Alien invasion thriller Falling Skies is getting social—really social. During their premier on Sunday, they’re running a Twitter campaign based on which hashtag their users pick: #aliens or #resistance. By tweeting one of the hashtags, a user is instantly immersed in the world of their chosen army, using graphic novel-style artwork. They can get an avatar based on their user picture (or another image) or pick one readymade. Head over to Mashable to get a peek at the artwork.

After the premier, the network will tally up the number of tweets with each hashtag and the winning side will take over the show’s Twitter profile, using more artwork. The hashtags will also be plugged during each episode. Finally, the winners will be featured in a video to promote the show.

TNT and Falling Skies have done two things really well. First, they are creating an immersive experience for their fans. By creating a campaign that depends on the users, they truly make their viewers part of the action. Second, they reward the fans, in this case with artwork. Not only does it make the fans feel special, it provides free advertising that users are proud to display. Not an easy combination to achieve, but an effective one.

We’ve posted before about how well Game of Thrones is doing on social media, but here are some hard numbers. The show’s most recent (and bloodiest) episode, “The Rains of Castamere,” was its most popular episode ever, garnering 367,000 mentions on Twitter. This number crushed the show’s previous record of 277,000. It’s safe to say that the show is getting a lot of attention.

The episode centered around the fabled “Red Wedding,” an event fans of the books have been waiting for for years. The reactions to the event range from shock to outrage, and they’ve been collected in a hilarious Twitter account, @RedWeddingTears. Mashable also did a collection of the twenty funniest reactions, which you can find here.

At this point, HBO has reached every social marketer’s dream: the community is running itself. That’s not to say that there is no need for curation; rather, people are so passionate about the show and the books that they would be talking about it whether HBO maintained a social media presence or not. Therefore the network is doing the smart thing by jumping in and providing some direction for the conversations, and they’re being amply rewarded.

This week in great ad campaigns, we have Puma, who have joined forces with a number of famous dancers to create a “new language” comprised entirely of dance moves. Users can watch tutorials for how to dance certain words and sentences, and then share videos of themselves “saying” things like “Will you be my girlfriend?” and so forth. Puma went all-out to get dancers and musicians well-known in that world (and its key 16-24 demographic), and it appears to be paying off. Check out this Mashable article for more on the clever campaign.

So what can we learn from Puma’s efforts? The key point in this campaign is authenticity. Says Nils Leonard, the creative director behind the whole thing, “Everyone involved with the Puma Dance Dictionary is from those worlds. They’re not in advertising; they’re famous in their own right. To make it credible that’s where we have to go, the audience can smell it out otherwise.”

This week’s example of what not to do is so heinous we’ll let it speak for itself. What can we learn from this debacle?

1. Don’t be a jerk. If you’re so far gone even Gordon Ramsay won’t work with you, you shouldn’t be in business in the first place, let alone trying to market yourself.

2. Don’t shout at people. You wouldn’t do it in person, so don’t do it on the internet. Caps lock is not cruise control for cool.

3. If you do something stupid, own up and apologize. Do not do any of the following:

   • Blame others–it’s in bad taste.

   • Follow up with more stupidity–self-explanatory.

   • Blame hackers–this is almost never believable.

4. Common sense. Use it.

Last week we lost one of the best-loved film critics and most popular Tweeters, Roger Ebert. MediaBistro has a great writeup of Ebert’s Twitter philosophy, outlining his “Eight Rules for Using Twitter.” Let’s take a look and examine what made Ebert so successful in social media, and how you can apply it to your own posts.

1. “I tweet in basic English.”

Make sure your audience can understand you. Pretty straightforward, really. It’s not that hard to proofread, even in 140 characters.

2. “I avoid abbreviations and ChatSpell.”

It’s hard to use text speak and look professional. Of course, sometimes the character limit forces you to commit grammar or spelling atrocities, but avoid it when you can. This is your brand, not a text to your bestie.

3. “I go for complete sentences.”

Again, it simply looks more professional. Your thoughts and ideas come across clearer. People will be thinking about what you said, instead of puzzling out what you meant.

4. “I try to make my links worth a click.”

Again, self-explanatory. As we’ve said numerous times, content is king. If you are posting interesting material, you won’t have trouble finding an audience.

5. “I am not above snark, no matter what I may have written in the past.”

Twitter is, as Ebert described, “a running conversation.” It’s okay to crack wise, but make sure you’re not being mean or unprofessional.

6. “I tweet my interests, including science and politics, as well as the movies.”

This one is not one I’d recommend applying literally—tweeting politics from a brand account can lead to sticky situations if you offend or annoy your constituency. However, don’t be afraid to tweet interesting tidbits from other areas that are relevant to your brand. If you’re an educational organization, how about tweeting a cool piece of science news? If you’re a gardening business, why not tweet that cool viral video somebody made doing tricks with a garden hose?

7. “I try to keep links to stuff on my own site down to around 5 or 10%.”

Constant self promotion gets obnoxious, even though that may be why you got into social media in the first place. You have to make sure you’re having a good volume of conversations, as well as publishing relevant content from other sources in addition to your own.

8. “I try to think twice before posting.”

This is just good, solid common sense. Ask yourself “does this need to be said?” before you tweet. If the answer is no, don’t tweet it.

Rest in peace, Roger. We’ll miss you.

Today’s love letter to social media goes to the White House. President Obama’s social team gets major points for taking what was originally seen as a gaffe and turning it into a tongue-in-cheek, politically savvy jab on the sequester. During a press conference today, the President accidentally mashed up Star Trek and Star Wars, saying he couldn’t perform a “Jedi mind meld” on Republicans to get them to agree to a deal on the sequester. Geeks were up in arms on Twitter over the slip-up, but then the White House digital team responded with this:

The image plays on the pop-culture staple of the “Jedi mind trick” from Star Wars, where Obi-Wan Kenobi changes some soldiers’ minds with the wave of a hand, saying “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” while the top text hearkens to the Star Wars opening titles. Meanwhile, the bottom text references the Star Trek credits, as well as Mr. Spock’s love of logic.

By taking the mash-up and running with it, the Obama administration shows off their sense of humor, but they also perform the politically savvy move of redirecting the discourse back to the subject at hand, namely the looming sequester. Go to wh.gov/jedimindmeld to learn more.

When we see good social media use, we like to let it speak for itself. Check out the @TacoBell Twitter feed. They “get it.” Here are some examples.





Bottom line: keep it simple, keep it honest, and keep it kind.

You’ve probably already heard about Twitter’s new six-second video service, Vine. What can you do in a six-second video? It could be something as simple as a cat video, but some brands are already introducing ads. The tool is already growing in popularity; more than 100,000 videos were shared on the service last weekend alone. But how do you know what’s working?

That’s where Simply Measured comes in. The analytics platform catalogues users and tweets that engage with your video, analyzes them, and then breaks down the data for you. It’s a pretty cool tool, and well worth a try. Their free service runs the data overnight when there’s less traffic, but the paid version is done in real time. Check out this article from Mashable detailing how the service works.

Have you tried Vine yet? What are you sharing?

In our ongoing series about what not to do in social media, we’ve covered a lot of things that sound like plain old common sense. That’s fair; most of our tips are. But it seems that common sense is not so common, because here we go again.

Today’s tip: don’t offend half your potential customer base. The culprit: the New York Rangers. The team’s website posted an article purporting to help women watch hockey, entitled “A Girl’s Guide to Watching the Rangers.” The piece was the first in a series produced by a “contributor network” for the website’s “Blueshirts United” social media page. Here’s a link to the post. I’ll wait while you read it. It won’t take long.

Did you read it? Can you guess the problem? The article’s condescending tone, focus on “man-pleasing,” and ridiculous female stereotyping quickly caused an enormous backlash on Twitter. The post was quickly taken down in the wake of oceans of social media outrage, but the damage is done. Competing teams are posting snarky comments and parody articles, and female hockey fans are understandably fed up. So what lessons can we learn from the Rangers’ mistake?

1). Don’t annoy half your customer base. Do I really need to explain this one? Think before you type. Don’t post something that’s likely to alienate half (or even some) of your potential viewers, users, or buyers. Just don’t.

2). Slightly less obviously, know your audience. This article, aimed at women who have never watched hockey and have no idea what the game is about, was posted on a back page of a site built for die-hard, jersey-wearing fans of both genders. How likely is it that non-hockey fans were surfing this site? Make sure your content is posted in the right place for its target audience. Even if the content is good, it doesn’t matter if nobody reads it.

Gangster Squad, the new period piece starring Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, and Josh Brolin, opens tonight. It’s been heavily promoted by Warner Bros., especially since its release date was pushed back due to hasty re-edits to remove a graphic scene depicting a shooting in a movie theater in the wake of the Aurora shooting. Judging from this, Warner Bros. is a bit worried about this one. But one thing they’re doing well is social media. Amid the flood of tweets the studio sent to promote the film, someone snuck in a Ryan Gosling “Hey Girl” gag.

If you haven’t seen the “Hey Girl” meme, you’ve clearly been living under a rock. It’s been going on since 2008, according to Know Your Meme. The meme consists of photos of Gosling looking attractive, with lady-pleasing captions like “Hey girl, I brought your favorite movie. Let’s watch it while I rub your feet.” There are a million variations, from Feminist Ryan Gosling

to Crafting Ryan Gosling.

The meme has been going for years and will probably continue as long as Ryan Gosling is considered cute.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. is capitalizing on the trend. They posted a tweet reading “Hey girl,” with a link to this picture of Gosling:

Fun, huh? What Warner Bros. achieves by doing this is not only promotion of a film, but proof that they pay attention, that they have their finger on the pulse of the internet. Plus, they made a lot of fangirls really happy, which is always a good thing if you want to pack theaters.

The take-home lesson here is a) pay attention and b) don’t be afraid to have a little fun. Your customers will love you for it.

This has been a big year for social media. Facebook bought Instagram. Pinterest hit it big. Facebook went public. The Pope joined Twitter. Gangnam Style. Check out an awesome infographic from Mashable below.

British book retailer Waterstones is doing humor right. The Twitter account for their Oxford Street branch started with one joke that snowballed into a long exchange of hilarity between their social media manager and popular author Maureen Johnson. Rather than try to sum up the conversation, I’ll let you read it yourself:

Notice how the community manager matches Johnson’s tone, while skillfully working in the fact that she could buy a book from the website even in the middle of the night? So the take-away from this delightful exchange can be summed up as follows: keep it clean, keep it light, and keep it customer-focused.

This week’s What Not to Do is going to be short and sweet: do not, I repeat, DO NOT mix business and personal feelings without a VERY specific, carefully thought-out reason. It makes sense for say, a news outlet to tweet political reactions. But does it make sense for a kitchen appliance company? The answer is a resounding no, as KitchenAid found out last night during the Presidential Debate. The gadget manufacturers tweeted (to 24,000 followers, no less) “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president’. #nbcpolitics,”@KitchenAidUSA

Whatever your politics, you’ve got to agree that such a tweet from a business is in REALLY bad taste. KitchenAid has apologized and deleted the offending tweet, and they’ve removed the errant tweeter as well. In a situation like this, it’s really all you can do, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Keep your business accounts and personal accounts VERY, VERY SEPARATE. One community manager friend suggested going so far as to use different software for public vs. private, just to avoid accidents. Bottom line: think before you post. Ask yourself, “Does what I’m about to say help my brand, or not?” If you can answer that question, you’ll do just fine.

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of ultra-popular t-shirt site Threadless, the site that crowdsources its designs (and pays its artists real money). What you haven’t heard is that their social media presence is pretty much perfect. Here’s a short list of what they’re doing and why it works.

—Twitter: The Threadless Twitter account is a one-stop-shop. It promotes new designs, design competitions, new products, and general information like convention appearances.

—Facebook: Threadless has an app where you can shop both new and reprinted designs from within the app. In addition, they also have a very busy page where they post content that doesn’t appear on Twitter.

—Tumblr: The clothing company’s Tumblr is where they showcase the art. They show off new designs, and lately they’ve been creating animated gifs of popular designs.

—Contests: This is where Threadless really shines, and really puts the social in social media. In addition to their usual process of submitting designs for fan votes, they also hold competitions around specific subjects. For instance, right now there is a Toy Story Challenge going on, where artists can submit designs featuring the beloved Pixar film. These contests yield more than just fantastic art—they yield limitless customer engagement.

Threadless is, by definition, a social company, but their social media presence is really top notch. This is definitely a company to follow.

In our ongoing series of social media lessons learned from other people’s mistakes, the next installment comes from Kansas City’s NFL team, the Chiefs. First, read this Mashable article detailing the history of the debacle. Then come back here for the lessons learned from it.

1. Don’t let people get your goat. The Chiefs’ community manager made the mistake of responding with his or her personal emotions instead of maintaining a professional front. Rather than sniping back at the disgruntled follower, the community manager should have either responded politely or ignored the comment. Simple as that.

2. Be judicious with the block button. Don’t block people who are mildly annoying but mostly good-hearted. The block button should be your weapon of last resort, the tool you use when people are being abusive or downright nasty. The Chiefs blocked a user who really hadn’t done anything except voice a negative opinion, and look how that turned out. Save the ban-hammer for the ones who really deserve it.

3. Apologize and mean it. If you are in a situation where somebody’s feelings are hurt, whether warranted or not, apologize. Even if it’s not your fault, be nice. Don’t try to weasel out with an “I’m sorry IF” non-apology. Own the situation. Make the user feel heard and understood. That’s usually enough to appease them, and if it’s not, at least you’re covered.

Only a fool doesn’t learn from his or her own mistakes, but it’s an absolute idiot who doesn’t learn from other people’s. Take these lessons to heart and save yourself and your brand some time and triage.

We’ve talked multiple times about all the ways you can use Twitter to market your business. Now let’s start honing in on some of the tools that make Twitter so useful. This week, let’s focus on Twitter’s advanced search.

With advanced search, you can whittle down to incredible detail. See what I’m talking about here. You can search by keyword, as follows, including by hashtag and even by language:

• All of these words
• This exact phrase
• Any of these words
• None of these words
• These hashtags
• Written in

But you can also search by people, including tweets from certain accounts, to certain accounts, or mentioning certain accounts. Want to see how your competitor is doing? Search their mentions and address the concerns of upset customers!

And that’s not even the most exciting part. You can search by location as well. Say you’re a restaurant near Long Beach. Search the terms “hungry, starving, lunch” near Long Beach, CA, and you’ve got a whole slew of people to whom you can say “Hey, come on in for lunch! Here’s a 10% off coupon!” Twitter advanced search lets you zero in on the people who not only WANT what you’re selling, they NEED it.

Last but not least, you can search by sentiment. You can search by positive reaction or negative reaction, and you can also search for who is asking questions. You can include retweets or leave them out. Twitter advanced search does what it says on the tin—it’s very advanced, and very specific, so you can find exactly who you should be talking to. Take that, Facebook.

A big news story this week was Progressive Insurance’s response to some negative press. We don’t want to dispute the facts of the case, but there is a definite social media tip to learn from the whole debacle.

Be sensitive.

Don’t just repeat the same robotic message over and over. Write careful, thought-out responses to people with grievances. People WILL notice form responses. Yes, it’s hard to be original when you’re getting thousands of messages, but at least make an effort. Whatever you do, don’t do this:

Bottom line: the situation IS tragic and our hearts go out to the Fisher family. But meanwhile, if your company is at fault, or even if it isn’t, show some sensitivity and humanity. Your clients will respect you for it.