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Consider the famous exchange from Pulp Fiction in which Jules and Vincent debate the rationality of abstaining from pork. Jules just doesn’t dig on swine, that’s all, because they’re basically dirty, like dogs.

VINCENT:     Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?

JULES:          I wouldn’t go so far as to call a dog filthy, but they’re definitely dirty. But, a dog’s got personality. Personality goes a long way.

VINCENT:     Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true?

JULES:          Well, we’d have to be talkin’ about one charming #@$#%& pig.

Indeed, we would have to be talking about one charming #@$#%& pig. Sure, people can “like” a brand. But most people don’t really like brands. Brands need to be more charming. For that, they need personality. Without it … well, we wouldn’t call them dirty. Just invisible. Like a ship passing in the night, to quote our founder.

In fact, I think to feel human might be the greatest feat a company can pull off. But letting your “you” come through is not an easy switch to throw. It takes knowing the central truth about your offering, and identifying the one cultural tension it can speak to. It takes a team of smart, honest people leading the dialogue.

And it takes a social platform that helps these people shine. To be personable is to be in dialogue. The consistency of traditional media is critical, but social media offers opportunities to be carefully inconsistent, like all humans. How? For starters, by not yammering about yourself all day. By listening. By developing a dynamic social cadence that steps away from your textbook tweets, and dabbles in your fans’ interests and even their voice.

Maybe then they will a) always know what to expect and b) be pleasantly surprised at the same time. Charm can run the gamut, from funny to sincere to Arnold on Green Acres. Some varied examples, below.

“It’s an English basement.”

That might not mean much to you, but it probably made you chuckle if you fall into one of the two groups:

1. Current or former D.C. residents
2. Viewers of Sh*t People In D.C. Say

Of course, this video is one of many variations of the Sh*t Girls Say series - which has a cumulative YouTube viewership of 20+ million and growing. You know the premise: Stereotypical expressions from people of a certain ilk, organized by gender, hobby, lifestyle, or geography. There are takes on skiers, hipsters, suburban moms, and even sh*t nobody says (a personal favorite) and the meme’s ’success’ reminds me of basic marketing program goals: generating word-of-mouth, stimulating co-creation, and targeting segmented audiences.

$1,400 for a converted sunroom? Not bad - better than an English basement.

First: Why do we care about sh*t other people say?

As a meme - both intentionally and by accident - these videos satisfy several of the 7 Drivers of Word of Mouth synthesized from Emmanuel Rosen’s work: there’s a good story, people can show their involvement, there is an implicit invitation to participate through their involvement, ’supporters’ can be creative, and, most crucially, there’s a clear value offering - comedy.

The power of these elements is not only clear in the 20+ million video views of the original - and millions more on the variations - but the number of amateur aueters who created their own. An absurdly unscientific calculation using YouTube shows 200+ videos using a basic search - let’s safely presume 50 are duplicates and 50 are spam. Even at 100 and with absolutely no prize, that’s higher participation than most branded video submission challenges get - save Survivor applications and Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl.

What’s the lesson?

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In a recent Washington Post article, Polarized News Market has Altered the Political Process in South Carolina Primary, we peak into the news consumption habits of a South Carolina voter. Two election cycles ago the South Carolina native would read newspaper for political news, now she “settles in at her desktop to fire up Facebook.”

“Selective Exposure”, described by researchers from UCLA and Stanford suggests to that consumers are “tucking themselves inside information silos” and that this is compounded by the speed and like-mindedness of social networking.

New research from Facebook suggests that - despite what many instinctively believe - social networks actually expose us to new, novel ideas and information rather than polarize us. While politics indeed may be more polarizing than ever, social networks like Facebook actually perform the opposite effect. According to a massive experiment, rather than polarize us, Facebook brings us together.

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We all survived the blackout, but how effective was it? The question may take some time to answer, but support for SOPA/PIPA appears to have weakened in its wake.

The biggest light shed this week may have been that on the rift between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. And why not? I mean, we have content creators and content access providers – and they both have their interests. But when Bills are drafted that seemingly only protect the rights of one, surely the other will see a few ruffled feathers.

We ‘Creatives’ are lucky. We get compensated for our ideas and the intellectual property that we create. In our industry, much of what we create isn’t tangible. But the creation and ownership of that product is just as real as the cake your local baker prepared. Art is art, content is content – though the form may take many shapes, it’s all creation – and the rights of those who create content should be protected. So, how can we have our cake and eat it too?

The answer lies in the way these Bills are written. We all agree that we must protect IP – this has been a challenge in our industry for a long time. America is a place of tremendous freedoms – and with the freedom to create also comes the right to protect. But, we also need to protect the rights of those who provide the access. After all, without an audience, who would consume the content?

By and large, the tech giants support the bills in theory – but take issue with it as drafted, stating that they expose law-abiding web and tech companies to uncertain liabilities, calling for monitoring of web sites. Thus, infringes on the rights of the content providers.

Rights should be protected, but censorship is not the answer. In order to draft a proper Bill that manages to protect the rights of content creators, but isn’t a gateway to censoring the web, one needs understand the architecture behind the internet. Backers of SOPA/PIPA do not appear to fully appreciate the unintended implications critics are citing. So, in addition to the great web blackout, the tech giants have thrown support behind the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act in an open letter to Chairman Issa and Senator Wyden.

Could the OPEN Act be the solution we are all looking for?

We need both the creators and providers – and we need to protect the rights of each. So, we need to find a middle ground. The day the web went dark is only the beginning.

How did the blackout affect your January 18?

Yesterday’s battle royale over the future of the Internet has been characterized in many ways - technology companies vs. media conglomerates, content vs. distribution, and perhaps most convincingly by the Harvard Business Review as the Young Startups vs. the Old Guard.

And indeed, change was in the air (and over the servers) yesterday. In protest of a pair of laws now before Congress that address online piracy, some of the most highly-trafficked websites in the U.S. made their sites inactive, dark, or otherwise blocked access in some way. Sites like Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing, and those crazy catz at Cheezburger all participated. Furthermore, companies like Twitter and Facebook joined in expressing their opposition to the proposed legislation and urged their users to reach out to Congress.

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I was certainly not surprised to read that Twitter is calling this the year of the Twitter election; former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had said as much in a PRWeek interview last October that stated: “political campaigns, governments, and businesses face a “unique” environment with a completely new set of rules: no-one is immune to society’s doubts and everyone has to be accountable to their users, who are now the ones in control.”

Moreover, we see the impact of users’ voices on Twitter every day - whether occupying Wall Street or voting for The X Factor winners. As social media professionals, we advocate that one of the regular benefits of social media listening for any organization is the opportunity to take a pulse of the community, but in the upcoming election, that pulse can impact media coverage, debates, and candidates in real time.

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Recently, I’ve been involved in helping a client launch a new Twitter feed. This will be their sixth or seventh account on Twitter, all the previous of which are still active and serving specific functions. The process has sparked several discussions among the team — not for the first time — about a question we’ve all encountered: how many different Twitter feeds should a brand really have?
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If you are anything like me, your mailbox has been filling up with notifications of new followers on Pinterest as the still invite-only platform seems to be opening the flood gates to more users.  Thanks to a few savvy gals in the design world that I follow on Twitter, I have been a Pinterest member since late Summer and must say that I am thoroughly enjoying it.  Pinterest feels like the “aha” moment for social media; a repository for all of the visual stimuli that has gained popularity these past years.

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Something I’ve been mulling over for a while was solidified over the course of several recent conversations with my colleague, Alan Kercinik.

It has to do with the way brands traditionally launch a product/service versus a more optimal approach that can take better advantage of earned conversations.  At the heart of the discussion is what we call the Conversation Chasm.

And while not new thinking - I’ve seen people write about the topic and a Google search reveals several mentions of the term, including a rough version of a post on my personal blog about a month ago - I do think it’s worth revisiting the topic.

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With the new year upon us and 2011 in the rear view mirror, it’s time to pay attention to where social media will go this year. In December, the Ogilvy Digital Influence New York City team hosted its year end 2011 Social Trends Lab. The team predicted 12 trends we think will shape and influence 2012. Is there a prediction you don’t see on this list? Let us know!

And now without further ado, here is the Ogilvy Digital Influence crowdsourced Top 12 in ‘12 list of predictions in social media trends (in no particular order). continue reading