing world for how often it is discussed. The conversation keeps occuring because of the astronomical amount of data pointing towards mobile dominance in 2013. Morgan Stanley is predicting that there will be more mobile devices (tablets and phones) accessing the internet than traditional computers (laptops and desktops) in 2013 for the first time EVER.

The term big data will be abused as agencies promise magic insights based on analytics

Data regarding demographics and reach will be the driving factor behind marketing decisions in every area. More media outlets will hire more statisticians, developers and computer scientists following the wild success of Nate Silver’s election coverage for the NY Times. Punditry will suffer at the hands of big, meaningful data.

Brands as platforms will be a big aspect of many brands content strategy

The past few years have a seen a much bigger push for both content and innovation from brands. Brands that have pushed the envelope have consistently won both critical acclaim and increases in revenue. 2013 will show an increase in brands pushing the envelope in terms of product creation and new business units in an attempt to excite consumers.

Brands will start really listening to their customers

And, thus, a new form of advertising will be born where the brands act as the facilitator for what the customers collectively agree they want. The importance of data and brand advocates as well as the amount of tools available will aid this trend.

Social Media

We will see more social media gurus

As social media grows in popularity, so too grows the number of 20 somethings who claim to be experts. What exactly qualifies one as an expert, or a “guru”, is up for interpretation so in 2013 you will see an even larger amount of people “interpreting” themselves that way.

Social media agencies of record will grow

The rationale will be a bigger need for social CRM support and influencer programs. As the importance of social media grows, the need for experts in the field will become equally important. No gurus here.

Pinterest will only get bigger

Clearly written in the Pinterest mission statement, it says: “There is always more room for cute cupcake recipes and shirtless Jake Gyllenhal pictures”. We kid, it doesn’t say that (but it should). For all of the potential knocks against Pinterest it is still a beautifully designed platform and concept that has miles to go before it sleeps (see: dies like friendster and myspace). Brands are currently struggling to use it for marketing purposes already without an available public API. Once a public API is released to developers in the coming year, the possibilities are endless.

Twitter will keep stepping on toes

Twitter burned some bridges this year with moves like ending firehose access and cutting itself from Instagram.

Facebook will be a-ok

It has been quite a tumultuous year for Facebook, but we’re still behind them 100%. Their innovation related to ad units as well as the addition of Gifts this year has shown the companies continued focus on sustainable, business minded innovation. It’s tactical moves such as these that will allow them to return to a share price over $30.

Brands social interactions will have to get more personal and creative in 2013

This is due to the lack of polarizing global events (Olympics, Elections, etc.) News jacking will need to be a bit more inventive as the topics won’t be as predefined or dominating.

Retail outlets that stock products and brands voted on by its customers via social media

Give the people what they want! Social media gives everyone a voice and in 2013 we will see retail outlets begin listening to that voice a lot more closely while stocking their shelves.

Design:

More Pinterest copycats

We’re starting to see it already, the term “Pinterest-style” has infiltrated marketing vocabulary when discussing grid-like visual design. While we love Pinterest, we cannot promote additional copycat designs for EVERY situation. In addition, sites like The Fancy and Wanelo will continue to pop up and attempt to pull revenue away from Pinterest.

Infographics will have to step it up to maintain relevance

The one page “factsheets” are a dime a dozen and won’t cut it anymore. Everyone and their mothers are creating infographics now. It’s hard to imagine a piece of information that hasn’t been visualized in some sort of goofy cartoon format. Audiences are now almost as blind to infographics as they are to the formalized studies that the data originated from. Data must be visualized in real time, interactive formats in 2013. With information changing so quickly, static content is no longer appropriate to create.

Web design will shift to a more app-like style

And will, in turn, accommodate for responsive layouts.

Vertical and collapsible navigation will become more prominent.

With a larger focus on the end user in modern design, choices need to be avaliable. Maybe someone doesn’t want to be able to navigate. Maybe they want their website to look uncluttered. Features such as collapsible navigation will become common place as the end users are given the tools to alter the web design experience to their preference.

Minimal color blocked design will be the new trend

Microsoft will (wrongly) get the credit. Color blocking has been a trend within digital and outside this season. We’ve seen color blocking gain momentum in fashion as well. Color blocking is great for breaking up content, categorizing information and creating more visually appealing design.

Technology:

Mobile Payment, not just for Starbucks anymore

Even banks have hopped on this trend with new tools such as Chase Quick Pay and V.me from Visa. Not only will the exchange of money between friends become digital, but tools like Passbook will allows users to pay through their phone.

More home automation and sensor/app driven combinations

The Nest is just one of many tools that will arrive in 2013 and force you to ask “How did I ever live without this?” From security measures to heating your place, your home will be just that much nicer when you walk through the door.

The year of Real-Time

Bidding, consumer engagement, customer service. For better or worse, the internet has allowed for instant gratification and that is what consumers now expect. Digital technology will have to operate in real time or risk the backlash of the angry internet consumer.

One-click checkout will be the norm

Amazon introduced it, the digital world adopted it. One-click checkout has become a minimum expectation for not only Amazon, but also Apple, Google and many other online retailers. More profit for retailers, more goodies shipped to your door!

The rise of Linux

The Linux desktop (via Ubuntu) will finally start getting some recognition due to a perfect storm of Valve throwing it’s full weight behind it (in order to release it’s own Linux powered steam console), canonical working with hardware vendors and game developers, and the arrival of windows 8 driving some users away. It won’t become a major player, but all of a sudden people who wouldn’t have known about Linux will hear about it this year. The niche PC gaming enthusiasts may begin defecting. It will also continue to gain traction in foreign governments and education, but the U.S. won’t look away from its Android and iOS devices long enough to notice. Mostly, as mobile devices become more popular and gaming on Linux becomes more capable, this upcoming year will set the stage for revolution in the PC gaming that could revitalize the industry while simultaneously making Linux a big player for the consumer.

Saas (Software as a service) and Pass (platform as a service) will grow among business

The ease of delivery and constant support will cause “____ as a service” offerings to continue to grow in 2013. Cloud based software is projected to double by 2015. Businesses have so many different options to choose from as well, with established companies in the space such as Oracle and Salesforce being outshined by a myriad of innovative startups.

The 10-foot user interface setup will start to become more commonplace as TV’s get smarter

More than this, the multi-device experiences will become more common and it will be standard for the mobile device will supplement the content on your television. Companies will see this like they saw the world wide web & try to abuse it for marketing.

Misc:

Second screen experience

chatter will continue but the numbers still won’t catch up fast enough. It’s going to take a universally accepted platform for this phenomenon to become common place; hashtags on twitter just won’t cut it

Startups will be fewer and farther between

We predict that investors will wise up and realize that so many of them have no business plan or plans for profitability. Current startups that offer free services will look to monetize.

Television manufacturers create a TV with a built-in motion sensor

After the success of the Microsoft Kinect and Smart TVs in the past few years, it makes sense for television manufacturers to cut out the middle-man (Microsoft’s Xbox 360) and to begin offering motion sensing capabilities directly

Up for Debate:

You’ve heard our two cents (at least), but what do you forsee for 2013? Our office couldn’t decide on these major topics, so let’s hear it.

Instagram

The social network had a fantastic 2012 with the $1 billion acquisition by Facebook and a user base surpassing 100 million. However, a recent Terms of Service chance (effective Jan. 16) gives considerable control over photos to Instagram and has the newly acquired 100 million ready to flock. Will Instagram overcome the negative press and suspicious users or will it fall into the social media graveyard?

Apple

As rumors swirl of the next iPhone and the long-awaited Apple TV, our staff continues to remain undecided on Apple’s future. Some think the enormous stock value and 2013 iDevices will keep the loyal fanboys and girls, while others feel Samsung has made significant advances and Apple’s lack of innovation this year will cause the company to suffer. What does 2013 have in store for Apple?

QR Codes

While we’ve never been fans of the QR code trend, we have seen them everywhere this year: in subway tunnels, on street signs, in magazines. We tend to prefer more enriching experiences (augmented reality anyone?) but meanwhile QR codes sneak their way in as a touchpoint for many campaigns. Will QR codes become more popular or fall short?

“The deadline of the world has been extended,” declared triumphant anthropologists. “The universal consensus is that the Mayans knew we would need more time to get the ending right.”

While the new calculations refute the destruction timetable so long attributed to that vanished civilization, they also give us an opportunity to consider what we might be better off without starting in 2013.

Here at DS we’re truly grateful that the world is likely to keep turning. And, we would be even more grateful if the following design, technology, and communications stuffs would actually cease to exist by the end of 2012. Consider a mini-Maya end of days for the following.

Design

Fonts: Your days are numbered, Papyrus. It’s been nice (not really) knowing you, Courier, Comic Sans – you’ve been eliminated. First to the chopping block, but just the beginning of a long line of overused and outdated typefaces that should die in 2012 and beyond.

Infographics: When done well: truly effective visual expressions of information. When done poorly: blocks of text arranged on a page w/ a couple of icons. Come on, guys, this is not what Edward Tufte had in mind when he wrote those great books.

QR codes: Can we see a show of hands for those of you who have bothered to scan a QR code? And now, those of you who thought the payoff for your effort was worth it, please stand on your heads. Basic design rule, “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”.

Fashion: Please die before you kill us, platform shoes and 8″ heels. No offense, Lady Gaga, but why would strong, independent women want assistance to walk? Feet bend, so should shoes, and unless you’re auditioning to be in a moco jumbie chorus line, what is the point?

Technology

Internet Explorer: Die Internet Explorer 6 through 8. 9 you’re on probation. Really, Microsoft lovers, update already. We’re tired of jumping through development hoops so that you can live in the past. You want the coolness of css, javascript, and html5 to just work? Switch to Chrome.

Android Updates: Cupcake, Jellybean, Donut and Ice Cream Sandwich: no matter how delicious they sound, we’re sick of their underperformance. It’s time to change our OS diets and throw these platforms in the garbage if their updates continue to come up wanting.

Fake Twitter Accounts: One new follower? And she’s following 5,000? Ugh. The Mayans would have put a quick end to these accounts that pump out avatars of scantily clad women, cheesy quotes and links to spam websites. Now, it’s up to us. Die spambots, die.

Expensive Electronic Accessories with Disposable Batteries: A beautifully designed multi-touch Bluetooth mouse that runs on AA batteries is like a Mercedes that has a lawnmower rip cord for the ignition. All the design/function magic is gone the moment you have to slam it against a desk to dislodge a dead AA Duracell.

Language

Social Over-Sharing: Let’s resist the temptation to post private thoughts – please keep them to yourself, send a letter, or write in a journal. This stuff doesn’t belong online. And please, please, leave the greeting card sentiments to Hallmark.

Acronyms: Listen up Government Program Directors, Tech Junkies, and Terminal Texters of the world. FYI – alphabet soup belongs in a bowl, served with a grilled cheese sandwich, not in communications.

Agency Jargon: deep dive, curate, circle back, pipeline, 30,000 foot view, silos, monetization, blah, blah, blah. Granted, we’re in the business of creating communications, but couldn’t we use the perfectly good words people already understand to explain new ideas?

Verbification of Nouns, Nounification of Verbs: I could architect up an example to impact you, but why, when you could just Google one?

“With All Due Respect…”: Has there ever been a statement following this preamble that is respectful in any way? With all due respect, isn’t it time to kill this and other forms of political correctness giving cover to insults and thinly veiled disdain?

So, now that we’ve opened the door, what would you like to see eliminated in 2012?

In recognition of the results provided to legendary fashion retailer Barneys New York, Digital Surgeons received an OMMA Award for Best Integrated Online Fashion Campaign. The OMMA Integrated Online Campaign Awards go to online marketing campaigns of multiple elements that show outstanding usage of online media in promotion of brands, products and services.

Gaga’s Workshop also won big at the ClickZ Connected Marketing Awards for The Best Use of Social Media Marketing. The ClickZ Connected Marketing Awards are designed to recognize brands and organizations that have embraced creativity and interactivity to connect with their audiences – and drive results.

Digital Surgeons was also awarded an IAB MIXX award for Social Marketing. The international IAB MIXX Awards honor the teams and talent that push interactive advertising to new levels—celebrating creatives and brands for unprecedented work in the interactive arena and elevating the creative and metric standards of the medium.

Digital Surgeons took home a wide array of awards from the International Academy of Art’s W3 Award show. Gaga’s Workshop was awarded Gold in Social Campaigns for a Celebrity for Lady Gaga’s role as the centerpiece and artistic drive behind the campaign. Digital Surgeons were also awarded Silver in the categories of Fashion Websites and Social Fashion Campaigns. The W³ Awards honor creative excellence on the web, and recognize the creative and marketing professionals behind award winning sites, videos and marketing programs

In Gaga’s Workshop’s final win of the award season, Digital Surgeons took home a Best in Show for Marketing Effectiveness from the Davey Awards. The annual International Davey Awards honor the achievements of the “Creative Davids” who derive their strength from big ideas, rather than stratospheric budgets. This Best in Show title signifies that Digital Surgeons did the most towards achieving measurable success with a small team and a small budget.

The Gaga’s Workshop campaign ran from November 2011 until January 2012. In that time, the campaign garnered 4 Billion total earned media impressions. This resulted in a 70% increase in holiday sales for Barneys from the previous year.

Digital Surgeons is a digital marketing agency located in New Haven, CT. Their philosophy is simple: Experiences create relationships and relationships create brands. Many of Digital Surgeons’ other clients also received awards in mobile application development, web design and branding.

For Business Inquires:

please contact BJ Kito: BJ@digitalsurgeons.com

For Press Inquires:

please contact Alex Forman: Alex@digitalsurgeons.com

It’s called social commerce.

Everyone has been buzzing about social commerce since flash sale, deal-a-day, group buying and coupon sharing businesses came about a few years ago. Deal-a-day sites like Woot were quickly acquired (Amazon) for their share-ability, Groupon IPO’d and countless competitors and copycats entered the market like Living Social and Fab.

The only thing social about these businesses is the fact that the value they were giving users is shareable.

Meanwhile, other businesses were trying to figure out ways to leverage social purchasing data by either creating anonymous buying networks or through recommendation engines like Hunch or Gifts.

Hunch.com is really interesting because they used an array of data including taste questions and analyzed that against your social data (likes, reviews, check-ins, networks, etc) to come up with predictions. Ebay saw this potential and acquired Hunch.com for around $80 million. The problem with Hunch and Ebay is that neither have the user engagement of Facebook.

Gifts.com and Facebook Gifts are very similar. Gifts.com lets users Facebook connect to authenticate. It scans your profile and tells you who has a birthday coming up. Then it looks at those people and makes product recommendations based off of social data and general data that you can add.  The data is then analyzed and matched against merchants that have been accepted into the system. From there it is a pay-per-click program that sends the user to a product landing page similar to Google Adwords.

It’s all about the Data.

What is interesting about all of the above-mentioned businesses is that they all rely on Facebook. Facebook brings value with it’s large user base, ease of sharing ala the like button, and data points pulled from the open graph.

It makes sense that one day Facebook would eventually claim the space and reign as king.

I believe that day is here and I am going to breakdown the possibilities from a product standpoint and also offer potential revenue predictions.

Gift Giving on Facebook is natural.

Do you remember the virtual gift giving that was prominent in the earlier days of Facebook? One of Facebook’s very first revenue generators  was virtual gift transactions.  Users were willing to spend real money on virtual gifts. Gifts that were nothing more than an animated birthday cake or beer mug. When Facebook opened their platform to developers in 2007 other widely popular virtual gifting applications came out like Zach Allia’s “Free Gifts”, which launched and had over 1 million users overnight.

It’s also very natural to wish someone a Happy Birthday on Facebook because Facebook so graciously reminds us to. Everyday Facebook walls are flooded with “Happy Birthdays” from friends and family all over the world. Birthday reminders are more prominent now that Apple allows you to sync Facebook with the iPhone; displaying friends’ birthdays on  your phone’s calendar. You no longer have to log on to Facebook to be reminded of your friends’ and families’ birthdays.

Facebook Gifts Could Work Like this.

 Facebook sees all. They know when your birthday is. That’s an obvious one. So are holidays. Facebook can also read and understand status updates like “It’s a boy”, “I just graduated”, “I just got a job” or when you switch your relationship status to “Engaged” or “Married” and so on. Once it recognizes that something special just happened in your life, it can prompt other users connected to you to buy you a gift.

Here is where it gets interesting. Facebook has immense data about you. They could easily recommend gifts of all shapes and sizes with precision.  For example, Facebook could recommend something as large as a travel or vacation package based on locations you’ve previously liked, check-in at, mentioned, or taken a picture of. These gift suggestions can also be based on time of year, personality traits, interest indicators (i.e. extreme sports, relaxing, luxury, etc), proximity and more.

Facebook could also make recommendations that can filter by price, general popularity, date “liked”, or category  (food & beverage, apparel, health, beauty, travel, even auto).

Imagine you could buy a car through Facebook!

 It All Comes Down To Revenue

Dozens of opinions articles seem to be released daily about Facebook. Half  of these articles are saying that Facebook’s revenue models are decelerating and the other half predicts a bright future for Facebook. Half say downgrade and it’s a $15 stock way overvalued and the other half say upgrade and set price targets at $30+ per share. I’m on the side of $30+.

Here is my reasoning behind Facebook’s valuation when it was in the teens a few weeks ago: “Invest In Facebook: It’s a Good Bet”

Below are some calculations that could happen revenue-wise without knowing for sure exactly how Facebook is going to be handling the transactions or product.

Note: I decided not to model out any cost per click (CPC) revenue because it seems like Facebook will handle the transaction in the network unlike the Gifts.com model, which passes the traffic through to the advertisers site.

If 1 percent of Facebook’s 950 million active users purchase gifts for an average total of $30 in transactions each year and Facebook takes a 10% commission on the transaction they would make an additional $28.5 million a year in revenue. That could cover some technology costs.

Take that same percentage of users and sales and make the total yearly transaction $1,000 and Facebook just put another $950M a year on their balance sheets.

If 5% of the user base did $1,000 in yearly transactions, Facebook would earn an additional $4.75 billion.

The calculations I used in my revenue projections are reasonable and I would go as far as saying that they are low. According to the National Retail Federation, the average American spent $700+ in the 2011 holiday season. That number does not account for birthdays, other holidays, special moments and no reason gift spending. Another thing to keep in mind is that in 2010 Facebook had over 50 million users with incomes in excess of $100,000 per year.

Final Thoughts

In summary, Facebook did a very good thing going back into the gifts business. Gifts are social and that is the very core of their business. If they get the Gifts product right, they should reap huge rewards and revenue from it. Likewise all the businesses and brands that have like buttons beside their products will reap the benefit of the sales. Facebook users that have been clicking those like buttons should also start to get better gifts. Surely mainstream usage of a “want” button will be the next logical addition to the open graph.

Any digital marketer worth their salt will tell you that social networks are not just ad platforms but rather viable channels of communication. With that in mind, we look at brands that could potentially succeed on App.net and which may not.

Marked for Success:

Tech Start-Ups

Web 2.0 is an incestuous industry when it comes to startups. App.net has already garnered much support from silicon valley super heroes like Marco Arment of Instapaper and Peter Rojas of Gizmodo and Engadget. With these big names in their corner, other young up-and-comers will rush to be involved.

Individual Personalities

What’s the difference between seeing your favorite band in a stadium versus seeing them play in a basemen? the perceived sense of intimacy. Celebrities can be admired on Facebook, but there is a better chance of direct interactions on Twitter. With a paid subscription service that promises exclusivity, the chances of direct interactions with these mythical figures becomes more likely.

Digital Marketing Agencies

Yes, that’s right: Digital Surgeons and all of our imitators! Digital Agencies love to play with new technologies: build them up, break them down, and everywhere in between. App.net is billed to be for the developers. A social network that exists to be customized and manipulated is perfect for agencies that want to create a unique social solution for clients who are sick of the traditional networks.

Marked for Failure

Large Consumer Brands

There is a two-pronged attack when it comes to large brands and the App.net platform: large amounts of their audiences aren’t on the platform and the audience on the platform doesn’t want to interact with brands. Those fed up with being inundated with advertising on Youtube, Facebook and Twitter certainly don’t want to pay $50 a year to follow Coca-Cola or Ford.

Bots, Scammers and Fake Profiles

Ahh, the underbelly of the social networking world. One of the largest criticisms being launched towards Facebook and Twitter recently are the large amount of fake accounts on both platforms. These accounts exist to spam products or to create a false sense of social influence. On a social network that costs a premium fee, fake influence will be easy to spot and hard to justify economically. A company can’t sell 100 followers for $20 when the creation of those fake accounts will cost $5,000.

Any Brand Targeting Women (for now)

The ratio of users on App.net’s alpha platform is somewhat skewed at the moment. This of course is a nice way of saying that it’s a sausage fest. Unlike other social network startup Pinterest, App.net is looking a bit like a digital no girls allowed club. It is hard to see brands that target women thriving on this male dominated platform.

Same Message, Multiple Locations

Wait, rewind, how could fragmented efforts be preferential? Fragmented doesn’t have to mean unfocused. Cross screen marketing allows consumers to be reached where ever their fragmented attention spans land them. Cross screen marketing is the practice of carrying out an integrated campaign across different “screens” (tablet, mobile, computer, television, etc.) It’s time for marketers to break out of what is comfortable and address the behaviors of their audience. If your audience uses their tablet in the evening while watching TV, why don’t you target your effort in both places? It may not be the easiest solution out there because it’s still in it’s infancy, but it sure does work.

Very Positive Results

How well does it work? Purchase intent for the film Contraband spiked 72% when the same message was presented simultaneously between screens (screens meaning mobile phones, tablets, TV, computer, etc.) according to an AdColony report. If cross screen marketing is enough to convince people to see Contraband then this is truly a powerful new means of advertising.

Open for Innovation

The sky is the limit when it comes to cross screen marketing; it is still a relatively uncorrupted space in the digital marketing world. Recently an API was released for developers to begin creating cross screen applications that integrate between a wide range of devices and TV programs. Gone are the days where including a hashtag at the bottom of a commercial is considered social. Developers can now create streaming programs with ongoing dialogues, polls, and bonus content.

All Screens are Not Created Equal

There is now research to suggest that consumption of the same content on different platforms makes a difference. A study from Strategy Analytics found that video consumption on a tablet was more Beta (extremely engaged, conscious and alert) while TV was more Alpha (passive, relaxed). Research like this shows that it is no longer a battle of creating the right content, but also where said content is displayed. It is no longer satisfactory to have an only digital campaign or only television campaign; there must be cross-over between the screens to be fully effective. Creativity across platforms is the answer to this generation’s lack of…distinct ability. Where was I going? Oh yeah, short attention spans.