As I’m sure you’re aware (I make that assumption because you are reading this blog), Facebook announced and released “Places” this week — yesterday, actually. If you follow the industry at all, this has been a long time coming. Nevertheless, this is facebook’s entrance cannonball (from the high-dive) into the location space.

I’ve already heard all kinds of things about how “this is going to kill foursquare” and “Yelp’s in trouble” and…blah blah blah, but that’s not what I want to write about.

Foursquare is growing like a weed to the tune of roughly three million users. Gowalla is the consensus #2 player in the industry, and they’re just under 400,000 users. Despite some great national partnerships on both counts, neither has really reached mainstream in terms of awareness, let alone acceptance.

So…here’s the thing:

Facebook is in a place unlike anyone before them. Facebook isn’t a search giant like Google and they’re not a shopping giant like Amazon. Rather, Facebook is a one-stop destination for its visitors to consume what they want to consume and interact with whom they want to interact. More than that, Facebook is a change agent:

Facebook is well on it’s way to well over $1.2 billion (BILLION…that’s nine zeros) in revenue. They are in such a strong position that they acquire whole companies just for their talent — Facebook is assembling the most diverse, forward thinking, intelligent team imaginable. You’re not a success when you’re on facebook’s radar…because EVERYONE is on their radar. There hasn’t been a startup making noise of any kind in the last 24 months that Facebook hasn’t been aware of. That said, it’s fair to say that you’ve made it when Facebook implements your core functionality into their own product.

First, Twitter knew they “made it” when Facebook implemented the News Feed, “@” mentions and all.
Then, Aardvark and Quora knew they “made it” when Facebook announced Questions.
and now…foursquare know’s they’ve “made it” because Facebook has announced Places.

I don’t say those things to badmouth Facebook — I say those things in awe of Facebook. I marvel at their agility. They’re not set in their ways, they’re not afraid to fail, and they’ve got more money than they could EVER spend and they can pivot on a dime — all the while maintaining commitment to an overarching vision and a dedication to their culture.

Up until this week, they’ve only been on the web. As of yesterday, with the announcement of places, they’re in the real world. They’ve taken a market with unlimited potential, validated by both success and competition of players like Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt, and they’ve shifted the paradigm. It wasn’t but two weeks ago that I published this tweet, and the ability of facebook to expose emerging trends to an enormous audience is exactly why. Facebook, and this is part of the reason I’m in awe of them, continually pushes the envelope, bringing new trends (what’s next) to the mainstream…to mass audiences…exponentially faster than anyone else could dream of.

I’ve tried and tried to get my “non-digital” friends to use fourquare and/or gowalla for the last eighteen monts and I’ve received nothing but ridicule in return and so i realize that, sometimes, no matter how great the reason, people are just too set in their ways to adopt change — unless, of course, you force them to.

For that, I simply say…Thanks, Facebook. I don’t care what anyone else says about you, I think you’re doing great things.

Our jobs at dynamit, and consequently our lives on occasion, revolve around digital monsters like Facebook and Twitter. The research emails flying back and forth among the team this week have certainly had a Facebook theme. So as Facebook hits us with more announcements on their continued changes, upgrades, new features and privacy, I couldn’t help but wonder if you’re suffering from Facebook fatigue like so many others.

The point of course, is that it doesn’t matter. Facebook is here to stay.

Thus, as it grows it also becomes more relevant, and recent announcements only support this.

Yesterday, Facebook officially announced its entry into the LBS market with Places. Location-based services still largely live on the fringes of the general public – Foursquare is growing in popularity, with Gowalla finding it’s own niche – but with Facebook’s announcement (along with the apparent whole-hearted support of both Foursquare and Gowalla – a topic for another post), the LBS market is about to explode. With 500 million Facebook users, its not hard to understand why.

Michael Gartenberg of the Altimeter Group recently commented in a blog post, ”This is an important announcement as it establishes Facebook immediately as not only a credible player in this space but arguably the most important player. I’ve argued in the past the features such as “check in” are more of a feature than a standalone service and therefore the idea of integrating this directly into Facebook, already a key hub of social activity makes sense.”

Facebook is also making changes to it’s profile tabs and application boxes. While a seemingly insignificant change to the aesthetic of a Facebook profile, it has pretty large implications for the 3rd party developers who rely on the visuals afforded them in the application boxes. Now, all they have to work with is a (smaller) tab displaying their name, and hope the user likes them enough to click on it.

So what does all this mean? Why are you reading the ramblings of an Account Manager working for an industry leading digital firm?  Because we’re all trying to make sense of where Facebook is headed, and how we can stay on the bleeding edge of it’s influence and power. Nick highlighted a very tangible, hard to ignore example of this power last week in his post - read it, if you haven’t already.

We know where the biggest surf is, so if you want to ride the wave with us, grab your board and give us a call.

An account manager on the dynamIt team will:

• Have experience managing client relationships, preferably in an interactive agency or by leading digital projects at a traditional agency.
• Fully understand a client’s business model, industry and resources in order to deliver contracted work and proactively identify opportunities that will impact the client’s business objectives and grow the relationship.
• Serve as the primary client contact and be responsible for day to day communication.
• Have extremely strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Work closely with strategists and projects managers, acting as a conduit between dynamIt and clients.
• Be extremely comfortable with and passionate about web — have the ability to solve problems with digital and communicate in the space.
• Make sure all aspects of the project have balanced attention and are aligned with the scope, budget and timelines while maintaining a high level of quality.
• Experience is important, but personality is key. Our culture is what drives us, and we’re looking to build our team with someone who both fits and contributes to it.

*This position will involve some travel – primarily regional.

The position is full time at our office in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio.

If this description sounds like you and you are interested, please submit a resume along with other helpful information to work@dynamit.us.

About dynamIt
dynamIt is a digital agency based in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. We work with clients and brands on digital initiatives that include strategy, design, user experience and development. We influence communication and commerce.  Client work includes Charley’s Grilled Subs, McGraw-Hill, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), E-Z-GO, American Electric Power (AEP), Columbus College of Art & Design,  and the Ohio State Medical Center (OSUMC).

The client participates in the social web — they’ve got outposts on some of the major strategic networks and actively engage with customers. They monitor and are progressive with their digital strategy.

However, the focus of their digital footprint has been on active participation on these networks. As you know, social web has quickly expanded from constraint on networks to socializing content on any site and/or application. Native integration is important and robust APIs make this possible. [all of this when and where appropriate, of course]

A month ago, our recommendation was to begin to wade into some native integration on their primary site.

We installed ‘Like Buttons‘ on product pages. Note – that means that for someone to interact with them, they have to be ON the site, not on a social network.

After 1 month, results have been positive. While the total number of likes is very small (142 as of writing) the pageviews and visits that those likes produced exceeded 4,000 each in just 1 month.

What I mean is that when someone on the primary site ‘liked’ a product from that page, that ‘event’ was pushed (via Facebook Graph API) to their News Feed. Facebook users (some might have been fans of the client already, though we assume many were not) used that ‘like event’ from their friend as a link to visit the client’s primary website (we’re tracking referral URLs through Google Analytics).

above: pageviews filtered to referring URL generated from ‘like’ button

Leveraging customers’ social graphs through APIs allows what used to be utilitarian informational content on a primary site to become hooks — creating more brand touchpoints, working to acquire new eyeballs (customers) and continuing to allow peer preference to influence behavior. An intentional alignment of multiple web properties optimizes content and allows you to cover necessary ground.

Where are you (or your clients) leveraging APIs like we did? What sorts of content are you socializing and what are the results?

A developer on the dynamIt team will be experienced with:

• XHTML & CSS: competence with a good deal of experience using CSS for layout
• JavaScript: A good working knowledge of JavaScript and the DOM. Experience with JS frameworks is a plus, but not required.
• PHP & SQL: experience building a wide-variety of data-driven web applications using PHP and SQL
• AJAX: Experience writing AJAX-based applications is recommended, but not an absolute necessity
• E-commerce experience is a plus, API/Web Service experience is a plus
• Good ability to learn and thirst for knowledge
• We’d rather have experience writing code than experience with jobs/in an agency, but it’s certainly a plus
• Experience is important, but personality is key. Our culture is what drives us, and we’re looking to build our team with someone who both fits and contributes to it.

The position is full time at our office in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio.

If this description sounds like you and you are interested, please submit a resume along with portfolio to work@dynamit.us.

About dynamIt
dynamIt is a digital agency based in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. We work with clients and brands on digital initiatives that include strategy, design, user experience and development. We influence communication and commerce.  Client work includes Charley’s Grilled Subs, McGraw-Hill, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), E-Z-GO, American Electric Power (AEP), Columbus College of Art & Design and the Ohio State Medical Center (OSUMC).

A designer on the dynamIt team will:

• Be well versed with Adobe Creative Suite: Strong knowledge of PhotoShop, experience in Adobe Illustrator and knowledge of Indesign.
• Have a strong understanding of Usability & Web Trends: Experience with user interface design, knowledge of best practices & examples of this in a portfolio or live site/application design. They will also be up-to-date on web trends and design tactics with examples.
• Have experience in User Experience Design – designing application and system interfaces. This experience is crucial for this position.
• Have Basic Programming Knowledge: We’re not looking for a developer here, but the designer should have the ability to design for web with a knowledge of the boundaries and how to design for execution by a programmer.
• Have a Strong Portfolio: We’d like to see much more web work than print.
• Be eager to learn, with a passion for design & the web. The designer should have a strong internal drive for industry knowledge and be committed to furthering the craft.
• Experience is important, but personality is key. Our culture is what drives us, and we’re looking to build our team with someone who both fits and contributes to it.

The position is full time at our office in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio.

If you this description sounds like you and you are interested, please submit a resume along with portfolio to work@dynamit.us.

About dynamIt
dynamIt is a digital agency based in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. We work with clients and brands on digital initiatives that include strategy, design, user experience and development. We influence communication and commerce.  Client work includes Charley’s Grilled Subs, McGraw-Hill, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), E-Z-GO, American Electric Power (AEP), Columbus College of Art & Design and the Ohio State Medical Center (OSUMC).

We’re looking to add another project manager to our team:

A project manager on the dynamIt team will:

• Have experience managing technical and creative projects, preferably in the web space.
• Preferably have a technical background, though not necessary. (Coding experience is a plus)
• Be responsible for planning, organizing and managing resources for successful deployment.
• Participate in producing good project plans, schedules, sitemaps, wireframes and functional specifications that production teams can work from with ease.
• Manage individual projects, but more often multiple projects within the context of long term relationships with clients.
• Make sure all aspects of the project have balanced attention and are aligned with the scope, budget and timelines while maintaining a level of quality both dynamIt and client are happy with.
• Have chronic OCD but somehow avoid medical diagnosis.
• Have skill in negotiating win-win solutions between stakeholders and the project team.
• Have desire to hold the team accountable for deliverables.
• Coordinate and participate in Quality Assurance phases.
• Experience is important, but personality is key. Our culture is what drives us, and we’re looking to build our team with someone who both fits and contributes to it.

The position is full time at our office in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio.

If this description sounds like you and you are interested, please submit a resume along with portfolio to work@dynamit.us.

About dynamIt
dynamIt is a digital agency based in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. We work with clients and brands on digital initiatives that include strategy, design, user experience and development. We influence communication and commerce.  Client work includes Charley’s Grilled Subs, McGraw-Hill, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), E-Z-GO, American Electric Power (AEP), Columbus College of Art & Design and the Ohio State Medical Center (OSUMC).

*many thanks for some great PM responsibilities defined and sourced from Sam Barnes

The conversation with Kevin kept my mind racing during my return trip last night. His outlook on the music industry was refreshing and contained many items we can apply to today’s web. I want to touch on a small list of them – authenticity, having a holistic view, staying humble, and making real connections.

Be authentic

Fan or not, the biggest complaint about top 40 radio today (Nickelback, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus) is that it’s all manufactured fluff. It’s fake and built from the ground up to sell copies today and churn through musical acts as tools for profit. What they’re lacking is authenticity.

Compare this to the Twitter streams of ComcastCares and General Motors. In the case of ComcastCares, you clearly see that Comcast employee Frank Eliason cares about a customer’s experience and loves what he does. Contrast this to General Motors, who’s account GMblogs is not much more than an outlet for carefully crafted press releases and littered with responses shamelessly pushing the company line. One company is building good will and value, and the other is extending the perception of an out-of-touch and deaf company.

Have a holistic view

As a band member, if you’re only concerned with your role, then you’re accomplishing nothing more than making noise. Members of a good band understand the instruments of their band mates and how those instruments work together to create something larger than the individual pieces.

Kevin made a great point during our conversation in saying that a good drummer plays to the bass line and listed a number of the other connections between instruments. When the individual understands the role of another, he knows when to let him take his solo, provide fill/assistance in the moments of need, and when it’s ok take his own place in front and center. The same is true in your approach for your website, mobile presence, marketing efforts, and social media strategy. At any given time resources need to be shifted to find the correct positioning and response for the current environment.

Social media is all of the rage at the moment, and rightfully so, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for every business or that you should be setting a certain percentage of resources aside for it. On the other hand, your market may demand that it’s the single largest expenditure during a given period. The same is true of your website, mobile presence, and marketing efforts. Step back, take a holistic view and find what works for you.

Stay Humble

No one ever got to their current situation all on their own. It takes a great team behind Candlebox to put on each show. There is equally as many people you never see, than those on stage. Candlebox has a great crew which provides support in setup, tear-down, and shine in moments of emergency. Kevin and the band know this and haven’t let multiple chart busting songs swell their egos. He’s approachable and appreciative of what he’s done and what he has been given.

Just because your company may have found success with a hit product or service, don’t let that get to your head. Success is an ongoing process, and one which requires more than a single hit. Stay humble as a company, keep your ear to the ground, and take feedback when starting work on your next hit.

Make real connections

Among the long list of nationals my band has opened up for in the last year (Saving Abel, FUEL, Smile Empty Soul, etc.), I’ve seen none of them connect with their fans the way Candlebox did last night. A number of actions combined to show that the band wanted much more than to just play through the set and then head back to the tour bus. The guys stayed over an hour and a half, equal to the length of their set, to take pictures, give autographs and talk to each and every fan in attendance. Every single one.

Whether it’s engaged two-way conversation on Twitter or offline events, the need for real connections has never been greater. Simply sending out a generic email campaign isn’t going to cut it. Being willing to spend your time to have a conversation, showing appreciation to customers, and embracing new communication channels are not just “nice to haves” today, they’re the baseline.

Combating the notion that body wash is only for ladies and recognizing market research shows that women purchase as much as 70% of the shower gel for men in their households, P&G’s partner agency Wieden & Kennedy based in Portland, Oregon launched the TV campaign in February called “Smell Like a Man, Man.” The commercials feature actor Isaiah Mustafa speaking directly to women of the household while portraying an over-the-top manly man that does not alienate or belittle men, but reaffirms that it’s okay (and even desirable) to be a masculine man.

The original commercial became an Internet phenomenon, already gaining more than 13 million views on YouTube. The Old Spice Man returned a couple weeks ago with a new commercial, and this time popular social networks were seeded with solicitations for users to submit questions for the Old Spice Man.

In the past few days, the Old Spice Man has posted an amazing 184 video responses to the Old Spice YouTube channel. Most of the responses are 30-60 seconds long, and are directed at various individual questions and comments on a variety of social networks. Some are directed at celebrities like Demi Moore and George Stephanopoulos, some at influencers in the digital world like Digg founder Kevin Rose and Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis, and many more at average unknown internet Joes.

These short videos have become amazingly popular, flooding Facebook and Twitter with shared links and retweets, and gaining much more attention as a collective whole than they ever could on their own (although they have individually gained between 25,000 and 340,000 unique views). The real victory is that for at least two days, the entire Internet has been talking about the Old Spice brand.

So what makes this campaign so successful, and what lessons can be extended to your own social campaigns? Here are a few of my observations:

• Respond in Real Time: Social interaction via web exists in the here and now – often something is “old news” in these contexts within a matter of hours. Although the Old Spice Man responses weren’t completely instantaneous, having a professionally created video response from a commercial spokesperson the same day your question was posted is pretty impressive. If nothing else, a quick response communicates one important thing: your brand is listening.
• Engage the Influencers: By responding to and engaging with some of the most influential people in social web, the Old Spice brand quickly became the talk of the Internet. When you engage influencers, they influence others on your behalf. The campaign even went so far as to send real-life flowers to actress Alyssa Milano after a back-and-forth exchange on YouTube. Your target audience may not always be the whole of the Internet like Procter & Gamble, but targeting key influencers in your niche market can help your message spread to your audience quicker.
• Give Community Managers Freedom to Speak for the Brand: If the Old Spice Man video writers had needed to get corporate approval for every video script, there is absolutely no way they could have generated 84 personalized videos in 11 hours on Tuesday (an average of one video every 7 minutes not counting breaks). By trusting those managing your social web presence to speak freely on behalf of the brand, it is much easier for them to respond to individuals quickly and directly – resulting in greater impact for your brand.
• Give the Audience Freedom to Extend the Brand: In response to a popular request on Reddit, the Old Spice Man provided users with the tools to create voicemail messages using his voice, and users used it to create an online voicemail generator. This extended the Old Spice brand to the personal voicemails of their audience, a place they themselves never targeted. By giving the audience access to some of your brand assets, they may extend your message to locations you yourself may have had difficulty reaching.
• Engage the Audience on a Personal Level: Although the sheer volume of requests from the audience for replies far exceeded Old Spice Man’s ability to respond to each of them, his very public responses to individual people (and not just celebrities) made the entire audience feel like they too could get a response. When your audience feels like your brand cares about them personally, they too will personally care about your brand.

The campaign wrapped up Wednesday evening with two response videos that expressed the personal connection that defined the campaign: a touching personal message to Mustafah’s own daugher, and a final farewell specifically thanking all of those who submitted questions and comments that time did not allow responses to.

In less than three days, the 184 YouTube response videos garnered more than 5.2 million views (where the Old Spice channel was the most popular on the site), grew the Old Spice twitter account from around 5,000 followers to over 66,000, and grew the Old Spice Facebook page to more than 592,000 fans.

How can you leverage these same concepts on a scale your brand can afford to grow your own web audience?

1. (Pre-Crisis) Ensure that online response protocols, sample responses, spokespeople, etc. are included in the organizations overall crisis plan (the plan should be well documented and distributed to key staff). Just like the rest of the crisis plan, run through several test scenarios and practice responses.
2. (Pre-Crisis) Monitor online conversations (using a monitoring service, Google Alerts, etc.)
3. Collect all relevant information to the situation (start date/time, geographical location and concentration of conversations, channels affected – on and offline, velocity of the spreading of the message, accuracy of the statements being made, intent of the person who brought the situation to light, profile information about all people who have contributed to conversation online)
4. Communicate the situation to the internal and external crisis team members (typically includes decision makers, key persons from the business group that was affected, legal counsel, communications team members, those who manage online communications channels)
5. Monitor online mentions
6. Determine response, spokesperson and channel for communication (internal and external – note: employees can often be the most vocal responders and the most frequently forgotten audience so communicate to them quickly, honestly and arm them with the tools they need to do their jobs) and post ASAP. In an online situation frequent, transparent and timely updates that are phrased in a conversational tone are standard expectations of participation online — don’t default to corporate jargon or legalese.
7. Monitor online mentions and evaluate the need for follow-up
8. (Post-crisis) Recap the situation, review and lessons learned
9. Continue to provide value to your online audience and expect the situation to occasionally resurface

In most situations the true long-term damage comes from how organizations respond to the situation, rather than the situation itself.