I believe we should all seek to do something meaningful with our lives. While paying the bills is essential, we should try to pursue something that we truly get excited about and enjoy doing on a daily basis. We should try to impact the world in a positive way, even if in a small way.

I’m personally passionate about the convergence of technology, marketing, and the social web. I feel like a huge nerd reading the sentence I just wrote, but it’s true. I like to think, learn, and talk about those three things as much as I enjoy playing sports and listening to music. It’s how I’m wired. If you’re reading this, you might be wired like that too.

So this is a short version of the story of how I went from being a social media participant to a social media content producer to a social media manager, in less than one year…

Up until two and a half weeks ago, I was a tech and business consultant. For the three years prior to that, I had been a consultant with a promising career. I had worked on challenging and interesting projects concerning innovative mobile web sites, IT cost-reductions and, my favorite, identifying social media opportunities for communications service providers.

It was going pretty good. However, my interest in social media was growing. I found myself thinking about the rapidly changing social web on a daily basis. I read blogs like TechCrunch and magazines like AdAge. I listened to podcasts like Buzz Out Loud and kept up with the latest in social media thanks to people I had started to get to know as friends (instead of followers) on Twitter.

I was fascinated by all things social on the Internet and I wanted to further explore the future of the web. I needed a creative outlet. I needed a new “home base.” (more…)

Jonathan Crowley is the co-founder of Black20, a multi-platform digital studio that operates out of Long Island City, Queens. There’s a good chance that you’ve seen or at least heard of one of their viral videos or award-winning web series, which have been viewed by over 60 million people. A recent partnership with 15 Gigs means their entertaining content is going to reach even more people. Prior to co-founding Black20 in 2007, J. Crowley was a part of NBC Digital Studios developing comedy programming for the network’s digital initiatives. You can check out more of their programming at Hulu and Black20.com.

1. Black20 recently partnered with Fox TV Studios’ 15 Gigs to produce Web-based pilots like “Heart Felt.” What kind of relationship do you have with FTVS and how has it been working with them?

We partnered up with FTVS to create innovative and cheap-to-produce content for the web, and always with an eye towards its extension to other platforms like television.  We view it as both an opportunity to develop stories and formats that can really speak to a Web-video-consuming audience and also as a chance to play around with a much more cost-efficient development model.

“Heart Felt” is merely one example of a digital pilot we produced to gauge our audience’s appetite.  In this case we wanted to test whether people wanted to watch a comedy about relationships between people and puppets. The viewership and feedback were very strong, so we now look at how to shape this series for both online and television platforms.

2. Black20 seems to focus on the content instead of spending money on marketing. What are some of things you need to do when creating content that is meant to be spread by the online masses?

We’ve never paid a single cent for marketing or promotion. We’ve relied on our content to virally spread itself. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. It’s tricky predicting what videos will go viral, but we’ve realized content focused on nostalgia or topical events tend to spread much faster. Oh yeah, or anything related to Star Wars. (more…)

Bob Knorpp is the host of The BeanCast, a weekly round table podcast that gathers advertising and marketing thought leaders (aka actual ad experts) to discuss industry issues and current events. After many years in the ad industry, he started The Cool Beans Group, a marketing consultancy that provides B2B and B2C expertise in branding, strategic thinking, social media, and more. I had a great time talking to Bob on The Social Nerdia Show! and you can about our conversation, including 7 social media insights, below.

You can listen to the show in its unedited greatness using the BlogTalkRadio player, subscribing to the podcast on iTunes and/or streaming it on your mobile phone using Stitcher.

Podcasts are now everywhere and there is one for everything. Bob explained that “the competition (in podcasting) is really steep and there are so many choices… the chances of getting noticed are minuscule.” And yet, The BeanCast has made quite an impression on a lot of people in the ad industry. The show’s forward-looking slogan “The Best Marketing Podcast Anywhere,” is becoming a reality with every weekly show. With only a year and a half of being on the online airwaves, the show has gone from a water cooler experiment to an influential conversation that is a must-listen for anyone even remotely interested in marketing. As Bob told me, “you don’t need to build a huge audience to have impact, you just need to reach the right people.”

Reaching the right people is not enough though. To truly create an impact on a growing audience, Bob makes sure that The BeanCast is entertaining. “As much as I try to present a forum for smart people to present their ideas, my primary objective is to have an entertaining program.. that stimulates conversations.” The payoff of the show is a combination of information, entertainment and relevancy. And that’s probably why The BeanCast is one of my favorite podcasts: it showcases the thought-provoking views of experienced people in the ad industry, without being boring. (more…)

Carri Bugbee is the principal and founder of Big Deal PR. An entrepreneur, seasoned writer and project manager with experience at great agencies like Wieden + Kennedy, Carri is also the person behind @PeggyOlson on Twitter. Not only has she managed to keep the unofficial Twitter account for a fictional character from the popular AMC show Mad Men, but she has done it so well that it won her a Shorty Award.

I was able to do a live “Twinterview” with Carri (done fully via Twitter, tracked by the hashtag #Peggy). Thanks to everyone that followed it live!

The unedited transcript is below: 

CarriBugbee @socialnerdia It’s raining in Portland, so it’s a good time to be warmed by the glow of my computer monitor for a #twinterview. ;-)

socialnerdia @CarriBugbee I must admit I often confuse your name with @PeggyOlson and vice versa. What’s it like to be linked to this character?

CarriBugbee @socialnerdia Been a wild ride. @PeggyOlson is a great character on #MadMen. I think 2nd only to Don. Tweeting 4 her is fun & challenging.

socialnerdia @CarriBugbee I’d say #peggy is my 2nd favorite too. How has your professional life changed since u started tweeting / thinking like Peggy?

CarriBugbee @socialnerdia I was joking in early ’08 about working on my social media MBA. Being a #MadMen Tweeter was like working on a thesis.

CarriBugbee @socialnerdia Building & managing thousands of followers 4 @PeggyOlson on top of mnging many other Twitter accts was great experience

(more…)

Carol Phillips is a Notre Dame Marketing professor, Millennial marketing expert, and Founder/President of the consulting firm Brand Amplitude. I had the opportunity to chat with her on “The Social Nerdia Show!” yesterday. You can stream the show in its entirety below, stream it on blogtalkradio, and subscribe to the iTunes podcast.

Carol started teaching Notre Dame sophomores in 2003 and she quickly realized that this generation, often called Gen Y, was “very different“. While she expected Millenials to be very marketing savvy, she realized that they did not know that much about marketing and that inspired an article she wrote for AdAge in 2007. It was that article about what college students don’t know about marketing that introduced me to Carol’s work and writings.

Her blog describes Millenials as the group that outnumbers Baby Boomers and is determined to change the world. The idea of “changing the world” resonates with me so I asked Carol to elaborate on this. “Globally, when they do studies of Millenials, of what’s most characteristic about them, the thing that comes back is the Obama optimism, a passion to want to make a difference.” (more…)

Facebook has finally done it. The company not only reached the 300 million user mark but it also achieved its positive cash-flow milestone last quarter (ahead of schedule), according to Mark Zuckerberg’s blog posting on Tuesday. Here’s a look at five smart things they did right  to get to where they are today.

1. Opening Up to Everyone

Facebook started as a social network for Harvard students in 2004. After signing up over half of the Harvard undergraduate population in one month, the site opened up to other Boston and Ivy League universities. The site continued to spread through schools around the nation (including my very own SMU) and opened up to High School students by 2005. Today, Facebook is not only open to anyone around the world, but it has also opened itself so that its users are searchable by nonmembers. More importantly, Facebook grew in both features and popularity by opening itself to others. Mobile web sites and apps are available on all major mobile OS platforms. Developers have created apps like iLike, Scrabulous and Fan Check. Companies like Apple and Microsoft have leveraged Facebook’s API to connect to the site through products like iTunes and the Xbox 360. Thousands of web sites like Hulu and blogs like Mashable have allowed users to leave comments using their Facebook accounts via the now multilingual log-in system that we’ve come to know as Facebook Connect. And let’s not forget that it was Facebook Connect that enabled the last push for Facebook to surpass MySpace’s traffic in the U.S.

2. Becoming the Anti-MySpace that Doesn’t Sell Itself Short

Michael Arrington once said that Facebook had become the “Anti-MySpace” by deciding to open itself up. Just as Facebook didn’t follow in MySpace’s paranoid footsteps (remember how MySpace was so threatened by PhotoBucket that it acquired it in 2007?), it also did not flirt with large corporation that would swallow it. With rumors of Friendster being interested to pay upwards of $10 million, the News Corp. acquisition of MySpace in 2005, and Yahoo!’s offer of up to $1 billion in 2006, Facebook must have felt a little tempted. Still, Facebook focused on its site and its users and Zuckerberg’s words on July 17, 2007 have been proven to be true: “We’re not really looking to sell the company… We’re not looking to IPO anytime soon. It’s just not the core focus of the company.” With 1000 employees and a predicted $500 million in revenue for 2009, it is clear that MySpace is history. (more…)

Brett Erlich is the co-host of The Rotten Tomatoes Show, as well as a writer, co-host and associate producer for InfoMania. Both shows are on Current TV and you need to watch them if you haven’t already. Take a second, stop watching CNN or MTV and go watch some Current.

I had an awesome time talking to Brett on The Social Nerdia Show! and you can listen to it below, on blogtalkradio, or as a downloadable/five-star-reviewable/subscribable podcast on iTunes).

I’ve been a fan of Current for a while now. With shows like Vanguard and Super News!, it’s as if Current knows what I want to watch. So when I heard that The Rotten Tomatoes Show (based on rottentomatoes.com) was coming to my television via Current, I got very excited. With hosts like Brett Erlich and Ellen Fox, as well as a ton of clever viewer-created movie reviews, the show has become a part of Thursday nights for me.

Brett told me about how the show got started, how they select the user-generated reviews, and how much he enjoys working at Current. The show is a great example of what you can do by combining television and the web. Part of its success is that they are crowdsourcing some of the best material to movie fans and critics sitting in their living rooms.  Brett explained that it’s good that the show is more than just the opinion of the hosts and that “the more people we have contributing opinons, the better the show gets.”

So many people becoming film critics and spreading the word like a virus has definitely made it a bit challenging for movie studios. They can no longer simply depend on great marketing and polished trailers. For a movie to succeed, it might actually have to be good these days. Word of mouth has gone from casual conversation at a dinner party to millions of random people sharing thoughts in the internets. Sure, some movies like Snakes on a Plane bomb even with great online buzz, but I doubt District 9 would be the movie it is if it had come out 10 years ago.  (more…)